Sam Harris

I believe this is an important if rather hurriedly written and criminally edited book that failed to correct some glaring errors like Harris wanting the Catholic Church to excommunicate Hitler who wasn't a Catholic.

But is faith to blame for our brutish, sadistic traits? I think not. Take the Rape of Nanking during WWII. That could be laid on the Bushido Code or to troops blood lust…but not to any faith based ideology.

I think if there was not such thing as religious faith we would have committed just as many atrocities in the manner of lynch mob mentality. The herd is more dangerous than the individual

[quote author=“Anonymous”]I believe this is an important if rather hurriedly written and criminally edited book that failed to correct some glaring errors like Harris wanting the Catholic Church to excommunicate Hitler who wasn’t a Catholic.

Actually, he was. He was born and raised in a Catholic family, served as an altar boy, and told one of his generals in 1941, “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.”

Of course, on other occasions, usually private, he rejected Christianity outright. But to the public eye, he remained Catholic.

But is faith to blame for our brutish, sadistic traits? I think not. Take the Rape of Nanking during WWII. That could be laid on the Bushido Code or to troops blood lust…but not to any faith based ideology.

The imperial Japanese had a faith-based belief in their own racial superiority and national destiny.

I think if there was not such thing as religious faith we would have committed just as many atrocities in the manner of lynch mob mentality. The herd is more dangerous than the individual

Religious faith is an expression of the herd mentality.

[quote author=“Anonymous”]I think if there was not such thing as religious faith we would have committed just as many atrocities in the manner of lynch mob mentality. The herd is more dangerous than the individual

I think that may very well be the case . . . and I’d hope in a world in which there was no religious faith but rather something else just as nasty we’d be overcoming and identifying that something else in the effort to expose it and get rid of it as much as possible.

However, in this reality we do have religious faith to contend with, and it’s a good thing it’s been identified, and that it’s being contended with.

Byron

Herd mentality = blinding following without questioning ?

In order to commit atrocities, several factors have to be met

1. The killers have to believe in a cause, a reason, a justification, a rationalization, however bizarre,  for their actions.

2. The victims need to be dehumanized, not thought of as equals or peers or even humans.

Unfortunately, blind faith contributes very well to the formation of herd mentality and gives causes their justifications, and dehumanizes those that don’t follow the “faith”.

I am not saying this is the only way humanity has used to engineer itself into committing atrocities, but religion lends itself very well to this.