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Ted Kaczynski was a 'Secular Humanist' in the sense that he was an Atheist. Stalin, also, was an Atheist(Though you may say he was't responsible for terrorism, but rather genocide).
By definition, by rejecting the divine, they embraced only the human interests. If you're asking from a religious point of view, both were humanists. If you're asking from the point of view of one who rejects medieval scholasticism and embraces a revived interest in Greek and Roman thought, then obviously that group's numbers are so slim that I would have to give the answer "No famous ones that I'm aware of."
However, it sounds like the OP has a reason for posting this. Can you clarify what you're looking for from this? Is this a posting for aggressive atheists to nudge one another and wink and aggressively attack religious people, or is there an intent I'm not divining?
Hitler was quite the Christian and clearly believed he was doing god's will.
See, this is the problem when people believe in invisible supernatural beings that have some hand in our fates. Not only is there absolutely no reason to believe such a thing, whether or not there is any ultimate tuth to the notion, it can so often lead to really atrocious, heinous acts.
I feel religion in itself can be a very positive thing--holy texts of many cultures often contain great wisdom and beauty, churches provide fellowship and security to many, the religious impulse can lead people to be more charitable, to work on makin themselves and their communities better, etc.
But all religions also include extremist zealot fundamentalist elements, and as we know, this can be very dangerous.
Some people claim to hear the voice of god guiding them through life. There is no more validity or truth to that assertion than there is to the claim of the young person strapping themselves with dynamite to blow up innocent people in a crowded square in the Middle East. Many of those people are also 100% convinced they are hearing the voice of god and doing god's will. Their claim is equally valid.
You're full of crap.
Show me one speech by Hitler where he mentioned that what he was doing was in the name of Christianity.
I think the OP was trying to say that without the drive and certainty provided to the righteous by a religion the secular humanists do not become terrorists. The "do no harm" part of humanism precludes bombing innocent humans to make a point.
I think the OP was trying to say that without the drive and certainty provided to the righteous by a religion the secular humanists do not become terrorists. The "do no harm" part of humanism precludes bombing innocent humans to make a point.
One would think, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" would also cover that.
As for religion providing the drive and certainty, we can point to Pol Pot, Benito Mussolini and Mao Zedong as evidence.
For things closer to home, Jim Jones was an Atheist who even said he created a church to 'bring people closer to atheism'. He was a humanist who used religion as a means to control and admitted it.
By the fact that a person[s] becomes a bomber or mass murderer...only proves that person has left the logical teachings which ever first motivated him.
Hitler, IRA, Mao, Eric Rudolph, Adam Lanza, The Boston Bombers, Khmer Rouge, Jim Jones, The 9/11 Bombers...ect, all acted outside their professed ideologies.
Last edited by Chimuelojones; 04-30-2013 at 07:21 AM..
Show me one speech by Hitler where he mentioned that what he was doing was in the name of Christianity.
Wishful thinking on your part.
To be fair, I think trying to tie a politician to a specific religion through campaign speeches is probably not the best way to prove anything other than that he is pandering, but you asked...
And finally we were also the first to point the people on any large scale to a danger which insinuated itself into our midst - a danger which millions failed to realize and which will nonetheless lead us all into ruin - the Jewish danger. And today people are saying yet again that we were 'agitators.' I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling 'as a man and a Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite. I SAY: MY FEELING AS A CHRISTIAN POINTS ME TO MY LORD AND SAVIOUR AS A FIGHTER. IT POINTS ME TO THE MAN WHO ONCE IN LONELINESS, SURROUNDED ONLY BY A FEW FOLLOWERS, RECOGNIZED THESE JEWS FOR WHAT THEY WERE AND SUMMONED MEN TO THE FIGHT AGAINST THEM AND WHO, GOD'S TRUTH! WAS GREATEST NOT AS SUFFERER BUT AS 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 of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, 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 as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago - a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people.
There is quite a bit more, but that is one of the most clearly stated. Many of his mentions of Christianity are more perfunctory, and can probably be written off as a politician interacting with a predominantly Christian electorate, but there are quite a few more substantive quotations like this one.
-NoCapo
I think the OP was trying to say that without the drive and certainty provided to the righteous by a religion the secular humanists do not become terrorists. The "do no harm" part of humanism precludes bombing innocent humans to make a point.
Yes that is what he was trying to say but he was wrong. Ted Kaczynski might not have been a tithe's paying member but by all accounts he held the beliefs.
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