Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

–Blaise Pascal

via Kathryn

Comments

[dave Snowden]

Until recent times most people have been religious, so if they do evil then the statement is true. In recent more athesitic time I have not seen the number of evil acts reduce in number ....

[Euan Semple]

I believe it was a qualitative rather than a quantitative statement.

[dave Snowden]

Then read Solzhenitsyn if you want a modern day example of an athesist state more that able to satisfy a qualative statement. My point was that a quantative statement of fact could account for the qualitative statement.

We go back to an earlier theme - its very convenient to blame religion (the same was true in Ireland in the 70s) when in fact you are talking about the human condition of which religion is a reflection. The quality of suffering that humans can impose scares me as most people in the right (or maybe one should say the wrong) circumstances prove capable of horific acts. The more they believe in what they do, the more they are capable of the horific, but religion is not the only subject of belief in the modern age.

[Euan Semple]

"The more they believe in what they do, the more they are capable of the horific, but religion is not the only subject of belief in the modern age."

Totally agreed!

Non-belief is the only way forward!

Bring on the better questions ......

[dave Snowden]

You know if you read the archives of this blog, you find lots of evidence of belief (and passionate belief at that). As one of the high priests of the blogosphere you may live to regret your comment!

Joking aside and on a more serious note, I think belief is an important part of any human society. I also think its about time we stopped scapegoating religion for something which is, regretably all too human.

[Euan Semple]

Aha! The confusion of mixing belief with religion!

[dave Snowden]

.. and religion is not a form of belief?
Methinks ye doth define ones terms to fit thy argumente

[Euan Semple]

OK call it the institutionalisation of belief.

[Kathryn]

I'd no idea this quote would spark comments.

Since religion is at the forefront of numerous international crises as the moment, the quote felt relevant to me. On the other hand, communist societies are also capable of horrific actions.

Perhaps it is a fundamentalist or absolutist worldview that is the problem, regardless of whether religion has a role.

[Jon Husband]

Money and its access, accompanied by the power it requires to make and keep it, is the religion of today. Just an opinion.

[dave Snowden]

Interesting statement Katheryn. I would argue that the current crisis in Lebanon is in fact a clearly political and economic crisis and the fact that there are different religions is just coincidental. The fact that US and Israel are creating the conditions for a religious reaction is a secondary problem. Either way religion is not the cause.

I full agree with you on fundamentalist and absolutis views - hence by picking up on Euan when he made some fundamentalist and absolutist statements about religion ....

[dave Snowden]

and from today's Observer ...
"I had colleagues scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and biographies of the Hizbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. We were shocked to find that only eight were Islamic fundamentalists; 27 were from leftist political groups such as the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union; three were Christians, including a female secondary school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon."
and
"Religion is rarely the root cause, although it is often used as a tool by terrorist organisations in recruiting and in other efforts in service of the broader strategic objective. Most often, it is a response to foreign occupation."

[Michael Walsh]

Slightly off-topic - but Dave's joking comment about you as a high priest sparked a synaptic nerve and I had to go and dig out a comment in a discussion about User Generated Content from Talk.Gateway (the Knowledge Management tool Euan developed for the BBC) that just seemed appropriate:

"Posted by Michael Walsh on the 14/12/2005 @ 12:04

My take on the "user generated content" issue is to simply draw an analogy to the written word and literacy - High priests of old with sacred books and only the “intelligentsia” had access to. Then comes the twin effects of the printing press and education for all – greater access to information and people able to read them for themselves.

Result – not the death of the high priest but a greater appreciation of his art due to the literacy of his audience.

More content will be generated by having people contribute but the immediacy/quality issue will be resolved by the increasing digital literacy of the audience. There will always be a need for “high priests” to contextualise the content."