Reza Aslan on The Daily Show

[Pyrrho]

Interesting interview on religious extremism, lots of debatable arguments made, some i agree with some i disagree with some i'm conflicted on - 

If you're going to blame religion for violence in the name of religion you have to credit religion for every act of compassion in the name of religion, you have to credit religion for every act of love in the name of religion, that's not what people usually think, they focus very much on the negatives. Part of the problem is that there's this misconception that people derive their values from their scriptures the truth is that it's more often the case that people insert their values into their scriptures, otherwise every Christian who read the bible would read it exactly the same way

I definitely do this (the focusing on the negative) but i'm not sure if it's irrational or not, the argument in my head goes like this, "People are naturally compassionate regardless of their religion, whereas the tribalist group mentality religion gives leads violent people to organise and be more focused with their violence"... but then it could be argued that the group mentality of religions also leads to stronger charity efforts etc. couldn't it? Is this a flaw in my anti-theistic world view?

...

I will comment on a couple of things, starting with the above.  Although I think you are right that some people are "naturally" more compassionate than others, I think that religion does sometimes get people to be nice to each other in ways that they otherwise would not.  Many churches, for example, run soup kitchens for poor and homeless people, and I think some of the people involved in that do so out of religious devotion.

If you think about it logically, it makes sense that if religion is powerful enough to motivate someone to kill someone else, it is powerful enough to get someone to ladle up some soup for someone.  Of course, one is going to have to ladle up a whole lot of soup to 'make up for' killing one person, but that is just going to get us to the issue of whether, on balance, religion is more positive or more negative in its effects on people's conduct.


As for things like sexism, religion promotes that.  I can tell you from my own experience, having been raised a Southern Baptist (if you don't know anything about Southern Baptists, take a visit to the Landover Baptist site and it will give you the basic idea, though it is a parody site).  When I was a child, I believed that women were inferior to men.  Not because of any personal observation of women being inferior, but because the Bible says they are, and I was raised to believe that the Bible was divinely inspired, basically the word of God himself, and so I believed God had a low opinion of women.

When I became an atheist, the sexism was happily discarded or, rather, it was being discarded while I was becoming an atheist, as it was something I did not like about religion, even while I still believed in it.  (Not liking something does not make it false, and so that was not enough to get me to stop believing religious nonsense.)

Now, I was not actively discriminating against women myself when I was still a believer, but I was less outspoken about such things because of my religion.


The situation with homosexuality was similar, though less relevant to my life and consequently something I thought about less.  I was told, of course, that homosexuality was sinful and wicked, and not something that I should do.  I thought it very strange that people went on about it so much, as I had about as much interest in having sex with another man as I had in sticking an ice pick in my eye.  But, when I was a child and believed the Bible, I believed homosexuality was wicked and bad, and that was solely due to religion.  When I became an atheist, I thought about the question of homosexuality, and it seemed to me that there was no reason to object to other people engaging in homosexual behavior if that is what they wanted to do.  I presently do not care at all if my neighbor is gay or straight or bisexual or likes having sex with his toaster.

Now, I never engaged in violent behavior against homosexuals (or women), but I was not on the right side of the issues, when I was a believer.

Basically, one cannot believe what the Bible says and not be against women and homosexuals.  The Christians (if any) who are not against women and homosexuals reject part of the Bible (at least, reject it as being God's word).  There simply is no other way, as the Bible is clearly against women and homosexuals.


So, when I hear someone say that religion does not cause discrimination and bigotry, I know that is pure bullshit.



Back to one other point in your post.  Most Muslims do not have their own TV show or web site, so how the hell do you expect them to be "speaking out" against anything, such that you are going to know about it one way or another?  There are Muslim groups who have denounced violence done by other Muslims, but that sort of thing does not get much news coverage, so you are not going to know about it unless you look for it.  And even then, there is very little coverage of such things, as such things do not sell newspapers or get people to watch TV shows, so there is little to be found, but not because most Muslims are okay with groups like ISIS; most are not okay with ISIS.