Yesterday I discovered this gem on the same topic on one of my favourite blogs of all time, Bill Vallicella’s Maverick Philosopher, (in fact the inspiration for MandM). I have reproduced a little below to whet your appetite and have furnished the necessary link to finish the meal. Enjoy.
One of the arguments against religion in the contemporary atheist arsenal is the argument that religious beliefs fuel war and terrorism. Rather than pull quotations from such well-known authors as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, I will quote a couple of passages from one of the contributors to Philosophers Without Gods, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. His piece is entitled “Overcoming Christianity.” After describing his movement from his evangelical Christian upbringing to a quietistic rejection of Christianity, Sinnott-Armstrong tells us how he became an evangelical atheist:
My quietism ended when current events taught me the dangers of religion. I had always known how religions, including Christianity, led to wars in the Middle East, Ireland, and so on. Many wars, of course, are not based on religion. Even religious wars result from non-religious forces as well. Nonetheless, it is hard to deny that many wars have been and continue to be fueled in large part by religious beliefs. It is no coincidence that terrorists are so often motivated by religion, since it is hard to get non-religious people to volunteer as suicide bombers. (76)
And then there is the case of Gandhi whose principle of ahimsa (no-harm) derives from his Hinduism. Hinduism as understood and practiced by him surely did not lead to war and terroism. Did he perhaps not understand the principles of his religion? So it cannot be religion as such that causes war and terrorism. The central teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are anti-war and anti-terrorism.
So one of the mistakes that people like Sinnot-Armstrong make is that they confuse the doctrinal content of a religion with the behavior of some of the religion’s adherents.
… read the rest here [the comments are worth looking at too]
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Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig and the Argument from Harm Part I
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Apologetics · Atheism · Christian History · Christopher Hitchens · Philosophy of Religion · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · William Lane Craig7 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Sri Lanka is a buddhist country and, in the name of buddhism, has been suppressing the minority for many years. So the notion of buddhist terrorism or a buddhist war is not that remote.
I always thought this was more of an emotional argument than a logical one. Surely there is a way to turn this argument around to point out the sinfulness of man (as if we needed more confirmation of that).
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Good article. If their argument was true or logical, then same argument could also be used against atheism. Hitler was an atheist, as was Stalin I believe.
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Yes, we know this. And Vallicella admitted up front that people have done horrible things in the name of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity. He never claimed otherwise, so all you’re doing is giving an example of something Vallicella already admitted occurs.
What he said is that, while people do horrible things and attribute them to their religion, in the case of at least these 3 religions their reasoning is unsound. Their justifications for their actions fall flat in light of what their foundational religious texts actually say.
Maverick would not allow comments there without logging in. I agree with his claims. I think the denial of stuff done in the name of atheism because it is really done in the name of communism is a contemptible argument. You may not wish atheism to take the blame for the deaths, but if that is the case you need to give up your claim against religion causing war. Very few wars can even be attributed to religion anyway.
That’s strange. When I comment on his blog I just comment – no log in needed.
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Recent Sri Lankan war on terror was not officially fought in the name of Buddhism, it’s merely a sovereign nation defending its integrity. But sadly some Sinhala Buddhist fanatics tried to interpret that cause as a holy war to defend Buddhism, which eventually convinced some ppl, that violence is caused in the name of Buddhism too. However in Sri Lankan history, I can give 2 examples where Buddhists caused violence in the name of religion. King Valagamba once destroyed a Jaina temple and built the Buddhist temple ‘Abayagiriya’ , and during the time of king Mahasen there was an insurgency between the Mahayana & Theravadhi factions of Buddhism.