Was Hitler a Christian and were his actions prompted by his Catholicism

[The Archer]

On 6/15/2016 at 6:50 AM, Len B'stard said:

Religion has done immense amounts of good for the world based on positive interpretation too but it is what it is.

Absolutely. For all the criticism against religion, particularly about all the wars that have been fought over different religious beliefs, and the lives lost, it's likely that more lives were saved because of religion. Religions took us away from the laws of the jungle, and framed the moral precepts and laws that keep man away from his baser, animal instincts and harming himself or others.

It's quite fashionable for some atheists and humanists to criticize religious morals, but that is unfair because much of what they believe to be true or good, has come to humanity through religion.

Needless to say, the world would be poorer without the amount of good work that people do because of religious motivation.

[SoulMonster]

3 minutes ago, The Archer said:

Absolutely. For all the criticism against religion, particularly about all the wars that have been fought over different religious beliefs, and the lives lost, it's likely that more lives were saved because of religion. Religions took us away from the laws of the jungle, and framed the moral precepts and laws that keep man away from his baser, animal instincts and harming himself or others.

It's quite fashionable for some atheists and humanists to criticize religious morals, but that is unfair because much of what they believe to be true or good, has come to humanity through religion.

Needless to say, the world would be poorer without the amount of good work that people do because of religious motivation.

- The moral precepts came froom philosophy, not religion exclusivelly. Even without the beliefs in supernatural creatures humans would have developed moral framework to guide our lives.

- I do not agree that more lives have been saved because of religion than those that have been killed. How would we know?

[DieselDaisy]

Evangelical Christianity was at the forefront of the abolition of the slave trade/slavery. Christianity is also the repository of western education/intellectualism. 

[spunko12345]

6 hours ago, Gracii Guns said:

I'd really like to hear a podcast where Snake-pit asks the big questions, and Len provides a conclusion in response.

Snakepits strictly an ideas man. He needs other people to sort the details out.

[SoulMonster]

9 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Evangelical Christianity was at the forefront of the abolition of the slave trade/slavery. Christianity is also the repository of western education/intellectualism. 

With the great majority of humans throughout history being adherents to various religions it would be very strange if not a lot of good came as a result of the action of these people. What you need to do is argue that these things wouldn't have come about if people weren't religious, or that it was something uniquely inherent in the beliefs in god that resulted in these progresses.

It could very well be that extra compassionate people due to being both good people and having a belief that a god wants you to do good in addition to that, have done remarkable things that non-believers simply wouldn't have any reason to do. I mean, such people would be super-nice people who both are born with empathy, compassion and the will to do good AND the extra force of a belief that good will reward you later for your good deeds. But, on the flip-side, a belief in gods can also make people do extra nasty things for which non-believers would have no reason to do. So maybe it evens out? I don't know and it is impossible to quantify, but it makes sense to me.

As for Christianity being the repository of western education and intellectualism, sure, they had the infrastructure for that and it was borne out of their own need to protect their sacred texts and communication. I am very happy for the fantastic work the early Church in Europe did to preserve knowledge for eternity. The monasteries did a remarkable job we all benefit froom today. But it hasn't got so much to do with morals, which was the topic here, as with infrastructure and internal systems, and humans thirst for knowledge which has little to do with godly belief but just was allowed to flower within the system of the Church.

[DieselDaisy]

Just now, SoulMonster said:

With the great majority of humans throughout history being adherents to various religions it would be very strange if not a lot of good came as a result of the action of these people. What you need to do is argue that these things wouldn't have come about if people weren't religious, or that it was something uniquely inherent in the beliefs in god that resulted in these progresses.

It can very easily be argued that Evangelicalism, its theology, leveling quality and scriptural scrutiny, played an enormous role in the abolition of slavery. One only needs to glance at the writings of people like William Wilberforce and Newton.

[The Archer]

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

The church should be held to a consistent standard no different to the rest of us.

Absolutely. This is exactly what I was pointing out - but that consistent standard cannot be based on, or biased by the Church's own standards or views.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

It is appalling in the extreme that buggerers of young boys and war criminals can be hidden away by the church under the notion that only God can judge. I hope that you d not agree with such practices.

Of course it is, and of course not. The reason behind providing that example was to show how the justification that was originally designed to allow anyone who was formerly guilty of theological error to continue ministering sacraments, by virtue of they themselves having validly received the sacrament of ordination, eventually led to justifications for everyone from debauched Popes to child molesting priests, being allowed to keep their jobs. 

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

An organisation, mandated directly by God himself does not need to ensure its legitimacy; it either is divine and legitimate, or it is not. 

It is not that black and white. The legitimacy of the Roman papacy having primacy has never been in doubt, even among those Catholics who consider the Roman church heterodox. The only question, and it is one of interpretation, has been the extent of primacy and authority bestowed by Petrine apostolic succession - simply put,  the question is whether the Roman Pope is the sole executive in charge of a hypothetical, undivided Catholic Church, or the first among equals.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

Anything that falls under the umbrella of "having to ensure its legitimacy" is simply ascribed to man, and not God. 

Precisely.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

Moreover, stating that the Vatican was passive in Yugoslavia due to not wanting Communism or Orthodoxy to "win" is again a wicked position to take and as far from a Godly one as possible. 

No doubt at all.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

However, the Catholics were not even passive in this case; they were the commandants of death camps, and they were the butchers leading the troops.

Yes, with only the distinction needing to be made that these were people who were nationalists first and Catholics second, and whose actions did not represent the Catholic leadership.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

Official recognition, no, but absolutely they recognised the regime. The Vatican accepted the Ustasha and the Vatican had direct political contact with them through Ramiro Marcone who was the Vatican legate, stationed in Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1945 after the Pope met Pavelic at the Vatican in order to get the backing of the Holy See for the Independent State of Croatia. In 1942 the Vatican was close to forming official recognition of the Ustasha, until the war took a turn for the worse for the Nazis.

The Pope's meetings with Pavelic recognized him not as a head of state, but as an individual Catholic. The Ustase wanted Croatia to be recognized as a Catholic nation but the only indisputable fact that we have is that the Vatican never granted them de jure recognition.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

but the fact of the matter is that the Vatican helped to liquidate assets, convert other assets into gold and to help distribute those assets to various war criminals who were on the run. That is a virtually undisputed fact. 

No, it is not indisputable fact. It is widely held opinion and conjecture, without any consistent or clear evidence. It is certainly likely that the Vatican leadership knew that at least some among them who had sympathies for their own nations' fascists, were aiding and abetting their efforts. The Vatican would have been very careful to avoid direct involvement in any such efforts.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

Moreover, Pius knew what kind of a man Pavelic was when he greeted him at the Vatican and endorsed him and his party. He knew the hatred that Pavelic had of various ethnic groups and his plans to cleanse them, yet he still backed him because he was Catholic. Heck, Pius described Pavelic as "a much maligned man" when the latter stated "A good Ustase is one who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother".

Again, there was never any formal endorsement of Pavelic as leader of an independent Croatia or backing of his or the Ustase's terrible actions. It is clear though that the Vatican's motives to halt Communism and prevent Orthodox ascendancy in the Balkans, took precedence over its responsibility to display the highest moral clarity and action.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

 Heck, Pius described Pavelic as "a much maligned man" when the latter stated "A good Ustase is one who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother".

Unless the former was said in response to the latter, this is a non sequitur.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

"History vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church" - is the best that I can find after a brief search. Again, the point returns to matters of moral bankruptcy rather then religious protocol. Yeah, I get it, the man is ding so read him his rites. How very loving.

That book is available on Amazon but no available quotes online indicate or prove that Pope John XXIII delivered a dying Pavelic a benediction. The timeline of the Pope's travels makes it unlikely, so unless it was delivered by telegram, it didn't happen. 

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

What the Vatican got up to in Yugoslavia has zero bearing on whether Hitler believed in God or not, and like I pointed out at the beginning of this thread there is zero evidence that Hitler did not believe in God, which was Kasanova King's original claim. 

Yes, but the reason that everyone's taken issue with your position is that just because there is zero evidence that Hitler did not believe in God, it doesn't mean that he did believe in God, or if he did, that his conception of God was that of a Christian God as it is generally understood to be, or that he held any sort of faith that can accurately be described as Christian, despite any questionable self-declarations that he was a Christian. The bulk of the evidence points against all of this.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:37 PM, PappyTron said:

As for what the Vatican got up to, they knew what Pavelic was going to do and they in turn knew that he was doing it, but they turned a blind eye to it because he was killing people that they didn't much care for anyway and you said as much yourself.

It's not at all evident that the Vatican had advance knowledge of Pavelic's crimes, but as already pointed out, and for which there is evidence available, it is clear that the Vatican condemned those actions.

Edited June 17, 2016 by The Archer

[Len Cnut]

1 hour ago, The Archer said:

Absolutely. For all the criticism against religion, particularly about all the wars that have been fought over different religious beliefs, and the lives lost, it's likely that more lives were saved because of religion. Religions took us away from the laws of the jungle, and framed the moral precepts and laws that keep man away from his baser, animal instincts and harming himself or others.

It's quite fashionable for some atheists and humanists to criticize religious morals, but that is unfair because much of what they believe to be true or good, has come to humanity through religion.

Needless to say, the world would be poorer without the amount of good work that people do because of religious motivation.

Ive said this a number of times on this forum but they wont have it mate . I'm an atheist by the way.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Len B'stard

[The Archer]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

- The moral precepts came froom philosophy, not religion exclusivelly. Even without the beliefs in supernatural creatures humans would have developed moral framework to guide our lives.

Interesting hypothesis. Different streams of philosophy too developed within the various religious streams from across the world.

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

- I do not agree that more lives have been saved because of religion than those that have been killed. How would we know?

You'd have to make estimates for the number of people who have been militarily defended and saved from slaughter because of their religious affiliation, the number of sick people who have been cared for and saved from death out of religious motivation, the number of people who have resisted the impulse to kill or murder those that they didn't like or hated because of religious laws, the number of people who have been given hope and support from religion to carry on living instead of killing themselves, and so on, throughout history. Then, you'd have to compare it with an estimate of all the people killed in religious wars. Of course, you would get two sets of possible outcomes, and not two precise estimates, which is why that statement was qualified as being 'likely', though I don't think it was an unreasonable claim at all.

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2016 by The Archer

[SoulMonster]

6 hours ago, The Archer said:

Interesting hypothesis. Different streams of philosophy too developed within the various religious streams from across the world.

You'd have to make estimates for the number of people who have been militarily defended and saved from slaughter because of their religious affiliation, the number of sick people who have been cared for and saved from death out of religious motivation, the number of people who have resisted the impulse to kill or murder those that they didn't like or hated because of religious laws, the number of people who have been given hope and support from religion to carry on living instead of killing themselves, and so on, throughout history. Then, you'd have to compare it with an estimate of all the people killed in religious wars. Of course, you would get two sets of possible outcomes, and not two precise estimates, which is why that statement was qualified as being 'likely', though I don't think it was an unreasonable claim at all.

I don't think it is a mere hypothesis. The golden rule has arised in various contexts over the millenia, both secular and religious. Many aspects of ethics can be found in various philosophies, both secular and non-secular, and often intertwined making it hard to see where it first arose before it was adopted by the leading organizations of the time, which in a religious world naturally tend to be religious. We also know the basis for much of our ethics is genetically encoded, proving that we are moral creatures. Religions like to claim that they have both developed morals and been the preserver of morality in an amoral world where humans are primitive beast that can only be saved through religion, but facts suggest that we are morals by nature and that ethics have been codified and formulated in various contexts olver the centuty with no particular lifeview/religion having monopoly.

I don't think it is a reasonable claim. It is rather "straightforward" to estimate how many have been killed in religious warfare. I don't have time to check my sources on this, but I believe the number was about 10 % of all people who have ever been killed. It is a staggering number. It is much, much harder, on the other side, to quantify the number of people who have been saved by religion and who wouldn't have been saved in an atheist world, but I doubt strongly it would even come close to the number killed. You cannot argue that all the people who have been saved due to religious convictions would have been dead if this was an atheist world, because in the absence of humanitarian religious organizations humanitarian secular organizations would have arisen. The need to help others is a human trait, not exclusivelly a religious virtue. So the only difference here is that extra desire to help others that come from following a compassionate religion that says this is what god wants. In an atheist world, a parallel world to ours, sick people would still be cared for and saved froom death, people would be protected from slaughter, and so on, but maybe not to such a great extent because we wouldn't have that additional theist motivation. The question, thus, is not to quantify the number that religions have saved, but the number that wouldn't have been saved in the absence of religion. And that is a much, much smaller number.

The big difference, though, is in suicide. That is where I think we really ought to thank theism. The idea that there is a god who will punish you for taking your own life has probably saved quite a lot of people throughout history, and I don't think these would have been saved in an entirely secular world because there are no atheist parallel to this supernatural belief. Sure, secular people will try to steer others away from suicide, but it is hard to match the threat of punishment in hell. So I think that is the big contributor from religion.

[The Archer]

10 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

I don't think it is a mere hypothesis. The golden rule has arised in various contexts over the millenia, both secular and religious. Many aspects of ethics can be found in various philosophies, both secular and non-secular, and often intertwined making it hard to see where it first arose before it was adopted by the leading organizations of the time, which in a religious world naturally tend to be religious. We also know the basis for much of our ethics is genetically encoded, proving that we are moral creatures. Religions like to claim that they have both developed morals and been the preserver of morality in an amoral world where humans are primitive beast that can only be saved through religion, but facts suggest that we are morals by nature and that ethics have been codified and formulated in various contexts olver the centuty with no particular lifeview/religion having monopoly.

I don't think it is a reasonable claim. It is rather "straightforward" to estimate how many have been killed in religious warfare. I don't have time to check my sources on this, but I believe the number was about 10 % of all people who have ever been killed. It is a staggering number. It is much, much harder, on the other side, to quantify the number of people who have been saved by religion and who wouldn't have been saved in an atheist world, but I doubt strongly it would even come close to the number killed. You cannot argue that all the people who have been saved due to religious convictions would have been dead if this was an atheist world, because in the absence of humanitarian religious organizations humanitarian secular organizations would have arisen. The need to help others is a human trait, not exclusivelly a religious virtue. So the only difference here is that extra desire to help others that come from following a compassionate religion that says this is what god wants. In an atheist world, a parallel world to ours, sick people would still be cared for and saved froom death, people would be protected from slaughter, and so on, but maybe not to such a great extent because we wouldn't have that additional theist motivation. The question, thus, is not to quantify the number that religions have saved, but the number that wouldn't have been saved in the absence of religion. And that is a much, much smaller number.

The big difference, though, is in suicide. That is where I think we really ought to thank theism. The idea that there is a god who will punish you for taking your own life has probably saved quite a lot of people throughout history, and I don't think these would have been saved in an entirely secular world because there are no atheist parallel to this supernatural belief. Sure, secular people will try to steer others away from suicide, but it is hard to match the threat of punishment in hell. So I think that is the big contributor from religion.

Well, if there was no religion, maybe people wouldn't count themselves as atheists at all - we simply do not know if that kind of world would be one in which philosophers would have grappled with these questions. Would there have been hunter gatherers who had a philosophical bent of mind? Probably, though they may not have had the time to structure philosophical concepts. Perhaps the development of agrarian societies with people having more time would have allowed those with that bent with more time for the development of philosophy. City-states too developed with religion strongly intertwined with the stability of their social and political orders. The power, resources and idle time that their rulers had, allowed them to provide patronage to dedicated court philosophers and wise men. Sure, there have been both secular and religious philosophers but from available evidence the latter predate the former by a fair amount of time and secular philosophy did not develop in a vacuum, without the influence of religion. To your point however, I agree that it is possible that moral precepts and a moral framework could have been developed without religion. Whether those moral laws and frameworks survive the law of the jungle or the development of a society that developed without religion and its morals in your parallel atheistic universe, is not something that I can say for sure.

Yes, I've seen such estimates about how many people have died from religious wars too. They are estimates that are still best guesses, chosen from among a range of likelihoods, and not definite hard numbers. You're right that it is harder to quantify the number of people that owe their lives to religion, but again there is no definite answer in this case, only opinion. Considering the pervasiveness of religion in people's lives over recorded human history, particularly after there were significant population explosions thanks to the development of stable agrarian societies, it is reasonable to assume that more people lived on earth under religion than did people before its general advent, and that more people's lives were impacted positively through religion (including, in a variety of ways by which men refused to take risky actions that could have led to death, out of fear of the supernatural rather than because of any logical thought), than in the time before organized religion. But again, the numbers cannot be pinned down, which is why I only think that it was likely, and not certain.

Edited June 17, 2016 by The Archer

[-W.A.R-]

word is he had a micro penis

theres your answer

[DieselDaisy]

There has not been a significant religious war in Western Europe since the Treaty of Westphalia. Consider some of the wars which have occurred after this date, of Spanish Succession, Protestant Britain and the Dutch Republic allied with the Catholic Hapsburg against Catholic France; the Seven Years' War, Protestant Britain and Prussia allied with Catholic Portugal against Catholic France, Protestant Sweden and (eventually) Orthodox Russia; Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, secular(ising) French states pitted against just about the whole of Europe; World War One, Catholic France, Orthodox Russia and Protestant Britain allied against Protestant/Catholic Germany...

The whole religion causes wars maan is just lazy hyperbole. Dynastic politics and territorial expansion have played a much bigger role in European warfare since the 17th century.

 

[Sprite]

In America we separated church and state in good intention but its become perverted today. The separation allows the church to claim moral fortitude even with perverse translations of the bible which serves as another form of discrimination towards certain groups like the LGBT crowd. On the other hand the separation has therefore given the state license to be immoral. Or to act immorally, or be passive about the consequences of law benefiting a few over the masses.

 

It's a topsy turvy world out there. Stay safe!

[Len Cnut]

6 minutes ago, Sprite said:

In America we separated church and state in good intention but its become perverted today. The separation allows the church to claim moral fortitude even with perverse translations of the bible which serves as another form of discrimination towards certain groups like the LGBT crowd. On the other hand the separation has therefore given the state license to be immoral. Or to act immorally, or be passive about the consequences of law benefiting a few over the masses.

 

It's a topsy turvy world out there. Stay safe!

I dont think you need a perverse interpretation of Judeo-Christian scripture to find discrimination against LGBT, just a straight forward one will do.

[DieselDaisy]

This ridiculous acronym; why are Lesbians first? Why not GTBL or or BTLG?

[Len Cnut]

A lesbian probably came up with it and figured they got dibs.

[classicrawker]

1 hour ago, DieselDaisy said:

This ridiculous acronym; why are Lesbians first? Why not GTBL or or BTLG?

Fuck mate, where are your manners and chivalry ? didn't your parents teach you the concept of  "ladies first".................

[DieselDaisy]

1 hour ago, classicrawker said:

Fuck mate, where are your manners and chivalry ? didn't your parents teach you the concept of  "ladies first".................

It should be LTBG then, surely, since the only people there that are irrefutably male are gays? Transgendered might include women with a, ehh, few extra parts and you can be a female bisexual.

[john lennon]

I don't want to have your black thing up my ass cos I know you're like 7ft tall and so is the thing, but I think maybe Hitler was just a man who wanted to accomplish something and due to him being stupid or delusional or whatever, he just decided to do it the way he did. I don't know if iot has nayhitng to do with religion, cos asx far as I'mn concerned religious people don't walk aroumnd demanding people to be killed every day. Or maybe they do, but that's not part of this story right here.

 

[Snake-Pit]

On 6/17/2016 at 7:16 PM, DieselDaisy said:

This ridiculous acronym; why are Lesbians first? Why not GTBL or or BTLG?

Why not LBGTS? In fact, I went to a LGBT poetry night, got up on stage and read my poem

 

On 10/5/2015 at 2:58 AM, Snake-Pit said:

I used this thread tonight on my iPhone.

I went with my sister to this LGBT event, mostly ebony lesbians, for real, but that's just the circles I roll in.

Took my guitar, found out it was poetry... So I decided tonight, I'd put down my guitar (1960's Framus Hollywood Feline Guitars Custom Shop 1 of a kind custom order) and got stuff off my chest.

I copied 2 recent poems from this thread and added in 8 lines and performed this tonight;

We are people, when my teeth feel

like fangs I am man an

My nails extend to reveal these

claws I don't need that grief

Said I'm in Thornton Heath I don't

need your laws

I am mankind - Baby

Warts and all

Faults that stall

I four wall each flaw

If the

Devil

Lies to me

Tell me

Who do you

Believe

Man wrote the book

and now I see disease

oh why can't we be free?

It's all about the greed

Keep my weed

It might bleed too much

But Honey

It's what I

need

L g

B t

doesn't include

me

I am straight

I don't hate

I am just

Me

-

was reading it off of notes on my phone @ Tipsy on Stoke Newington Road in Dalston

(I shouldn't have gone out on a work night but I had fun).

.. It got an excellent reception

 

Edited June 23, 2016 by Snake-Pit

[luciusfunk]

Hitler was not a Christian, but he did admire the organizational power of the Church.

[action]

i wonder what conclusion we're looking for here. so what if we can prove Hitler was a Christian, and his acts were inspired by a twisted interpretation of Christianity?

Christianity itself, be it Catholicism or Protestantism, is a derivate of the true teachings of Jesus. Historians to this day aren't sure what the exact teachings of Christ were all about. All we have are conflicting / censored ancient texts. Which ultimately have as much validity as a post on a message board. Jesus was a historical person, yes, but his character has roots way before he was even born, in the tale of the sun god "Helios". Helios had a wife (Jesus had Mary Magdalene) and from the little evidence we have, his teachings were about the love between man and women as the fundamental good.

The apostle Paul has demonized sexuality and it's his teachings that have resulted in a twisted view on sexuality by the catholic church.

"Christianity" is a flawed interpretation of the very little information we have about Jesus' teachings, so what does it matter if Hitler lived by Christianity or not?

Incidently, the line between religion and something like "Nazism" is blurred and senseless.

Bottom line is, every teaching that propagates violence (religion or otherwise) should be forbidden by an advanced society.

Edited June 23, 2016 by action

[dalsh327]

He cited Martin Luther as an influence and quoted him, but Luther had also written an essay called "On Jews and Their Lies". A lot of German Lutherans converted from Judaism and Catholicism. It's highly likely Hitler read this. 

Genealogists say that the Nazis did a great job in having family histories documented, some reinvented their Jewish great grandparents (with making some documents disappear), and that's something genealogists found out in recent years. 

[SoulMonster]

On 17.6.2016 at 7:41 AM, The Archer said:

Well, if there was no religion, maybe people wouldn't count themselves as atheists at all - we simply do not know if that kind of world would be one in which philosophers would have grappled with these questions. Would there have been hunter gatherers who had a philosophical bent of mind? Probably, though they may not have had the time to structure philosophical concepts. Perhaps the development of agrarian societies with people having more time would have allowed those with that bent with more time for the development of philosophy. City-states too developed with religion strongly intertwined with the stability of their social and political orders. The power, resources and idle time that their rulers had, allowed them to provide patronage to dedicated court philosophers and wise men. Sure, there have been both secular and religious philosophers but from available evidence the latter predate the former by a fair amount of time and secular philosophy did not develop in a vacuum, without the influence of religion. To your point however, I agree that it is possible that moral precepts and a moral framework could have been developed without religion. Whether those moral laws and frameworks survive the law of the jungle or the development of a society that developed without religion and its morals in your parallel atheistic universe, is not something that I can say for sure.

Yes, I've seen such estimates about how many people have died from religious wars too. They are estimates that are still best guesses, chosen from among a range of likelihoods, and not definite hard numbers. You're right that it is harder to quantify the number of people that owe their lives to religion, but again there is no definite answer in this case, only opinion. Considering the pervasiveness of religion in people's lives over recorded human history, particularly after there were significant population explosions thanks to the development of stable agrarian societies, it is reasonable to assume that more people lived on earth under religion than did people before its general advent, and that more people's lives were impacted positively through religion (including, in a variety of ways by which men refused to take risky actions that could have led to death, out of fear of the supernatural rather than because of any logical thought), than in the time before organized religion. But again, the numbers cannot be pinned down, which is why I only think that it was likely, and not certain.

We are all born atheists.

I seems like grappling with existantial questions, and every other question, is a human trait and has nothing to do with whether one is religious or not. That is why there are so many secular philosophers.