A thread on Science and morality on the Tea House got me thinking. Points were made about atrocities, this historical monster was an atheist, and then denials and counter points. It’s always unsurprising to see these things and to be honest, I find such arguments draining, as you can just spin your wheels for ages and not get anywhere. So, I thought I’d write a quick post to put my views on this on the record.
The row over atrocities attributed to religion vs those attributed to atheism is getting the cart firmly before the horse and missing the key component .. people. If someone is going to commit these sort of atrocities they will, they will simply use whatever they have to hand as an excuse. To blame it on a system is to pass the buck and delude ourselves that Humans aren’t naturally capable of such things. No, no, it was that nasty opposing system. Regardless, it still needed people who were willing to do the things.
To realise this is unpleasant as it acknowledges that we all have a dark side, lurking in our psyches. Now, that really doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, they’d rather deny it and pretend the perpetrators aren’t human. Which is odd, because I can’t think of any other creature that would behave like that.
That denial is a shame as the only way to effectively deal with this (and I have written about this before) is to acknowledge it and humbly accept it.
I agree wholeheartedly. Refusing to confront that capacity inside us may be more comfortable in the short term. Blame it on the devil. Most of the people committing atrocities in, for example, the Rwandan genocide, were just regular people, not monsters. Afterwards they blamed the devil, I suppose to avoid the truth that we’ve all got a little monster inside us.
Do you think there’s a way to neutralize the monster? Can you ever be sure?
I’m not sure about neutralising it. I think that would be quite dangerous and would leave you unbalanced, like neutralising a part of your own mind. Think of the taiji (or yinyang) symbol, both dark and light in the whole, I feel the answer is in equilibrium not conquest.
Reading this reminds me of the statement, “Fixing the blame doesn’t fix the problem.” I’m also reminded of a couple of sentences from the story Acceptance Was The Answer from the book Alcoholics Anonymous: “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. Whenever I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.”
Never do I find peace by blaming others or myself. The Blame Game is the problem.
Ken, thanks for your comment and I like that story!