[quote]lixy wrote:
I said that nobody with brains would buy it. I was questioning his intellectual honesty on that point.[/quote]
And I am questioning yours - which is a chore that needs to be done on essentially everything you write.
Ad hominems or insults? Will you ever learn the difference?
I am pointing out my criticism of your intellectual honesty based on what you write here - that’s fair, right? Since you can do the same?
No semantics or “tacit admission” - to back your claims, you’d need some kind of measurable for support. You just join in with the “religion has done some awful things” - well, we know that.
[quote]The 20th century is just that: a century. In other words, a fraction of human history.
As far as ideology is concerned, I don’t think that’s why people were murdered and wars waged last century. It was mainly about land, riches, and markets.[/quote]
Let me be clear on this point - I am attacking your intellectual honesty. You won’t even acknowledge the motive behind the carnage that Communism left behind, which was a purely ideological battle to rid the world of Western capitalists and religion - the institutions standing in the way of the Workers Paradise.
This is reminiscent of other “discussions” you and I have had where you can’t even come to grips with basic assumptions.
Nope - you are a radical left-winger that bases all his assumptions on the exact same materialist Marxist models, and subscribes to the measure of history being a victimization of all your pet identity interests.
“Your” ideology, indeed - and it must give you shame that in furtherance of all political things dear to you, so many millions died under the pain of your ideological purity.
Meaningless deflection.
Red herring - it has nothing to do with what was done in the name of Communism, which we are discussing.
“Two master’s degrees!!!” and you can’t even follow a basic argument without making irrelevant comparisons.
[quote]Where on earth did I say that “non-believers ain’t never caused no wars”? I said that believers caused more deaths, pain, and suffering in the name of their beliefs than non-believers in the name of theirs.
I couldn’t have made it clearer. Pat claimed Atheists murdered more people than believers and I wrote (direct quote): “Listen here Pat, I’m a believer myself but there’s no way you can sell this argument to anyone with brains.” [/quote]
And that seems an odd claim, being that 100 million is tough number to top.
Real discussions have been attempted with you before - it is always disappointing.
That said, a legitimate debate can be had over “who has the highest body count”, but impossible to prove. The real crux of the discussion is that you won’t even acknowledge the horrors of atheistic ideology as comparable to the religious wars of the past. It’s certainly comparable - and Pat’s claim is certainly viable.
[quote]Hilarious - we have the 20th century to review, and you make this claim.
You do realize that the majority of people are believers, don’t you? [/quote]
I left my line above yours for context - what does your statement have to do with that?
More meaningless text from Lixy.
Precisely the discussion - and a good one to have. Pat’s claim deserves a fair look, given the 100 million dead, but you have waved away the entire discussion by not even recognizing the massive bloodshed of the 20th century done in the name of trying to destroy religion (and other things).
And, as to whether “non-believers have done the worst” - I absolutely think so, because the slaughter of the 20th century was conducted after the so-called Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. “Believers” are, so the story goes, in the grips of primitive, emotive superstition, so though we hate wars in the name of religion, they are natural given the condition of foolish believers and their irrationality.
As for atheistic left-wingers progressive types interested in unshackling humanity from injustice, they have pruned their minds of such silly constructs as emotion and superstition as the dividend of being “Enlightened” through Reason, and as a result have “progressed” out of such antiquated practices, so they would never, ever be guilty of such irrational acts as expansive wars to rid the world of people who disagree with them.
That said, since the atheistic masters of Reason were supposed to be “beyond” all that, that makes it extra damnable that they committed these atrocities - after all, what was their excuse?
The “worst”? By their own measure, the worst.
