doubtingthomas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:45 pm
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Tue Jan 11, 2022 8:20 pm
I think the better approach is to acknowledge that the problem isn’t religion, per se, but something more akin to fanaticism or dogmatism as applied to any philosophy, whether religious or secular.
Would you agree religious people are more likely to risk their lives? And would you agree a religious person is more likely to start a gunfight?
And who is more likely to be superstitious and dogmatist?
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Tue Jan 11, 2022 8:20 pm
There’s no true Scotsman fallacy that I see fellow atheists commit from time to time when talking about atheistic regimes that committed mass murder of their citizens. This reminds me of that. It involves either trying to somehow tie the regime to religion or claiming that the regime was like religion in some way.
"But in the end, a majority of older Soviet citizens retained their religious beliefs and a crop of citizens too young to have experienced pre-Soviet times acquired religious beliefs"
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1387772
Religion can be blamed for the rise of Stalin. For hundreds of years organized religion indoctrinated the Russians to follow the holy leader.
No idea. Go find some data. In the U.S., starting a gunfight requires ownership of a gun, gun ownership is correlated with political conservatism, and political conservatism is correlated with religious identification. Not only that, but more than half the country identifies as religious. So, if I had to bet, I'd bet religious. But none of that tells us whether, if religion vanished right now, whether we'd have more or fewer people starting gunfights. This is basic correlation v. causation, and, based on past conversations, I know you know the difference and how important it is.
I have no idea about whether there is any significant correlation between risking lives and religious belief. Even if there were, I'd have no idea as to how the causation would run. I've never encountered a religious person who even implied that they would engage in risky behavior because this life was not important to them.
The article you cited doesn't support your claims at all. It provides no evidence that religion caused the rise of Stalin. It's about how religion survived despite the best efforts of an atheistic regime. You're proving my point about the No True Atheist game.