Atheist Myth: “No One Has Ever Killed in the Name of Atheism”

[Tambourine]

Was the 30 years war religious? Yes and no.

It wasn't neatly Catholics v Protestants, it would have been over a lot sooner had Sweden not entered to grab itself some territory, etc.

There's no 'correct' answer on it and either perspective is justifiable.


From: Wars mostly about religion; wars with religion as one of the significant components; wars primarily about issues other than religion I'd put it in the middle category.

Sweden entered the war explicitly to defend the Protestant cause. Of course they had a political motive as well, but so did everyone in every war throughout history, because war is to an extent a perpetuation of politics.

Of course, politics itself is infused with religion and religious ideas, and the two have been tangled since the dawn of time, and still are to the present day. (It is not by accident that so many modern wedge issue stem from religious arguments)

I am really wondering now which war you would consider to be "mostly about religion", because I'm convinced that we could find some kind of angle to turn it into not being about religion after all, just to prove how fluid and fuzzy these categories actually are.

Because it's blatantly untrue? Because it demonstrates a complete absence of ability to think critically on emotive issues?

As far as I can tell, we have long passed the opportunity to think critically on this emotive issue, at least in this particular discussion. At the very least, we have passed it when we started argueing which belief or ideology is best because it has the least amount of massacres and mass murders on their tally.

 

[ChristineM]

I've already shown it to be wrong based on what you yourself cited in 'support' of your claim.



Even if we take the high estimate, you are still claiming that around 80% of all war deaths were caused by religion, which is again obviously not true given high end estimates for WW1 + 2, Mongol conquests, Napoleonic Wars, Roman Empire wars, and several of the Chinese events (An Lushan, Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil Wars, etc) is already far more than 200 million 'non-religious' deaths alone.

Then we factor in that 90+% of wars have not been fought over religion then you are pretty effectively showing how empty your claim is. Especially when we consider that, according to a scholarly average, 800 million is more than all war death combined

This is why you remain 600 million short despite taking high-end estimates for pretty much everything (some blatantly wrong as demonstrated with your 80 million claim) and also including stuff which is obviously not substantively caused by religion.

Your opinion it noted

 

[Augustus]

Sweden entered the war explicitly to defend the Protestant cause. Of course they had a political motive as well, but so did everyone in every war throughout history, because war is to an extent a perpetuation of politics.

What else would you expect them to say when they joined the war?

Sweden was small and indebted, but had a strong military and wanted to be a major power. It was presented with the perfect opportunity to resolve these problems, while also making it safer from attack by larger neighbours. No doubt being the 'defender of the Protestants' was a subsidiary motivation, but opportunism and material self-interest were the key factors. At least that tends to be the most common view among contemporary historians.

I am really wondering now which war you would consider to be "mostly about religion", because I'm convinced that we could find some kind of angle to turn it into not being about religion after all, just to prove how fluid and fuzzy these categories actually are.

Some of the Crusades, Taiping Rebellion, Mahdist Uprising, Munster Rebellion etc. would be there or thereabouts.

Not that many wars are mostly about religion though, which is largely the point. Religion has likely had a pretty minor effect on human violence throughout history as human societies have competing interests, and humans are unusually violent animals who are unable to avoid in/out group tribalism. As such, similar forms of violence have existed across a huge range of cultures.

Of course the boundaries are fluid and fuzzy though. This is compounded by the fact that religious fault-lines frequently run along ethnic/linguistic/cultural/political fault-lines too.

Not to mention that even the concept of 'religion' as something which can be abstracted from other socio-cultural factors draws heavily on a Christian worldview (or a post-Christian one).

we have passed it when we started argueing which belief or ideology is best because it has the least amount of massacres and mass murders on their tally.

Given I'm an atheist, I'm hardly making a case that 'religion is best'.

All I've been doing is arguing against obviously false statements because I find it amusing. Some people like arguing with creationists or pointing out contradictions in the Bible, I like to poke fun at anti-theistic types who will believe practically anything as long as it paints religion in a bad light and become impervious to evidence to the contrary.

Each to their own.

 

[Rival]

Every ideology has one thing in common.

People.

 

[Augustus]

Your opinion it noted

It's just a shame you never quite manage to note either the facts or the maths too

 

[Shadow Wolf]

2. Atheism-materialism that does not entertain notion of common spiritual thread through all and are not committed to the golden rule, in general, maybe less

To the Spartans and Norse, it was the golden rule and properly moral to fight and kill in battle because that is what they wanted. That is why the "golden rule" is really a piece of gilded faeces.

 

[ChristineM]

It's just a shame you never quite manage to note either the facts or the maths too

I provided evidence that you were wrong that is a fact, you have tried for 3 days to discredit it and failed.

 

[Tambourine]

What else would you expect them to say when they joined the war?

Sweden was small and indebted, but had a strong military and wanted to be a major power. It was presented with the perfect opportunity to resolve these problems, while also making it safer from attack by larger neighbours. No doubt being the 'defender of the Protestants' was a subsidiary motivation, but opportunism and material self-interest were the key factors. At least that tends to be the most common view among contemporary historians.

Yes, that is one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is how the contemporary rulers and elites of Sweden have framed their actions.

I don't think either of these are wrong. Religion always has a habit of justifying what people were about to do anyway.

Some of the Crusades, Taiping Rebellion, Mahdist Uprising, Munster Rebellion etc. would be there or thereabouts.

The Crusades were initiated by the Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel, who requested military aid from the Pope in Rome. The Emperor sought to utilize Latin Christians as mercenaries to take back the Anatolian provinces of his empire that had been lost to the Seljuk Turks after his predecessors' defeats at Manzikert. Unfortunately, the Latins organized their armies in their own manner, with their own Latin command structure under their own Latin leaders, so naturally, the Emperor proved unable to control them, and they soon set up petty kingdoms for themselves.
In other words, the Crusades were motivated by the Eastern Roman Emperor's political need to regain lost provinces, and the Latin's political independence. Therefore, they were not caused by religion, and were not predominantly religious in nature.

The Taiping Rebellion was a popular revolt against mismanagement by the Qing dynasty, who, due to a series of defeats against European incursions, saw themselves forced to overtax peasants during a time when the Yangtse river valley was suffering from overpopulation and bad harvests, causing poverty and famine. In other words, the causes behind the uprising were primarily economic and political, and religion was not the primary cause.

The Mahdist uprising was a rebellion of ethnic Sudanese against a regime that was controlled by Ottoman Turks, who would frequently appoint foreigners (even Europeans) and promote them over native elites. In addition, due to British political pressure, the Egyptian administration had banned the slave trade, which used to be a substantial source of income for the Sudanese merchant class. Like in the above examples, the causes behind the uprising were primarily economic and political, and religion was not the primary cause.

I think these examples are sufficient to demonstrate that if we set our mind to it, we would be able to prove that no religious was were ever about "religion". In fact, we could probably go even further and demonstrate that no political activity was ever caused primarily by "religion", ever.

As you can see, it's all about how we frame the facts available to us. As secular humanists, we will always be able to think of a motivation that makes sense to us and is not primarily religious in nature. Conversely, a theistic fundamentalist will have no motivation to frame wars and politics that they deem unjust as anything other than ungodly, secular, and therefore, corrupt.

Not that many wars are mostly about religion though, which is largely the point. Religion has likely had a pretty minor effect on human violence throughout history as human societies have competing interests, and humans are unusually violent animals who are unable to avoid in/out group tribalism. As such, similar forms of violence have existed across a huge range of cultures.

Of course the boundaries are fluid and fuzzy though. This is compounded by the fact that religious fault-lines frequently run along ethnic/linguistic/cultural/political fault-lines too.

Not to mention that even the concept of 'religion' as something which can be abstracted from other socio-cultural factors draws heavily on a Christian worldview (or a post-Christian one).

Definitely.

Of course, this argument also plays into the hands of Christian fundamentalism, who, like many political-religious movements in the past, have centered their message around the idea of cleansing corrupt and decadent politics from their corruptive "atheistic" influences, to return to a "pure", more religious state of society.

So this very notion of nonreligious politics feeds into a reactionary backlash in support of a more religiously tinted way of life.

Given I'm an atheist, I'm hardly making a case that 'religion is best'.

This entire debate is framed by the notion that we can neatly divide human behavior into "secular" and "religious" motivations. So once we've concluded our current round of Genocide Olympics, we must award "religious" motivations the gold medal.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Religion itself can only be blame if there is theological backing behind those actions.

Keep in mind that the purpose of this thread is to demean atheism by implying that the lack of a god belief leads to immoral murderous regimes, which further implies that with religion, people are better. Religion didn't help Hitler or Stalin.

If religions want to make this claim, then it can be blamed for failing. If they're not better people than secular humanists, for example, then the religion failed and the argument for moral superiority is defeated.

Well, Atheism causes so much death and destruction in the world, it's important to keep tabs on it.

You're such an atheophobic bigot. An every one of you is taught to hate by your church. Many refuse to incorporate that hatred and start atheist bashing threads, but too many of you are happy to hate. Incidentally, this is exactly why I am an antithest who speaks against religions like yours and encourages its demise. The world doesn't need institutions teaching hatred.

Do you have a problem with it?

You starting these threads? I wait for them with anticipation. Unlike some people, I wouldn't start a hate thread for the purpose of telling you how little I think of your religion, but these threads open the door to that. If you want to tell me how empty and meaningless my life is, then I will rebut that as I did. Your world view is empty to me, and it seems to be failing you given your angst and plaintive tone, but I would never tell you that except in this setting.

You claim persecution of your faith by atheists and are clearly angry about it, but it is you who goes on the offensive. We're only answering you.

Moreover, you are addicted to your beliefs. As you indicated, you suffer withdrawal when your faith wanes, and what's left of life becomes insufficient for you. I'm grateful to have made the effort to learn how to live without a god belief.

But I don't recommend it for you.

There was a thread recently about the level of conflict on RF of late, and it was presented as a two to tango matter, but I disagree. Threads like this attacking whatever it is that you theists don't like about are the principle source of this mutual contempt and disrespect. People will remember this squabble, but not who started it.

Hey, don't blame me, I didn't pen the link.

Yeah, and if you want to walk around in a Klan robe, you can always say that you didn't design it. Your bringing that Christian garbage here (I didn't read it because I have no respect for the ethics and methods of Christian apologetics, but the comment of others who did read it confirm that I made the right choice).

Just know that atheists have killed more than religious

This is knowingly dishonest. It attempts to blame the moral failings of authoritarian strongmen on their atheism, when you know that you are surrounded in these threads with atheists who are gentle, constructive people Your implications that we are your moral inferior for being atheists, as if that makes us predisposed to murder, is dishonest and offensive.

Who taught you to hate atheists and come onto the Internet to demean them? Rhetorical question - no need to answer. It wasn't the UN, or Domino's pizza, or the NFL. It's your Bible and church. You can see why people like me will have our lives improved when your church is too weak and insignificant to generate this much hatred and bigotry. You have no other reason to hate atheists like you do than the way your religion has conditioned you. Secular humanists are mostly law abiding, well educated, hard working people trying to raise their families well and improve their communities.

It's disgusting what the Christian church has been doing for centuries. And then you call it persecution and Christian bashing when atheists object and rebut your church's bigotry.

Of course, you will accept not responsibility for being the provocateur, seeing yourself as a loving and constructive person being unfairly attacked. But this is all your doing. You brought this dispute.

I'll get much better at this as time moves on.

You have a long way to go to catch up. I've already perfected this.

My goal is to shine a negative light on Atheism just as what's done here to religion. It's my duty now.

Atheism has done nothing to religion. In this case, you've brought this on yourself. It's religion attacking atheists, and atheists telling you that they've had enough of your malicious intent. You're like the thug who attempts to mug somebody, has a gun pulled on him, and runs to the police playing victim and complaining of persecution.

Christianity, however, has blood on its hands regarding atheists. One, atheists were executed or tortured in inquisitions by Christianity. Secular humanism gave us secular, democratic government with guaranteed personal rights including freedom from religion, taking all that fun away from the church. In this century, Christians were only able to demean atheists by branding them as immoral (as you are attempting to do with your disgusting implication that atheists are more likely to be murderers) and preventing them from adopting, coaching, teaching, serving on juries, giving expert testimony, or holding elected office.

Nice attempt at fooling people though to make your agenda.

You too.

We should have been friends, but your religion and its hatred got in the way. You chose a Jerry Garcia avatar. Mine is a Jerry bear. Major deadhead from way back here.

And being a deadhead generally means being kind, not hateful. The band created a culture of peace and love. I wish you'd get rid of that avatar. It doesn't belong with you. Garcia would not have approved of what you are doing here, either.

You live in Irvine, California, right? I have lived all over Southern California for several decades, and have seen the Dead in your backyard, Irvine Meadows Amphitheater, many times. Also, Anaheim Stadium. I saw this show there:

We should have been friends, but we will never be that. Your religion came between us. It taught you to disrespect me, and now the feeling is mutual. Congratulations.

Shows what you know, I've created 3 now.. you missed:
Why atheists are not as rational as some like to think ...There's more to come. I hope you can handle it.

Looking forward to it. Hope you can handle the rebuttals.

See, we're all learning things. Nothing harmful going on

Sue there is. It's the same harm that your church and its vectors like you have always been guilty of.

Hatred..? Is that what you consider anything that questions your preferred philosophies / ideologies..? Hatred?

You didn't question anything. You hatefully went on the attack, you know it, and are playing coy now - "Who me? I didn't pen it. I merely brought it here for others to read. I'm just questioning atheists."

You've been identified as a passive-aggresive atheophobe in your other threads. And you have already announced that you're on a mission against atheists.

I'll bet that this thread gets closed as well. It's a malicious and defamatory OP. The site seems to have no problem with any number of these atheist bashing threads starting up, even though they always end up contentious. I for one choose not to roll over for Christian bigots.

 

[ChristineM]

Keep in mind that the purpose of this thread is to demean atheism by implying that the lack of a god belief leads to immoral murderous regimes, which further implies that with religion, people are better. Religion didn't help Hitler or Stalin.

If religions want to make this claim, then it can be blamed for failing. If they're not better people than secular humanists, for example, then the religion failed and the argument for moral superiority is defeated.



You're such an atheophobic bigot. An every one of you is taught to hate by your church. Many refuse to incorporate that hatred and start atheist bashing threads, but too many of you are happy to hate. Incidentally, this is exactly why I am an antithest who speaks against religions like yours and encourages its demise. The world doesn't need institutions teaching hatred.



You starting these threads? I wait for them with anticipation. Unlike some people, I wouldn't start a hate thread for the purpose of telling you how little I think of your religion, but these threads open the door to that. If you want to tell me how empty and meaningless my life is, then I will rebut that as I did. Your world view is empty to me, and it seems to be failing you given your angst and plaintive tone, but I would never tell you that except in this setting.

You claim persecution of your faith by atheists and are clearly angry about it, but it is you who goes on the offensive. We're only answering you.

Moreover, you are addicted to your beliefs. As you indicated, you suffer withdrawal when your faith wanes, and what's left of life becomes insufficient for you. I'm grateful to have made the effort to learn how to live without a god belief.

But I don't recommend it for you.

There was a thread recently about the level of conflict on RF of late, and it was presented as a two to tango matter, but I disagree. Threads like this attacking whatever it is that you theists don't like about are the principle source of this mutual contempt and disrespect. People will remember this squabble, but not who started it.



Yeah, and if you want to walk around in a Klan robe, you can always say that you didn't design it. Your bringing that Christian garbage here (I didn't read it because I have no respect for the ethics and methods of Christian apologetics, but the comment of others who did read it confirm that I made the right choice).



This is knowingly dishonest. It attempts to blame the moral failings of authoritarian strongmen on their atheism, when you know that you are surrounded in these threads with atheists who are gentle, constructive people Your implications that we are your moral inferior for being atheists, as if that makes us predisposed to murder, is dishonest and offensive.

Who taught you to hate atheists and come onto the Internet to demean them? Rhetorical question - no need to answer. It wasn't the UN, or Domino's pizza, or the NFL. It's your Bible and church. You can see why people like me will have our lives improved when your church is too weak and insignificant to generate this much hatred and bigotry. You have no other reason to hate atheists like you do than the way your religion has conditioned you. Secular humanists are mostly law abiding, well educated, hard working people trying to raise their families well and improve their communities.

It's disgusting what the Christian church has been doing for centuries. And then you call it persecution and Christian bashing when atheists object and rebut your church's bigotry.

Of course, you will accept not responsibility for being the provocateur, seeing yourself as a loving and constructive person being unfairly attacked. But this is all your doing. You brought this dispute.



You have a long way to go to catch up. I've already perfected this.



Atheism has done nothing to religion. In this case, you've brought this on yourself. It's religion attacking atheists, and atheists telling you that they've had enough of your malicious intent. You're like the thug who attempts to mug somebody, has a gun pulled on him, and runs to the police playing victim and complaining of persecution.

Christianity, however, has blood on its hands regarding atheists. One, atheists were executed or tortured in inquisitions by Christianity. Secular humanism gave us secular, democratic government with guaranteed personal rights including freedom from religion, taking all that fun away from the church. In this century, Christians were only able to demean atheists by branding them as immoral (as you are attempting to do with your disgusting implication that atheists are more likely to be murderers) and preventing them from adopting, coaching, teaching, serving on juries, giving expert testimony, or holding elected office.



You too.

We should have been friends, but your religion and its hatred got in the way. You chose a Jerry Garcia avatar. Mine is a Jerry bear. Major deadhead from way back here.

And being a deadhead generally means being kind, not hateful. The band created a culture of peace and love. I wish you'd get rid of that avatar. It doesn't belong with you. Garcia would not have approved of what you are doing here, either.

You live in Irvine, California, right? I have lived all over Southern California for several decades, and have seen the Dead in your backyard, Irvine Meadows Amphitheater, many times. Also, Anaheim Stadium. I saw this show there:

We should have been friends, but we will never be that. Your religion came between us. It taught you to disrespect me, and now the feeling is mutual. Congratulations.



Looking forward to it. Hope you can handle the rebuttals.



Sue there is. It's the same harm that your church and its vectors like you have always been guilty of.



You didn't question anything. You hatefully went on the attack, you know it, and are playing coy now - "Who me? I didn't pen it. I merely brought it here for others to read. I'm just questioning atheists."

You've been identified as a passive-aggresive atheophobe in your other threads. And you have already announced that you're on a mission against atheists.

I'll bet that this thread gets closed as well. It's a malicious and defamatory OP. The site seems to have no problem with any number of these atheist bashing threads starting up, even though they always end up contentious. I for one choose not to roll over for Christian bigots.

And another brilliantly penned, and clearly expressed post that i had to frube with a winner but would also have liked to say it was optimistic as well. One can only hope the subject of the post takes notice. I have tried, somewhat more sharply than you to no avail. He seems to enjoy being sent as a hate merchant.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

See, we're all learning things. Nothing harmful going on.

Why do you even bother doing this? We all see through your act, we don't believe you, we don't accept your excuses. Saying the same general thing with different words in different threads won't help your case in getting us to see your motives differently.

Again, I did not write the article in the OP

By the way English works, just having a link does not indicate those are not your words. But, it's moot by now anyways, as you did say this:

Just like the Atheists do to the religious.

Just know that atheists have killed more than religious, and have historically leaned toward authoritarianism.

My goal is to shine a negative light on Atheism just as what's done here to religion. It's my duty now.

All things in the OP were compiled together as *atheistic* in nature,

Nobody's ever heard of historian Muhammad Qasim Shah. I Googled him and there was nobody by that name, so your sources seem to be non credible nothingburgers.

...Nice attempt at fooling people though to make your agenda.

Those are all unsubstantiated lies. All so you can try to take stabs--with your wet, soggy spaghetti noodle jabs--at any means and cost because you have a bone to pick with atheists.

I'm tired of the inability to debate properly.

That is A LOT coming from someone who doesn't even know how to properly cite a source.

 

[Augustus]

IF religion hadn't had so much influence over society, atheism would NOT have been a factor at all.

If my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle.

The point is that religion has had so much influence over society, particularly it's morality, and this is why atheists like Marx, Lenin, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Schopenhauer, etc. considered the implications of their belief that there was no God within their philosophies and moralities.

Our belief systems are as much comprised as what we reject or are against, as what we are in favour of. Believing there is no god is not an inert, monadic, belief that exists in a vacuum, but something that may forms part of much broader worldview.

It's all very well documented if you care to actually use your 'questioning mind'...

It doesn't mean 'atheism is evil' (I'm an atheist after all), or "mere disbelief in god makes you kill people", it's just a very well documented historical fact that many people have long considered the philosophical implications of their belief that there is no god or higher power. Is that really so hard to grasp?

\Not because a LACK OF BELIEF was essential to the system.

You are right, it was not about a 'lack of belief' but a very strong belief that there is no god. Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin et al did not have a 'lack of belief'.

Lenin: "Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism"

Was he not explicit enough? Or are you saying you know more about Lenin's thoughts than Lenin did? Or are you saying it was just state propaganda? Or...?

NI Bukharin and E Preobrazhensky: The ABC of Communism: "Many weak-kneed communists reason as follows: 'Religion does not prevent my being a communist. I believe both in God and in communism. My faith in God does not hinder me from fighting for the cause of the proletarian revolution.'

This train of thought is radically false. Religion and communism are incompatible, both theoretically and practically."


Still too esoteric?


Marx (writing 70 years before the Russian Revolution in an unpublished philosophical text called 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right' thus obviously not state propaganda): "The criticism of religion leads to the doctrine according to which man is, for man, the supreme being; therefore it reaches the categorical imperative of overthrowing all relationships in which man is a degraded, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being...

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo...

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."


QM: DisBeliEf iN GoD WasN't EssEntiAL tO tHe SyStEm

It wasn't just some sneaky ruse to reduce the power of a competitor, it was based on one of the fundamental tenets of a philosophy articulated long before there was even a Communist Party, never mind an actual government. Again, it's not hard to grasp, they weren't exactly secretive about it.

If your mind is even remotely questioning, you might want to question why it is that so many of these key Marxist figures explicitly view disbelief in god as a fundamental component of their belief system while you insist it is purely incidental despite not being particularly well versed in the subject.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Keep in mind that the purpose of this thread is to demean atheism by implying that the lack of a god belief leads to immoral murderous regimes, which further implies that with religion, people are better. Religion didn't help Hitler or Stalin.

If religions want to make this claim, then it can be blamed for failing. If they're not better people than secular humanists, for example, then the religion failed and the argument for moral superiority is defeated.



You're such an atheophobic bigot. An every one of you is taught to hate by your church. Many refuse to incorporate that hatred and start atheist bashing threads, but too many of you are happy to hate. Incidentally, this is exactly why I am an antithest who speaks against religions like yours and encourages its demise. The world doesn't need institutions teaching hatred.



You starting these threads? I wait for them with anticipation. Unlike some people, I wouldn't start a hate thread for the purpose of telling you how little I think of your religion, but these threads open the door to that. If you want to tell me how empty and meaningless my life is, then I will rebut that as I did. Your world view is empty to me, and it seems to be failing you given your angst and plaintive tone, but I would never tell you that except in this setting.

You claim persecution of your faith by atheists and are clearly angry about it, but it is you who goes on the offensive. We're only answering you.

Moreover, you are addicted to your beliefs. As you indicated, you suffer withdrawal when your faith wanes, and what's left of life becomes insufficient for you. I'm grateful to have made the effort to learn how to live without a god belief.

But I don't recommend it for you.

There was a thread recently about the level of conflict on RF of late, and it was presented as a two to tango matter, but I disagree. Threads like this attacking whatever it is that you theists don't like about are the principle source of this mutual contempt and disrespect. People will remember this squabble, but not who started it.



Yeah, and if you want to walk around in a Klan robe, you can always say that you didn't design it. Your bringing that Christian garbage here (I didn't read it because I have no respect for the ethics and methods of Christian apologetics, but the comment of others who did read it confirm that I made the right choice).



This is knowingly dishonest. It attempts to blame the moral failings of authoritarian strongmen on their atheism, when you know that you are surrounded in these threads with atheists who are gentle, constructive people Your implications that we are your moral inferior for being atheists, as if that makes us predisposed to murder, is dishonest and offensive.

Who taught you to hate atheists and come onto the Internet to demean them? Rhetorical question - no need to answer. It wasn't the UN, or Domino's pizza, or the NFL. It's your Bible and church. You can see why people like me will have our lives improved when your church is too weak and insignificant to generate this much hatred and bigotry. You have no other reason to hate atheists like you do than the way your religion has conditioned you. Secular humanists are mostly law abiding, well educated, hard working people trying to raise their families well and improve their communities.

It's disgusting what the Christian church has been doing for centuries. And then you call it persecution and Christian bashing when atheists object and rebut your church's bigotry.

Of course, you will accept not responsibility for being the provocateur, seeing yourself as a loving and constructive person being unfairly attacked. But this is all your doing. You brought this dispute.



You have a long way to go to catch up. I've already perfected this.



Atheism has done nothing to religion. In this case, you've brought this on yourself. It's religion attacking atheists, and atheists telling you that they've had enough of your malicious intent. You're like the thug who attempts to mug somebody, has a gun pulled on him, and runs to the police playing victim and complaining of persecution.

Christianity, however, has blood on its hands regarding atheists. One, atheists were executed or tortured in inquisitions by Christianity. Secular humanism gave us secular, democratic government with guaranteed personal rights including freedom from religion, taking all that fun away from the church. In this century, Christians were only able to demean atheists by branding them as immoral (as you are attempting to do with your disgusting implication that atheists are more likely to be murderers) and preventing them from adopting, coaching, teaching, serving on juries, giving expert testimony, or holding elected office.



You too.

We should have been friends, but your religion and its hatred got in the way. You chose a Jerry Garcia avatar. Mine is a Jerry bear. Major deadhead from way back here.

And being a deadhead generally means being kind, not hateful. The band created a culture of peace and love. I wish you'd get rid of that avatar. It doesn't belong with you. Garcia would not have approved of what you are doing here, either.

You live in Irvine, California, right? I have lived all over Southern California for several decades, and have seen the Dead in your backyard, Irvine Meadows Amphitheater, many times. Also, Anaheim Stadium. I saw this show there:

We should have been friends, but we will never be that. Your religion came between us. It taught you to disrespect me, and now the feeling is mutual. Congratulations.



Looking forward to it. Hope you can handle the rebuttals.



Sue there is. It's the same harm that your church and its vectors like you have always been guilty of.



You didn't question anything. You hatefully went on the attack, you know it, and are playing coy now - "Who me? I didn't pen it. I merely brought it here for others to read. I'm just questioning atheists."

You've been identified as a passive-aggresive atheophobe in your other threads. And you have already announced that you're on a mission against atheists.

I'll bet that this thread gets closed as well. It's a malicious and defamatory OP. The site seems to have no problem with any number of these atheist bashing threads starting up, even though they always end up contentious. I for one choose not to roll over for Christian bigots.

Passionate post, but Landon's been banned for over a day. Anyone could see that coming.

 

[atanu]

To the Spartans and Norse, it was the golden rule and properly moral to fight and kill in battle because that is what they wanted. That is why the "golden rule" is really a piece of gilded faeces.

Sigh. I do not like sweet language. I can say that what you refer to as gilded faeces is the particular Spartan golden rule. Not the general golden rule.

 

[Augustus]

I provided evidence that you were wrong that is a fact, you have tried for 3 days to discredit it and failed.

Fortunately, anybody who can read and utilise basic arithmetic can fact check your claims here so they don't have to take my or your word for it. You could even try it yourself

List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll - Wikipedia
Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls

In this thread, you have been very quick to call others out for being wilfully ignorant out of prejudice, glass houses and stones spring to mind here.

The fact that, rather than actually supporting your claims, you pivot to claiming victory because I didn't consider a 500 year old, non-scholarly source which assumed Muslims killed more than the entire global population to be a modern, scholarly source is still quite endearing though

 

[Augustus]

I think these examples are sufficient to demonstrate that if we set our mind to it, we would be able to prove that no religious was were ever about "religion". In fact, we could probably go even further and demonstrate that no political activity was ever caused primarily by "religion", ever.

The fact that people can always 'make a case' for an alternative interpretation doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the evidence and decide what we think is most probable, even (or perhaps especially) on issues with a fair degree of subjectivity.

The Crusades were initiated by the Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel, who requested military aid from the Pope in Rome. The Emperor sought to utilize Latin Christians as mercenaries to take back the Anatolian provinces of his empire that had been lost to the Seljuk Turks after his predecessors' defeats at Manzikert. Unfortunately, the Latins organized their armies in their own manner, with their own Latin command structure under their own Latin leaders, so naturally, the Emperor proved unable to control them, and they soon set up petty kingdoms for themselves.
In other words, the Crusades were motivated by the Eastern Roman Emperor's political need to regain lost provinces, and the Latin's political independence. Therefore, they were not caused by religion, and were not predominantly religious in nature.

One would look as to why so many Latin Christians were willing to sell their belongings and undergo great danger and hardship in order to retake Jerusalem. One might also look at to why the Pope was involving himself in this issue, and the recent history of Church/state relations in Europe at this time (arguably one of the factors that began the road to secularism), etc.

Some of the later crusades had far more political motives than this though.

Definitely.

Of course, this argument also plays into the hands of Christian fundamentalism, who, like many political-religious movements in the past, have centered their message around the idea of cleansing corrupt and decadent politics from their corruptive "atheistic" influences, to return to a "pure", more religious state of society.

So this very notion of nonreligious politics feeds into a reactionary backlash in support of a more religiously tinted way of life.

Human identity is defined at least as as much by who we are not, as by who we actually are.

I personally see little value in trying to draw a clear demarcation between religious ideologies and irreligious ones anyway. The idea that this can be done is already laden in values from a specific cultural history. We can't really swim far outside of the water in which we were born into, we just adapt it somewhat.

All worldviews are constructed around subjective values transmitted via mythos/narrative, and even the most benign of these can be used to justify great harms.

One of the most destructive beliefs in human history is that of Progress, which basically underpins Secular Humanism (and in different way Marxism), yet is an also a product of its Christian lineage. This doesn't mean it is 'bad' to believe in it, just to be aware of how easily our core values can be used to justify the same kind of atrocities that we hold other beleif systems to account for.

It's not religion or irreligion that is the problem, it's human nature(s).

This entire debate is framed by the notion that we can neatly divide human behavior into "secular" and "religious" motivations. So once we've concluded our current round of Genocide Olympics, we must award "religious" motivations the gold medal.

My contribution was framed around the idea that it's fair enough to challenge obviously incorrect statements made out of prejudice.

 

[ChristineM]

Fortunately, anybody who can read and utilise basic arithmetic can fact check your claims here so they don't have to take my or your word for it. You could even try it yourself

List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll - Wikipedia
Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls

In this thread, you have been very quick to call others out for being wilfully ignorant out of prejudice, glass houses and stones spring to mind here.

The fact that, rather than actually supporting your claims, you pivot to claiming victory because I didn't consider a 500 year old, non-scholarly source which assumed Muslims killed more than the entire global population to be a modern, scholarly source is still quite endearing though

Again


As i have already explained to you, the purpose of my reference was to prove you wrong, which it did and no amount of foot stomping and ignoring what doesn't suit your ego is going to make any difference to that fact.

End of story

 

[Rival]

Sigh. I do not like sweet language. I can say that what you refer to as gilded faeces is the particular Spartan golden rule. Not the general golden rule.

SW is talking about the fact that those groups wanted to fight. But if you don't want to fight, i.e., to you the golden rule is 'treat others how you wish to be treated' then if they wish to go to war, that's their thing, they'll think you do too.

That is, not everyone wants to be treated the same way so we can't make assumptions.

 

[atanu]

SW is talking about the fact that those groups wanted to fight. But if you don't want to fight, i.e., to you the golden rule is 'treat others how you wish to be treated' then if they wish to go to war, that's their thing, they'll think you do too.

That is, not everyone wants to be treated the same way so we can't make assumptions.

I understood it. But who wants misery?

 

[Rival]

I understood it. But who wants misery?

Misery loves company. Sometimes we sabotage ourselves.