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From: padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: The Power of (Organized) Religion
Message-ID: <40@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Oct-85 12:09:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.40
Posted: Sat Oct 12 12:09:26 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 06:43:40 EDT
References: <1852@pyuxd.UUCP> <1817@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 51

> It is much more accurate to say that these things are being done IN THE NAME
> OF RELIGION.  There simply is no justification for the statement that 
> religion invariably gives rise to such things is simply rediculous.  Jerry
> Falwell doesn't exemplarize Christianity anymore than Khomeini exemplarizes
> Islam.  The fact that one commonly finds these people associated with
> religions is simply indicative of the tremendous intellectual power of the
> thing.  These days, one sees bad science being misused to delude the
> gullible and support the disreputable as often as one sees bad religion
> being employed for the same purposes.  And, having seen Mr. Falwell's show,
> there's little doubt in my mind that he does indeed represent bad religion.
> 
> Rich has conveniently ignored the Marxists and a host of other morally and
> intellectually dubious movements to arrive at his conclusions.  He seems
> conveniently to have forgotten the wanton destruction wrought by Pol Pot and
> his kind in Cambodia and Laos.  The terror that is (depressingly) quite
> common in Africa has little to do with religion.
> 
> Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe

There are some common attributes that many of these groups share, i.e.

   1) Belief in the absolute validity of their cause.

   2) Belief that the source of "truth" comes from a particular dogmatic body
      of information (bible/ koran/ mein kampf (sp?)/ red-book/ capital/
      etc.)

   3) Requirement for "faith" on the part of their adherents.

   4) Existence of hierarchical power structure which relies on unquestioning
      obedience on the part of the members on a lower, to those on a higher,
      level. (church/ communist party/ nazi party/ the military/ government
      bureaucracy)

   5) Desire to bring about moral, and not just social and/or economic goals.
      (salvation/ racism/ classless societies)

The various groups do not necessarily have all of these properties, but they
do serve to highlight the similarities between all of the above agents. 
In this view any system that has most of the five attributes would be 
considered "religious" in nature.  As far as the original claim in the article
is concerned, a more accurate decription
would be to say that the abuses were perpetrated by "religious" groups
and not religions. To try to dismiss the claim by saying that they done
"in the name of religion" is like saying that dictatorships don't cause
misery, only the dictators (yes I know that there is such a thing as a kindly
dictator, in theory at least, but power corrupts, and the existence of
a religious structure goes a long way towards facilitating usage of that
power).

Padraig Houlahan