People do bad stuff without god's help.

October 1, 2011 8:02 AM

What are some terrible human-actioned things that have nothing to do with religion?

I had a discussion with a friend the other day that wound up with him blaming religion for every evil thing that human beings have ever done (that's pretty much exactly what he said). I don't disagree with him that religion has played a part in some terrible atrocities, but I do disagree that religion is always evil, all of the time, and that any bad thing anyone ever did is directly attributable to religion.

I've tried to think of things that human beings have done that have had a negative impact on people, but the only large scale things I can come up with are the current economic crisis and the Great Leap Forward.

I'm not looking for terrible things that have been done in the name of religion, or things like natural disasters. I want large or small things that human beings have done, that weren't related to religion in any way.

[I won't be arguing with him about this, this is just for my own benefit.]

posted by Solomon to Religion & Philosophy (41 answers total)

I don't believe you can blame something like the holocaust on religion. The religion of the victims was just a convenient marker of ethnicity. I think that's true of all the ethnic friction in the world. The underlying problems are economic, not theological.

This is probably chat filter.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:08 AM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Well, it's hard to say. There's a very serious case to be made that "Communism," as practiced in most real-world Soviet and Chinese style regimes, is basically a state-sponsored religion centered on the state, with the promise that if you follow the State's interpretation of the Holy Book written by the Wise Men, you will end up in an Earthly paradise.

On the other hand, humans regularly kill and maim each other in ways that have nothing to do with their gods. Certainly World War II is mainly a story of nationalism and the clash of nation-states; sure, the Nazis had their crazy faux-pagan cults, but those were a reflection of racism and nationalism, not a cause of it, and were only part of the larger empire in an aesthetic/cultural sense.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:11 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Slavery was tinged with Christian doctrine but in a very bastardized way. I think you can add that one to the list.


It gets tricky though.... when I think about the current American disdain for the environment and the way we're pillaging and destroying it, it really worries me that the Christian tenet that we have dominion over the land I find really worrying. However, I think most of that just has to do with greed.
posted by custard heart at 8:18 AM on October 1, 2011

I suppose you might as well argue then, that communism (or whatever) and religion are both examples of a more basic issue in human psychology.. possibly a tribal or family group thing? "Us" vs "them", which makes sense in small scale competition, but has only caused trouble since we "came out of Africa".

So, I'd say, religion is just another convenient marker for designating a group. Or tribe, maybe.
posted by Harry at 8:21 AM on October 1, 2011

Hitler leveraged Christianity to gain support for the Holocaust. Would the German people have complied with his insanity based solely on ethnic difference, ignoring religion? Impossible to say.

As religion becomes less and less influential (at least, compared with the Middle Ages), madmen find other between-group differences to gain support for genocide and oppression-- ethnicity, economics, etc. In places where religion still has the influence that Christianity had in the Dark Ages (e.g., Islam in Afghanistan), it's still used as a rationale for terrible actions.

The question (for me, anyway) is whether pockets of a given society that revert to fundamentalism when the larger society is not fundamentalist (e.g., right-wing American Christians) can leverage religious differences to push the larger society into persecuting out-groups on the basis of religion. The evidence for it is mounting.
posted by supercres at 8:31 AM on October 1, 2011

The Rwanda horror wasn't motivated by religion.
posted by spasm at 8:41 AM on October 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Nor was Pol Pot in Cambodia although he did kill off all the religious leaders.
posted by hydrobatidae at 8:47 AM on October 1, 2011

Social Darwinist Capitalism.
posted by effluvia at 8:47 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Siege of Baghdad was a particular egregious disaster, mostly because the Mongols were vicious conquerors, not because there was any harsh Muslim vs. Tengriism strife.

WWI definitely had some ethno-religious undercurrents but were much more about nationalism, with rival religious factions (eg Bulgaria and Turkey) taking the same side to serve their own national interests while countries sharing the same religion (eg, France and Austria-Hungary) were on opposite sides.
posted by deanc at 8:52 AM on October 1, 2011

Slavery, in general, whether the massive enslavement and kidnapping of Africans to the Americas, or the modern day enslavement of women across the world, is usually motivated by greed, rather than religion. Though some people try to justify it with religious explanations.
posted by rosa at 9:01 AM on October 1, 2011

I'd put most (all?) of the damage we've done to the environment under this header.

To pick one example from the top of my head, with a side order of the developed world's disregard for the people of the developing world: the 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump. Toxic waste was dumped in locations around the city of Abidjan, next to where people were living, because this was the cheapest way for Trafigura and their local contractor to get rid of it; 17 people died and over 30,000 were injured. No religion required.
posted by daisyk at 9:12 AM on October 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

The problem you have in facing this kind of argument, is that, no matter what the real motivation is, the perpetrators always claim god justifies it. (So even in WWI or the Napoleonic Wars, where members of the same, or very similar, sects were fight each other, both sides had chaplains telling the cannon fodder they were blessed.)

But anti-religionism, is not a theological argument, but a political one, almost always put forward by people with as much knowledge of theology as an evangelical has of biology.
posted by Webnym at 9:13 AM on October 1, 2011

I don't disagree with him that religion has played a part in some terrible atrocities, but I do disagree that religion is always evil, all of the time, and that any bad thing anyone ever did is directly attributable to religion.

Well, framed like this your position is pretty obviously inarguable. But I think you're probably not hearing the point your friend is trying to make if you think he's saying something that is trivially untrue.

I'd put most (all?) of the damage we've done to the environment under this header.

This is a good example of why the question itself is almost impossible to answer as framed. How does one abstract something like "Western civilization's attitude towards the environment" away from the dominant religious paradigm in the West, which for millennia has asserted humankind's dominion over the earth? Obviously "religion" didn't poison the planet -- religion isn't an agent, it can't do anything at all -- but it seems hard to deny its influence on the situation. Likewise with the Holocaust; how can we begin to imagine a history that includes the Holocaust, but doesn't include Judaism and Christianity?

Religion has played a huge role in social history, and religious justifications have played a huge role in licensing and promoting historical evils. (It's also licensed and promoted social progress. Religion has its finger on everything.) To the extent that he's not simply advocating the strawman position you put in his mouth, this is the sort of thing your friend is trying to get at.
posted by gerryblog at 9:34 AM on October 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Even Jesus hated religion and religious people. He spends most of the gospel accounts blasting people who try to make God fit into their rules and systems. True faith is about grace and love - religion is how people screw up faith.

But that's not what you asked. I would add:
-bombing of Pearl Harbour
-the recent torture of "terrorists" (waterboarding, etc.)
posted by guster4lovers at 10:14 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Titicut Follies.

Science gone mad!
posted by jsturgill at 10:18 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Armenian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide and similar acts of "ethnic cleansing" often have no religious motivations.
posted by piratebowling at 10:27 AM on October 1, 2011

Your question reminded me of Sturgeon's short story, "Mr. Costello, Hero." It was written in response to McCarthyism. It's about as subtle as a boot to the face, but it's worthwhile. If you buy it's argument, then you may have a different angle you can take with your friend. Much like communism in Clue, religion is just a red herring when it comes to people hating, distrusting, and mistreating each other.

Radio play here.
posted by jsturgill at 10:30 AM on October 1, 2011

You might like to check out the wiki page on Anti-clericalism. Of course it's not the same as anti-religion but offers a fairly satisfactory counterpoint to your friend's views. A couple of not so favourable aspects:


The French Revolution, particularly in its Jacobin period, initiated one of the most violent episodes of anti-clericalism in pre-modern Europe; the new revolutionary authorities suppressed the church; destroyed, desecrated and expropriated monasteries; exiled 30,000 priests and killed hundreds more.

The Civil War in Spain started in 1936, during which thousands of churches were destroyed, thirteen bishops and some 7,000 clergy and religious Spaniards were assassinated. Anti-clerical assaults during what has been termed Spain's Red Terror included sacking and burning monasteries and churches and killing 6,832 priests,[40] including 13 bishops, 4,184 diocesan priests, 2,365 members of male religious orders, among them 259 Claretians, 226 Franciscans, 204 Piarists, 176 Brothers of Mary, 165 Christian Brothers, 155 Augustinians, 132 Dominicans, and 114 Jesuits.
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 10:43 AM on October 1, 2011

Not quite what you're looking for, but I used to believe as your friend did. I'm still a staunch atheist, but I now believe that humans just use religion as a convenient excuse to do horrible things to each other. And that in the absence of religion, we would still do horrible things to each other, we would just have to come up with other reasons for it.

What changed my mind? Believe it or not, a two-part South Park episode (Part 1 Part 2). Franky it makes a pretty convincing case that even in a world without religion, there will still be plenty of war and other misc inter-human atrocities.

You might send your friend the link and see what happens!
posted by ErikaB at 10:47 AM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Another non-religious atrocity was the "disappeared" (desaparecidos) of 1970s Argentina.

If you want to control a population, you divide and conquer. Religion is a convenient way for authoritarians to subdivide people (and often just a euphemism for ethnicity). Since religious groups likely assemble at regular intervals in places not under direct government control, it follows that they'd be among the first targets in any authoritarian rise to power. Thus, many horrors which claim to be done in the name of religion are really more about strategy.
posted by tomwheeler at 10:56 AM on October 1, 2011

The Tenth Parallel is (as I understand it) about how economic factors actually underlay many religious conflicts. Religion can be the focus for a lot of things that really aren't about religion at all.
posted by SLC Mom at 10:56 AM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Armenian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide and similar acts of "ethnic cleansing" often have no religious motivations.

Actually, both are often cited as prime examples of religiously motivated genocide.
posted by Brian B. at 11:01 AM on October 1, 2011

Globalization.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:02 AM on October 1, 2011

If you're looking for extremes to make a point, it's difficult to find a more pointed example than Unit 731.
posted by gimonca at 11:06 AM on October 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

On further reflection, that's probably also a good example of how different sides in a debate might expand or contract the definition of "religion" or "religious influence" in order to score debating points. It would be possible to link 1940s Japanese nationalism with state religious doctrines. On the other hand, the actual events involved scientists pursuing scientific goals for political and militaristic ends with no religious motivation required.

In the end, it depends on a person's definition of "religion" and how far one is willing to stretch it.
posted by gimonca at 11:25 AM on October 1, 2011

Early modern chattel slavery - one of the most horrific institutions of human history - was driven first and foremost by economics (aka making money), and only later justified through religion (poorly). Religion then played a very important role in ending slavery, in the abolishionist movement.
posted by jb at 12:00 PM on October 1, 2011

Also, the terrible carnage of WWI - not a religious conflict at all, and the high level carnage was largely due to poor planning and (on the western front) the fact that war technology had created a situation where defenders were always much stronger than those attacking (men had to march into machine gun fire, etc). (There is an interesting academic essay from about 1910 which predicted that the next European war would be years long, due to this imbalance - even though most thought it would be a short war in 1914).
posted by jb at 12:05 PM on October 1, 2011

The forced relocation of Canada's indigenous peoples has been motivated by a variety of factors, but religion is not one of them.

From the 1996 Report on the Royal Commission of Aboriginal People: Relocation of Aboriginal Communities:

Relocation was used to solve specific problems perceived by government or other agencies. In some cases, relocation was part of other changes in the lives of Aboriginal people — changes that were often the result of other government policies. Our analysis shows that although there have been many reasons for relocation, and these reasons cannot always be neatly separated, the moves can be grouped into two main categories: administrative relocation and development relocation.

(From the same report):

The effects have been negative and long-lasting:

Justifying its actions by this attitude of paternalism, Canada used its power in an arbitrary manner. Decisions were made with little or no consultation. Communities were relocated on short notice. People's entire lives were disrupted if governments believed it was in their interests to do so. Few Canadians would tolerate the degree of interference in their lives that Aboriginal people have had to endure. In many cases, relocation separated Aboriginal people from their homelands and destroyed their ability to be economically self-sufficient. This loss of economic livelihood contributed to a decline in living standards, social and health problems, and a breakdown of political leadership. As we will see, these effects are evident in varying combinations in all the relocations discussed in this chapter.

posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:50 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Large land grabs in Western Fjords of Iceland by a few families, after accusing less-powerful residents of sorcery.
posted by seawallrunner at 1:17 PM on October 1, 2011

This is a good example of why the question itself is almost impossible to answer as framed. How does one abstract something like "Western civilization's attitude towards the environment" away from the dominant religious paradigm in the West, which for millennia has asserted humankind's dominion over the earth? Obviously "religion" didn't poison the planet -- religion isn't an agent, it can't do anything at all -- but it seems hard to deny its influence on the situation.

Of course, this doesn't just mean Christianity - the deforestation of the Mediterranean was well underway when it showed up.
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 1:23 PM on October 1, 2011

Blaming religion for human action is a cop-out. There is always someone (or someones) to blame, and if you trace the blame back you will find someone trying to grab power.
posted by gjc at 1:33 PM on October 1, 2011

I'm as militantly atheistic as they come, but even I wouldn't argue that religion causes all the human-derived ills in the world. It causes a horribly massive amount of them, but by no means all. Dogma is the real problem, and while religion does make a speciality out of that particular evil it doesn't entirely own it. Political dogma has done some very terrible things, and I assume you don't need me to give the obvious examples.
posted by Decani at 2:19 PM on October 1, 2011

Non-religious evil, both historical and current:

- Unethical medical experimentation (as linked above, plus Pfizer in Africa recently)
- Police brutality
- Torture used in our war on terrorism (also, generally CIA interrogation techniques taught and encouraged to our "allies" from the cold war onwards)
- Human trafficking
- Labor exploitation - sweatshops, etc.
- Massive financial fraud by banks and investors

That said, usually anyone who is that anti-religious YET still uninformed about history and current events is unlikely to change their opinion when presented with facts - it's not about making things better, it's about an axe to grind.
posted by yeloson at 2:33 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Holodomor.
posted by joannemullen at 7:24 PM on October 1, 2011

The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia are of particular interest because they deliberately sought out and destroyed religious practices by killing religious leaders - almost all the monks and nuns were murdered, temples and books destroyed, and religious minorities like the muslim Chams were targeted for death on racial and religious grounds. The idea was to create a new order with its own unanimous beliefs and practices - the trappings of religion in songs and rituals like state-arranged matchmaking and naming, but with no belief in the supernatural or afterlife, a very material world order in which the state was the beginning and the end. It wasn't freethinking individual atheism as most people see atheism - you had to believe in the State.

Any large movement requires some shared beliefs, whether they are supernatural or material. Individually, you get plenty of horrible people who are deeply religious and completely non-religious.

If your friend is arguing that it's a belief in the supernatural (God, angels, nature spirits, Gaia, a vague sense of luck etc) or irrationality as opposed to scientific logic that can lead to evil, there are plenty of counter examples for both good and evil, or pleasant/unpleasant if you don't want the morality in it.
posted by viggorlijah at 7:52 PM on October 1, 2011

The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.... It wasn't freethinking individual atheism as most people see atheism - you had to believe in the State.

It was a personality cult, a tradition as old as humanity.
posted by Brian B. at 8:00 PM on October 1, 2011

Brian B, it actually wasn't a personality cult deliberately. Pol Pot and other senior leaders' images were not widely spread, at least at the beginning, and there was a focus on the state as Angkor, a sort of idealised agricultural utopia drawn from Cambodia's past and projected forward as the vision of a perfected State that was the focus. The songs and sayings and rituals were largely focused on this rural perfection, on obedience to Angkor, the personalization of the state, and hatred of the outside world, especially the Vietnamese and Thais.

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/redbook.htm has some good stuff. I can't bear to read much of it closely because I work there often, and have friends and extended family who have been through the war, and it is devastating. But the political theory and sociology of it is fascinating.

Wages of Guilt by Ian Buruma is a really good book on large-scale atrocities and how people and societies deal with them afterwards that covers a lot of that - religion, state idealization, personality cults etc. ttp://books.google.com/books/about/Wages_of_Guilt.html?id=levNPgAACAAJ
posted by viggorlijah at 8:15 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Indeed, but a living cult of personality often begins well before a violent revolution or coup, established in fear and loyalty from the outset. His was also based on the personality cults of Lenin and Marx, and maybe some living communist dictators. Quote: By the summer of 1968, Saloth began the transition from a party leader working with a collective leadership into the absolutist leader of the Khmer Rouge movement. Where before he had shared communal quarters with other leaders, he now had his own compound with a personal staff and a troop of guards. Outsiders were no longer allowed to approach him. Rather, people were summoned into his presence by his staff.

I'm often amazed how absolute political power is almost always claimed to be an extension of cosmic will, but yet isn't said to be religious. It might be the emperor claiming to be a god among gods, or a king commanding it from the true religion, or a dictator channeling it from some other imagined source of glory. As brainwashing, it claims fate or historical destiny, as communist and Nazi dogma attempted. Religion doesn't always need a god, merely an excuse to take what they need.
posted by Brian B. at 9:05 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure how many will agree with me, but as far as dependable examples of terrible human-actioned things, you only have to pay attention while driving. I am not saying all or the majority of drivers are evil or dangerous or reckless. I am just saying that it doesn't take too many miles before you'll see examples of people driving in a way that risks (and probably will eventually result in) harm to themselves or others. Weaving in and out of lanes at very high speed, tailgating or too fast for conditions in rain or snow, driving at night with lights off and not turning them on when flashed (drunk or on drugs?), running red lights (including the sudden lane change and sweep around the car that decided to stop for the light), driving distracted, blowing through stop signs, effectively playing chicken with large trucks, speeding in residential areas, etc. The carnage is daily and statistically very significant, and I don't think bad drivers seem to have any particular religion or politics or geography.
posted by forthright at 9:11 PM on October 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Scientific racism
posted by XMLicious at 10:57 PM on October 2, 2011

The list is virually endless. People are doing bad things all the time just because they're maybe in a bad situation, or mentally damaged, or whatever - not for religion. Greed isn't a religion (even if people treat it as if it is); Anger isn't a religion . . . well, I don't have to go on. Countless millions of economic crimes against life; uncounted cruelties of love.
posted by nickji at 9:51 AM on October 14, 2011