[quote]Sloth wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism[/quote]
Did you even read the link you posted?
Yes they were atheists but their atheism was part of a political religion. They also viciously attacked rivaling political religions like fascism and social democracy.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Must we go over this again…Atheists have committed the worst atrocities in the history of the world. Much of it was done in the name of “getting rid of” religions. If you are choosing atheism in an attempt to be associated with a mindset that is historically blameless, you picked the wrong one. Atheists have murdered hundreds of millions just in the 20th centrury…
It’s the same thing you accuse religions of doing the Soviets murdered millions upon millions of those who did not agree with them, so did the Chinese, so did Cuba, etc. [/quote]
A political religion is a political ideology with cultural and political power equivalent to those of a religion, and often having many sociological and ideological similarities with religion. Such political religions vie with existing religions, and try, if possible, to replace or eradicate them. [1]
The term is sometimes treated as synonymous with civil religion,[citation needed] but although some scholars use the terms as equivalent, others see a useful distinction, using “civil religion” as something weaker, which functions more as a socially unifying and essentially conservative force, where a political religion is radically transformational, even apocalyptic.[citation needed]
The term is sometimes used outside academia, often with meanings tangential to or opposite to the sociological usage (for example, applying it to a church). Even when used correctly, supporters of an ideology will generally reject the application of the term “political religion”.
You might want to look into this:
Those political religions tried to immantesize the echaton, and that did not work for Islam and the Spanish Inquisition either.[/quote]
Uh, that’s not what this was, this was go to church and they will kill your ass.[/quote]
But they would kill your ass for the same reason the Spanish Inquisition would kill your ass, because you questioned their belief system.
[/quote]
Incorrect. The Spanish Inquisition was more a policy of the Spanish government, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, to rid the country of the remaining moors, Jews and anybody else they deemed a threat. You see they had just come off of the 100 years war and wanted to make damn sure nothing like that happened again. Pope Sixtus originally approved the inquisition, but by the time the news of torture and imprisonment reached Rome, Sixtus had lost control of it. Rome had no army and were the battle against moorish invasion still loomed in Turkey were the Spanish had been helping. The message was sent to Rome hands off or lose the army.
Inquisition is a policy of removing heresy. The name conjures up images of torture, but doctrinally, it is simply a means of preventing the Church massage from being twisted and perverted.
[quote]Meatros wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Atheism does not allow for singular experiences. Atheism restricts knowledge to those concepts that are formed by comparing objects. For ex, the concept of ‘chair’ is formed from observing several very similar objects and tagging those objects with the word ‘chair’.[/quote]
You are referring to how humans construct languages, not atheism. Atheism is not a worldview, it is a position on the question: Does god exist?
It is often an important piece (in some respects) OF a worldview, for example, Materialism or some strains of Buddhism, but it is not a worldview of itself. Ergo, saying that atheism doesn’t allow for singular experiences is like saying that not believing in smurfs doesn’t allow for the orbit of the moon.
Second, as I mentioned, you are referring to our senses, which do allow for singular experiences. Since each of us can only experience our own consciousness, we all have our own experience. I believe philosophers call this ‘qualia’; what it means to say that “I am in pain” and all that.
This is not a problems solely for the atheist. Let’s remember that Plato also brought up the problem of what it means to be ‘holy’ in the Euthrypho dilemma.
An event is an experience in time and space and God created time and space - this is a contradiction.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:If we restrict our knowledge to only those concepts attained by comparison, then that excludes God. But in my many years I’ve yet to see an acceptable argument for such exclusion.
That God has not chosen to speak to you, is sad.
God bless and Happy Hannukah![/quote]
You just compared God to our experiences of ‘events’ - you did not offer an example (nor could you, necessarily, if your argument is correct) of God being a singular experience.
In fact, you’ve essentially defined your god out of existence.
You aren’t being clear here at all. Everything that we experience is the result of our sense organs - and our brains interpretation of them. So what do you mean to say when you say that someone has an experience that is unlike anything they have encountered? You are arguing into non cognizants here. Even your example refers to sensations we experience (oceanic voices - sound waves).
If anecdotal evidence is to be considered quality evidence, then there are multiple gods. Some of which are contradictory.
How can you rationally just blow off such experiences as not being delusional?
Says the person who is actually arguing that the various Napoleans lining mental asylums have valid justifications for their beliefs.[/quote]
I would commit on a few things. First, that HH’s commit on the formation of concepts stands alone fine in context. Your reply of how humans develop language, while containing truth, has no real bearing on his point. He did not claim Atheism was a worldview, though it is an important component of ones worldview, as I believe you also state.
Your next paragraph about materialism and Buddhism and smurfs completely eluded me. If you care, please try to clarify. This is a civil discussion, and I honestly would like to know what you were saying.
As to your statement of his having defined God out of existence, I again do not follow. I believe he was stating something to the effect that God is outside of our physical senses and therefore does not have a physical correlate.
I think a lot of the problem stems from your assertion that an event is something that happens in time and space. This is true in most scientific terms but philosophy also allows for an event to be a mental occurrence or thought.
[/quote]You aren’t being clear here at all. Everything that we experience is the result of our sense organs - and our brains interpretation of them. So what do you mean to say when you say that someone has an experience that is unlike anything they have encountered? You are arguing into non cognizants here. Even your example refers to sensations we experience (oceanic voices - sound waves).[quote/]
This paragraph is just wrong. Do you ever dream? Do you experience day dreaming or fantasy. What sense or senses were you using? When HH says that someone has an experience that is unlike anything they have ever encountered, I would suppose he is saying that he has never experienced its correlate in the physical world and that is it beyond the experience of his interior world. Maybe it was beyond his senses.
So many problems in discussions such as this stem from the massive reductionism that started in the Enlightenment. Everything started to be reduced and collapsed into physical and external components. Anything internal or interpretive was ignored as “not real.”
I am not taking up HH’s fight. He can fight his own battles. I actually find it quite interesting that an Objectivist and Ayn Rand disciple breaks with their position of atheism. But then again, I never thought Rand fully understood spirituality. Having read all of her works and being inspired by her vision of mans potential, I simply came away with the idea that she simply identified Spirit by another name.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Must we go over this again…Atheists have committed the worst atrocities in the history of the world. Much of it was done in the name of “getting rid of” religions. If you are choosing atheism in an attempt to be associated with a mindset that is historically blameless, you picked the wrong one. Atheists have murdered hundreds of millions just in the 20th centrury…
It’s the same thing you accuse religions of doing the Soviets murdered millions upon millions of those who did not agree with them, so did the Chinese, so did Cuba, etc. [/quote]
A political religion is a political ideology with cultural and political power equivalent to those of a religion, and often having many sociological and ideological similarities with religion. Such political religions vie with existing religions, and try, if possible, to replace or eradicate them. [1]
The term is sometimes treated as synonymous with civil religion,[citation needed] but although some scholars use the terms as equivalent, others see a useful distinction, using “civil religion” as something weaker, which functions more as a socially unifying and essentially conservative force, where a political religion is radically transformational, even apocalyptic.[citation needed]
The term is sometimes used outside academia, often with meanings tangential to or opposite to the sociological usage (for example, applying it to a church). Even when used correctly, supporters of an ideology will generally reject the application of the term “political religion”.
You might want to look into this:
Those political religions tried to immantesize the echaton, and that did not work for Islam and the Spanish Inquisition either.[/quote]
Uh, that’s not what this was, this was go to church and they will kill your ass.[/quote]
But they would kill your ass for the same reason the Spanish Inquisition would kill your ass, because you questioned their belief system.
[/quote]
Incorrect. The Spanish Inquisition was more a policy of the Spanish government, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, to rid the country of the remaining moors, Jews and anybody else they deemed a threat. You see they had just come off of the 100 years war and wanted to make damn sure nothing like that happened again. Pope Sixtus originally approved the inquisition, but by the time the news of torture and imprisonment reached Rome, Sixtus had lost control of it. Rome had no army and were the battle against moorish invasion still loomed in Turkey were the Spanish had been helping. The message was sent to Rome hands off or lose the army.
Inquisition is a policy of removing heresy. The name conjures up images of torture, but doctrinally, it is simply a means of preventing the Church massage from being twisted and perverted. [/quote]
The reasoning of the Spanish Inqisition was that if they tortured your body to save your immortal soul they were doing you a favor. They were literally trying to make you see the light.
Of course it all breaks down when there might be no god in whose name you torture, but they KNEW.
If such people and sentimenst exist they are of course channeled by political forces.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism[/quote]
Did you even read the link you posted?
Yes they were atheists but their atheism was part of a political religion. They also viciously attacked rivaling political religions like fascism and social democracy.
[/quote]
Of course I read it. It’s an example of political atheism. Now, I do realize it would be convenient for you if only I would accept the idea of Political “religion” when considering examples of atheism flexing political and police powers. After all, when atheistic beliefs fuel violence, you could say, “well, there goes some more religious killing. Put another point up for the religious side of the scoreboard.”
Though–and I admit I’m only guessing–you’ll argue that when atheists don’t participate in brutality and oppression, we see the one true orthodox atheism. Which is puzzling. You see, in most every other discussion of this nature, it’s stated emphatically and often that you guys don’t have an organized belief system. But, you must. How else could you excommunicate your brethern to the ‘Political Religious’ zone? If you truly don’t have at least some organized beliefs, you could only say “yeah, some atheists will use power to exterminate or at least control the religious. And some won’t”
So, is this like some collectivist agreement among athiests, then? Use force, and it’s no longer atheism? We cast you out type of stuff?
Crazy people commits crazy deeds. Is there really a need to take it any further than that?
(Yes, I like NOT contributing/being a jester)
[quote]Vegita wrote:
The only way for religions to not be a threat to the world is for them to go away. For people to stop just accepting their teachings and accepting belief in thier own self over the teachings of really old irrelevant books. The bible wasn’t even writen in english and i’m shure you can’t read hebrew or snascrit or whatever other languages it was written in. Oh, Wait I forgot, infalability. Heh, wow how could I forget about that little gem. I mean when a priest teaches you in religion that infalability means that when he is reading the gospel he is infallable, and then you see him miss a line at the next mass, lose his place, yadda yadda, it kinda makes a young persons mind think the whole thing is just pure bullshit.
V[/quote]
World religions are the foundation of most ethics. When Nietzsche said that God is dead, he was envisioning a world that no longer saw God as the source of ethics, and he saw a vacuum. He anticipated totalitarian collectivism as people sought for a source. Got a replacement that’s better? One that everyone will follow?
[quote]JEATON wrote:
I believe atheism is intellectually lazy.[/quote]
Pretty much stopped reading here.
The problem is dogmatic belief. Even the so called atheist states revolve around religion. Hitler was Catholic and started delving into Germanic myths and bullshit about Aryan supremacy. Stalin had the expressed support of the Churches. Korea - well let’s not even get started on the amount of life destroying gibberish the propaganda machines churn out daily.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]JEATON wrote:
I believe atheism is intellectually lazy.[/quote]
Pretty much stopped reading here.[/quote]
Right…
Can’t see it, touch it, taste it or measure it in some way, it don’t exist.
How’s that two dimensional world working out for ya’.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism[/quote]
Did you even read the link you posted?
Yes they were atheists but their atheism was part of a political religion. They also viciously attacked rivaling political religions like fascism and social democracy.
[/quote]
Of course I read it. It’s an example of political atheism. Now, I do realize it would be convenient for you if only I would accept the idea of Political “religion” when considering examples of atheism flexing political and police powers. After all, when atheistic beliefs fuel violence, you could say, “well, there goes some more religious killing. Put another point up for the religious side of the scoreboard.”
Though–and I admit I’m only guessing–you’ll argue that when atheists don’t participate in brutality and oppression, we see the one true orthodox atheism. Which is puzzling. You see, in most every other discussion of this nature, it’s stated emphatically and often that you guys don’t have an organized belief system. But, you must. How else could you excommunicate your brethern to the ‘Political Religious’ zone? If you truly don’t have at least some organized beliefs, you could only say “yeah, some atheists will use power to exterminate or at least control the religious. And some won’t”
So, is this like some collectivist agreement among athiests, then? Use force, and it’s no longer atheism? We cast you out type of stuff?
[/quote]
The whole point of a political religion is that people go gnostic, i.e. they do not not only have faith but KNOW, like global warming hysterics for example.
If such a political religion happens to be atheist it is not because of atheism alone but because atheism does not fit well with their belief system, which was clearly stated by them over and over again and also in your link.
Marxism claimed f.e., that religion was the “opium of the masses” and is used to uphold the status quo. I just did not rhyme with a class revolution and insofar it was a rival ideology which does not sit well with totaliatarian ideologies in the first place.
They were aggressive atheists because they had an agenda but atheism not necessarily was their agenda, it was a second order goal in order to reach other, more important goals.
Therefore they did not kill in the name of atheism, but of communism.
[quote]pat wrote:
Must we go over this again…Atheists have committed the worst atrocities in the history of the world. Much of it was done in the name of “getting rid of” religions. [/quote]
Surely you must realize this is false, right? You can no more blame atheism for these atrocities then you can blame the fact that they took place on foreign soil (ie, all foreigners commit atrocities).
The ideology that was most responsible for those atrocities was communism, not atheism.
Again, this is wishful thinking or poor history. Atheism is not a worldview and as such cannot be used to justify anything, much less mass murder.
All of those nations were communist, which happened to be materialistic. You might as well blame men or old world nations for those tragedies.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
I would commit on a few things. First, that HH’s commit on the formation of concepts stands alone fine in context. Your reply of how humans develop language, while containing truth, has no real bearing on his point. He did not claim Atheism was a worldview, though it is an important component of ones worldview, as I believe you also state.
[/quote]
My comment on language illustrates the problem which he incorrectly identified as belonging to atheism. As to a worldview claim, the property dualist can be an atheist and have no problem with anything he wrote. My point was that he was not actually attacking atheism - even if his point were correct.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
Your next paragraph about materialism and Buddhism and smurfs completely eluded me. If you care, please try to clarify. This is a civil discussion, and I honestly would like to know what you were saying.[/quote]
My point was that it was a strawman to say that ‘atheism’ doesn’t explain X or Y, since atheism only pertains to the existence of God. Atheism also doesn’t explain the motion of the planets, but it is not contradicted by gravity. This is the point i was making.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
As to your statement of his having defined God out of existence, I again do not follow. I believe he was stating something to the effect that God is outside of our physical senses and therefore does not have a physical correlate.[/quote]
Take the implication of what you wrote: What does that mean God ‘is’? I would contend that the poster was setting himself up for a non cognitivist atheological argument against God’s existence. In otherwords, he’s stripped the word ‘god’ of all cognitive meaning, thereby rendering the term incoherent. If that’s the case, then it makes no sense to say whether such a being exists or not - in fact, it doesn’t make any sense to say whether it is a ‘being’ or not.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
I think a lot of the problem stems from your assertion that an event is something that happens in time and space. This is true in most scientific terms but philosophy also allows for an event to be a mental occurrence or thought.[/quote]
Negative - mental events also occur within time and space. You even tip your hand by describing a thought as a mental ‘occurrence’.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
This paragraph is just wrong. Do you ever dream? Do you experience day dreaming or fantasy. What sense or senses were you using? [/quote]
Yes, I dream and all of my dreams revolve around the same organs that interpret my sense data. I ‘see’ in color, I ‘hear’ voices’, etc. You are making the mistake of concluding that our interpretations of sense data are those phenomenons. They are not. They are mental firing of neurons and the fact is they do not need the stimuli in order to fire. Sometimes they misfire and when I am dreaming their firing does not correlate to anything in reality. These are the senses I am using - you are equivocating by suggesting that while dreaming you are using different senses. You are not - you just aren’t receiving any outside stimuli.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
When HH says that someone has an experience that is unlike anything they have ever encountered, I would suppose he is saying that he has never experienced its correlate in the physical world and that is it beyond the experience of his interior world. Maybe it was beyond his senses.[/quote]
In otherwords, it is not like a dream, not like a sight, not like a sound, not like a taste, etc, etc. So what is it like? When he attempts to describe it, he refers to his senses (an oceanic voice)!
[quote]JEATON wrote:
So many problems in discussions such as this stem from the massive reductionism that started in the Enlightenment. Everything started to be reduced and collapsed into physical and external components. Anything internal or interpretive was ignored as “not real.”[/quote]
I don’t think this is the case. It’s just that since the enlightenment appealing to ignorance has not been acceptable in scientific circles. What is qualia? A manifestation of god - the trouble with this answer is that it isn’t an explanation. It’s basically suggesting that since we can’t explain it, therefore god did it. I am comfortable with saying ‘I don’t know’, why aren’t theists?
[quote]JEATON wrote:
I am not taking up HH’s fight. He can fight his own battles. I actually find it quite interesting that an Objectivist and Ayn Rand disciple breaks with their position of atheism. But then again, I never thought Rand fully understood spirituality. Having read all of her works and being inspired by her vision of mans potential, I simply came away with the idea that she simply identified Spirit by another name.[/quote]
I find a lot of Rand’s material interesting, but I am not an objectivist.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]Vegita wrote:
The only way for religions to not be a threat to the world is for them to go away. For people to stop just accepting their teachings and accepting belief in thier own self over the teachings of really old irrelevant books. The bible wasn’t even writen in english and i’m shure you can’t read hebrew or snascrit or whatever other languages it was written in. Oh, Wait I forgot, infalability. Heh, wow how could I forget about that little gem. I mean when a priest teaches you in religion that infalability means that when he is reading the gospel he is infallable, and then you see him miss a line at the next mass, lose his place, yadda yadda, it kinda makes a young persons mind think the whole thing is just pure bullshit.
V[/quote]
World religions are the foundation of most ethics. When Nietzsche said that God is dead, he was envisioning a world that no longer saw God as the source of ethics, and he saw a vacuum. He anticipated totalitarian collectivism as people sought for a source. Got a replacement that’s better? One that everyone will follow?
[/quote]
Didn’t Nietzsche also argue for the return of pre-christian ethics? Will to Power, that sort of thing?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Vegita wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
…did you watch the youtube vid from my first post? Do you have anything to say about that?
[/quote]
What’s to say? It was silly. I couldn’t get past him answering his own questions and hanging up when the guy wanted to answer for himself.[/quote]
…do you believe i will go to hell for not accepting Jesus as my saviour?[/quote]
No. I do not believe one would go to hell based solely on this precept. Again this is a misrepresentation of what the bible says. There are approximately 2.2 billion Christians in the world which leaves approx. 3.8 billion folks who are not. Not believe as Christians do does not condemn. If we are talking in purely New Testament terms, Jesus gave many ways to “know” him with out knowing him by name. Therefore, you can “know” Jesus with out ever having heard of Christ or Christianity. Just one example from the Gospels is “What ever you do the least of my people, that you do unto me”. So, for instance, if you take care of a downtrodden person, you are “knowing” Jesus without having to even have heard of the Bible.[/quote]
…i’m Roman Catholic. I’ve been baptised and went to communion. I’ve even been an altar boy a couple of times. I know the message and i reject Christ as my saviour. I find the notion of needing to be saved ridiculous, and i object against being labeled a sinner out of principle…
…this all is true btw. Do i go to hell if i die in my sleep tonight?[/quote]
If you were really raised Roman Catholic and knew anything about it then you would also know that “accepting Christ as your saviour” and/or being “saved” are not tenants of the apostolic tradition.
Second, do you want to go to hell?[/quote]
…but it doesn’t matter what i do or do not believe. It matters what others believe…
…i don’t entertain any beliefs regarding heaven or hell so going to an imaginary place after i die is inconsequential to me…
[/quote]
What I know for certain is this, I have no fucking clue what will happen to you when you die. Besides, what do you care what I or anybody else thinks on the matter?[/quote]
Because unfortunately, people start wars and kill other people over religion. So it’s not like I am sitting here in my house worrying an angry christian mob is going to come to my house and burn me on a cross because I renounced my christian upbringing. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is at least one religion today in this wrold who has factions that are openly declaring “war” on people who do not believe the same way they do. Now, Maybe the current group of christians is cool, but are you telling me that this group 100 years down the road could never re-gain it’s fanatic ways. Especially is some end of the world shit started happening? To me christianity is a sleeping giant. Right now it just snores loudly and farts in it’s sleep. It is a minor nuisance to put up with it at this point, but the potential for it to wake up will ALWAYS be there. Regardless of what you or any individual or even group of christians says.
The only way for religions to not be a threat to the world is for them to go away. For people to stop just accepting their teachings and accepting belief in thier own self over the teachings of really old irrelevant books. The bible wasn’t even writen in english and i’m shure you can’t read hebrew or snascrit or whatever other languages it was written in. Oh, Wait I forgot, infalability. Heh, wow how could I forget about that little gem. I mean when a priest teaches you in religion that infalability means that when he is reading the gospel he is infallable, and then you see him miss a line at the next mass, lose his place, yadda yadda, it kinda makes a young persons mind think the whole thing is just pure bullshit.
V[/quote]
Must we go over this again…Atheists have committed the worst atrocities in the history of the world. Much of it was done in the name of “getting rid of” religions. If you are choosing atheism in an attempt to be associated with a mindset that is historically blameless, you picked the wrong one. Atheists have murdered hundreds of millions just in the 20th centrury…
It’s the same thing you accuse religions of doing the Soviets murdered millions upon millions of those who did not agree with them, so did the Chinese, so did Cuba, etc. [/quote]
Because governments wage wars on other nations, those wars cannot be attributed to athiests trying to irradicate religious folk. I’m pretty good at history and I cannot ever remember one case when a group of athiests, waged war on a group of religious people. I am not even aware that there has ever been a group of athiests large enough and organized enough to have an army of any size. You are attributing the violence of nationalism to atheism. Oh and the funny thing is I’m not even atheist, but I fear an athiest a lot less than I fear one who subscribes to any of the major religions. Actually I don’t fear them per say, but I see thier potential for widespread violence in the name of thier religion.
Lets clear some things up. Any group can be dangerous. The bigger the group, the more potential damage it can cause. Also religions pose an extra special threat because thier rules effect the members in thier post body life. Which for nearly all of them is eternity, so obeying the tenants of your religion are pretty important things to religious folk. And while you can say your religion teaches peace, I can say, so did it during the crusades. Now even if the crusades never happened, I could still point to other religions promoting violence and I could lump you in with them saying, oh you just haven’t had yours yet. BUT yours has already had some good ole fashioned violence to go along with it.
Here is a random internet post by some dude defending christianity when someone asked him well what about all the wars in the name of christianity.
" Question 5: What about all the wars that have been caused in the name of Christianity?
When responding to this question, we need to remember that we should not judge the teachings or the truth of a religion or philosophy by the conduct or behaviour of those who are not following those teachings.
This being the case, we need to be clear that many of the wars and other atrocities which have been committed in the name of Christ were carried out by people who either were not really Christians or who were genuine Christians but were not following the teachings of Jesus. Such conflicts were often motivated by political or economic concerns but were given religious overtones in order to convince the masses it was in their best eternal interest to get involved."
So thats his big defence, oh well the people who started them were not real christians or were not following the teachings of christ, but the masses are so fucking stupid, they just do what the leaders of the religion told them to and went against the teachings of christ themselves to commit mass murders on thier behalf. Oh, that makles me feel a lot better about the MASSES of christianity never mobilizing for violence again. After all the MASSES today are much smarter than they were back then and sureley they can think for themselves. ~ please note sarcasm
V
[quote]Vegita wrote:
So thats his big defence, oh well the people who started them were not real christians or were not following the teachings of christ, but the masses are so fucking stupid, they just do what the leaders of the religion told them to and went against the teachings of christ themselves to commit mass murders on thier behalf. Oh, that makles me feel a lot better about the MASSES of christianity never mobilizing for violence again. After all the MASSES today are much smarter than they were back then and sureley they can think for themselves. ~ please note sarcasm
V[/quote]
Personally I’m not sure how much of Christian dogma was responsible for the Crusades and some other atrocities. It might have been the go-to patsy for the authorities to point to, in order to rile up the public, but I think that the Crusades were largely a result of land acquisition and greed. I’m not a student of history though, so I could very well be wrong.
With that said, there certainly are wars and atrocities that Abrahamists committed (or *said they committed) in the name of God - and they are in their holy book. Joshua, for instance, went on a rampant slaughter of the amalikites (sp?). God, at one point, even took part.
Are any of the Christians here familiar with the Joshua Challenge? If so, what is your response?
[quote]orion wrote:
Therefore they did not kill in the name of atheism, but of communism.
[/quote]
Well, except that they did.
[quote]Meatros wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Must we go over this again…Atheists have committed the worst atrocities in the history of the world. Much of it was done in the name of “getting rid of” religions. [/quote]
Surely you must realize this is false, right? You can no more blame atheism for these atrocities then you can blame the fact that they took place on foreign soil (ie, all foreigners commit atrocities).
The ideology that was most responsible for those atrocities was communism, not atheism.
[/quote]
You must be confused. Where is it written that being communist necessitates the mass destruction of human life? Further, it is a matter of historical fact that people who where atheist, bent on seeking the destruction of religion, have committed the greatest mass atrocities the world has ever known, period. These are indisputable facts.
Does one being atheist automatically mean that they support murder and violence? No. Neither is it true that religions or people of religious belief are automatically murderers, tortures or child molesters. That’s the point of this exercise. People are asserting that religion leads to horrible behavior where it is clear that if that is true, then a lack there of leads to behavior that is as bad or worse.
It is your history that is poorly known. The ideology that there is no God and that all other philosophies should be stomped out was the justifications for these crimes against humanity.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM
All of those nations were communist, which happened to be materialistic. You might as well blame men or old world nations for those tragedies.[/quote]
The point is this, there is no causal relationship between being religious and behaving badly, nor does correlation support such assertions. Yes, religious people have done bad things, non-religious have done worse. Neither assertions are causal, but athiests always feel compelled to bring up bad things religious people have done in attempt to make the point that religion causes this behavior. In as much as atheism does not cause the atheist to be evil, neither does the theism cause the theist to behave in an evil way.
If you bring it up, I will retort as the facts are the as bad as religious people have behaved in history, atheists have behaved even worse. Neither ideology is responsible for the behavior. But it is time to move past this point as it is just a red herring and is irrelevant to the argument that God does or does not exist. No matter what ideology people follow, you will always have assholes.