I’ll post this American Heritage Dictionary definition of “culture” (one of several definitions), which seems to fit what I was thinking:
“The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population.”
I think of it as a form of programming which each person is initially taught by the parents, family and community.
I put ‘necessary’ in quotes since I’m not a psychologist and I’m not sure if positive traits like respect and cooperation with others are mostly taught or if they’re more of an instinct for survival.
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I make my judgement based on life experiences… I went have been through very bad times… once in africa… during the Rwandan Genocide and my observation was that the communities that were helpfull are all religious communities… At that time people run to churches and mosque for protection… I only learned of the word atheist recently and honestly It has tickled my interest to find out what atheist really believe in and what they stand for.
Looking at history… being good or bad… one cannot deny the role that religion played to bring us into this age…
Whether believing in God is stupid or not… it is religion that has brought the renaissance which eventually led to the modern era… or am I seeing it all wrong?
True… thats just a defition… however, the behavior of people can be influenced by their belief… and that can lead into a better social group or could as well go the other way … a simple example is morality… lets take the example of sexual morality… some believe we are animals and should not be clothed… some believe we should cover every inch of our body. Some believe prostitution is just another freedom of choice while other look at it as a plague to the social balance…
So in brief culture is defined by belief…
I am new to the forum… and in my registration I did sing up as a muslim…
I am in this for discussions… I was invited to join by a friends and I am sure I will be challenged in the forum… thats what forums are all about… It does take challenge to shift people beliefs… and I am just like anyone… trying to find out the important questions in life…
You are most certainly seeing it wrong. If you took religious leaders today and moved them back 100 years in time, there is nothing new they could share with their congregations about spirits, god, life after death, souls, or anything else religious. There has been absolutely no progress what so ever in religion that has helped to lead us to the modern era. NONE
Instead, religion has had to change, alter its interpretations of god, spirits, life after death, spirituality and the rest, to manage to fit itself into an ever changing world. Science has managed to drag religion, kicking and screaming into the modern world. The God of the gaps has grown smaller and smaller with each passing generation. The gods themselves have become less powerful and more mysterious with each passing generation.
It is religion that facilitated the Dark Ages of Christianity. It was religion that Ended the Golden Age of Islam. Religion is nothing more than ignorance and superstition piled upon fears of the unknown.
But during those times, was there anything but religion being practiced by all? You did state you observed people running for protection, yet you did not know about atheism. So all of those communities you stated were helpful were religious. I do not contest that. But did you have a non-religious community for comparison? How do you know that the atheist support would have been lesser? You could not have known, you did not have a means to compare.
Good for you, I respect that position and your actions.
For me, my goal is also to learn from others, but more important, to pursue the truth. Not opinions, but what is true, what is real, what is not.
As an atheist (who was raised christian), I am not convinced a god or anything spiritual exists. It is not that I am resistant to religion, I am open to being convinced. And this leads to what you will be hearing a lot from other atheist, for evidence or proof.
Basically, that is all almost all of us ask for. More than just words from a questionable book, more than a consistent argument, more than flimsy and unproven assertions, just proof or evidence.
There were no “Non-religious communities.” Like modern America, most people were religious so most agencies giving assistance were religious. 75% of Rwanda is Christian. A very small percent is Muslim. The Christians in Rwanda have all the money - Especially the Catholics. How does it not make sense that they would be the most visible? HERE IS A HINT FOR YOU… No church gives aid to anyone if there is not profit in it.
Giving aid is a business. If the Church is providing 1 dollar in aid to Rwandans. they are pulling in 100 dollars in profits from other countries as they advertise all the aid they are providing and how much it is costing them. They will spend a dollar on a bowl of rice and turn it into a thousand dollars profit. You are insane if you think Churches are providing you with aid out of the goodness of their hearts. Don’t be so ignorant!!!
In the USA (for example), there are coalitions of churches, or “megachurches”, which hold services for thousands of people.
Let me be very clear, they are big business, and make a lot of money. And almost every one of them has a “missionary” program, where they send one or two missionaries, and a camera crew to film. They film the work of the missionaries, edit it into a slick production, then present the film to the congregation. The members of that congregation are led to believe that they are spreading the word of jesus, and doing good.
The congregation open up their wallets more, believing they are helping people in Africa. But the amount of money they take in versus what they actually spend is a huge margin.
For many of these churches, Africa is just a film set, used to put out films that motivate people to donate even more.
People should go with open minds, and they don’t. And they often don’t ask people on the ground, or they have one partner on the ground that does that. There are these short-term mission groups that go with one project. They build a house. They do something.
And let’s not forget, if a Church builds a local hospital, they get all the materials donated or at cost, they get the labor donated, they get housing for the workers and food for the workers donated, these religious institutions put out next to nothing in expenses while telling their congregations how much everything is costing. Churches are money making machines. Don’t even think aid is given for free. IT ISN’T! Help is not “HELP,” it’s “PROFIT!”
I don’t think personal experience is a reliable yardstick. There are several large research projects, spanning several countries over decades, that indicates that atheists are on the whole, more moral or law abiding than theists.
However when theists usually make this claim, they’re usually basing it on their subjective religious beliefs of what is and is not moral.
Why would the lack of belief in an unevidenced deity make me less moral?
Very wrong, as your synopsis of human history is pretty facile, and making sweeping generalisations.
The Rwandan genocide was actively encouraged by many members of the clergy, and those who fled to churches for protection were easier to round up and murder because of it, this is a quite well known fact as well, so I am fairly dubious about your claim.
We are animals, that’s an objective fact. This fact has no bearing on whether should be clothed or not, which as far as I can see is more of a practical question than a moral one.
Where do you stand, and why?
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?
Belief in a god is one thing, what religion does to people and society is another.
It was religion that plunged christian Europe into the “Dark Ages”, a long period of time when intellectual advancement stagnated. Anyone who challenged the scripture would fall afoul of the church, and aggressive members went as far as torturing or killing those who uttered anything contrary to the religion. Surgeons were loath to cut into a torso lest they discover that men had 12 full pairs of ribs, contrary to what the bible stated.
The Renaissance was a period when Europe liberated itself from religion’s tight grasp, and academics were allowed the opportunity to learn. Of course the church was still very powerful, but it was less militant in keeping wayward thinking in line.
The height of church power, when it had a tight grasp on Europe was the Dark ages.
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I believe in most places, atheists are the minority. In other words, the “regular fellow” already believes in god. Implying that you are telling us: believers in god, are more social and kind than believers in god. 
That is the wrong question. Atheists are not defined by what they believe. They are defined by the lack of one specific belief: atheists do not believe that god is real. That’s it.
Humans are animals.
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That’s the point.
You may have a Tim Tam for best answer in this thread so far.
I was aware that during the genocide, refuge was given by some christians. What about that Paul Rusesabaghina and his wife Tatiana in The Hotel des Milles Collines? Were they especially fervent believers? Are they Hutus or Tutsi?
There are apparently Christian churches and Mosques in Rwanda. I feel obliged to ask: approximately what percentage of Hutus were/are Christians or Muslims? At a rough guess, approximately what percentage of them took part in the genocide?
My point ; I think religion had little if any part in the Rwandan genocide. Its base was tribal hatred.
That both the perpetrators and rescuers were simply behaving as human beings at their best and at their worst
Sorry to resort to Godwin’s law, but it seems appropriate:
The Holocaust made it clear that very ordinary, usually decent people are capable of both the best of human behaviour as well as the worst.
One of the lesson I took from the Holocaust is not that the worst Nazi murderers were monsters, but that many were not.
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References:
"Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil " Hannah Arendt
"Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust " Daniel Goldhagen.
I think the titles are self explanatory in terms of premises.
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See I never understood that eithir. Probably because the concept is so flawed, so I am more confused on “why do other people not see how flawed it is?”
I have no god idea I follow, so my morals can be boiled down to: “treat others like how you would like to be treated.” If both sides adhere to it, it can be highly mutually beneficial. If people do not follow it, it is detrimental to everyone. And then with enough people agreeing we can even form laws and enforcement for the folks that cannot/will not understand this basic concept.
I have been to Rwanda, talked to the local people and visited the holocaust museum in Kigali. The overwhelming impression I got was, Rwanda was colonized, by Europe, like many other African nations, a caste system was formed within Rwanda to help control the local population by their conquerors, then later, a power vacuum was created when Rwanda was allowed to regain its independence from its European conquerors. And created division/hatred played out.
It is obviously more complicated then that, but that is the overall impression I got.
In short European colonizers came in, made a mess of things, then left setting the stage for genocide. This has happened many times all over the world, just Rwanda was a particularly brutal and publicized one.
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Reading that, I seemed to remember that Rwanda and Burindi were colonised by Gernany.
IMO the later fate of colonised countries depended largely on what the colonising power wanted from its colonies,. EG Spain, Germany and Belgium simply stole any resources they could and enslaved much of existing population. They left little of value behind when they left, which meant it was exceedingly difficult for the country to develop.
Britain wanted trade. Markets for its goods. India is a good example. Britain set up a viable infrastructure; the rule of law, police, courts and large standing army… A vast rail system, plus of course a huge civil service to administer everything. Partly because of that foundation, India today is already one of the largest world economies .
Not for a second do I support the concept of imperial colonisation. Imo it was/is a great evil, but probably inevitable. Imo no country has an innate right to exist. Historically, countries have ceased to exist / be conquered when they can no longer defend themselves from outsiders.
Although I probably won’t live to see it, I’d be fascinated to see what happens to Israel once it no longer has US support. Nuclear war with say Iran? Relatively likely I think.
Last great imperial powers Russia and the US. Each seems to be in decline.
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And they were running away from other religious people. The ones who perpetrated and enabled such horrors were not atheists.
Malicious, this is a common human failing, counting the hits, and ignoring the misses. You see the positive actions by religious people (and I applaud their actions), but ignore that those very same horrors came from religious people.
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Well in a country where the populace is predominantly theistic, it’d be pretty silly for anyone to try and claim otherwise. Yet theists espouse this nonsense all the time, on here, then leave. One wonders what they hope to achieve.
Just as you will often have theists who claim those who abolished slavery were Christian. As if they hadn’t noticed that nearly everyone was in those countries at that time, including of course the slavers, who cited the bible again and again to justify their position, even from church pulpits.
The fact that there were a minority of theists who saw slavery as abhorrent, despite their bible’s specific endorsements of it, is hardly a surprise. There were secularists among the abolitionists who of course don’t get mentioned by theists, as their selection bias is only interested in citing what they perceive as positive examples of their religion.
Like the guy who started this thread, offering naught but bare opinion and hearsay, then leaving. All too transparent really.
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