Faith-based beliefs lend the patina of legitimacy to the bulldozing of someone's home just as readily as they do the slaughter of concert attendees.
It's faith that's the problem. It's not a path to the truth. It's not a virtue.
@stuartblair If that were true, the atrocities of Stalin and Pol Pot (to name just two famous atheists) would never have happened. Unless you want to cite those men's purported faith in their movements, at which point "faith" becomes so elastic it can cover any human motivation. Me, I think Stalin just liked power and didn't care how he got it or held on to it.
Faith is only one of the things people use to justify their crimes. Take it away, they'll find something else.
@ImagineThat I agree that faith isn't the only reason that people use to commit atrocities. With reference to your example though, neither Stalin nor Pol Pot did what they did justified by their atheism.
It's like Steven Weinberg said — 'With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.'
@stuartblair "Good people" who "do evil"? How's that work?
@ImagineThat Ask anyone who attended magdalene laundry.
@stuartblair A fresh illustration of a faith-based institution that did evil isn't proof of your thesis. People are people, they do things, some bad, some good. Sometimes faith is their rationale, sometimes not.
@ImagineThat what do you think my thesis is exactly?
I'm not suggesting that the only way evil can be committed is through faith. I think we're getting our wires crossed.