There are pictures of Nazis going to church, celebrating Christmas and being married.

As I said in my previous post, when Christianity recedes, tyranny rises.

Christian leaders, like most religious leaders, cooperate with the people in power. If Peter Singer were our president, most religious groups would make an effort to cooperate with our new leader, because they want their organization and their traditions, to carry on. One reason why religion is no safeguard against tyranny.

Christianity was highly discouraged in his governement, and even among his Wehrmacht. It took a brave General to openly profess his worship of Christ, as the SS and Hitler, himself, always viewed them with great suspicion. As I said in my previous post, when Christianity recedes, tyranny rises. (And I can’t believe I previously misspelled tyranny. Grr.)

Marc, here is a page that shows how the church co-operated with Hitler, including the Vatican’s alliance with the Nazis:

Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII) signs the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican at a formal ceremony in Rome on 20 July 1933. Nazi Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen sits at the left, Pacelli in the middle, and the Rudolf Buttmann sits at the right.
The Concordat effectively legitimized Hitler and the Nazi government to the eyes of Catholicism, Christianity, and the world.

The most violent and repressive authoritarian ideologies, fascism and communism, were created by people living in predominantly Christian nations. That’s not to say that Christianity is responsible for the millions of deaths and the mass destruction that resulted from these ideologies – but religion didn’t stop it from happening.

Religion can be a solution to many problems, but it doesn’t cure everything.

You also make a great assumption that most societies reject a number of repulsive behaviors. That is simply not true. Without the civlizing influence of religions to impose moral restrictions from within, immoral behavior grows rampant, and people do not reject these repulsive behaviors.

Take a long look at the world. Do we naturally reject genocide? Not at all. It is commonplace. How about slavery? Um, no. The sex-slave trade, for example, is thriving. The Qu’ran states twice that slavery is okey-dokey. Incest? Not necessarily. Without tight societal condemnation, it, too, thrives. In some societies, it is institutionalized. Cold callous murder? One must fight hard to keep it at bay. When society breaks down, people will rapidly gravitate to such methods. Many will kill just for something to do. Bloodsport is also a common decadence.

Men are not rational animals. They are rationalizing animals. They find a way to give into their baser urges, even when there are controls. Without these controls, no thought whatsoever is given to the wrongness of a deed. The idea that we are naturally good is just laughable. The history of the world proves otherwise. You are just too sheltered by our good society to appreciate the moral bankruptcy of the majority of Mankind.

I say, Steve P. hasn’t done more than a topical study of Objectivism or egoism. Objectivism’s moral system is based on rational self-interest.

Where is the rationality in being anti-social, when a person benefits enormously from living in a society? Through division of labor and trade, the standard of living for all are raised. By living in a society your chances of survival and flourishing as a being are greater than on your own.

The concept of Individualism does not mean that anti-social psychopath is the only possible outcome. It means the reliance on your own judgment based on reason. This does not mean that what you want is right because you want it. It means that you have to validate right and wrong through a process of thought.

If that is “limited” as a philosophy, then you may as well discard all science and all technology as well, because in the end they are all based on that fundamental: reason.

It is vomit inducing.