Baseless Claims

[Big Bacardi]

Abortion is not sinful?

[I Think]

Surely there can only be a consideration of "sin" if you think there is one or more deities that have created rules for wickedness.
Sin as I understand the word is limited to actions (thoughts are actions) that a god(s) doesn't approve of.

[fluffy]

As I understand it, while "sin" is a word often appearing in religious writings, sin in itself is not restricted to crimes against religion, and can refer to any act that contravenes moral law. It would be entirely possible for an atheist to commit a sin.

[I Think]

Sin happens to be the 21st letter of the Hebrew language.
You are in agreement with my Websters, while it has many more references to biblical 'sin' it also includes sin as an immoral act, since morality appears to be a value judgement, I take the word sin to also mean an antisocial act.
I stand corrected.
Edit to add, I do not feel that abortion is sinful.

[Glacier]

More baseless claims:

5) Women make less pay for the same work.
6) We're going to run out of oil within a few decades.
7) Gun control reduces crimes.
8) Getting cold will increase your chance of getting a cold.
9) We have less free time today than in generations past.
10) The average family today needs two incomes.
11) Money makes us happier.
12) Republicans cut spending.
13) Conservative governments cut spending.

[fvkasm2x]

A baseless claim is a statement that is made out to be factual, but lacks any evidential base. These off-topic assertions can sidetrack a productive discussion, so a thread dedicated to listing and clarifying such statements is in order.

I'll start us off with a few common baseless claims we find here on Castanet:

1) Religion causes (or is responsible for) the majority of wars.
2) McDonald's gets it's hamburger meat from a company called "100% Beef".
3) President Obama was not born in the U.S.
4) Boycotting gas stations will help reduce the price at the pump.

Feel free to add to the list.

I disagree with your #1

I've been reading several history books and all of them point to religion as a major factor in wars. As do other forms of media, education and social opinion.

How is it baseless?

Trying to suggest Hitler’s Jewish agenda had anything to do with religion is in particular a real stretch:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_Hitle ... e_the_Jews

One simply has to read Hitler's Mein Kampf to see otherwise. Do a quick search for the Cole's notes version of the book and you see religion everywhere.

It may not have been his first, second or even third most "important" reason, but it was definitely a reason.

[fvkasm2x]

I've taken the liberty of highlighting some quotes from Hitler. These are but a small sample of what he's said:

"The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge."

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work."

[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]

"Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another... while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve."

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.309]

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

Speech to the masses in a Nazi rally

[GenesisGT]

The only way to reduce the price of gasoline is to buy less gas. Period.

False

Currently the USA is using less gas but the price is going up, due to various reasons, but the main one is refineries are shutting down east of the Mississippi river or not working at capacity and west of the river there is a build up of unrefined oil that cannot get to the refineries. Thus cost to refine a gallon of gas is higher.

[Glacier]

Currently the USA is using less gas but the price is going up, due to various reasons, but the main one is refineries are shutting down east of the Mississippi river or not working at capacity and west of the river there is a build up of unrefined oil that cannot get to the refineries. Thus cost to refine a gallon of gas is higher.

True, but as consumers, the only way we can affect oil prices is to reduce the demand. Government regulations also play a huge roll in the price, and is one of the reasons there is such a refining crunch in the U.S.

___________________________________________________________________________________

I disagree with your #1

I've been reading several history books and all of them point to religion as a major factor in wars. As do other forms of media, education and social opinion.

How is it baseless?

I guess I would say that the claim is baseless because it's an opinion based on perception that's passed off as fact. Perhaps "baseless claim" is not the best descriptor since there are certainly a lot of wars and conflicts over religion, and thus could be considered a logical opinion. On the other hand, one could argue that the majority of the world's population has been and still is religious, so it stands to reason that the majority of the conflicts were started by religious folks. For example, the majority of Nazis were Christians, and even preached Christianity (as you posted above), but majority of those opposing him were also Christians, and even used Christianity as a defense against Nazism (read: The Hiding Place).

The crux of the baseless claim is the claim that religion causes more war and conflict than it prevents. In order for this claim to be true, then you would expect atheistic societies to be more peaceful than religious ones. I wish I had more time to research this topic, but would say that the jury is still out on that one. Google returned this link on a quick search (to be read understand their clear bias).

My opinion (and I'm not claiming this be the truth) is that an unbiased view of history would reveal insignificant conflict differences between a religious societies and a non-religious ones.

It seems to me that Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism play a much greater roll in war than religion (or lack thereof).


Figure 1. Percentage of democide based upon type of government control.

ETA: I did find this article on peacefulness and it's correlation with atheism, however, it's unclear if peaceful societies become more atheistic or whether atheistic societies become more peaceful.

[GenesisGT]

14. Numbers never lie.

[fvkasm2x]

The crux of the baseless claim is the claim that religion causes more war and conflict than it prevents.

Wouldn't this be a completely different claim all together?

Religion causes wars
Religion causes all wars
Religion causes more wars than it prevents
Wars have been averted thanks to religion

I think all of these statements are different, with varying shades of truth (including no truth at all).

[GenesisGT]

Because of religion many wars have been fought, but because of religion many wars have been averted.

[Glacier]

The crux of the baseless claim is the claim that religion causes more war and conflict than it prevents.

Wouldn't this be a completely different claim all together?

Usually when people make the claim that "religion causes most of the wars" they mean that all religion is bad or at least most of them are. If this is truly the case, then religion would cause far more wars than it prevents. I suspect that if a study were done as to what causes war, the main source would be independent of religion, and therefore religion in itself would not be the cause.

Having said that, you do make a good point, and quite possibly true when we consider the broad spectrum of religions out there. ie some religions might promote peace will others promote conflict. eg. Jehovah's Witnesses vs. Wahhabi Islamists.

side note: I happened turn my car on over the weekend when my least favourite CBC show was on the air, Tapestry. It's basically an artsy show about spirituality. Before I had time to hit the off button, I caught gist of the show: instead of the regular guests who claimed to be "spiritual but not religions" this guest claimed to be "religious but not spiritual." This is quite common today in many countries like Sweden and the Netherlands were people are Christian atheists. The argument could also be made that North Korea is quite religious their worship of their leader even though religion is banned.

For the purpose of the baseless claim, I think most people's definition of religious includes a belief in a god.