Summations Only

If political powers use religion as a tool to overtake a people, is it really that religion that caused all the killing?

Yes, if that is the tool used then the religion must assume responsibility.Christianity has a long and very successful history of destroying or subverting the religions, places of worship, cultures, dress, languages and practices of others.

If political powers use religion as a tool and members of that religion allow that use, then the religion is at least complicit, if not responsible.

Like how my keyboard is responsible for my spelling errors?

I do think complicit is a better word than responsible.Would you blame the North Korean people and their religion for being responsible for the position their in? Are they really even complicit? Or have they been forced?Not that christians needed that much forcing, but you can draw a line somewhere.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : spelling

Probably not, unless you intended to make the spallin arrors.That wass an accident I hope, but the use of religion was intentional and accepted as a desired goal.

It was, in some cases, but what about the ones I'm talking about?The ones where a political power uses a religion as a tool... I wouldn't call the religion responsible for that.

Certainly, whether the people have the liberty to act or not should be a factor in determining the level of responsibility they have. In the U.S., people have always had the freedom to at least speak up and condemn governmental acts they disapprove of. The vast majority of Christians were either supportive of or at least not vocally opposed to governmental reliance on Christianity as a justification for the subjugation and killing of native americans.

I certainly would when the religious folk were active and willing participants and in many cases one of the driving forces as in the case of the destruction of all other cultures in the US.One particularly dark example is what happened in Hawaii.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."--Steven Weinberg, quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999

Atheism does not claim that it is a system of morality that should be revered, respected, or that its arbiters should be worshipped. On the other hand, there are plenty of religious folk that do make such claims, and the evidence seems weighted against them.Atheism may help us avoid making certain moral mistakes (ie., the religious ones) it does not claim to be a complete cure. It has no moral teachings or positions, it is simply a lack of belief in gods and by extension a rejection of moral systems with objective divine arbiters. There are still plenty of morally abhorrent things a person can believe while also not believing in gods.The real enemy is dogma, held to be true without supporting evidence, that if true would mean we have to act in a certain way. Religion doesn't have a complete monopoly on dogma, but it has secured itself a pretty big chunk of the market.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Ok, to phat and chuck, what about all the self-proclaimed christians who proclaimed that Obama was spending $200 million a day in India, even after the mainstream press debunked this claim. I seem to remember something about bearing false witness in one of the 10 commandments.So, again, do you guys think these people are true christians?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1rvnN1RNtYAdded by edit.I'm just having a lot of trouble understanding what you guys mean by true christian if all the true christian representatives out there have no problem bearing false witness.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

A true Christian is a moral person, of course. All examples of immoral people are either not true Christians or Christians with temporary human failings as they succumb to sin (the latter group can often be identified by their notpologies when they do bad things).

What I mean by true Christian being a follower of Christ is doing what He tells us in the NT. The Great Commision, laying hands on the sick, giving people hope, living a rightoues life thru Him. Our faith in Jesus and us commiting our lives to Him will show by our actions. Sometimes we mess up but not by murdering millions of Gods chosen people. I'm not sure how that can be implied that Hitler was a follower of Christ by murdering His own people.Doing good works doesn't make us a Christian but is a byproduct. You can still be saved on your deathbed without the good works but as far a knowing if someone is a Christian a good guage is how they live their lives.I can't know who is a true Christian by just what they say but by what they do. "ye shall know them by their fruits". Hitlers' fruits weren't Christlike. We know that by what Jesus taught.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

So, do you think all the christians who bore false witness against Obama are true christians or not? I'm not talking about hitler. He's dead and we can never know his true intentions. I'm talking about live people here.Do you think people like GWB, who very vocally supported the criminalization of homosexuality. Yeah, it was finally declared unconstitutional in 2002 by the US supreme court. Answer directly. Do you think criminalizing homosexuality is christ-like or not?Do you think Michele Bachmann is a true christian or not? She bore false witness against Obama when she kept insisting to the world Obama's trip to Asia cost $200 million a day. What about Rush Limbaugh?Remember what I said about dodging the question with verbose? Don't do that. I'm not even asking for a fact. I'm asking for your opinion. According to your standard, are these people true christians?