Anti-Theism

[The Grand Nudger]

Okay, this is news to me. A quick google confirms that Jains do condone violence in defense of oneself or one's family (which seems reasonable) and even allow its practitioners to fight in wars in defense of one's nation (which is ambiguous because a Machiavellian preemptive strike might be considered "defense"--this one's a bit bothersome). The killing of children is, of course, inexcusable. I couldn't find mention of it anywhere online. Was this action endorsed by the greater Jain community, or was it a few self-interested "Jains" acting for their own benefit and then justifying it afterward? I'm not opposed to changing my mind about Jains, but I want to know the context in which this event took place.

It was done in the context of an imperial unification in India, with the language of a preemptive strike, not at all outside the norm for the times, but outside the norm of the bill of goods jainism offers - showing that...like any and all other religions, jainism is incapable of delivering the goods when the goods are most needed while simultaneously being broadly supportive of things directly contradictory to the proposed ideology.  Religion never stopped a single asshole from doing asshole shit, but it's often helped.  

I;m not, in this, expressing a particular aversion to war or killing, only noting that even jainism fails to deliver what it promises, and still manages to gather credibility around itself and an unearned deference born of clever PR. Harris asked a question in ignorance of the history of jainism. Jain extremists looked -exactly- like any other religions extremists. Covered in blood from head to toe and babbling about the righteousness of their cause.

Edit: And I count Jains as theists, btw. They have a god concept which is different from other religions, but it's still some entity they believe in without evidence.

You can count them as that, but jainism simply doesn't fit the bill.  Lost in the dominance of abrahamic monotheism are the subtle differences that have been employed to separate other types of god beliefs -from- theistic god beliefs.  Anti-theism is not anti-deism or anti-panpsychism. Big foot and aliens are also entities believed in without evidence.  A jains little g gods are liberated souls.... neither creators, maintainers, nor destroyers of this world.   They are not personal gods invested in your salvation or redemption.  This is what proper theism as a subset of god belief is defined as.

It is this type of belief that I consider to be a poison pill for the human mind, utterly contemptible and devoid of any sufficiently redeeming quality.