(December 17, 2018 at 10:06 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: I'm not a fan of the CIA either.
What I meant about "context" was: Who would pick on Spinoza EXCEPT those who have a problem with thinkers SIMPLY because they don't believe in God?
Sure, there are all kinds of suppression and human rights violations going on apart from religion. Not that it's excusable in any way, shape, or form, but CIA goons usually target rabble rousers when they torture, slay, or suppress the innocent. Religion goes one further and chooses to suppress hermits.
A lot depends on how we define "rabble rousers." For US foreign policy, it often includes anyone who thinks the profits from local resources should go to local people. Many quiet people who only wanted peace have had their lives ruined due to this foreign policy.
Spinoza's attacker thought Spinoza was a rabble rouser, making unnecessary objections to what he thought was the truth. Spinoza, of course, believed in God, and this belief didn't make him more violent.
I don't know how we can calculate the extent to which religion increases or decreases violent tendencies in people. It seems likely to me, as Freud wrote in Civilization and Its Discontents, that the human animal contains irreconcilable paradoxes, and that violence is part of our nature. It may come through and be justified in different ways. I don't believe that religion is any more likely to be used as an excuse for violence than political opinion, or any number of other strong commitments. If there's one thing we're all good at, it's finding excuses for incivility and violence.
