Defending faith: How religion combats hate and violence

thebostonpilot.com ^ | 08/01/2010 | Father John Flynn, LC

[massmike]

Religion is not only mad, but also bad, at least according to many of the new atheists who have vociferously attacked God and religion in the last few years. Many of them accuse religion of being a propagator of division, hate and violence.

Not true, replied David Brog in his book, "In Defense of Faith: The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity," (Encounter Books). Brog is a Jewish author and executive director of Christians United for Israel. The Judeo-Christian tradition has been the West's most effective curb on the dangerous tendencies in human nature that can propitiate violence, he argued.

[aSeattleConservative]

Good article Mike. When it comes to atrocities, I like how Conservapedia puts it:

“It is contended that in broadly condemning “religion”, atheism frequently focuses on Christianity, which is seldom defined according to its source (the New Testament), and which they often include Hitler in, and which they blame for atrocities such as the Inquisition and the Crusades. In addition, when confronted by the fact that the objectively baseless moral authority of atheism allowed atheists such as Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot to easily justify their atrocities (which seemed reasonable measures to them), they are observed seeking to disassociate the two. Harris attempts to do so by judging such men as “not especially rational”, with this perhaps establishing Harris as the authority of what is, and then he proceeds to implicate religion for the evil of their regimes. [10] In response it is seen that the authority for the religion at issue (Christianity), is what transcendentally condemns them.[11] (Jn. 10:10; Rm. 9:1-3ff; Gal. 6:10)

It is argued that while atheism did not directly cause these atrocities, because atheism provides no objective transcendent moral boundaries, it allows these atrocities to occur, while fostering “political religion” due to the tendency to worship mortal men in place of God.

...atheism has been tried as a basis for life in many countries in the 20th century. The results have been some of the biggest bloodbaths of all time under communist despots above the law, e.g., Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. For example, the Inquisition killed 2000 people in three centuries; Stalin killed that many before breakfast.[12][13]
http://conservapedia.com/Morality

[GOPJ]

The Roman legal codes permitted the killing of any deformed or weak males or any female infant, no matter how healthy. Both Jews and Christians were strongly contrary to this and affirmed that it is not licit to kill an innocent. The only reason, Brog argued, that in the West we recognize the sanctity and equality of all humans today is due to the Judeo-Christian heritage.

It's important to stress Jews and Christians are of the same family...

[left that other site]

Amen, my FRiend.

(from the road on a junky laptop)