# Reading > Religious Texts >  religion versus hatred/prejudice

## cacian

I once heard someone say about somebody of political ''importance''
I quote:
_that they extremely religious devote Christian yet they Hated the monarchy_

or 
another statement I read somewhere else in another forum
about this person who I quote:



> My mother-in-law is a devout Christian and is a law abiding citizen but she believes black people are not equal and says they won’t be in heaven; is she going to heaven?


and so it made me think
is there a dichotomy of thoughts in this instance the individual being contradictive he or she may suffer contradiction.
here is someone who religious and yet extremely despicable in other ways.


how is that?
I don't get it.

may be you do.
please discuss.

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## YesNo

People who are irreligious can be despicable in other ways as well. If people behave in a contradictory way, it is because they have rationalized the contradiction so they don't see it very clearly.

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## mortalterror

1935-present Tenzin Gyatso- Dalai Llama advocates peace for Tibet

1931-present Archbishop Desmond Tutu- anti-apartheid activist

1929-1968 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.- Activist for peace and civil rights for blacks.

1926-present Thích Nhất Hạnh peace activist and founder of engaged Buddhism

1910-1997 Mother Teresa built hospices, soup kitchens, and orphanages for poor people

1869-1948 Ghandi- Started a pacifist movement to get the British out of India.

1812-1888 Rev. Henry Richard, peace activist, abolitionist

1805-1879 William Lloyd Garrison- American abolitionist

1759–1833 William Willberforce- British abolitionist

1181-1226 Francis of Assisi super pacifist cool dude, raise the roof!

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## togre

I find it worse than useless to speak of being "religious" without defining specific beliefs or schools of thought/teaching/piety is worse than useless. It's confusing to the extreme. Many "religious" people espouse views, lifestyles and attitudes that are mutually exclusive. Indeed the concepts at the core of one strain of religiosity can often be disturbing and abhorrent to a different strain. 

To say something meaningful, speak more concretely, with more specifics. Otherwise it is all nebulous clouds and vapors.

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## togre

Speaking specifically regarding the religion with which I am familiar, conservative Lutheran Christianity, I would address the question of contradictions and despicable things:

First, I am not at all surprised that anyone, even Christians do/say/think horrible things. The Bible teaches that _all people_ are born sinful, that is, their heart desires things that are at odds with what they should desire. This self-centered heart affects the words, actions and attitudes of a person. They sin, that is, do and say bad things. 

This is true for Christians. It is true even after they believe in Jesus. Yes, we try to live according to the Bible's commands and guidance, but that is a struggle even for believers. It remains a struggle until death and it is a struggle that even the most devoted believer will lose. Often. Too often.

So, no I am not surprised that religious, or even Christian, people can do or say despicable things. Saddened, yes. Surprised, no.


Second, too often, instead of letting religion change them to make them less despicable, people change religion to be more like themselves. In that case the religion can be a support of their despicable attitudes and actions or even a source that spreads them from one generation to the next. Indeed, the Bible says that people will not desire to hear the truth but instead gather around themselves teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Because of this I loathe lumping all "religion" or all the "religious" together as good or bad. If a religion (a way of teaching, believing and living) matches the objective reality of what is right or good or true, the existence and identity of God, and so on, then it is good and will be a good influence on people. If a religion replaces the objective reality with fairy tales, be they of a mystical or of a scientific nature, it will be a poison. It a religion mingles truth with error, its influence will be a mixture as well.

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## mortalterror

Unfortunately, religion is often only one part of the mechanism people use to form judgements. Religious people are part of a larger society and often have all of the same prejudices and attitudes present in that society. Secular influences on racism such as pseudoscience may be one influence of secular society which turns good religious people onto prejudiced ideas.

Over the years racism in science (anthropology, craniometry, phrenology, anthropometry, ethnology, polygenism, eugenics) has been used to justify racism, slavery, the Holocaust, imperialism, apartheid, etc.



> In the United States, scientific racism justified Black African slavery to assuage moral opposition to the Atlantic slave trade. Alexander Thomas and Samuell Sillen described black men as uniquely fitted for bondage, because of their "primitive psychological organization".[57] In 1851, in antebellum Louisiana, the physician Samuel A. Cartwright (17931863), considered slave escape attempts as "drapetomania", a treatable mental illness, that "with proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented". The term drapetomania (mania of the runaway slave) derives from the Greek δραπετης (drapetes, "a runaway [slave]") + μανια (mania, "madness, frenzy")[58] Cartwright also described dysaesthesia aethiopica, called "rascality" by overseers. The 1840 United States Census claimed that Northern, free blacks suffered mental illness at higher rates than did their Southern, enslaved counterparts. Though the census was later found to have been severely flawed by the American Statistical Association, John Quincy Adams, and others, it became a political weapon against abolitionists. Southern slavers concluded that escaping Negroes were suffering from "mental disorders".[59][60]
> 
> At the time of the American Civil War (186165), the matter of miscegenation prompted studies of ostensible physiological differences between Caucasians and Negroes. Early anthropologists, such as Josiah Clark Nott, George Robins Gliddon, Robert Knox, and Samuel George Morton, aimed to scientifically prove that Negroes were a human species different from the white people species; that the rulers of Ancient Egypt were not African; and that mixed-race offspring (the product of miscegenation) tended to physical weakness and infertility. After the Civil War, Southern (Confederacy) physicians wrote textbooks of scientific racism based upon studies claiming that Black freemen (ex-slaves) were becoming extinct, because they were inadequate to the demands of being a free man  implying that Black people benefitted from enslavement. In 1850 Louis Agassiz commissioned a series of daguerreotypes of slaves of Columbia South Carolina for studying of races


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

Secularism used to justify social innequality:



> The term social Darwinism is often used to describe the use of concepts of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism; but similar concepts have motivated ideas of eugenics, racism, imperialism,[4] fascism, Nazism and struggle between national or racial groups


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

In addition, the rise of materialism, and ethical relativism in modern society and technology also play a role in dehumanizing man and distancing him from his conscience or the moral teachings of religion as evidence by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman suggests.




> I propose that the major lesson of the Holocaust is the necessity to treat the critique seriously and thus to expand the theoretical model of the civilizing process, so as to include the latter's tendency to demote, exprobate and delegitimize the ethical motivations of social action. We need to take stock of the evidence that the civilizing process is, among other things, a process of divesting the use and deployment of violence from moral calculus, and of emancipating the desiderata of rationality from interference of ethical norms or moral inhibitions. As the promotion of rationality to the exclusion of alternative criteria of action, and in particular the tendency to subordinate the use of violence to rational calculus, has been long ago acknowledged as a constitutive feature of modern civilization -- the Holocaust-style phenomena must be recognized as legitimate outcomes of civilizing tendency, and its constant potential.
> -Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust 1989 p.29
> 
> The self-imposed moral silence of science has, after all, revealed some of its less advertised aspects when the issue of production and disposal of corpses in Auschwitz has been articulated as a `medical problem'. It is not easy to dismiss Franklin M. Littell's warnings of the credibility crisis of the modern university: `What kind of a medical school trained Mengele and his associates? What departments of anthropology prepared the staff of Strasbourg University's "Institute of Ancestral Heredity"?' 37 Not to wonder for whom this particular bell tolls, to avoid the temptation to shrug off these questions as of merely historical significance, one needs search no further than Colin Gray's analysis of the momentum behind the contemporary nuclear arms race: `Necessarily, the scientists and technologists on each side are "racing" to diminish their own ignorance (the enemy is not Soviet technology; it is the physical unknowns that attract scientific attention) ... Highly motivated, technologically competent and adequately funded teams of research scientists will inevitably produce an endless series of brand new (or refined) weapon ideas'. -Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust 1989 p30-31
> 
> Bureaucracy's double feat is the moralization of technology, coupled with the denial of the moral significance of nontechnical issues. It is the technology of action, not its substance, which is subject to assessment as good or bad, proper or improper, right or wrong. The conscience of the actor tells him to perform well and prompts him to measure his own righteousness by the precision with which he obeys the organizational rules and his dedication to the task as defined by the superiors. What kept at bay the other, `old-fashioned' conscience in the subjects of Milgram's experiments, and effectively arrested their impulse to break off, was the substitute conscience, put together by the experimenters out of the appeals to the `interests of research' or the `needs of the experiment', and the warnings about the losses which its untimely interruption would cause. -Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust 1989 p.161

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## cacian

> People who are irreligious can be despicable in other ways as well. If people behave in a contradictory way, it is because they have rationalized the contradiction so they don't see it very clearly.


sure but those without religion are said to be ''unwise unaware'' but those with religion have no excuse.
they are religious they should know better.

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## YesNo

> sure but those without religion are said to be ''unwise unaware'' but those with religion have no excuse.
> they are religious they should know better.


Why should they know better? If there is some transcendent Consciousness (aka God), then we all share in it whether we sense its presence or not or believe in it or not. It is like electricity. Everyone can turn on the light, even if they don't believe in electricity. Everyone can intuit morality. I don't know if this means that the religious person has any less excuse. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

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## cacian

> Why should they know better? If there is some transcendent Consciousness (aka God), then we all share in it whether we sense its presence or not or believe in it or not. It is like electricity. Everyone can turn on the light, even if they don't believe in electricity. Everyone can intuit morality. I don't know if this means that the religious person has any less excuse. Perhaps. Perhaps not.


true there is no need to be told intuition sets it all. but one would think preaching sets the right ideals but it obviously does not.
moreover it seems to me those who need a big belief in themselves as big as god and so devote more then their time onto it have tendencies to remote themselves from others who are not the same as them. they are naturally remote.

for one to be deeply religious and on the other hand deeply hating towards others seem to be rather conflicting.
there is a conflict and confusion at the same time. it makes no sense.

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## YesNo

> true there is no need to be told intuition sets it all. but one would think preaching sets the right ideals but it obviously does not.


I wonder how much preaching helps with morals.




> moreover it seems to me those who need a big belief in themselves as big as god and so devote more then their time onto it have tendencies to remote themselves from others who are not the same as them. they are naturally remote.


Is theism really a "big" belief? It seems pretty obvious if you think about it. We are conscious. Others around us are conscious. How hard is it really to believe there is a transcendent God who is super conscious?

Big beliefs are ones that require suspending common sense such as believing one has no free will whatsoever and can be modeled as a machine, or believing in many worlds that no one can ever see by definition or believing in neo-Darwinism. 




> for one to be deeply religious and on the other hand deeply hating towards others seem to be rather conflicting.
> there is a conflict and confusion at the same time. it makes no sense.


I don't know of anyone who is deeply religious and who also deeply hates. Maybe I just don't get out enough.

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## HCabret

> I once heard someone say about somebody of political ''importance''
> I quote:
> _that they extremely religious devote Christian yet they Hated the monarchy_
> 
> or 
> another statement I read somewhere else in another forum
> about this person who I quote:
> 
> 
> ...


being religious doesn't equal moral. In fact I'd say those with concrete beliefs are generally Amoral. There are obviously notable exceptions, but these folks appear to be the exception and not the rule.

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## PeterL

I found the name of this thread rather strange, because with few exceptions organized religion is hatred and prejudice. That what those people do; they insist that their opinions are "truth" and put down those who don't agree.

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## Oedipus

> How hard is it really to believe there is a transcendent God who is super conscious?


Very.

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## YesNo

> I found the name of this thread rather strange, because with few exceptions organized religion is hatred and prejudice. That what those people do; they insist that their opinions are "truth" and put down those who don't agree.


Hatred and prejudice are too extreme to describe people who disagree with one's current opinions. These words may be more descriptive of the observer than the observed which is why it is best not to use them.

Although the "they" may insist that their opinions are true enough for their purposes, don't the "we" do the same thing?

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## YesNo

> Very.


For some belief in a transcendent Consciousness may be "very" hard, but is it harder to believe in that than to believe, say, in an underlying material substance unconsciously supporting the reality we see before us?

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## Oedipus

> For some belief in a transcendent Consciousness may be "very" hard, but is it harder to believe in that than to believe, say, in an underlying material substance unconsciously supporting the reality we see before us?


Yes, it is.

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## mortalterror

> I found the name of this thread rather strange, because with few exceptions organized religion is hatred and prejudice. That what those people do; they insist that their opinions are "truth" and put down those who don't agree.


Really, because I've found the opposite. For the most part religion is all about peace and love. For a while I was an atheist, but the more I associated with that crowd, the more I felt like I'd unwittingly joined the Klan or something. Atheism is just way too full of bigotry, prejudice, hate, and pessimism, and I don't hate the 98% of the world that atheism seems to have nothing but contempt and animosity for.

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## HCabret

> Really, because I've found the opposite. For the most part religion is all about peace and love. For a while I was an atheist, but the more I associated with that crowd, the more I felt like I'd unwittingly joined the Klan or something. Atheism is just way too full of bigotry, prejudice, hate, and pessimism, and I don't hate the 98% of the world that atheism seems to have nothing but contempt and animosity for.


which religion do you suggest we all join then? I'm thinking Islam or Shintoism. Christianity just doesn't seem to be any better than atheism.

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## mortalterror

> which religion do you suggest we all join then? I'm thinking Islam or Shintoism. Christianity just doesn't seem to be any better than atheism.


Which religious group you join is entirely up to you. I happen to think that Christianity works the best, at least for Europeans and Americans. I think the culture of Christianity is more compatible with Western values, and a better fit in our society than many Eastern religions. However, the culture of Christianity is so broad and varied that you may pick and choose which sect supports and emphasizes the principles you believe most important. If pacifism is your highest ideal you should join one of the "Peace Churches" like the Quakers, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, Christadelphians, Molokans, Seventh Day Adventists, or Churches of God. If standing on principle is your thing you might try The Confessing Church started by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth to oppose the Nazis in Germany. If you place a high value on social work, maybe try the Catholic Church, or the Mormons. If charity is your thing go for Judaism or Islam. If you want to campaign for human rights, a couple of guys are doing that, but one place to start might be with the Southern Baptist Churches that supported Dr. King. If you are against hatred and intolerance, maybe try a Universalist/Unitarian church with more pluralist doctrines. I hear they have female ministers and are accepting of gay people too. For my part, I mostly go with Liberal Christianity and Presbyterianism.

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## HCabret

> Which religious group you join is entirely up to you. I happen to think that Christianity works the best, at least for Europeans and Americans. I think the culture of Christianity is more compatible with Western values, and a better fit in our society than many Eastern religions. However, the culture of Christianity is so broad and varied that you may pick and choose which sect supports and emphasizes the principles you believe most important. If pacifism is your highest ideal you should join one of the "Peace Churches" like the Quakers, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, Christadelphians, Molokans, Seventh Day Adventists, or Churches of God. If standing on principle is your thing you might try The Confessing Church started by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth to oppose the Nazis in Germany. If you place a high value on social work, maybe try the Catholic Church, or the Mormons. If charity is your thing go for Judaism or Islam. If you want to campaign for human rights, a couple of guys are doing that, but one place to start might be with the Southern Baptist Churches that supported Dr. King. If you are against hatred and intolerance, maybe try a Universalist/Unitarian church with more pluralist doctrines. I hear they have female ministers and are accepting of gay people too. For my part, I mostly go with Liberal Christianity and Presbyterianism.


I'm more into violence and mayhem though. On second thought, maybe Christianity is for me. 

Why don't you think "eastern religions" would work in Europe and America? Also, Islam is a very "eastern" religion. The four largest Islamic populations are east of the Indus River.

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## mortalterror

> I'm more into violence and mayhem though. On second thought, maybe Christianity is for me. 
> 
> Why don't you think "eastern religions" would work in Europe and America? Also, Islam is a very "eastern" religion. The four largest Islamic populations are east of the Indus River.


Because religion is largely an expression of culture like art, literature, or music. And nothing looks funnier than a bloke in a dress. People who take on cultures alien to what they were raised with often look ridiculous because the values or ideas probably conflict in some way with the rest of how they live their life. They aren't as natural, like some one wearing clothes that don't fit right, it hinders all their movements. Or it's like learning a second language for which some people never get the accent right.

There's also something a little sickly, masochistic, or perverted about people who can't accept their native social identity, like people who are uncomfortable with their own gender. Rather than being a source of pride, their origin is a source of anxiety to them. I'm not saying this applies to everybody who follows an unorthodox creed or had a radical switch in faith, but I suspect it may be true for some.

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## cacian

> Because religion is largely an expression of culture like art, literature, or music


I disagree strongly.
there is no a way religion is quoted alongside art or music in fact it is an insult on these arts.
religion is not an expression it is an implosion a mechanism of mental control on individuality because from the onset it tells you how and when to live your life.
also religion is not culture.
I don't consider it to represent a group of people in fact it is the opposite religion is destructive towards anything to do with culture because it opposes people against each other.

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## Ecurb

mortalterror's pespective might also suggest that Germans who reject Naziism are "sickly, masochistic, and perverse", as are thoise awful Iraqi Christians we've been reading about. In addition, mortalterror says, "Atheism is just way too full of bigotry, prejudice, hate, and pessimism.." This is ridiculous, inasmuch as it involves a bigotted accusation of bigotry and prejudice. Those who accuse others of bigotry should be particularly careful about avoiding it themselves.

I agree with mortalterror that many people may find it easier to grasp and practice the religions of their own cultures than those of other cultures. I also agree that the rejection of the religion of one's own culture in favor of that of another culture may suggest a rejection of "self", a dissatisfaction with oneself, that "self" that is in part a product of culture -- but such dissatisfaction need not be "sickly, masochistic and perverse." I'll grant that the early Christians who rejected their own religions in favor of Christianity were often masochistic in their lust for martyrdom, but "sickly and perverse"? Is that really how mortalterror sees them?

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## HCabret

> Because religion is largely an expression of culture like art, literature, or music. And nothing looks funnier than a bloke in a dress. People who take on cultures alien to what they were raised with often look ridiculous because the values or ideas probably conflict in some way with the rest of how they live their life. They aren't as natural, like some one wearing clothes that don't fit right, it hinders all their movements. Or it's like learning a second language for which some people never get the accent right.
> 
> There's also something a little sickly, masochistic, or perverted about people who can't accept their native social identity, like people who are uncomfortable with their own gender. Rather than being a source of pride, their origin is a source of anxiety to them. I'm not saying this applies to everybody who follows an unorthodox creed or had a radical switch in faith, but I suspect it may be true for some.


yeah, what about Jews in Kerala or Gays in Russia or Muslims in Michigan. What do have against transvestites?

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## PeterL

> Really, because I've found the opposite. For the most part religion is all about peace and love. For a while I was an atheist, but the more I associated with that crowd, the more I felt like I'd unwittingly joined the Klan or something. Atheism is just way too full of bigotry, prejudice, hate, and pessimism, and I don't hate the 98% of the world that atheism seems to have nothing but contempt and animosity for.


Religion has long given lip-service to "peace and love", then the religions start killing people, because they are in the wrong religion. Did you happen to see that ISIS has been overrunning villages, killing the mean and keeping the women, especially tthe young, attractive ones for themselves. They have been especially careful to do that in Yazidi areas, because the Yadidis are of a different religion. Or maybe you r4ead the news recently and learned that the Israelis are again imposing their religious ill on the Muslims in Gaza? These are only two current examples of the "peace and love" of religions.If we look at history we will find more. But those are just examples of religious people who only show "contempt and animosity for" people who are not of their group. 

Atheists have never conducted a single "holy war".

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## mortalterror

> Religion has long given lip-service to "peace and love", then the religions start killing people, because they are in the wrong religion. Did you happen to see that ISIS has been overrunning villages, killing the mean and keeping the women, especially tthe young, attractive ones for themselves. They have been especially careful to do that in Yazidi areas, because the Yadidis are of a different religion. Or maybe you r4ead the news recently and learned that the Israelis are again imposing their religious ill on the Muslims in Gaza? These are only two current examples of the "peace and love" of religions.If we look at history we will find more. But those are just examples of religious people who only show "contempt and animosity for" people who are not of their group. 
> 
> Atheists have never conducted a single "holy war".


Population of Iraq: 32.58 million
Population of ISIS in Iraq 4-6,000 

That's .018 percent. The rest of the religious people are just normal people. If religion were the cause of the violence, you would think that more than .018 percent of a population would be violent. Iraq is 98.9% Muslim. If you were an anthropolgist or a sociologist you might look to socio-economic factors, the dictatorships, the military occupations, etc for the causes but your prejudice leads you to believe that this conflict is entirely religious.

My understanding of the Gaza problem is that it is mostly a matter of rival states, sovereignty issues, competitive claims for use of land and resources, as historically most conflicts have been.

Atheists have conducted many holy wars. Every time they have a monopoly on state power and force they misuse it like any other ideology.



> It is an enormous problem, as the 20th century saw the worst persecution of Christians since Roman times. For instance, millions of Orthodox believers perished in purges by atheists in the former Soviet Union. In the anti-Christian campaign by Stalin and Soviet communism, many churches were closed, and monks were arrested and deported to labor camps. As many as 40,000 Orthodox priests were killed or died from ause during the first half of 1936 alone, and it is believed that the total number of priests, monks, and nuns killed during the purges of the 1930s are in excess of 200,000 (Foreset, 1997, pp. 134-149; Wynot, 2004). Estimates of the total number all Christian martyrs in the former Societ Union are about 12 million. Estimates from the 20th century of Christians who died from secular antireligious violence worldwide are over 25 million, more than all previous centuries combined (Bergman, 1996).
> http://books.google.com/books?id=LBv...page&q&f=false
> 
> The French Revolution, particularly in its Jacobin period, initiated one of the most violent episodes of anti-clericalism in modern Europe; the new revolutionary authorities suppressed the church; destroyed, desecrated and expropriated monasteries; exiled 30,000 priests and killed hundreds more.[2] As part of a campaign to de-Christianize France in October 1793 the Christian calendar was outlawed, replaced with one reckoning from the date of the Revolution, and then an atheist Cult of Reason was inaugurated, all churches not devoted to that cult being closed.[3] In 1794, the atheistic cult was replaced with a deistic Cult of the Supreme Being.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism
> 
> Following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the new Mexican Constitution of 1917 contained further anti-clerical provisions. Article 3 called for secular education in the schools and prohibited the Church from engaging in primary education; Article 5 outlawed monastic orders; Article 24 forbade public worship outside the confines of churches; and Article 27 placed restrictions on the right of religious organizations to hold property. Most offensively to Catholics[citation needed], Article 130 deprived clergy members of basic political rights. Many of these laws were resisted, leading to the Cristero Rebellion of 1927–1929. The suppression of the Church included the closing of many churches and the killing of priests. The persecution was most severe in Tabasco under the atheist"[26] governor Tomás Garrido Canabal.
> 
> The war had a profound effect on the Church. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 40 priests were killed.[27] Between 1926 and 1934, over 3,000 priests were exiled or assassinated.
> ...


Like I said before, religion is culture the same as art, music, or literature. Looking at only the negative traits of that culture does it a monstrous disservice. Claiming that all religion is bad and never good is as silly as saying that all literature is bad and never a positive benefit to society. You would boil all of 20th century literature down to Mein Kampf, Chairman Mao's Red Book, The Turner Diaries, The Unabombers Manifesto, and The Anarchist's Cookbook if you looked upon it with the same prejudice as you do religion. But culture is not just a highlight of all that is worst in it. And objective minded people aren't going to let you forget that we also had Haruki Murakami, Italo Calvino, Mikhail Bulgakov, Yukio Mishima, Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jack Kerouac, Saul Bellow, Eugene O'Neill, Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Neruda, George Orwell, Arthur Miller, Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Albert Camus, John Steinbeck , Nikos Kazantzakis, Muhammad Iqbal, Federico Garcia Lorca, Fernando Pessoa, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, William Faulkner, Herman Hesse, Virginia Woolf , F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugenio Montale, Lu Xun, Khalil Gibran, T.S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, Maria Rilke, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Franz Kafka, Robert Frost, Guillaume Apollinaire, Constantine P. Cavafy, and Rabindranath Tagor, or that the good far outweighed the bad.

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## YesNo

> Atheists have never conducted a single "holy war".


When I think of atheism what comes to mind is the Khmer Rouge and the movie, "The Killing Fields".

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## HCabret

> When I think of atheism what comes to mind is the Khmer Rouge and the movie, "The Killing Fields".


soviet gulags.

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## mal4mac

Having just read it, Robert Jordan from _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ springs to mind. Atheism also has its heroes! OK, he's fictional. There are some real heroes on this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._and_educators

... though I'm not saying everyone on that list is a hero. I guess, as atheists can usually find flaws in most Christian saints, Christians will now proceed to attack this list. But surely even Christians have to admit that some of these atheists are great?

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## mal4mac

> Claiming that all religion is bad and never good is as silly as saying that all literature is bad and never a positive benefit to society... we also had Haruki Murakami, Italo Calvino, Mikhail Bulgakov, Yukio Mishima, Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jack Kerouac, Saul Bellow, Eugene O'Neill, Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Neruda, George Orwell, Arthur Miller, Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Albert Camus, John Steinbeck , Nikos Kazantzakis, Muhammad Iqbal, Federico Garcia Lorca, Fernando Pessoa, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, William Faulkner, Herman Hesse, Virginia Woolf , F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugenio Montale, Lu Xun, Khalil Gibran, T.S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, Maria Rilke, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Franz Kafka, Robert Frost, Guillaume Apollinaire, Constantine P. Cavafy, and Rabindranath Tagor, or that the good far outweighed the bad.


Aren't almost all of these writers atheists? Let's play "spot the Christian", one name each. I'll start: _T.S. Eliot_... now it gets hard...

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## Oedipus

> When I think of atheism what comes to mind is the Khmer Rouge and the movie, "The Killing Fields".


YesNo, that's one of the smartest things posted yet in one of these asinine threads. A deft and simple look at how perceiving someone's beliefs as being opposed to one's own leads to the use of the most obviously moronic arguments that one could think of. If only more people had your fine, cutting sense of humor and easy cheer!

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## mal4mac

> ... ISIS has been overrunning villages, killing the men and keeping the women, especially tthe young, attractive ones for themselves. They have been especially careful to do that in Yazidi areas, because the Yadidis are of a different religion.


Is it a different religion? From Wikipedia: "According to some sources their religion is linked to ancient Zoroastrianism and Sufism while other sources view their religion as a combination of Shia and Sufi Islam with indigenous regional folk traditions." 

The wider point I'm trying to make is that its often different sects in the *same* religion that are out to destroy each other. Think of Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland - or anywhere else for that matter! 

You don't find atheists fighting each other over atheism. The conversation A1: "I don't believe in God." A2: "Neither do I" isn't likely to end in a fight.

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## PeterL

> Is it a different religion? From Wikipedia: "According to some sources their religion is linked to ancient Zoroastrianism and Sufism while other sources view their religion as a combination of Shia and Sufi Islam with indigenous regional folk traditions."


Yazidis are not Muslims. That religion predates Islam by several thousand years. It was part of the ancient religion of the Persians and the Medes. It looks like you found an excellent example of why wikipedia cannot be trusted.




> The wider point I'm trying to make is that its often different sects in the *same* religion that are out to destroy each other. Think of Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland - or anywhere else for that matter!


Ah yes that good old "peace and love" between sects as they slit each others' throats. 




> You don't find atheists fighting each other over atheism. The conversation A1: "I don't believe in God." A2: "Neither do I" isn't likely to end in a fight.


Nor does one find many polytheists killing people of other religions because of their religion, witness the wars on the Indian subcontinent since independence. Well, it gets rather complicated there, especially with Sikhs in the mix.

----------


## PeterL

> Population of Iraq: 32.58 million
> Population of ISIS in Iraq 4-6,000 
> 
> That's .018 percent. The rest of the religious people are just normal people. If religion were the cause of the violence, you would think that more than .018 percent of a population would be violent. Iraq is 98.9% Muslim. If you were an anthropolgist or a sociologist you might look to socio-economic factors, the dictatorships, the military occupations, etc for the causes but your prejudice leads you to believe that this conflict is entirely religious.


"My prejudice"!!!!!! ISIS says that they are acting from their religion. I don't make up things like that. 

As for the percentage, it is irrelevant. ISIS is composed of religious fanftics from many countries who have gone to Syria and Iraq to make merry with people who are not of their particular flavour of religion. They have killed Shiites, Yazidis, Christians, and other with "peace and love". 




> My understanding of the Gaza problem is that it is mostly a matter of rival states, sovereignty issues, competitive claims for use of land and resources, as historically most conflicts have been.


That is partly true. The Zionists forced out people who were not of their religion, and Gaza is mostly refuge camps. Refuges from Israel are staying there until Israel accedes to UN orders that they allow the Palestinian refuges to return home. And the Palestinians comtinue to fight to get their homes back. 




> Atheists have conducted many holy wars. Every time they have a monopoly on state power and force they misuse it like any other ideology.


Could you cite a single war that was started over atheism? Just one? 




> Like I said before, religion is culture the same as art, music, or literature. Looking at only the negative traits of that culture does it a monstrous disservice. Claiming that all religion is bad and never good is as silly as saying that all literature is bad and never a positive benefit to society. You would boil all of 20th century literature down to Mein Kampf, Chairman Mao's Red Book, The Turner Diaries, The Unabombers Manifesto, and The Anarchist's Cookbook if you looked upon it with the same prejudice as you do religion. But culture is not just a highlight of all that is worst in it. And objective minded people aren't going to let you forget that we also had Haruki Murakami, Italo Calvino, Mikhail Bulgakov, Yukio Mishima, Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jack Kerouac, Saul Bellow, Eugene O'Neill, Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Neruda, George Orwell, Arthur Miller, Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Albert Camus, John Steinbeck , Nikos Kazantzakis, Muhammad Iqbal, Federico Garcia Lorca, Fernando Pessoa, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, William Faulkner, Herman Hesse, Virginia Woolf , F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugenio Montale, Lu Xun, Khalil Gibran, T.S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, Maria Rilke, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Franz Kafka, Robert Frost, Guillaume Apollinaire, Constantine P. Cavafy, and Rabindranath Tagor, or that the good far outweighed the bad.


So listen to religious rants instead of music, if you like.

----------


## PeterL

> When I think of atheism what comes to mind is the Khmer Rouge and the movie, "The Killing Fields".


Was that because of religion versus atheism? No, it was Pol Pot's idiosyncratic version of Marxism.

----------


## YesNo

> Was that because of religion versus atheism? No, it was Pol Pot's idiosyncratic version of Marxism.


That sounds like an excuse. But if that is acceptable, then one could do the same for any of the atrocities associated with religion. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm annoyed by religious self-righteousness as well, however I am completely puzzled by atheists who think they can excuse atheism from atrocities that atheists were responsible for while at the same time readily point their fingers at the bad behavior of religious people. It is manifestly unfair.

From what I understand, just based on body count, atheism is far worse than religion.

----------


## mortalterror

> Aren't almost all of these writers atheists? Let's play "spot the Christian", one name each. I'll start: _T.S. Eliot_... now it gets hard...


I doubt that even half were atheists. T.S. Eliot as you've said was an Anglican. Hemingway was a Catholic. Bellow was a Jew. Kerouac was a Buddhist. Iqbal was a Muslim. Kazantzakis I think was a Christian. Rilke was Christian. Gibran was Muslim, I think. I really don't know enough of their biographies to be sure but I would guess that Lorca, Pound, and Pessoa were Catholics. Yeats used a lot of biblical imagery so he was probably Catholic. Tagore being Indian was most likely a Hindu. As for the rest, who knows?

----------


## mortalterror

> Is it a different religion? From Wikipedia: "According to some sources their religion is linked to ancient Zoroastrianism and Sufism while other sources view their religion as a combination of Shia and Sufi Islam with indigenous regional folk traditions." 
> 
> The wider point I'm trying to make is that its often different sects in the *same* religion that are out to destroy each other. Think of Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland - or anywhere else for that matter!


The conflict in Ireland was over whether the Irish would remain a part of Great Britain or establish home rule, ie not religious in nature.



> The conflict was primarily a political one, but it also had an ethnic or sectarian dimension,[21] although it was not a religious conflict.[22] The key issues at stake were the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and the relationship between its two main communities. Unionists and loyalists, who are mostly Ulster Protestants, generally want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists and republicans, who are mostly Catholics, generally want it to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. The former generally see themselves as British and the latter generally see themselves as Irish. 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles





> You don't find atheists fighting each other over atheism. The conversation A1: "I don't believe in God." A2: "Neither do I" isn't likely to end in a fight.


Ask Trotsky or Danton. Ask Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

----------


## Oedipus

> That sounds like an excuse. But if that is acceptable, then one could do the same for any of the atrocities associated with religion. 
> 
> Don't get me wrong. I'm annoyed by religious self-righteousness as well, however I am completely puzzled by atheists who think they can excuse atheism from atrocities that atheists were responsible for while at the same time readily point their fingers at the bad behavior of religious people. It is manifestly unfair.
> 
> From what I understand, just based on body count, atheism is far worse than religion.





> From what I understand, just based on body count, atheism is far worse than religion.


Foolish argument; that's because:

a) the number of people in the world was much greater by the time atheists had control of any state.

b) the methods of mass murder were far more advanced.

As for the "unfair" thing; it is probably because religious mass murder has always been justified explicitly by a religious _form_ of language; as all justification came from God, so when it was needed to kill, God was in favor of killing:

"All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion! Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. Behold! on this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let hem eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide." --- How evangelic! Turn the other cheek indeed.

As for Pol Pot: 

"Whoever wishes to blame or attack me is entitled to do so. I regret I didn't have enough experience to totally control the movement. On the other hand, with our constant struggle, this had to be done together with others in the communist world to stop Kampuchea becoming Vietnamese... There's what we did wrong and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people  by us and also by the enemy  but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now"

No appeal to the void morality of atheism, of course; purely a justification in terms of communism as an ideology, and nationalism. No moral high ground. Arguably preferable to the pathetic moralizing of _Christian_ killers...

So you see it has nothing in particular to do with who was responsible for what, for obvious reasons - it is how they justify, rationalize.

----------


## YesNo

> Foolish argument; that's because:
> 
> a) the number of people in the world was much greater by the time atheists had control of any state.
> 
> b) the methods of mass murder were far more advanced.


What that shows is that atheist leaders have committed more atrocities during the same period as religious leaders both having a larger population to eliminate with more advanced means to do so. How does that make atheism look good?




> As for the "unfair" thing; it is probably because religious mass murder has always been justified explicitly by a religious _form_ of language; as all justification came from God, so when it was needed to kill, God was in favor of killing:


It is easy to make explicit the inane deities that atheists believe in. Whatever justification atheists use for their atrocities, call those principles their brain-dead deities.




> So you see it has nothing in particular to do with who was responsible for what, for obvious reasons - it is how they justify, rationalize.


From the perspective of those who were killed, it doesn't matter what the atheistic rationalizations were based upon.

Atheists need to assume responsibility for their own bad behavior. I don't see them doing so. They do like to point their fingers at others irrationally thinking they are justified in doing so.

----------


## Oedipus

> I doubt that even half were atheists. T.S. Eliot as you've said was an Anglican. Hemingway was a Catholic. Bellow was a Jew. Kerouac was a Buddhist. Iqbal was a Muslim. Kazantzakis I think was a Christian. Rilke was Christian. Gibran was Muslim, I think. I really don't know enough of their biographies to be sure but I would guess that Lorca, Pound, and Pessoa were Catholics. Yeats used a lot of biblical imagery so he was probably Catholic. Tagore being Indian was most likely a Hindu. As for the rest, who knows?


And you would be wrong. For example, Hemingway: "[Hemingway] did not only not believe in God but regarded organized religion as a menace to human happiness… [he] seems to have been devoid of the religious spirit… [and] ceased to practice religion at the earliest possible moment."

Rilke was certainly not Christian. At least 24 (55%) are fairly indisputably atheist; many of the others are agnostic; or religious but wholly against organized religion.

----------


## Oedipus

> What that shows is that atheist leaders have committed more atrocities during the same period as religious leaders both having a larger population to eliminate with more advanced means to do so. How does that make atheism look good?


Religious leaders did not have any direct control over the populations at that point, as you well know.

Now: you say, atheist regimes killed such and such amount of people. Therefore, atheism results in killing; therefore atheists ought to admit responsibility for "their" bad behavior.

However; first you need to establish that the regimes killed these people _because_ they were atheist in nature - the first "therefore" remains unproved. 

I also find your comments on "bad behavior" amusing considering the plainly inflammatory nature of statements like "It is easy to make explicit the inane deities that atheists believe in. Whatever justification atheists use for their atrocities, call those principles their brain-dead deities."

----------


## mortalterror

> "My prejudice"!!!!!! ISIS says that they are acting from their religion. I don't make up things like that. 
> 
> As for the percentage, it is irrelevant. ISIS is composed of religious fanftics from many countries who have gone to Syria and Iraq to make merry with people who are not of their particular flavour of religion. They have killed Shiites, Yazidis, Christians, and other with "peace and love".


Atheists kill people all the time.



> Dec. 1997 Michael Carneal shoots up a high school prayer circle killing three and wounding five. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_High_School_shooting
> 
> Dec 1998 Richard D. White bombs two churches killing 1 and wounding 33. http://www.worldmag.com/1998/06/out_of_the_rubble
> 
> June 2013 Joseph Fretti burns two churches in the UK. http://www.inquisitr.com/937080/athe...h-arson-in-uk/


But we don't go around blaming all atheists for shooting those prayer groups or bombing those churches.




> Could you cite a single war that was started over atheism? Just one?


Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, China, Soviet Union, atheism played a role, but no wars are primarily about ideology. Wars are about resources, power, glory, territory, diplomatic failures in bargaining, revenge, political disputes, imbalance of regional powers, etc.




> So listen to religious rants instead of music, if you like.


Why not do both?

Classical music
1638 Miserere- Allegri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Y_ztEW1NE
1723 Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring- Bach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwWL8Y-qsJg
1754 Halleluah Chorus- Handel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU
1825 Ave Maria- Schubert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bosouX_d8Y
1874 Dies Irae- Verdi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDbMzp86tOc

popular songs
Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZQxH_8raCI
My Sweet Lord by George Harrison
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kNGnIKUdMI
Turn Turn Turn by The Byrds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ga_M5Zdn4
Jesus Walks by Kanye West
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-3gXet-ljs

Old Hymns and Soul
1719 Isaac Watts- Joy to the World (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5hj518Iugk
1779 John Newton- Amazing Grace (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYMLMj-SibU
1841 Sarah Flower Adams- Nearer, My God, To Thee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9UsDl5gSuo
1859 John Freeman Young- Silent Night (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPamW-WUf50
1863 John Henry Hopkins, Jr.- We Three Kings (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx35_DRIZ8g
1868 Philips Brooks- O Little Town of Bethlehem (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19rL_8W3oRU
1885 J.E. Clark- Away in a Manger (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQbLLowNgSI
1885 Carl Gustav Boberg- How Great Thou Art (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL1vUY_qu-E
1889 Charles David Tillman- Old-Time Religion (gospel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx0peec84FI
1904 Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych- Carol of the Bells (carol)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TFrO8c_kVQ
1905 Civilla D. Martin- His Eye Is On the Sparrow (gospel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P0Zc-oQb1Q
1912 George Bennard- The Old Rugged Cross (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4CgF_pyxVY
1916 Sir Hubert Parry- Jerusalem Hymn (hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKRHWT6xdEU
1930 Blind Willlie Johnson- John the Revelator (blues gospel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hucTDV1Fvo
1959 The Staple Singers- I'm Coming Home (gospel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rekp7rRcSFs

----------


## mortalterror

> And you would be wrong. For example, Hemingway: "[Hemingway] did not only not believe in God but regarded organized religion as a menace to human happiness… [he] seems to have been devoid of the religious spirit… [and] ceased to practice religion at the earliest possible moment."


That's a common misconception about Hemingway. But since he's my favorite writer and I've read everything he wrote, not counting a little of his unfinished posthumous work, I feel completely confident declaring him a Catholic. He was a Catholic, and a Republican, of that I have no doubt. I think his Catholicism is part of why he felt so at home in France, Italy, Spain, and Cuba. Now, that I think of it, the obsession with bull fighting, the blood, the ritual, the sacrifice, might have something to do with The Passion play. I don't have Death In the Afternoon with me today, but I believe he talks about Catholicism with the old lady, and summarizes some of his thoughts there, but his Catholicism is sprinkled throughout his work. Besides, he was raised Catholic, his wives were Catholic, etc.



> Rilke was certainly not Christian.


As for Rilke not being a Christian, I find that hard to believe. He's one of the few modern poets I would label a religious poet. Just go read Duino Elegies and it's nothing but Angels and God.



> At least 24 (55%) are fairly indisputably atheist; many of the others are agnostic; or religious but wholly against organized religion.


I sincerely doubt that, and if you are going to make such a ridiculous claim, you need to provide some evidence.

----------


## YesNo

> However; first you need to establish that the regimes killed these people _because_ they were atheist in nature - the first "therefore" remains unproved.


If a person is an atheist and executes or causes to be executed a victim under some rationalized justification (communism, Marxism, survival-of-the-fittest-ism, some dehumanized cleaning-out-the-garbage-ism, whatever), that justification becomes the atheist's deity. Atheism is then responsible for the murder. 

The only way I could see excusing atheism is if the individual who committed the atrocity did so as the result of insanity.

----------


## Ecurb

> If a person is an atheist and executes or causes to be executed a victim under some rationalized justification (communism, Marxism, survival-of-the-fittest-ism, some dehumanized cleaning-out-the-garbage-ism, whatever), that justification becomes the atheist's deity. Atheism is then responsible for the murder. 
> 
> The only way I could see excusing atheism is if the individual who committed the atrocity did so as the result of insanity.


Oh, come on! Horrific acts often require SOME justification -- and religion may be used as a justification, rather than being an actual cause. Even horrific acts that were explicitly motivated by religion (The Inquisition, for example) often involved more prosaic motives, like greed.

It is true that atheistic communists justified their horrific acts (as did Nazis) as being necessary for the good of the State. The State (and the form of the economy) was elevated to such importance that murder and mayhem could be excused if they resulted in the greater good of the State. However, there is nothing specifically atheistic about this worship of the State. Religious monarchs (no less than atheists) reserved drawing and quartering as a punishment for treason.

Religious and atheistic idealists share this much -- their ideals are more important to them than people are. But the ideals that led the Communists and the Nazis to their horrific acts are not essentially atheistic. The State can be worshipped by the religious as well as the atheistic -- although the religious inevitably worship something else more. Dogmatic idealism can be dangerous, whether or not it is religious.

----------


## Cleanthes

If a person is a vegetarian and cooks, or has somebody else cook a carrot using some fancy technique (braising, steaming, whatever) that cooking procedure becomes the vegetarian's meat. Vegetarianism is then responsible for meat eating.

I greatly respect and agree with your opinions on most matters YesNo, but you took sophistry to some extreme level to make your point there.

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## HCabret

Coercion is the worst kind of violence. Evangelism is second. Why do people feel the need to project an aura of infallibility to others? We're ALL wrong more than likely about everything. There's nothing wrong with this; this is why we learn. 

Any system of belief which requires uniformity of thought is wrong in my opinion.

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## PeterL

> Coercion is the worst kind of violence. Evangelism is second. Why do people feel the need to project an aura of infallibility to others? We're ALL wrong more than likely about everything. There's nothing wrong with this; this is why we learn.


That matter of insisting that one's beliefs are truth, while all other opinions are something lesser is often a sign that someone feels uncertain and feels compelled to emphasize their opinions as a way to validate their opinions.




> Any system of belief which requires uniformity of thought is wrong in my opinion.


I agree.

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## PeterL

[QUOTE=mortalterror;1268210]Atheists kill people all the time.
But we don't go around blaming all atheists for shooting those prayer groups or bombing those churches.

ISIS is an Islamic group. Atheists very rarely kill anyone for religious reasons. Yes, there have been a few, but we don't blame all atheists, because the examples that you cited were clearly acts of a scrambled mind. On the other hand, religoists are killing people for religious reasons all the time.





> Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, China, Soviet Union, atheism played a role, but no wars are primarily about ideology.


While they were and/or are nominally atheistic, atheism is and was a side issue. Mao didn't kill between 50 and 100 million because they believed iin some religion; he killed them, because they opposed his political party. And the same is true of the others, and I believe that you already knew that.




> Wars are about resources, power, glory, territory, diplomatic failures in bargaining, revenge, political disputes, imbalance of regional powers, etc.


Most wars are about power, and us versus them. Group identification is a major aspect of power in various places. If ISIS, or any other religious group,, says that they are killing people because of their religion, then I tend to believe them. Do you think that ISIS is actually trying to do something else?

----------


## PeterL

> That sounds like an excuse. But if that is acceptable, then one could do the same for any of the atrocities associated with religion. 
> 
> Don't get me wrong. I'm annoyed by religious self-righteousness as well, however I am completely puzzled by atheists who think they can excuse atheism from atrocities that atheists were responsible for while at the same time readily point their fingers at the bad behavior of religious people. It is manifestly unfair.


Think what you like.




> From what I understand, just based on body count, atheism is far worse than religion.


I don't think so. How many Crusades were there? And how many people died in those? How many people have the Zionists caused the deaths of? And there were all those wars during the Reformation. How many Jews did Hitler kill? How many have died in the Mideast? 

How many people have died in the name of atheism? Maybe a dozen or so in known history.

----------


## YesNo

> Oh, come on! Horrific acts often require SOME justification -- and religion may be used as a justification, rather than being an actual cause. Even horrific acts that were explicitly motivated by religion (The Inquisition, for example) often involved more prosaic motives, like greed.
> 
> It is true that atheistic communists justified their horrific acts (as did Nazis) as being necessary for the good of the State. The State (and the form of the economy) was elevated to such importance that murder and mayhem could be excused if they resulted in the greater good of the State. However, *there is nothing specifically atheistic about this worship of the State.* Religious monarchs (no less than atheists) reserved drawing and quartering as a punishment for treason.
> 
> Religious and atheistic idealists share this much -- their ideals are more important to them than people are. But the ideals that led the Communists and the Nazis to their horrific acts are not essentially atheistic. The State can be worshipped by the religious as well as the atheistic -- although the religious inevitably worship something else more. *Dogmatic idealism can be dangerous, whether or not it is religious.*


I agree with you about dogmatic idealism, whether atheistic or not. However, I disagree with your attempt to give atheism an excuse for the atrocities that atheists have committed. 

If an atheist gets self-righteous, mouths some dehumanized lets-clean-up-the-garbage ideology and gets people eliminated because of that, atheism needs to assume responsibility. Atheism does not get a free pass because it _believes_ it doesn't believe anything or because it _believes_ it is some ideology based on "rationality" and "science" set upon a pedestal so it can't be challenged.

I know the position I am taking is severe. I hold religious people to the same standard. I also know that I am holding all of atheism responsible for the atrocities that only some members commit. However, that is what atheists are doing with regards to the various religions they oppose. I am just mirroring that position back to them.

----------


## YesNo

> How many people have died *in the name of atheism*? Maybe a *dozen or so in known history*.


If there were only a dozen that you are aware of, who were they? You should be able to name them.

As far as evidence that there were more than a dozen just examine the Khmer Rouge. Some put that number at about 2 million.

Atheists believe they can escape responsibility by citing some dogma about whether something was or was not done "in the name of atheism". The problem is I don't believe in atheism and so I do not have to believe in those dogmas.

----------


## PeterL

> If there were only a dozen that you are aware of, who were they? You should be able to name them.


I don't even known of that many. I'm just being willing to ocompromise on that.




> As far as evidence that there were more than a dozen just examine the Khmer Rouge. Some put that number at about 2 million.


Atheism was not why Pol Pot killed those people. It was just a minor item in his idealogy.




> Atheists believe they can escape responsibility by citing some dogma about whether something was or was not done "in the name of atheism".


That's news. 

Atheism is non-belief in Gods; that's all. If you are making atheism more than that, then it is your creation, not atheism. 




> The problem is I don't believe in atheism and so I do not have to believe in those dogmas.


And what dogmas are these? Again, it appears that you are making atheism something that it is not. 

"Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Do you have a different definition? If so, then what is it, and where did you find it? Or is it a Humpty-Dumpty word to you?

----------


## Ecurb

> I agree with you about dogmatic idealism, whether atheistic or not. However, I disagree with your attempt to give atheism an excuse for the atrocities that atheists have committed. 
> 
> If an atheist gets self-righteous, mouths some dehumanized lets-clean-up-the-garbage ideology and gets people eliminated because of that, atheism needs to assume responsibility. Atheism does not get a free pass because it _believes_ it doesn't believe anything or because it _believes_ it is some ideology based on "rationality" and "science" set upon a pedestal so it can't be challenged.
> 
> I know the position I am taking is severe. I hold religious people to the same standard. I also know that I am holding all of atheism responsible for the atrocities that only some members commit. However, that is what atheists are doing with regards to the various religions they oppose. I am just mirroring that position back to them.


Self righteous atheists annoy me as much as self righteous theists. Nonetheless, I wouldn't blame the Hindus for the Spanish Inquisition (although I admit that some new atheists tend to do so). Why hold "religious people" responsible for atrocities commited by those of a completely different religion? Is an atheistic capitalist really more blameworthy for Communist atrocities than a Communist Priest? Why would he be?

If all men are philosophers, and some men are evil, does it follow that all philosophies are to blame for evil? That's simply a logical error.

----------


## mortalterror

> Most wars are about power, and us versus them. Group identification is a major aspect of power in various places. If ISIS, or any other religious group,, says that they are killing people because of their religion, then I tend to believe them. Do you think that ISIS is actually trying to do something else?


And if all they did was attack people of other religious groups I would take that as their motivation. But they are primarily attacking government employees and the military They are seizing territory and attempting to rule, which suggests that their main concerns are imperial. They are composed primarily of the out groups which have been stripped of power in Iraq, the former Bathist party leaders, the Sunni rebels, and the ex-tribal militias that helped overthrow Saddam and Al-Qaeda before their marginalization. They have no power in the current regime and they want power. If this were really about religion you would expect to see the party in power initiate it to wipe out the party out of power for being different from them. You would expect the powerful to flock to the religious standard, which is not what we are seeing. What we find is a bunch of out of work soldiers being hired by an opportunistic cleric attacking a corrupt government set up by foreign conquerors, with an attempt to adopt a cloak of legitimacy to their actions by adopting a unifying social convention.

When ISIS was JTJ, their goals were:



> (i) to force a withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq; (ii) to topple the Iraqi interim government; (iii) to assassinate collaborators with the occupation regime; (iv) to remove the Shia population and defeat its militias because of its death-squad activities; and (v) to establish subsequently a pure Islamic state.[107] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic...and_the_Levant


Religion was on there, but it's more of an afterthought down the list. That's sort of how I view the millions killed by the communists. Atheism generally wasn't the primary motivation, but it was on their list. Practical material concerns come first as always.

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## HCabret

> Self righteous atheists annoy me as much as self righteous theists. Nonetheless, I wouldn't blame the Hindus for the Spanish Inquisition (although I admit that some new atheists tend to do so). Why hold "religious people" responsible for atrocities commited by those of a completely different religion? Is an atheistic capitalist really more blameworthy for Communist atrocities than a Communist Priest? Why would he be?
> 
> If all men are philosophers, and some men are evil, does it follow that all philosophies are to blame for evil? That's simply a logical error.


thinking is the root of all man kinds problems.

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## mortalterror

> Coercion is the worst kind of violence. Evangelism is second. Why do people feel the need to project an aura of infallibility to others? We're ALL wrong more than likely about everything. There's nothing wrong with this; this is why we learn. 
> 
> Any system of belief which requires uniformity of thought is wrong in my opinion.


I'm sure when you do it you call it something else. But really "Coercion is the worst kind of violence?" How about you know stabbing, or burning someone? How about being shot? Coercion doesn't even come close to the top of my list of things I don't want people to do to me. And I love that you list Evangelism at number two on the worst types of violence. If you are phobic of other people telling you about their beliefs than you had best never set foot inside a school, turn on a television, read a book, open a newspaper, or talk to anyone about anything ever.

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## HCabret

> I'm sure when you do it you call it something else. But really "Coercion is the worst kind of violence?" How about you know stabbing, or burning someone? How about being shot? Coercion doesn't even come close to the top of my list of things I don't want people to do to me. And I love that you list Evangelism at number two on the worst types of violence. If you are phobic of other people telling you about their beliefs than you had best never set foot inside a school, turn on a television, read a book, open a newspaper, or talk to anyone about anything ever.


im an extremely violent person. I'm not a hypocrite though. I don't mind when people tell me they're beliefs. I don't like when they try to convert me to their beliefs. Is getting shot not coercion? Why else would the gun be necessary?

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## Oedipus

> That's a common misconception about Hemingway. But since he's my favorite writer and I've read everything he wrote, not counting a little of his unfinished posthumous work, I feel completely confident declaring him a Catholic. He was a Catholic, and a Republican, of that I have no doubt. I think his Catholicism is part of why he felt so at home in France, Italy, Spain, and Cuba. Now, that I think of it, the obsession with bull fighting, the blood, the ritual, the sacrifice, might have something to do with The Passion play. I don't have Death In the Afternoon with me today, but I believe he talks about Catholicism with the old lady, and summarizes some of his thoughts there, but his Catholicism is sprinkled throughout his work. Besides, he was raised Catholic, his wives were Catholic, etc.
> 
> As for Rilke not being a Christian, I find that hard to believe. He's one of the few modern poets I would label a religious poet. Just go read Duino Elegies and it's nothing but Angels and God.
> 
> I sincerely doubt that, and if you are going to make such a ridiculous claim, you need to provide some evidence.


Why does he (Hemingway) say that "All thinking men are atheists" than?

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## mortalterror

> Why does he (Hemingway) say that "All thinking men are atheists" than?


Hemingway didn't say that. A minor character in A Farewell to Arms said it, and he said it in front of a priest he was mocking to get a rise out of him. I think the way the characters are presented are key to understanding the context of the ideas Hemingway is expressing through them. Hemingway's atheist friend is an oversexed, drunken, hedonist, worldly, cynical, and debauched. His priest is a sweet, kind, young man who offers support and responds to the officer's jokes with good-natured understanding. Both men are spiritual influences on the protagonist Henry, who is young and seeking guidance, and through them and Henry's conversations with them Hemingway is exploring what is the right type of life for a man to lead. Both are polar opposites. For instance, when Henry goes on leave his atheist friend invites him to the flesh pots of Naples while the priest suggests he stay with relatives of his in the mountains and go hunting. There's more to the dichotomy but as I recall the novel Hemingway categorizes the characters and emotions that arise in him in a very yin and yang way. One corresponds with descriptions of cool, dry, and calm, while the other finds association with hot, wet, and passionate things. The character of Henry is caught between them.

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## mal4mac

> Yazidis are not Muslims. That religion predates Islam by several thousand years. It was part of the ancient religion of the Persians and the Medes. It looks like you found an excellent example of why wikipedia cannot be trusted.


Yes Wikipedia's summary isn't very good. It does reference a serious online publication to back up this statement, but it's a bad job of summarising:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p...page&q&f=false

Actually that original source isn't that clear either! I think you are right in that the most important elements come from Zoroastrianism, but I get the impression there's still some assimilation of the Abrahamic religions. This is clearer:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...city-mountains

"[The Yazidi religion] is derived from Zoroastrianism (an ancient Persian faith founded by a philosopher), Christianity and Islam. The religion has taken elements from each, ranging from baptism (Christianity) to circumcision (Islam) to reverence of fire as a manifestation from God (derived from Zoroastrianism) and yet remains distinctly non-Abrahamic...

At the core of the Yazidis marginalization is their worship of a fallen angel, Melek Tawwus, or Peacock Angel... Unlike the fall from grace of Satan... Melek Tawwus was forgiven and returned to heaven by God. The importance of Melek Tawwus to the Yazidis has given them an undeserved reputation for being devil-worshippers  a notoriety that, in the climate of extremism gripping Iraq, has turned life-threatening... Under Ottoman rule in the 18th and 19th centuries alone, the Yazidis were subject to 72 genocidal massacres."

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## mal4mac

> The conflict in Ireland was over whether the Irish would remain a part of Great Britain or establish home rule, ie not religious in nature.


The conflict in Northern Ireland has political and religious roots that are centuries old. In modern times the conflict is largely about Home Rule, although the political divide matches the religious divide. But, for instance's, Cromwell's invasion of Ireland was partly a religious crusade of Puritans against Roman Catholics. Cromwell's January 1650 Declaration to the Irish Catholic Clergy shows the religious motivation: "You are part of Antichrist, whose Kingdom the Scriptures so expressly speaks should be laid in blood and ere it be long, you must all of you have blood to drink; even the dregs of the cup of the fury and wrath of God, which will be poured out unto you." This explains the horrific, genocidal violence perpetrated by Cromwell on the Irish people, which went far beyond what might have been expected from a simple land grab.

Actually, when you listen to extreme protestants in Northern Ireland you realise that Cromwell's declaration is still alive in the heart of many. The surest way to get away from this extremism is, surely, for intelligent people to admit that such constructs as the "Antichrist" and "God" are unhelpful fantasies best cast into the dark night of history.

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## mal4mac

> I doubt that even half were atheists. T.S. Eliot as you've said was an Anglican. Hemingway was a Catholic.


There seems to be a big dispute about that. His suicide seems to indicate that he was not a Catholic at the end.




> Kerouac was a Buddhist.


Buddhism is an atheist religion.




> Kazantzakis I think was a Christian.


Another difficult case! The Orthodox Church ruled out his being buried in a cemetery. His epitaph reads "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free." I've seen his house, no religious symbolism was on view. I think he's best described as atheist. Though, as the following review shows, he's a man of contradictions, maybe best left in the "don't know" category:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/1...contradictions




> I would guess that Lorca, Pound, and Pessoa were Catholics. Yeats used a lot of biblical imagery so he was probably Catholic.


I would guess Pessoa was an atheist, and the others not simple Catholics, probably in the Kazantzakis/Hemingway division, where "your guess is as good as mine". So I'll guess they're all atheists  :Smile:

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## JCamilo

Pessoa was a declared christian. He had interest for paganism, Crowley and such, but that would not make him be less christian. 

I also do not believe you are stretching the term atheist to claim budhism is atheism, or that suicide rules someone as non-catholic.

p.s.Kazantizakis controversy is more to define what kind of belief he had rather than if he had or not belief. He defended himself crom excommunication claimming to be a devouted and his body was or sent a msg to Catholic church when Last temptation was considered forbidden saying if they were "as religiouss as he was". Until the end of life, he still use "God be with you", "God give you strength" kind of expression on his letters and his dead body was even viewed on a church before his burial.

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## PeterL

> Yes Wikipedia's summary isn't very good. It does reference a serious online publication to back up this statement, but it's a bad job of summarising:
> 
> http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p...page&q&f=false
> 
> Actually that original source isn't that clear either! I think you are right in that the most important elements come from Zoroastrianism, but I get the impression there's still some assimilation of the Abrahamic religions. This is clearer:
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...city-mountains
> 
> "[The Yazidi religion] is derived from Zoroastrianism (an ancient Persian faith founded by a philosopher), Christianity and Islam. The religion has taken elements from each, ranging from baptism (Christianity) to circumcision (Islam) to reverence of fire as a manifestation from God (derived from Zoroastrianism) and yet remains distinctly non-Abrahamic...
> ...


That's better, but it still distorts rea;ity a bit.

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## PeterL

> And if all they did was attack people of other religious groups I would take that as their motivation. But they are primarily attacking government employees and the military They are seizing territory and attempting to rule, which suggests that their main concerns are imperial. They are composed primarily of the out groups which have been stripped of power in Iraq, the former Bathist party leaders, the Sunni rebels, and the ex-tribal militias that helped overthrow Saddam and Al-Qaeda before their marginalization. They have no power in the current regime and they want power. If this were really about religion you would expect to see the party in power initiate it to wipe out the party out of power for being different from them. You would expect the powerful to flock to the religious standard, which is not what we are seeing. What we find is a bunch of out of work soldiers being hired by an opportunistic cleric attacking a corrupt government set up by foreign conquerors, with an attempt to adopt a cloak of legitimacy to their actions by adopting a unifying social convention.


ISIS is attacking the government and the Iraqi army, because they are controlled by Shiites, while ISIS is Sunni. If you don't know the difference, then you should research the matter and the history of friction between those two sects of Islam. 

Apparently there are many foreign Sunnis in ISIS. It seems that they are trying to establish a Sunni state from which to fight the infidels. The "opportunistic cleric" see,s to be taking advantage of there being many Sunnis who would love to kill infidels.




> When ISIS was JTJ, their goals were:
> 
> Religion was on there, but it's more of an afterthought down the list. That's sort of how I view the millions killed by the communists. Atheism generally wasn't the primary motivation, but it was on their list. Practical material concerns come first as always.


SInce they are pointedly killing Yedizi men and stealing the daughters, it appears that they are making war against a different religion, and their stated goals these days are to make a Sunnis state to the elimination of Shiites and other infidels. If they were atheists, then they would shrug at the superstitions of the religionists, but they aren't and their war is fundamentally about religion.

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## YesNo

> Self righteous atheists annoy me as much as self righteous theists. Nonetheless, I wouldn't blame the Hindus for the Spanish Inquisition (although I admit that some new atheists tend to do so). Why hold "religious people" responsible for atrocities commited by those of a completely different religion? Is an atheistic capitalist really more blameworthy for Communist atrocities than a Communist Priest? Why would he be?
> 
> If all men are philosophers, and some men are evil, does it follow that all philosophies are to blame for evil? That's simply a logical error.


The problem is the self-righteousness, as you mentioned, no matter what the ideology underlying it.

I admit it doesn't make sense to blame a whole group of people for the acts of a few. For example, should one blame the entire Muslim religion for 9-11? Should one blame all Christians because George Bush distorted data about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Should one blame atheism in general for what Pol Pot did?

Probably one should not generalize the guilt from the individuals to the group, however, that is what people, including myself, tend to do. The only justification I could make for that is the group's beliefs influenced the few who committed the atrocities and so the group should share in some of the blame. 

In some of the discussions it seems that atheists believe that they could not be responsible for any atrocity because of the negative nature of their atheology. If one claims to have no beliefs how could one commit an atrocity based on beliefs they believe they don't have? Any crime done by an atheist would have to be on some non-atheistic justification, because dogmatically atheism has no justifications to support it. 

It seems like a logical argument until one watches the self-righteousness of atheists against theists. Why do atheists care so much what someone else believes? Why are they so against religion? That's when the ugliness of atheism in its militant form appears and one can see it as a fundamentalist ideology of hostility, perhaps even as a hate "religion" without any humane form of deity to temper the self-righteousness.

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## HCabret

> The problem is the self-righteousness, as you mentioned, no matter what the ideology underlying it.
> 
> I admit it doesn't make sense to blame a whole group of people for the acts of a few. For example, should one blame the entire Muslim religion for 9-11? Should one blame all Christians because George Bush distorted data about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Should one blame atheism in general for what Pol Pot did?
> 
> Probably one should not generalize the guilt from the individuals to the group, however, that is what people, including myself, tend to do. The only justification I could make for that is the group's beliefs influenced the few who committed the atrocities and so the group should share in some of the blame. 
> 
> In some of the discussions it seems that atheists believe that they could not be responsible for any atrocity because of the negative nature of their atheology. If one claims to have no beliefs how could one commit an atrocity based on beliefs they believe they don't have? Any crime done by an atheist would have to be on some non-atheistic justification, because dogmatically atheism has no justifications to support it. 
> 
> It seems like a logical argument until one watches the self-righteousness of atheists against theists. Why do atheists care so much what someone else believes? Why are they so against religion? That's when the ugliness of atheism in its militant form appears and one can see it as a fundamentalist ideology of hostility, perhaps even as a hate "religion" without any humane form of deity to temper the self-righteousness.


our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless.

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## mona amon

> The conflict in Northern Ireland has political and religious roots that are centuries old. In modern times the conflict is largely about Home Rule, although the political divide matches the religious divide. But, for instance's, Cromwell's invasion of Ireland was partly a religious crusade of Puritans against Roman Catholics. Cromwell's January 1650 Declaration to the Irish Catholic Clergy shows the religious motivation: "You are part of Antichrist, whose Kingdom the Scriptures so expressly speaks should be laid in blood and ere it be long, you must all of you have blood to drink; even the dregs of the cup of the fury and wrath of God, which will be poured out unto you." This explains the horrific, genocidal violence perpetrated by Cromwell on the Irish people, which went far beyond what might have been expected from a simple land grab.
> 
> Actually, when you listen to extreme protestants in Northern Ireland you realise that Cromwell's declaration is still alive in the heart of many. The surest way to get away from this extremism is, surely, for intelligent people to admit that such constructs as the "Antichrist" and "God" are unhelpful fantasies best cast into the dark night of history.


The idealistic atheist believes that taking God out of the mix will solve the problem of hatred and prejudice. The overzealous evangelist believes that everything will be sunshine and puppies and daisies if everyone would just accept Jesus as their savior. In what way are these two attitudes different? Religion is not the only source of hatred in the world. What about racism, homophobia, jingoistic patriotism, sexism, classism and a host of other secular 'isms' that are going to exist even in a world of happy atheists?

Prejudice and irrational hatred are the result of real or perceived differences between people, and eliminating just one of the differences (religion) is not going to help, because the solution obviously lies in how to make people tolerate and embrace each other's differences, rather than in attempting to obliterate these differences, which is not going to happen anyway.

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## Lykren

> The idealistic atheist believes that taking God out of the mix will solve the problem of hatred and prejudice. The overzealous evangelist believes that everything will be sunshine and puppies and daisies if everyone would just accept Jesus as their savior. In what way are these two attitudes different? Religion is not the only source of hatred in the world. What about racism, homophobia, jingoistic patriotism, sexism, classism and a host of other secular 'isms' that are going to exist even in a world of happy atheists?
> 
> Prejudice and irrational hatred are the result of real or perceived differences between people, and eliminating just one of the differences (religion) is not going to help, because the solution obviously lies in how to make people tolerate and embrace each other's differences, rather than in attempting to obliterate these differences, which is not going to happen anyway.


Good post. But, are different religions really expressions of substantive, intrinsic differences between people? Or are they holdovers from times when people were more restricted regionally, and each region would independently develop concepts about the nature of reality, etc.?

However, I may be misunderstanding this whole thing, because to be honest, I am always truly baffled by the impulse towards organized religion so many people seem to share. When I find out that someone I know and have grown to like attends church/synagogue/mosque/participates with sincerity and reverence in a faith, I feel lost and confused, as if they were not the person I thought they were. Religion may be a very significant part of their life, but it is as alien to me as the opinion of those who are confident that there is an objective reality that can be measured and otherwise subjected to scientific study. I suppose it is the idea of their certainty that gets to me. How can someone believe in anything with certainty? In particular the thought that there is an entire community of people who believe (with certainty!) in the same doctrine seems unreal to me. I mean, is the same thought ever thought twice? It would be an enormous coincidence that so many came, after profound meditation, to believe the same thing, unless a) that thing were true (in which case how did there come to be so many widely differing religions? that is, both the external variety and internal sameness of religion stump me) or b) they did not profoundly meditate. They were told these things and have not come around to questioning them. If that were to be the case, it would seem very tragic to me. I personally find great value in attempting to question every single thought that comes to my mind, and, for purely selfish reasons, I would not like to be alone in this.

I apologize for the personal quality to this post. It just all came rushing out. I may post this as a blog post at some point. Thanks to anyone who reads this whole mess!

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## mal4mac

> The idealistic atheist believes that taking God out of the mix will solve the problem of hatred and prejudice.


Name an "idealistic atheist" who does this - you are attacking a straw man. 





> Prejudice and irrational hatred are the result of real or perceived differences between people, and eliminating just one of the differences (religion) is not going to help, because the solution obviously lies in how to make people tolerate and embrace each other's differences, rather than in attempting to obliterate these differences, which is not going to happen anyway.


Why not try both? Atheism is on the increase, religion just might be removed through argument. Meanwhile, I agree, atheists should tolerate the religious types who tolerate them. 

What do you mean by "embrace someone else's difference"? That seems to expecting the atheist to say, "I think it's wonderful you are a Christian." This may be too much to ask. If the atheist believes that moderate religion is a fertile earth in which extremism can grow, there is no way that the atheist can "embrace" the views of the moderate Christian. He can *tolerate* the moderate Christian, because an atheist (being a doubting sort!) is not certain that the moderate views of the Anglican next door will (eventually) lead to a Cromwell or an ISIS commander committing genocide. It may even be that the gentle Anglican's views will lead to a more peaceful environment, so, certainly, the gentle Anglican deserves to be tolerated as long as he is gentle - which doesn't mean you can't have a good argument with him.

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## mal4mac

> ... it is as alien to me as the opinion of those who are confident that there is an objective reality that can be measured and otherwise subjected to scientific study. I suppose it is the idea of their certainty that gets to me. How can someone believe in anything with certainty?


I think you are attacking some straw scientists here. Who exactly believes this? The scientists I've read on this issue, when pressed, admit that there is no certainty about anything. The existence of Buckingham Palace is usually accepted as an objective fact, there are many pictures, and some us have actually seen it, but the Venusians might have projected this idea into my brain, and there actually is no Buckingham Palace - so yes there is no *absolute* certainty.

Your main point of your bafflement about how intelligent, well-informed, people can get involved in organised religion is well taken though. I share that bafflement! Dawkins suggests they are mad, bad, or stupid. With your nice, clever, religious friends, I think it kindest to see them as slightly dotty, and treat them with tolerance and kindness (unless they become violent - then lock 'em up in a well run prison...) Outside anonymous internet forums, I'd treat them as sane, indeed just like everyone else, but it would always be in the back of my mind that they are, indeed, mad. Still, some of the best people I know are mad.

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## Paulclem

> I think you are attacking some straw scientists here. Who exactly believes this? The scientists I've read on this issue, when pressed, admit that there is no certainty about anything. The existence of Buckingham Palace is usually accepted as an objective fact, there are many pictures, and some us have actually seen it, but the Venusians might have projected this idea into my brain, and there actually is no Buckingham Palace - so yes there is no *absolute* certainty.
> 
> Your main point of your bafflement about how intelligent, well-informed, people can get involved in organised religion is well taken though. I share that bafflement! Dawkins suggests they are mad, bad, or stupid. With your nice, clever, religious friends, I think it kindest to see them as slightly dotty, and treat them with tolerance and kindness (unless they become violent - then lock 'em up in a well run prison...) Outside anonymous internet forums, I'd treat them as sane, indeed just like everyone else, but it would always be in the back of my mind that they are, indeed, mad. Still, some of the best people I know are mad.


I don't think it's hard to understand. It depends where you are born. Many people grow up in communities which are family orientated and supportive - in many countries. There's really no mystery to it. 
The insight atheist or alternative views bring are not necessarily open or available to many people. Just the simple fact of the language barrier inhibits a balanced view. 

Putting aside the contribution religion has brought to education, science e.t.c it may seem in our liberal western democracies that we are in a post religious era. That would be to neglect the many sincere practitioners of religion who are quite happily religious and would probably mirror your comment about not understanding why people don't believe in God/ have a religion. 

To pretend that religion has had it's day on a wider basis is to foster a kind of sneering intolerance.

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## YesNo

> If the atheist believes that *moderate religion is a fertile earth in which extremism can grow*, there is no way that the atheist can "embrace" the views of the moderate Christian. He can *tolerate* the moderate Christian, because an atheist (*being a doubting sort!*) is not certain that the moderate views of *the Anglican next door will (eventually) lead to a Cromwell or an ISIS commander committing genocide*. It may even be that the gentle Anglican's views will lead to a more peaceful environment, so, certainly, the gentle Anglican deserves to be *tolerated as long as he is gentle* - which doesn't mean you can't have a good argument with him.


It is interesting how our views parallel each other. 

I see atheism as a "fertile earth in which extremism can grow". Although I doubt the atheist next door will get the required political power, perhaps he will be the next Pol Pot committing genocide or, more likely, the follower of some leader like that. I also think that the gentle atheist "deserves to be tolerated as long as he is gentle". Our perspectives are very similar.

The "doubting" atheist is a myth that supports the atheists' delusion of ethical superiority. I _doubt_ that atheists are any more doubting in their views than fundamentalist Christians or Muslims--or than anyone else, for that matter.

Just as a side note, I suspect that self-righteousness is a perverted mystical experience. It has a invigorating rush to it. This is one of the reasons why I think atheism can be classified as a religion.

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## YesNo

> However, I may be misunderstanding this whole thing, because to be honest, I am always truly baffled by the impulse towards *organized religion* so many people seem to share. When I find out that someone I know and have grown to like attends church/synagogue/mosque/participates with sincerity and reverence in a faith, I feel lost and confused, as if they were not the person I thought they were. Religion may be a very significant part of their life, but it is as alien to me as the opinion of those *who are confident that there is an objective reality that can be measured and otherwise subjected to scientific study.* I suppose it is the idea of *their certainty* that gets to me. How can someone believe in anything with certainty? In particular the thought that there is an entire community of people who believe (*with certainty!*) in the same *doctrine* seems unreal to me. I mean, is the same thought ever thought twice? It would be an enormous coincidence that so many came, after profound meditation, to believe the same thing, unless a) that thing were true (in which case *how did there come to be so many widely differing religions*? that is, both the *external variety and internal sameness* of religion stump me) or b) *they did not profoundly meditate.* *They were told these things* and have not come around to questioning them. If that were to be the case, it would seem very tragic to me. *I personally find great value in attempting to question every single thought that comes to my mind*, and, for purely selfish reasons, I would not like to be alone in this.


Just some notes about the ideas you presented.

1) There is more to religion than "organized religion" although I think that is the easiest way to get involved with other religious people.

2) I doubt that anyone approaches their beliefs with the "certainty" that you believe they do. Certainty is often used by atheists to try to make their position look more "scientific" and to portray a religious person's position as "unscientific". If you truly question your every thought, I suggest you question this view.

3) Being "confident that there is an objective reality that can be measured and otherwise subjected to scientific study" is puzzling to me. Doesn't quantum physics put in question the very objective reality underlying materialism? The reality that theists worship is a transcendent Consciousness of some sort that they can relate to through their own immanent consciousness.

4) The "external variety and internal sameness" reminds me of individuals within a species. There is external variety as well as internal sameness. I don't see why cultural differences should discredit a religious tradition.

5) I suspect most people gain their religious beliefs rather simply, not through long periods of meditation nor philosophical questioning, but sort of in the same way they fall in love. 

6) I doubt anyone questions every single thought they have. However, people do try to rationalize their positions and this does involve questioning. I see nothing wrong with rationalization. Some people, however, think they are doing more than that when they justify their beliefs to themselves. Ultimately, we are all betting our lives on our beliefs. We want them to be as right as possible.

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## mal4mac

> It is interesting how our views parallel each other. 
> 
> I see atheism as a "fertile earth in which extremism can grow". Although I doubt the atheist next door will get the required political power, perhaps he will be the next Pol Pot committing genocide or, more likely, the follower of some leader like that. I also think that the gentle atheist "deserves to be tolerated as long as he is gentle". Our perspectives are very similar.


No, I don't think there's a parallel. 

Cromwell's Declaration to the Irish Catholics shows that the religious motivation was as much a determining factor for genocide as any political considerations: "You are part of Antichrist, ...". Pol Pot's motivation was purely political, the religious orientation of the people he killed was neither here nor there. Actually the people he killed would have been almost entirely atheists! If not communists, they would have been Theravadan Buddhists, and therefore atheists. And you can't say the Buddhists were "different kinds of atheists", because atheism is *simply* not believing in God, so there is only one kind of atheist.

Just in case you quibble - I guess you can have different kinds of atheists, but the differences have never been a motivation to genocide. For example, a gnostic atheist not only believes there are no gods, he also claims to know there are no gods, and an agnostic atheist doesn’t believe in gods, but doesn’t claim to know there are no gods. But Pol Pot never said, "I'm an X-kind-of-atheist, you're a Y-kind-of-atheist, and I'm going to kill you for being a Y-kind-of-atheist." Being one kind of atheist has never been a motivation for killing another kind of atheist.

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## Lykren

> Just some notes about the ideas you presented.
> 
> 2) I doubt that anyone approaches their beliefs with the "certainty" that you believe they do. Certainty is often used by atheists to try to make their position look more "scientific" and to portray a religious person's position as "unscientific". If you truly question your every thought, I suggest you question this view.


I don't question my every thought; I do my best to, and usually fail.

That said, I think you are misunderstanding what I said about science. I don't see how science adds fundamentally to the value of life, since it consists of knowing something other than an awareness of one's own ignorance, so it seems like another lie to me. I came up with a cute little term to describe my idea: I call it 'epistemological nihilism.' That locates me partially in the territory of the agnostic atheist.

Anyways, why would 'scientific-ness' be a quality that adds attractiveness to either the idea of atheism or theism? I can't even know that I know nothing, since I often believe in things, such as 'tomorrow the sun will rise' that may turn out to be true. Or there may be no sun in the first place, and solipsism could be true. My constant emotion is bewilderment.

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## mona amon

> Name an "idealistic atheist" who does this - you are attacking a straw man.


There are millions of atheists who believe the world will be a better place without religion. Mac, even you seem to think so, since you believe that "moderate religion is a fertile earth in which extremism can grow". 




> Why not try both? Atheism is on the increase, religion just might be removed through argument. Meanwhile, I agree, atheists should tolerate the religious types who tolerate them. 
> 
> What do you mean by "embrace someone else's difference"? That seems to expecting the atheist to say, "I think it's wonderful you are a Christian." This may be too much to ask. If the atheist believes that moderate religion is a fertile earth in which extremism can grow, there is no way that the atheist can "embrace" the views of the moderate Christian. He can *tolerate* the moderate Christian, because an atheist (being a doubting sort!) is not certain that the moderate views of the Anglican next door will (eventually) lead to a Cromwell or an ISIS commander committing genocide. It may even be that the gentle Anglican's views will lead to a more peaceful environment, so, certainly, the gentle Anglican deserves to be tolerated as long as he is gentle - which doesn't mean you can't have a good argument with him.


I meant, embrace the fact that they are different. Embrace them in spite of their differences. Embrace them along with their differences. Some brotherly love thing like that. I certainly did not mean you have to accept their opinions or refrain from arguing with them. I do not even mean that you cannot try to convert them to your own opinion if you feel strongly enough about it. Tolerance only means 'to live and let live', not become like the other. To quote Gandhi, _"True knowledge of religion breaks down the barriers between Faith and Faith. Cultivation of tolerance for other Faiths will impart to us a true understanding of our own. Tolerance obviously does not disturb the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil."_

----------


## Iain Sparrow

> There are millions of atheists who believe the world will be a better place without religion. Mac, even you seem to think so, since you believe that "moderate religion is a fertile earth in which extremism can grow". [/I]


I think it's a matter of maturity... I think both religious folks, and atheists alike tend to stereotype the other side based on the worst representations of those opposing views. I'm an atheist, but thankfully not the same "firebrand" atheist I was when I was young. I have come to believe, or at least strongly suspect that a world free of religion would not be a better place.

----------


## cacian

> or at least strongly suspect that a world free of religion would not be a better place.


I don't know it has never been tried and so to vouch for it in a negative way is perhaps too hasty.
however a world full of religions has bluntly shown the world is NOT a better place in fact the world is a miserable place because of it.
by order of elimination I am more then confident to suggest that the world without religion is a much healthier and better place for it.
people need to get off their dormant prayfull contemplating stance and onto active looking up and doing things.
I don't get monasteries monks and nunneries they are just there contemplative and absent from the rest of the world,
there is a lot to do and so one needs to get out and get doing stuff. active is a better mental state then a dormant removed one.
I am sure god is more then bored listening to these constant nagging prayfull contemplating states.
I am sure he much rather have a party and get drunk silly  :Wink:   :Biggrin: 
none of that serious long faces religious folks carry on themselves.
as to their garments god help us they ought to check out the latest fashions on how to put on a pair of clothing.

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## mal4mac

> There are millions of atheists who believe the world will be a better place without religion. Mac, even you seem to think so...


I agree with this, but I disagree with what you said above, i.e., "The idealistic atheist believes that taking God out of the mix will solve the problem of hatred and prejudice." If you're using this as a definition of "idealistic atheist" then fair enough, but, if that's the case, there are very few atheists who are idealistic atheists! Most atheists aren't so naive as to think the world will be all "sunshine and puppies" if religion is removed.

----------


## mal4mac

> I think it's a matter of maturity...


How is it a matter of maturity? "The Four Horsemen" are mature, you are just making gratuitous insults. Maybe getting back some of your youthful fire would be a good thing?

----------


## mona amon

It _is_ a matter of maturity to let go of one's prejudices and become more open minded. 




> I agree with this, but I disagree with what you said above, i.e., "The idealistic atheist believes that taking God out of the mix will solve the problem of hatred and prejudice." If you're using this as a definition of "idealistic atheist" then fair enough, but, if that's the case, there are very few atheists who are idealistic atheists! Most atheists aren't so naive as to think the world will be all "sunshine and puppies" if religion is removed.


Fair enough. I was exaggerating a bit as I usually do for (attempted) rhetorical effect but I was exaggerating in exactly the same way about my 'overzealous evangelist' as well, so I think my point still holds. There's really no difference between the two attitudes.

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## mona amon

> as to their garments god help us they ought to check out the latest fashions on how to put on a pair of clothing.


 :FRlol:  I've heard many things said about religious people, but this is the first time I've heard them accused of not having a dress sense!

----------


## YALASH

> 1935-present Tenzin Gyatso- Dalai Llama advocates peace for Tibet
> 
> 1931-present Archbishop Desmond Tutu- anti-apartheid activist
> 
> 1929-1968 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.- Activist for peace and civil rights for blacks.
> 
> 1926-present Thích Nhất Hạnh peace activist and founder of engaged Buddhism
> 
> 1910-1997 Mother Teresa built hospices, soup kitchens, and orphanages for poor people
> ...


Peace be on everyone.

1950-Present Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Ahmadiyya Muslim Khalifah (may Allah be his Helper)


https://www.alislam.org/khilafat/fifth/

----------


## HCabret

> Peace be on everyone.
> 
> 1950-Present Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Ahmadiyya Muslim Khalifah (may Allah be his Helper)
> 
> 
> https://www.alislam.org/khilafat/fifth/


where do I sign up? I hope the kook-aid tastes as good as everyone says it is.

----------


## Paulclem

Pakistan 1951

The Edhi Foundation established by Abdul Sattar Edhi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edhi_Foundation

where do I sign up? I hope the kook-aid tastes as good as everyone says it is. 

They wouldn't have you. You already know it all.

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## HCabret

> Pakistan 1951
> 
> The Edhi Foundation established by Abdul Sattar Edhi
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edhi_Foundation
> 
> where do I sign up? I hope the kook-aid tastes as good as everyone says it is. 
> 
> They wouldn't have you. You already know it all.


sweet! God status! I thought Morgan Freeman was god, but now I know that I am.

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## Paulclem

> sweet! God status! I thought Morgan Freeman was god, but now I know that I am.


Haha

He is, but I thought there was a rarefied community of them.

----------


## HCabret

> Haha
> 
> He is, but I thought there was a rarefied community of them.


more than one god or more than Morgan freeman? Haha.

----------


## YesNo

> No, I don't think there's a parallel. 
> 
> Cromwell's Declaration to the Irish Catholics shows that the religious motivation was as much a determining factor for genocide as any political considerations: "You are part of Antichrist, ...". Pol Pot's motivation was purely political, the religious orientation of the people he killed was neither here nor there. Actually the people he killed would have been almost entirely atheists! If not communists, they would have been Theravadan Buddhists, and therefore atheists. And you can't say the Buddhists were "different kinds of atheists", because atheism is *simply* not believing in God, so there is only one kind of atheist.
> 
> Just in case you quibble - I guess you can have different kinds of atheists, but the differences have never been a motivation to genocide. For example, a gnostic atheist not only believes there are no gods, he also claims to know there are no gods, and an agnostic atheist doesnt believe in gods, but doesnt claim to know there are no gods. But Pol Pot never said, "I'm an X-kind-of-atheist, you're a Y-kind-of-atheist, and I'm going to kill you for being a Y-kind-of-atheist." Being one kind of atheist has never been a motivation for killing another kind of atheist.


What I think one sees with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is atheism behaving very badly to the point of genocide: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhis...de/pol-pot.htm 

I don't see eastern Buddhists as atheists, but does it matter? Religion was banned by the Khmer Rouge fanatics cleansing their culture. Did atheism provide any resistance? I don't think so. I don't think it could have provided any resistance.

If atheists claim they can't be implicated in any crimes atheists have committed throughout history, religious people could do the same thing. They could claim that any crimes committed by religious people, in the name of their religion or not, were done by people who lost their religion.

----------


## YesNo

> I don't question my every thought; I do my best to, and usually fail.
> 
> That said, I think you are misunderstanding what I said about science. I don't see how science adds fundamentally to the value of life, since it consists of knowing something other than an awareness of one's own ignorance, so it seems like another lie to me. I came up with a cute little term to describe my idea: I call it 'epistemological nihilism.' That locates me partially in the territory of the agnostic atheist.
> 
> Anyways, *why would 'scientific-ness' be a quality that adds attractiveness to either the idea of atheism or theism?* I can't even know that I know nothing, since I often believe in things, such as 'tomorrow the sun will rise' that may turn out to be true. Or there may be no sun in the first place, and solipsism could be true. *My constant emotion is bewilderment*.


I'd like to hope my awareness is based on wonder.

When you brought up the idea of "certainty" as a negative characteristic of religious people I began to connect the dots. I've heard that many times before, but I think I finally understand its social origins. Atheists think religious people are unscientific because of their "certainty" and think they are superior to religious people because they "doubt". However, I don't think atheists are any better doubters than religious people nor are atheists any more scientific. 

At the moment, given quantum physics, I don't think atheism can rest any longer on materialism. If the fundamental nature of the unconscious physical world is sufficiently challenged even Cartesian dualism is obsolete. Consciousness needs to be involved in some way, perhaps as Thomas Nagel (an atheist) tries to do with panpsychism. If that, or some other approach, is not adequate to save atheism, then atheism is as false as belief in a flat earth.

Then the question becomes: why are atheists promoting an obsolete metaphysics so vigorously?

----------


## mortalterror

> What I think one sees with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is atheism behaving very badly to the point of genocide: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhis...de/pol-pot.htm 
> 
> I don't see eastern Buddhists as atheists, but does it matter? Religion was banned by the Khmer Rouge fanatics cleansing their culture. Did atheism provide any resistance? I don't think so. I don't think it could have provided any resistance.
> 
> If atheists claim they can't be implicated in any crimes atheists have committed throughout history, religious people could do the same thing. They could claim that any crimes committed by religious people, in the name of their religion or not, were done by people who lost their religion.


Let's just say that when Mal4mac posts his Cromwell quotes and makes those claims about militant atheism never being the cause of genocide, he is damn lucky most of the posters on this site don't read Russian, Chinese, and Khmer. I have a feeling that if I could, this would be easily refuted, and that he'd have to scale back his premise to 'no English language atheists have ever carried out genocide in the name of atheism.' But alas, I am not an Asian Studies major.

----------


## mortalterror

> I'd like to hope my awareness is based on wonder.
> 
> When you brought up the idea of "certainty" as a negative characteristic of religious people I began to connect the dots. I've heard that many times before, but I think I finally understand its social origins. Atheists think religious people are unscientific because of their "certainty" and think they are superior to religious people because they "doubt". However, I don't think atheists are any better doubters than religious people nor are atheists any more scientific. 
> 
> At the moment, given quantum physics, I don't think atheism can rest any longer on materialism. If the fundamental nature of the unconscious physical world is sufficiently challenged even Cartesian dualism is obsolete. Consciousness needs to be involved in some way, perhaps as Thomas Nagel (an atheist) tries to do with panpsychism. If that, or some other approach, is not adequate to save atheism, then atheism is as false as belief in a flat earth.
> 
> Then the question becomes: why are atheists promoting an obsolete metaphysics so vigorously?


There certainly seems to be a bit of Cartesian philosophy running through the atheist subculture, but I think I find more young Hegelians (often by way of Marx). Personally, I find myself more in accord with William James.

This reminds me of another discussion I had about atheist vs religious philosophy I've had on another board.



> While we are on the subject of atheist philosophy and Christian philosophy, I read an interesting article I'd like to run by Tenne in particular. There was a study done at the University of Michigan where they tried to figure out which majors were more likely to turn people into atheists. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/28/majors
> 
> Surprisingly, the humanities were more likely than the sciences. Now, there could be a number of different reasons for this, and it is just one study; but the researchers concluded that it was actually post-modern philosophy which eroded faith. Ideas like moral relativism, existential angst, and all of that negativity. Based on the way some of the atheists on this board talk, their obsessions with power relationships, distrust of authorities, fear of being manipulated, I have to wonder which philosophies they've been exposed to and how this colors their worldview.
> 
> Personally, I think that my worldview is more classically oriented, which may gel well with thousand year old institutions and their teachings. I think those are still the dominant philosophies/theologies of the church, where modern philosophy and post-modern philosophy aren't influencing most doctrines. There are newer post-modern theologians but their ideas are not as widely disseminated as say those of Luther, Calvin, Augustine, or Aquinus.
> 
> When I listen to atheists talk about the Church or Government I feel like we are coming at our views of both institutions from fundamentally different points of view. I tend to think of both the Church and Government as generally beneficial, comprised of good people, with the best intentions. I see their errors not as malicious but as acts of ignorance or basic human weakness. With a few exceptions, this is also how I see people.
> 
> I wonder if atheists see government and religion and other institutions as well in a negative light. I don't know where they draw the line and trust. Is it a personality trait or have they been indoctrinated with Marx, Foucault, Sartre, and Heidegger, where we have uncertainty and power relationships? Does it go further to the nature of man as good or savage like Hobbes and Rousseau?
> ...


And I'll add that I've recently run into strands of atheism which embrace nihilism, and anti-natalism, two very disturbing and pessimistic modern philosophies. One might almost posit that the reason for the growth of atheism in the last century was do to the hopelessness, the materialism, and the unwholesomeness of it's dominant philosophies which found themselves opposed to the more tradition values expressed in religion. C.S. Lewis has a section on this concept in Mere Christianity, where he hypothesizes that the modern world is creating "men without chests," that all facets of modern society endeavor to strip man of his humanity. The opinions and ideas of Lenin, or Sartre, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Russell, etc made more of an impact than their cheerier, more optimistic brethren. The modern theologies of Newman, Niebuhr, Barth, Tillich, etc found little place in the public discourse.

Or could there be a different dynamic at play here? I sometimes wonder if the decline of classical education is linked with the decline of religious education, and a decline in traditional moral values? Has there been a paradigm shift in our culture away from reverence for the past, identity forming associations with large stable cultures, and toward a more individual transient identity along with the worship of technology and progress? A movement from high culture to pop culture, from eternal verities to postmodern relativity? The death of art and the triumph of science? Meanwhile, if the renaissance was born out of the renewed interest in the classics, and this current age shrugs off both Christian culture and classical culture, could we be heading into an entirely new age?

Many atheists wrongly assume that there is an innate conflict between religion and science, but while I tend to favor Gould's theory of Non-Overlapping Magesteria, sometimes I do wonder if there is a conflict playing out between science and the humanities. I've seen so many atheists express a passion for the sciences while simultaneously expressing a contempt for art, philosophy, beauty, etc. I see the way our arts and music programs are shrinking while our science, mathematics, and computer programs are expanding, and I wonder just how materialistic our education is these days. I wonder if perhaps John Dewey had something to do with that. How much of the crimp on drama, choir, and drawing owes it's explanation to the invasion of secular materialism into the curriculum. When I hear about English teachers being pressed to teach non-fiction over fiction, let alone poetry, I feel outraged. Should all education be utilitarian and must we only learn the things which will guarantee us a good job? What about quality of life? What about culture? Our education, our whole society seems intent upon churning out mindless workers, and making products. A hundred years ago, knowing Greek might not get you a job, but at least you could read Homer.

----------


## Paulclem

Or could there be a different dynamic at play here? I sometimes wonder if the decline of classical education is linked with the decline of religious education

I doubt that. A classical education was never really offered to the vast majority of people here in the UK and probably elsewhere. The shift from high culture to pop, in my opinion is not a downward one but upward. From the 1960s, with more leisure and money around in he UK and Europe, pop culture grew upwardly. The greater population just became better educated, and I think the economic factor is the key to recent changes too. The recent credit crunch has certainly affected education - that combined with the hiking of fees in the UK - and, given the ongoing concern of parents, Govts and employers about graduate and young people's employability, there has been a refocusing upon the end product, employability and the long term prospects courses and education offer. 

As for religion within communities - there has always been a strong, not necessarily atheist but merely nominal religious feeling. It was apparent in the 19th century, and Christianity has been in decline as a practiced religion for a long time. My 1960s education was flanked all round by middle class, religiously minded teachers who really had little connection to my class mates and me. The schools I attended were predominantly working class with a mix of middle class kids. I can honestly say that I don't know of any of my class mates who attended church. Whilst this is anecdotal, I think the recent single figure stats for church attendance in the UK support what has been a long falling out with religion in general and Christianity in particular. I think you can see it in how our language has developed over the past 100 or more years. God isn't in the speech anymore. You might hear an occasional "Oh God" as a kind of mild expletive, but you don't hear what are familiar but now uncommon phrases like "God willing" or "God go with you". 

When I hear about English teachers being pressed to teach non-fiction over fiction, let alone poetry, I feel outraged.

Previously virtually no non-fiction was being taught. I welcomed this because it is the actual writing that everyone will encounter in life whether you read literature o not. Unfortunately Mortal, the kind of literature you and I might like is not universally enjoyed, but non-fiction is universally encountered. There is and was such an ignorance about how non-fiction texts can manipulate the reader - newspapers etc - that I think this was the most important addition to the curriculum. It also contributes to a critical reading of literature, as a lot of the skills are employed by authors too.

Should all education be utilitarian and must we only learn the things which will guarantee us a good job? What about quality of life? What about culture? Our education, our whole society seems intent upon churning out mindless workers, and making products.

I agree with your sentiments. it's like turning back to the terrible education of the 1940s/50s - I've heard several elderly blokes comment about how all the blood had been taken out of one arm and they had none left in there- in all seriousness! I'm undecided as to how this could be addressed. Again, given the economic climate and the reluctance of government to support initiatives to develop education beyond a narrow utilitarian vision, it's hard to see how this will change soon. I'm just glad that my daughter has now left full time education in school and will be attending uni instead. I have been watching the progress of my six year old niece and getting a the sense of the school she attends. I can only say it is heavily target orientated and very depressing. She's six and hates school. How sad is that.

----------


## mal4mac

> What I think one sees with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is atheism behaving very badly to the point of genocide: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhis...de/pol-pot.htm


The word atheism doesn't appear once in that article! The concept isn't even there in other words. This is because atheism had about as much do with the matter as fashion sense. Lets see what the article does say:

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was trying to form a Communist peasant farming society.Mao's "Great Leap Forward" economic program included forced evacuations of Chinese cities and the purging of "class enemies." Pol Pot attempted his own "Super Great Leap Forward" in Cambodia.

So the killings were based on Communist ideology, on the attempt to purge "class enemies". The concept of "class enemies" is not part of atheism. Atheism is, simply, not believing in a God.




> If atheists claim they can't be implicated in any crimes...


Atheists are not claiming that! They, or at least I, and the article you linked to, are claiming that Pol Pot's crimes were caused by his Communist Ideology, put into practice by his purge of "class enemies". There are atheist communists, who are violent because of their communism, but there are also atheist pacifists who are totally non-violent.

----------


## mal4mac

> The opinions and ideas of Lenin, or Sartre, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Russell, etc made more of an impact than their cheerier, more optimistic brethren.


I've never heard of Newman, Niebuhr, Barth, Tillich described as cheery. I've read all of them and, apart from not being at all enlightening, cheer was not on display. OK maybe they were a barrel of laugh in everyday life, I don't know. But, in any case, you can't seriously claim that good cheer is an exclusively Christian phenomena. There are too many obvious counter-examples to go into detail, but I'll just point to David Hume, often reputed to be the cheeriest philosopher, and he's most certainly an atheist.




> I've seen so many atheists express a passion for the sciences while simultaneously expressing a contempt for art, philosophy, beauty, etc.


Name one of any intellectual standing.

----------


## JCamilo

> I've never heard of Newman, Niebuhr, Barth, Tillich described as cheery. I've read all of them and, apart from not being at all enlightening, cheer was not on display. OK maybe they were a barrel of laugh in everyday life, I don't know. But, in any case, you can't seriously claim that good cheer is an exclusively Christian phenomena. There are too many obvious counter-examples to go into detail, but I'll just point to David Hume, often reputed to be the cheeriest philosopher, and he's most certainly an atheist.


And now Hume is merrily cheering that you are so certain of something about him, that he wasn't so sure about...

----------


## YesNo

> The word atheism doesn't appear once in that article! The concept isn't even there in other words. This is because atheism had about as much do with the matter as fashion sense. Lets see what the article does say:
> 
> Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was trying to form a Communist peasant farming society.Mao's "Great Leap Forward" economic program included forced evacuations of Chinese cities and the purging of "class enemies." Pol Pot attempted his own "Super Great Leap Forward" in Cambodia.
> 
> So the killings were based on Communist ideology, on the attempt to purge "class enemies". The concept of "class enemies" is not part of atheism. Atheism is, simply, not believing in a God.


If the Khmer Rouge had Christians or Muslims leading it, I suspect you would use it as an argument against those religions regardless of whether they explicitly referred to anything beside "communism". I would.

As I mentioned, if atheism can escape blame for the Khmer Rouge then religious groups can escape blame for anything a religious leader has done. They just have to say that leader or participant lost his or her religion and was no longer practicing that religion when the atrocities occurred.




> Atheists are not claiming that! They, or at least I, and the article you linked to, are claiming that Pol Pot's crimes *were caused by his Communist Ideology*, put into practice by his purge of "class enemies". There are atheist communists, who are violent because of their communism, but there are also atheist pacifists who are totally non-violent.


What I hear you saying is that it is OK to excuse atheists, but it is not OK to excuse theists. That's problematic since atheists seem to have the worse track record when it comes to atrocities. 

I am not saying that there aren't peaceful atheists. One doesn't have to be a theist to be peaceful. If theism is true then everyone is grounded in some ethical common sense whether they acknowledge the source or not. What I think morals and ethics provide for theism is a way to practice their religion in order to experience the God or Goddess they believe in more fully.

----------


## YesNo

> Personally, I find myself more in accord with William James.


I have only read a little of William James, but I think I am in accord with him as well. I'm going to have to read more.




> This reminds me of another discussion I had about atheist vs religious philosophy I've had on another board.


The article you cited there was interesting (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/28/majors) especially in pointing out that postmodernism rather than science is the strongest antagonist toward religion.

----------


## mal4mac

> If the Khmer Rouge had Christians or Muslims leading it, I suspect you would use it as an argument against those religions regardless of whether they explicitly referred to anything beside "communism". I would.


I wouldn't! It was Pol Pot's communism that drove him genocide, if he had been Christian it wouldn't have been relevant in his case.




> As I mentioned, if atheism can escape blame for the Khmer Rouge then religious groups can escape blame for anything a religious leader has done. They just have to say that leader or participant lost his or her religion and was no longer practicing that religion when the atrocities occurred.


Atheism doesn't need to escape blame for the Khmer Rouge because it wasn't to blame in the first place. Christians do try to escape blame by saying Cromwell wasn't a "proper Christian". But i can'et see how they can do this as he used explicit Christian concepts ("Antichrist...") to justify genocide - "if it quacks like a duck..."




> What I hear you saying is that it is OK to excuse atheists, but it is not OK to excuse theists. That's problematic since atheists seem to have the worse track record when it comes to atrocities.


I'm not saying that at all, no genocidal maniac should be excused. But if we are to get anywhere to understanding these maniacs we need to look for the true source of their genocidal impulses. In Pol Pot's case it was Communism. OK let's ditch Communism. (In a surprising uprise of rationality, in the last few decades, we seem to have mostly done that!) Now we just need to ditch some other isms - Islamism, Fundamentalism, etc.,... (not atheism though  :Smile: )

----------


## mal4mac

> And now Hume is merrily cheering that you are so certain of something about him, that he wasn't so sure about...


OK, you caught me in excessive use of hyperbole; "most certainly" was too strong!

----------


## YesNo

> I'm not saying that at all, no genocidal maniac should be excused. But if we are to get anywhere to understanding these maniacs we need to look for the true source of their genocidal impulses. In Pol Pot's case it was Communism. OK let's ditch Communism. (In a surprising uprise of rationality, in the last few decades, we seem to have mostly done that!) Now we just need to ditch some other isms - Islamism, Fundamentalism, etc.,... (not atheism though )


I maintain it was Pol Pot's atheism that drove the genocide. Not his communism. Atheism provided no brake on the atrocities, but encouraged self-righteous violence as part of its quasi-religious practice. 

How do you plan to get rid of these other isms?

----------


## Jackson Richardson

> I found the name of this thread rather strange, because with few exceptions organized religion is hatred and prejudice. That what those people do; they insist that their opinions are "truth" and put down those who don't agree.


There are plenty of confirmed atheists who insist their opinions are truth and put down those who don't agree, although not "putting down" necessarly in the sense of destroying.


The late Marshall Stalin was certainly an atheist and sent many to their deaths.

When I was on chemo therapy, I was supported by members of my church. How is that "hatred and prejudice"?

As a gay man, I have found unfailing support over the last forty years from the churches I have attended.

----------


## HCabret

> There are plenty of confirmed atheists who insist their opinions are truth and put down those who don't agree, although not "putting down" necessarly in the sense of destroying.
> 
> 
> The late Marshall Stalin was certainly an atheist and sent many to their deaths.
> 
> When I was on chemo therapy, I was supported by members of my church. How is that "hatred and prejudice"?
> 
> As a gay man, I have found unfailing support over the last forty years from the churches I have attended.


do you believe in evangelization? Or are you good with people deciding things for themselves?

----------


## Jackson Richardson

God as revealed by Christ in his incarnation, death and resurrection is already with other people. I experience that through the sacraments and symbols of Christian tradition.

God may have other plans for others.

I should be humble in recognising the extent to which that is already the case rather than trying to make up for my lack of belief by proselytising others, and try to love them as they are.

Maybe God will use my witness to the Christian tradition to help them, but that is not for me to say.

----------


## mal4mac

> I maintain it was Pol Pot's atheism that drove the genocide. Not his communism.


And yet the article you linked to suggested that the genocide was based on the communist principles of getting rid of the exploiting class and giving power to the peasants. Nothing said about atheism! Got any articles that actually support your assertion?

Are you trying to suggest that if Pol Pot had been a Christian then no genocide would have occurred, even with him being a communist? If so, Cromwell and the Crusaders and ISIS today, etc., etc. are the evidence for religion being far from a moderator. Indeed, religion is often the main cause.

You need to show causality here: "Atheism therefore b therefore c therefore genocide". What are a and b? 

You can't just say "Atheism therefore genocide", because there is no obvious causal link. I can provide a causal link from communism or Christianity to genocide: 'Communism therefore "violent purge of exploiting class" therefore genocide in Cambodia' and 'Christianity therefore "kill the heretic" therefore genocide in Ireland'. 




> How do you plan to get rid of these other isms?


Argument.

----------


## Iain Sparrow

> How is it a matter of maturity? "The Four Horsemen" are mature, you are just making gratuitous insults. Maybe getting back some of your youthful fire would be a good thing?


I reckon I could climb a mountain and shake my fists at the sky :Smile: ... but life is too short for my non-belief in God to be anything more than it is.

----------


## YesNo

> And yet the article you linked to suggested that the genocide was based on the communist principles of getting rid of the exploiting class and giving power to the peasants. Nothing said about atheism! Got any articles that actually support your assertion?


I don't think communism itself demands genocide. It is just a way to organize human economic activity. 

To get the genocide one needs something that will generate enough self-righteousness to permit one to put a bullet through the head of an opponent. One needs a metaphysical justification for hatred. Atheism provides this in its opposition to other groups based on a deification of reason. Atheism's claim to superiority over those other groups justifies their elimination or at least suppression.

Here's an article describing state atheism as distinct from a secular state where civil liberties are protected: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism




> Are you trying to suggest that if Pol Pot had been a Christian then no genocide would have occurred, even with him being a communist? If so, Cromwell and the Crusaders and ISIS today, etc., etc. are the evidence for religion being far from a moderator. Indeed, religion is often the main cause.


Religion is capable of generating enough self-righteousness for atrocities. What I am doing is including atheism among those religious groups that have committed atrocities. Atheism is also capable of generating enough self-righteousness for atrocities. 

If you want to excuse atheism for the genocide that atheists have committed, you could do the same for any other religion. Just claim that those who committed the genocide were not living up to their religious or atheistic beliefs and so were no longer a member of the group.

However, you really can't have it both ways. You can't blame the Muslim religion for the behavior of ISIS and at the same time excuse atheism for the behavior of the Khmer Rouge. Why not? Because that just proves atheism is capable of generating the needed self-righteousness against another group it opposes.




> You need to show causality here: "Atheism therefore b therefore c therefore genocide". What are a and b? 
> 
> You can't just say "Atheism therefore genocide", because there is no obvious causal link. I can provide a causal link from communism or Christianity to genocide: 'Communism therefore "violent purge of exploiting class" therefore genocide in Cambodia' and 'Christianity therefore "kill the heretic" therefore genocide in Ireland'.


I think all that is needed is to show that atheism can generate self-righteousness.

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## mal4mac

> I don't think communism itself demands genocide. It is just a way to organize human economic activity.


Depends which definition you use, my Concise Oxford ED has two definitions, one is consistent with your statement but the other is "Form of society established in ... USSR and elsewhere." That's the sense in which I'm using it, i.e, as shorthand for the societies of Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin. The COED recommends capitalising it in the latter case, I'll try and remember to do that!




> To get the genocide one needs something that will generate enough self-righteousness to permit one to put a bullet through the head of an opponent. One needs a metaphysical justification for hatred. Atheism provides this in its opposition to other groups based on a deification of reason. Atheism's claim to superiority over those other groups justifies their elimination or at least suppression.


I don't think self-righteousness is enough; your belief system needs an explicit command to commit genocide. This is found in Communism (Marx and Lenin demanded violent overthrow of the capitalist system), and Christianity (the Bible demands the death of heretics.) Again, atheism is simply a belief that there isn't a God, it doesn't contain an extra injunction that "the religious must be killed." (Nor should it!)

'The angelic doctor Thomas Aquinas had previously argued that heresy was a "leavening influence" upon the minds of the weak, and as such, heretics should be killed. Since heretical ideas could inflict the greatest possible harm upon other human beings, it was the greatest crime of all. Heretical ideas could send people to an eternally conscious torment in hell. So logic demands that the church must get rid of this heretical leavening influence. It was indeed the greatest crime of them all, given this logic. So, “convert or die!” '

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...rt-or-die.html

So Christianity's greatest philosopher, and most learned saint, comes out looking very much like an ISIS leader!

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## mona amon

> the Bible demands the death of heretics.


Where?

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## mal4mac

> Where?


http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...rt-or-die.html quotes some Bible verses showing where Aquinas, Cromwell, and others, probably got their ideas that killing heretics was an OK thing to do.

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## YesNo

> Depends which definition you use, my Concise Oxford ED has two definitions, one is consistent with your statement but the other is "Form of society established in ... USSR and elsewhere." That's the sense in which I'm using it, i.e, as shorthand for the societies of Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin. The COED recommends capitalising it in the latter case, I'll try and remember to do that!


Even for these governments, I don't think the communism was enough to power genocide. If one insists on communism with a capital C, then one also has atheism associated with that communism. My claim is that this atheism was needed to provide the justification at a metaphysical level to support genocide.




> I don't think self-righteousness is enough; your belief system needs an *explicit command to commit genocide*. This is found in Communism (Marx and Lenin demanded violent overthrow of the capitalist system), and Christianity (the Bible demands the death of heretics.) Again, atheism is simply a belief that there isn't a God, it doesn't contain an extra injunction that "the religious must be killed." (Nor should it!)


The explicit command comes from the religious or atheistic leaders with the political power to request the purging of isms they don't want to tolerate. Self-righteousness motivates the elimination of these opposing groups. 

Were atheism merely a position that there is no God, there would be no need for this self-righteousness. So, why does it occur? Why is there this atheistic ranting against religion? My conclusion is there is more to atheism than a lack of belief in Gods and the existence of atheistic self-righteousness is the evidence for that. 

If one takes this further and sees atheism as a quasi-religion, then this self-righteousness becomes critical for atheism. Self-righteousness is then the atheistic religious practice. It reminds atheists who they are and how they differ from others. A decent theistic religion should not need to project hatred against opposing groups to get this social benefit since their religious practices point to a deity rather than an opposing ism they have to fight against.

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## mal4mac

> The explicit command [to commit genocide] comes from the religious or atheistic leaders with the political power to request the purging of isms they don't want to tolerate.


But Stalin just happened to be atheist, the command to commit genocide came from his Communist ideological stance. Read this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_k...gimes#Ideology

Rummel writes, Marxists saw the construction of their utopia as having "necessary enemy casualties: the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, 'wreckers', intellectuals, counter-revolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, the rich and landlords ... these deaths would be justified by the end ... the goal of a communist utopia was enough to justify all the deaths."

Now the only people on that list one *might* imagine atheists gunning for, because of their atheism, would be clergy. Surely, you must see that the motivation of the Communist for genocide is Marxist ideology, not atheism. Would you like to tell me how Stalin might get from "I'm an atheist" to "I'll kill all bourgeoisie, capitalists, 'wreckers', intellectuals, counter-revolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, the rich and landlords." I certainly can't! But I can see how he might kill these people based upon his belief in Marxist ideology. 




> Were atheism merely a position that there is no God, there would be no need for this self-righteousness. So, why does it occur? Why is there this atheistic ranting against religion? My conclusion is there is more to atheism than a lack of belief in Gods and the existence of atheistic self-righteousness is the evidence for that.


It comes from the blindness of Christians to see their commitments to an unfounded ideology. Most atheists would also extend their critique against Communism, which is another absolutist ideology. Christians believe in heaven, and Communists believe in heaven on Earth. Both say their followers are headed for an eternity of bliss, and therefore they go gunning for atheists who question these ideologies. So atheists are, ultimately, defending themselves from being burnt at the stake, as atheists were in the past. So a bit of ranting is understandable, but (of course) only within the confines of rational argument, and never leading to violence.

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## Oedipus

If Pol Pot's killings came from a "deification of reason", why did he target intellectuals specifically? That is something that sounds more likely if he was killing for reasons to do with Communism.

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## HCabret

> Where?


Right between "thou shalt not kill" and "love your enemies".

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## YesNo

> But Stalin just happened to be atheist, the command to commit genocide came from his Communist ideological stance. Read this:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_k...gimes#Ideology
> 
> Rummel writes, Marxists saw the construction of their utopia as having "necessary enemy casualties: the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, 'wreckers', intellectuals, counter-revolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, the rich and landlords ... these deaths would be justified by the end ... the goal of a communist utopia was enough to justify all the deaths."
> 
> Now the only people on that list one *might* imagine atheists gunning for, because of their atheism, would be clergy. Surely, you must see that the motivation of the Communist for genocide is Marxist ideology, not atheism. Would you like to tell me how Stalin might get from "I'm an atheist" to "I'll kill all bourgeoisie, capitalists, 'wreckers', intellectuals, counter-revolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, the rich and landlords." I certainly can't! But I can see how he might kill these people based upon his belief in Marxist ideology.


Regardless of where else one wants to find fault, these leaders were atheists. At the very least, atheism offered no protection against the madness. More likely, the self-righteousness of atheism fueled the madness. 

To charge atheism with genocide does not require that the targets be religious people. The ones doing the targeting just need to be atheists. 





> It comes from the blindness of Christians to see their commitments to an unfounded ideology. Most atheists would also extend their critique against Communism, which is another absolutist ideology. Christians believe in heaven, and Communists believe in heaven on Earth. Both say their followers are headed for an eternity of bliss, and therefore they go gunning for atheists who question these ideologies. So atheists are, ultimately, defending themselves from being burnt at the stake, as atheists were in the past. So a bit of ranting is understandable, but (of course) only within the confines of rational argument, and never leading to violence.


I see atheistic defamation of religious people as an attempt to generate self-righteousness to support hate positions. It is the sort of propaganda someone creates when they are preparing for hostility.

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## YesNo

> If Pol Pot's killings came from a "deification of reason", why did he target intellectuals specifically? That is something that sounds more likely if he was killing for reasons to do with Communism.


The deification of reason is one excuse atheists use to claim that their position is superior to that of others. This does not mean that atheists are in any way rational. The self-righteousness almost guarantees their positions are not.

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## HCabret

> I see atheistic defamation of religious people as an attempt to generate self-righteousness to support hate positions. It is the sort of propaganda someone creates when they are preparing for hostility.


i see religious defamation of atheists the same way.

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## Jackson Richardson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA85LVmqg0M

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## Ecurb

> I see atheistic defamation of religious people as an attempt to generate self-righteousness to support hate positions. It is the sort of propaganda someone creates when they are preparing for hostility.


This seems clearly to be the case. "God is not Great" (as well as Hitchen's Mother Theresa book and DAwkins' anti-religion books) is designed to promote the idea of atheists' moral superiority to religious people. Reason (the argument seems to go) is morally superior to unreason, and religion is unreasonable. Hence atheism is morally superior to religion. In addition -- look at all the horrible things done in the name of religion.

Although I'll agree that Stalin and Pol Pot can be used to argue against the notion that atheists are morally superior to religious people (just as the sins of the religious are used by Hitchens to argue that God is not Great), not much mayhem has been committed in the NAME of atheism per se. Christianity cannot claim the same for itself (although I think the argument about who is morally superior to whom is a silly one -- atheists can be moral people and so can Christians -- atheists can be jerks, and so can Christians). 

The modernist, scientific point of view (which is generally, although not always, associated with atheism) suggests that humans progress. This is true (in general) of science. It is less true in other fields: the arts, or moral progress. Although we moderns see ourselves as morally superior to our benighted slave owning, witch burning ancestors, perhaps we are merely more in "fashion" with our own modern morality. We remain blind to the log in our own eyes. However, the modernist worldview has a general bias toward "progress".

Religion is the opposite. We have fallen from Eden. Christ no longer walks among us. Our religious impulse is to return to a simpler time, the womb-like bossom (perhaps) of our creator. In this sense (if not logically) religion and science are, and will ever be, opposed. They represent two distinct longings -- the longing for the past, and the longing for the future.

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## YesNo

> Religion is the opposite. We have fallen from Eden. Christ no longer walks among us. Our religious impulse is to return to a simpler time, the womb-like bossom (perhaps) of our creator. In this sense (if not logically) religion and science are, and will ever be, opposed. They represent two distinct longings -- the longing for the past, and the longing for the future.


I don't see religion as moving toward either the past or the future, but providing the practitioners, in various ways, a fuller appreciation of their conscious present. 

If science is opposed to anything, thanks to quantum physics, it is opposed to materialism which atheism relies on. A quick introduction to consciousness and quantum theory from the perspective of physicists would be Rosenblum and Kuttner's _Quantum Enigma_.

While quantum physics has been highly successful and economically valuable, neo-Darwinism appears to have gone in the opposite direction. Where are the cures we were expecting to see after the human genome project finished mapping our mythical selfish gene? Instead of cures, there are now missing heritability problems to solve. 

I am amazed when sensing the confidence atheists have in the scientific ground they believe rests under their feet. If I were one of them, I would start looking for a life-boat.

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## mona amon

> http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...rt-or-die.html quotes some Bible verses showing where Aquinas, Cromwell, and others, probably got their ideas that killing heretics was an OK thing to do.


I was not able to read the whole article as I found it mind-numbingly false and stupid, but I just skimmed through Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the books from which people are fond of quoting for so called 'Christian' excesses, and yes, there is quite a long hit-list of people who are to be put to death - kidnappers, murderers, those who curse their parents, sorcerers, adulterers, those who have sex with animals, those who worship other gods, those who do work on the Sabbath, apostates (Deuteronomy 13), rebellious sons, eye for an eye tooth for a tooth blah blah, but I could not find any mention of anything resembling a heretic.

The concept of Heresy (in Christianity) seems to have originated in the early church, that is, post biblical (or is it pre-biblical?), and it was only when Christianity became a state religion (of the Roman Empire) that 'Heresy' became punishable by death. So the culprit here is clearly not religion itself, but the loss of religious freedom through state control, and a similar loss of human rights is going to happen in any authoritarian regime, however atheistic or secular it may be.

A freethinker like Thomas Aquinas was hardly likely to restrict himself to what was in the Bible. 


> With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith that quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death. On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy, which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but "after the first and second admonition", as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death.(Summa, IIII, Q.11, art.3.)


 Note the absence of any biblical reference, except for the mercy part. It is all from his own doctrine.

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## mal4mac

> Regardless of where else one wants to find fault, these leaders were atheists. At the very least, atheism offered no protection against the madness. More likely, the self-righteousness of atheism fueled the madness.


I think atheism *does* help provide arguments to circumvent the madness. We didn't have a communist revolution in the UK because we had *better* atheist thinkers, like Beretrand Russell and George Orwell, who took the arguments against Christian ideology and extended them to attack Communist ideology. The atheist arguments against the unfounded assumption of "access to heaven through Chsritian principles" apply just as well against "access to heaven on Earth through communist principles". 

Stalin was not famed for his intellect, and it seems he could only take in the brutal basic ideas of Communist ideology. He couldn't even suspend them when they were in opposition to Darwin's ideas! He adopted Lysenkoism because it fit with Communist ideology, and ignored al the evidence against it, leading to mass starvation & scientific backwardness. All the way through it was Communism that was the force that drove Stalin, not the "thought through" kind of atheism exhibited by Bertrand Russell and other serious thinkers.




> To charge atheism with genocide does not require that the targets be religious people. The ones doing the targeting just need to be atheists.


You can't charge atheism with genocide when it's the "Communist part" of the tyrants that is driving them to genocide - that means Communism must be charged!




> I see atheistic defamation of religious people as an attempt to generate self-righteousness to support hate positions. It is the sort of propaganda someone creates when they are preparing for hostility.


Communists might try to use atheism to support their position, because it's a superbly rational philosophy, and the Coommunist wants to seem rational. But atheism is no more of a causal factor to genocide in the USSR than chess. Stalin might point to his chess players and say, "Look how glorious and rational we Communist are, look at our chess players." Would you then say that chess is guilty of Soviet atrocities?

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## mal4mac

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA85LVmqg0M


I think he's just trying to wind up Stephen Fry  :Smile: 

He sounds like a little kid, "I like Santa, he comforts me, so he weely, weely must exist!"

In the list of things he produces as excuses that have been used to kill people (communism, fascism, religion...) he doesn't mention atheism.

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## mal4mac

> ... I think the argument about who is morally superior to whom is a silly one -- atheists can be moral people and so can Christians -- atheists can be jerks, and so can Christians.


That isn't the argument. The argument is that atheism is more likely to lead to better people because it defuses and dissolves irrational ideologies - Abrahamic, Communist, or whatever. That means people don't get killed because people are holding to immoral positions for irrational reasons (Like "Never suffer a witch to live!" or "Shoot all landlords!")




> Although we moderns see ourselves as morally superior to our benighted slave owning, witch burning ancestors, perhaps we are merely more in "fashion" with our own modern morality.


So slave owning and witch burning are just fashions then? Thinking of adopting these fashions are you?

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## Jackson Richardson

> He sounds like a little kid, "I like Santa, he comforts me, so he weely, weely must exist!".


I never believed in Santa Claus. He says specifically he is an agnostic, but there's no kindness in being rude to those who find comfort in religious belief. I don't just so much find it comfort as a challenge to live in a just and loving society at some cost to myself. 




> In the list of things he produces as excuses that have been used to kill people (communism, fascism, religion...) he doesn't mention atheism.


He doesn't need to. His point is that people can be nasty irrespective of their religious or atheistic beliefs.

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## mal4mac

> A freethinker like Thomas Aquinas was hardly likely to restrict himself to what was in the Bible. Note the absence of any biblical reference... It is all from his [St Thomas'] own doctrine.


He was not a freethinker, he had to abide by the teachings of Christian scripture. In that passage he simply took undoubted Christian beliefs and drew the logical conclusions. Aquinas is saying that heretics deny God, which is the worst sin, even worse than murder. But we execute murderers, so shouldn't Christians execute heretics? He gives the heretic a chance to change his views, but if he can't, or will not, he is executed, because a guy of such strong views is, obviously, a grave risk to the salvation of others. A heretic is seen as likely to condemn many people to eternal torment (not just 100 years, but eternity!) Surely, on Christian principles, he must be stopped in any way possible! I guess "nice Anglicans" might give the troublesome chap endless chances to reform, but some of the "nice Anglican"'s pupils are likely to be more volatile, and might quite fancy killing off heretics like they did in the old days. So heretics needs to keep arguing that there is no evidence for Christianity, and try and persuade Christians of this. Their life is at stake!

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## YesNo

> I think atheism *does* help provide arguments to circumvent the madness. We didn't have a communist revolution in the UK because we had *better* atheist thinkers, like Beretrand Russell and George Orwell, who took the arguments against Christian ideology and extended them to attack Communist ideology. The atheist arguments against the unfounded assumption of "access to heaven through Chsritian principles" apply just as well against "access to heaven on Earth through communist principles". 
> 
> Stalin was not famed for his intellect, and it seems he could only take in the brutal basic ideas of Communist ideology. He couldn't even suspend them when they were in opposition to Darwin's ideas! He adopted Lysenkoism because it fit with Communist ideology, and ignored al the evidence against it, leading to mass starvation & scientific backwardness. All the way through it was Communism that was the force that drove Stalin, not the "thought through" kind of atheism exhibited by Bertrand Russell and other serious thinkers.


One can only speculate why the UK never became a Communist state. Perhaps it had as much to do with religious people being opposed to the "opium-of-the-people" atheism in Marxism.

It does seem true that some atheists think things through better, or more rationally, than other atheists. No one's perfect.

So, perhaps Stalin wasn't an atheist when he committed the atrocities, because he was too stupid and irrational to be an atheist. But if I accept that argument, then I would have to excuse religious people on the same grounds. If I did not, I would not be rational--or, at least, unfair. Perhaps when religious people burnt others at the stake centuries ago, they weren't really being religious either. 




> You can't charge atheism with genocide when it's the "Communist part" of the tyrants that is driving them to genocide - that means Communism must be charged!


The claim that Communism and not atheism caused the genocide is an atheist assumption or belief. It is understandable that atheists should hold this view. They need to distance themselves from genocide since so much of it happened under the watch of atheists.

Alternatively, one could also look at Communism, as it was practiced, as something justified by atheism. How might that argument work? I can see atheism justifying Communist genocide by the following argument: "Since there are no Gods and religion is the opiate of the people, let's get political power and clean up the social mess in any way that works including eliminating our opponents."

With that kind of argument, atheists could get an anti-religious society and if something went wrong they can blame Communism for the atrocities. It is sort of like a CEO verbally telling the CFO to falsify financial records and then claiming ignorance of the fact when they get caught.





> Communists might try to use atheism to support their position, because it's a superbly rational philosophy, and the Coommunist wants to seem rational. But atheism is no more of a causal factor to genocide in the USSR than chess. Stalin might point to his chess players and say, "Look how glorious and rational we Communist are, look at our chess players." Would you then say that chess is guilty of Soviet atrocities?


Is atheism more rational than theism? How so? On what science today is atheism actually based?

I'm not looking for a "causal" factor in genocide. That has a too deterministic sound to it. But I would follow the trails that self-righteousness leaves.

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## Ecurb

> That isn't the argument. The argument is that atheism is more likely to lead to better people because it defuses and dissolves irrational ideologies - Abrahamic, Communist, or whatever. That means people don't get killed because people are holding to immoral positions for irrational reasons (Like "Never suffer a witch to live!" or "Shoot all landlords!")
> 
> 
> 
> So slave owning and witch burning are just fashions then? Thinking of adopting these fashions are you?


Atheism didn't appear to have been very effective at "defusing" Communism (and the evils of Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao), did it? "Shoot all landlords" appears a position consistent with atheism. (I agree with you that we shouldn't BLAME atheism for it, but you appear to be going further here in saying that atheism defuses and dissolves irrational ideologies).

It may be that some form of Rationalism can defuse "irrational ideologies". It may also be that "irrational ideologies" either are evil, or lead to evil. But that's a different argument, and I'm not sure I buy it. Rationalism suggests only that we "rationalize" our behaviors -- which Communists and Thomasian Catholics can both do quite well. Besides, although it might be true that Rationalism leads to atheism, the inverse ("atheism leads to Rationalism") does not follow. All of those atheist Buddhists believe in reincarnation and a bunch of other supernatural things. 

Finally, you misunderstand my comment about slavery and witch burning. I DO think that morals are "fashions" -- manners wit large. But I'm not trying to excuse witch burning or slavery. It's easy to see the speck (or log, in this case) in someone else's eye, while ignoring (or rationalizing) the log in your own. A couple of hundred years from now, of what unspeakable evils will our descendents find us guilty? Nuking big Japanese cities? Drone assassinations? Destroying the planet with fossil fuel consumption? We don't know, because we're on the inside, and the rationalizations are our own rationalizations.

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## mal4mac

> So, perhaps Stalin wasn't an atheist when he committed the atrocities, because he was too stupid and irrational to be an atheist.


No, he was an atheist, but too stupid, or too busy, to think through the broader ideological implications. 




> The claim that Communism and not atheism caused the genocide is an atheist assumption or belief.


No, its a theory, or at least a hypothesis. It seems the best one to me! It seem to fit the facts better than any others. I'm still to see any evidence for atheism being the likeliest cause of genocide. As you seem to like guessing causes, why not plump for chess or vodka?





> I can see atheism justifying Communist genocide by the following argument: "Since there are no Gods and religion is the opiate of the people, let's get political power and clean up the social mess in any way that works including eliminating our opponents."


I'm going to use a capital A for Dawkins type agnostic-atheists so we don't get confused between Communist atheists and agnostic-atheists. Such Atheists hold to no ideological, absolutist assumptions. They would never seek to commit genocide on opponents.

The Atheists could never be certain that eliminating the opponents would work. Indeed, looking at the Communist experiments would indicate that it certainly wouldn't work. So they would be forced to the British approach of trying to clean up the social mess by gradual means.

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## mal4mac

> Atheism didn't appear to have been very effective at "defusing" Communism (and the evils of Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao), did it?


Good medcine needs time and a convivial environment. 




> Rationalism suggests only that we "rationalize" our behaviors -- which Communists and Thomasian Catholics can both do quite well.


I think rationalism is, or should be, stronger than that. "Heaven" or "heaven on Earth" are irrational beliefs; there is no evidence to support them.




> Besides, although it might be true that Rationalism leads to atheism, the inverse ("atheism leads to Rationalism") does not follow. All of those atheist Buddhists believe in reincarnation and a bunch of other supernatural things.


Good point, that's why I think we should introduce "capital A" Atheism, a fully rational atheism. So Dawkins is an Atheist, but the Dalai Lama and Stalin are atheists.

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## mona amon

> He was not a freethinker, he had to abide by the teachings of Christian scripture. In that passage he simply took undoubted Christian beliefs and drew the logical conclusions. Aquinas is saying that heretics deny God, which is the worst sin, even worse than murder. But we execute murderers, so shouldn't Christians execute heretics? He gives the heretic a chance to change his views, but if he can't, or will not, he is executed, because a guy of such strong views is, obviously, a grave risk to the salvation of others. A heretic is seen as likely to condemn many people to eternal torment (not just 100 years, but eternity!) Surely, on Christian principles, he must be stopped in any way possible! I guess "nice Anglicans" might give the troublesome chap endless chances to reform, but some of the "nice Anglican"'s pupils are likely to be more volatile, and might quite fancy killing off heretics like they did in the old days. So heretics needs to keep arguing that there is no evidence for Christianity, and try and persuade Christians of this. Their life is at stake!


What "undoubted Christian beliefs"? Can you name them, and what are the "logical conclusions" that can be drawn from them?

I do not agree with your paraphrase of Aquinas's quote. Here's what he's saying - Heretics are sinners. The Church is to deal with them as "the Apostle directs". He's almost certainly referring to Paul's letter to Titus, chapter 3, verses 9 to 11, which speaks of 'divisive people' in the church. 


> 9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. 10 Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. 11 You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned.


But he's not satisfied with that. He wants them dead, not just excommunicated, so he declares that they should be turned over to the secular authority, who should punish them with death just as they punish forgers of money with death. If this atrocious declaration is completely at odds with the teachings of Jesus, Aquinas doesn't seem to have noticed.  :Rolleyes5: 

And I feel he was a freethinker, even if his freethinking led him to accept Christian scriptures. You simply cannot be such an innovator and pioneer or attain that sort of philosophical stature without free thought. His Wikipedia page calls him a Scholastic, and the foremost classical proponent of Natural Theology, so obviously he wasn't just a spouter of established religious dogma.

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## Ecurb

In practice, I agree with you, mal4mac. However, I also see the problems with your (our) basic position:

1) The line between rationality and rationalization is a thin one. We recognize it more easily when other people are rationalizing their own unreasonable positions than when we are doing so.

2) Nobody can reason his way to a moral position. The problem is one of infinite regress. Rationality requires a starting point from which to reason. For science, the starting point is relatively clear: the natural world exists and we can interpret it with reasonable accuracy with our senses. For moral philosophy, the starting point is unclear. Why is genocide evil? Whence do we derive the first principles from which we can infer that it is evil? We need a starting point -- which we cannot reach through reason, but only through intuition, or aesthetic preference, or cultural norms.

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## mortalterror

Computer crashed yesterday. No time for lengthy quote filled post. But relevant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecu...e_Eastern_Bloc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecu...e_Soviet_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_...us_legislation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless

On December 25, 1919, Christmas Day, Comrade Lenin issued the following order, in his own writing: “To put up with ‘Nikola’ [the religious holiday] would be stupid—the entire Cheka must be on the alert to see to it that those who do not show up for work because of ‘Nikola’ are shot.” 
http://www.globalmuseumoncommunism.o...ar_on_religion

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## mal4mac

> Why is genocide evil? Whence do we derive the first principles from which we can infer that it is evil? We need a starting point -- which we cannot reach through reason, but only through intuition, or aesthetic preference, or cultural norms.


The starting point is "pain" or "pleasure". Genocide is evil because it causes much obvious pain, and little obvious pleasure. The main problem with Christianity and Communism is that they start with the imaginary constructs of "heaven" and "hell" rather than the felt actualities of "pain" and "pleasure". As he is torturing the heretic, the Inquisitor says, "You may feel pain now, but it is for the higher good, it is in the cause of heaven". The Atheist does not believe in any such "higher good", believes that "pain" is the really bad thing, and releases the poor heretic. Note - the Atheist does not believe that "non-belief in heaven" is the highest good, he believes "lack of pain" is the highest good.

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## Iain Sparrow

> The starting point is "pain" or "pleasure". Genocide is evil because it causes much obvious pain, and little obvious pleasure. The main problem with Christianity and Communism is that they start with the imaginary constructs of "heaven" and "hell" rather than the felt actualities of "pain" and "pleasure". As he is torturing the heretic, the Inquisitor says, "You may feel pain now, but it is for the higher good, it is in the cause of heaven". The Atheist does not believe in any such "higher good", believes that "pain" is the really bad thing, and releases the poor heretic. Note - the Atheist does not believe that "non-belief in heaven" is the highest good, he believes "lack of pain" is the highest good.


I'm an atheist... I don't know exactly what the "highest good" even is?
I certainly don't believe that 'lack of pain' is atop my list, indeed it's pain that often helps us grow as individuals. And more so if you find yourself being tortured. :Wink:

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## YesNo

> Computer crashed yesterday. No time for lengthy quote filled post. But relevant:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecu...e_Eastern_Bloc
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecu...e_Soviet_Union
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_...us_legislation
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless
> 
> On December 25, 1919, Christmas Day, Comrade Lenin issued the following order, in his own writing: To put up with Nikola [the religious holiday] would be stupidthe entire Cheka must be on the alert to see to it that those who do not show up for work because of Nikola are shot. 
> http://www.globalmuseumoncommunism.o...ar_on_religion


Those links provide good evidence that atheism was key to Marxist-Leninist communism. 

In the last link, Paul Kengor wrote:

_Marx dubbed religion the opiate of the masses, and opined that, Communism begins where atheism begins._
Atheists cannot rationally excuse atheism from the resulting genocide by pointing a finger at communism.

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## mal4mac

> I'm an atheist... I don't know exactly what the "highest good" even is?
> I certainly don't believe that 'lack of pain' is atop my list, indeed it's pain that often helps us grow as individuals.


The pain of trying to read Ulysses may help you grow as a reader, but ISIS torturing and beheading a child are not helping that child grow as an individual. Reading Ulysses may, overall, be a case of the pleasure outweighing the pain. So the "pleasure principle" is still involved when you are seeking growth in the future through an acceptable level of pain in the present. You need to also ask why you are seeking growth. So you can be an inch taller than the next fellow?  :Smile:  In reading Ulysses, a work of literature, I'm guessing you must be expecting to grow towards aesthetic pleasure. A low level of unwanted pain, from bullies say, may help you practice the virtue of courage and lead to less mental pain in the future - again the "pleasure principle" is paramount. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasu...e_(psychology)

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## mal4mac

> In the last link, Paul Kengor wrote:
> 
> _Marx dubbed religion the “opiate of the masses,” and opined that, “Communism begins where atheism begins.”_


That's a very unenlightening article, he just pulls out quotes without using any arguments. 

So what did Marx mean by this quote? I can see that denying the existence of God might be the start for both Communism and Atheism, but that doesn't mean that atheism causes genocide.

"Vodka begins where bread begins", i.e. with wheat, but that doesn't mean you can get drunk on bread! 

You can't accuse atheism ("bread") of causing genocide ("drunkenness") by observing that communism ("vodka") causes genocide.

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## Ecurb

Mal's "Pain / Pleasure" principle either doesn't work or isn't helpful. Here several objections:

1) Pain and pleasure are subjective and cannot be measured. I can think of hundreds of examples where it's impossible to determine if a behavior leads to more pain or more pleasure.

2) The principle continues to be subject to objections based on infinite regress. WHY should pain be eliminated and pleasure be sought? In addition, isn't one of the points of a moral system to help us behave in ways that are good for the group as a whole, but unnatural? We naturally seek to maximize our own pleaure and minnimize our pain. We don't need a moral principle to do this.

3) I could easily justify genocide on the "pain / pleasure" principle. "If we eliminate these million people (painlessly, because they are causing trouble), the remaining 6 billion will have way more pleasure." Besides, life itself (some might argue) consists of more pain than pleasure, therefore (based on mal's principle) one is not only justified in killing everyone, but mandated to do so (painlessly, of course). As Raleigh said upon feeling the edge of his executioner's axe, "It is a sharp cure, but a sure one for all ills." 

4) The principle leaves little room for valuing concepts like honor, courage, fortitude, etc. We should commit adultery if (for example) we are not caught, because then it will give us pleasure, and cause no pain to anyone (as long as, in keeping with our principle, we feel no guilt). There is no INTRINSIC value to honesty, honor, etc -- they are only valuable if (as is possible, but might not be the case) if they eliminate pain and create pleasure. 

I think it is impossible (as I said before) to reason one's way to moral principles. The Christians have it right here. Morality is a matter of faith, and is aesthetic and analogical. "What would Jesus do?" asks the Christian. Our aesthetic senses are created by our culture and experience, and we should strive to be the heroes of our own lives, like David Copperfield. For the Christian this involves emulating Christ -- the rest of us can choose other role models or admire other behaviors.

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## YesNo

> That's a very unenlightening article, he just pulls out quotes without using any arguments. 
> 
> So what did Marx mean by this quote? I can see that denying the existence of God might be the start for both Communism and Atheism, but that doesn't mean that atheism causes genocide.
> 
> "Vodka begins where bread begins", i.e. with wheat, but that doesn't mean you can get drunk on bread! 
> 
> You can't accuse atheism ("bread") of causing genocide ("drunkenness") by observing that communism ("vodka") causes genocide.


What these quotes show me is that there is evidence that Marxist-Leninist genocide was done "in the name of atheism".

Here is another article about Marxist-Leninist atheism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist...ninist_atheism

In that article one learns that there was a Marxist movement in Latin America that accepted communism but rejected atheism called liberation theology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology

I am not aware of any genocide associated with this use of communism and that reinforces my belief that communism by itself does not cause genocide. There is no justification to continue with the analogy that communism functions like vodka that leads to drunkenness. What this means is that the atheistic component of Marxist-Leninism is a better place to look for the source of the self-righteousness needed to motivate human beings to commit these atrocities.

Regarding modern atheists, such as Dawkins, I am wondering how close their atheism can be associated with Marxist-Leninist atheism especially with their evident hostility toward religion. Clearly, these modern atheists do not have the political power to commit genocide, but do their writings suggest that they would favor undermining the secular state's civil liberties when it comes to religious groups?

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## mal4mac

> 1) Pain and pleasure are subjective and cannot be measured. I can think of hundreds of examples where it's impossible to determine if a behavior leads to more pain or more pleasure.


Who cares if they can be measured or not? I can think of hundreds of examples where you can determine if a behaviour leads to more pain or pleasure. Would you like to eat a turd? By your argument you would gobble it up, as (I agree) you can't measure how much suffering you will go through. Bon apetit!




> 2) The principle continues to be subject to objections based on infinite regress. WHY should pain be eliminated and pleasure be sought?


It's just *immediately obvious*. Sleep on nails, or sleep on a comfortable bed? Are you going to spend infinity deciding to go for the bed? 




> In addition, isn't one of the points of a moral system to help us behave in ways that are good for the group as a whole, but unnatural? We naturally seek to maximize our own pleasure and minnimize our pain. We don't need a moral principle to do this.


Make it too painful for those not acting for the group as as a whole, e.g., don't pay the lazy stay-a-bed, so that he will have to go to work.




> 3) I could easily justify genocide on the "pain / pleasure" principle. "If we eliminate these million people (painlessly, because they are causing trouble), the remaining 6 billion will have way more pleasure."


Depends on how much trouble. If the million are ISIS, then I would say, "Go ahead, do it!" Wouldn't you?




> Besides, life itself (some might argue) consists of more pain than pleasure, therefore (based on mal's principle) one is not only justified in killing everyone, but mandated to do so (painlessly, of course). As Raleigh said upon feeling the edge of his executioner's axe, "It is a sharp cure, but a sure one for all ills."


Nice Raleigh quote! But, as you say, only some might argue this life consists of more pain than pleasure. Actually, as you say in 1), it's impossible to say this, because you can't measure pain or pleasure. All you can say is that some things are pleasurable, let's have more of them, and some things are painful, let's have less of them.




> 4) The principle leaves little room for valuing concepts like honor, courage, fortitude, etc. We should commit adultery if (for example) we are not caught, because then it will give us pleasure, and cause no pain to anyone (as long as, in keeping with our principle, we feel no guilt). There is no INTRINSIC value to honesty, honor, etc -- they are only valuable if (as is possible, but might not be the case) if they eliminate pain and create pleasure.


But you might be caught in adultery - even if you're not caught you will worry - if your wife finds out she may kill herself & you remain in torment for life - not much pleasure there - so better not! I don't think you can avoid feeling guilty, I think it is a natural feeling that evolved in most humans (maybe not psychopaths.) 

I DO think there is no INTRINSIC value to honesty, honor, etc -- and that they are only valuable if they eliminate pain and create pleasure. I'm an Epicurean rather than a stoic. But I do find dishonour really painful, and try to avoid it as much as possible.




> I think it is impossible (as I said before) to reason one's way to moral principles... we should strive to be the heroes of our own lives, like David Copperfield. For the Christian this involves emulating Christ -- the rest of us can choose other role models...


I'll choose Epicurus, though David Copperfield isn't a bad choice. Though, right now, I really fancy Pickwick. So much fun! Great to emulate after a tough day arguing in the forum. I'm not so sure about Jesus, all those tall tales about walking on water and raising people from the dead? It would feel like emulating Billy Liar (a funny character, but not one to base my life on. Pickwick is honest!)  :Smile: 

This "strive to be heroes of our own lives" seems very vague. This seems worse than the Christian ides of heaven, which may also be vague but at least I can think of something (clouds, harps, pretty girls with wings,...) Also you pick out David Copperfield, by why him and not one of a million other admirable characters? Too complicated choosing, so I'll just choose "pleasure"...

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## mal4mac

> ... one learns that there was a Marxist movement in Latin America that accepted communism but rejected atheism called liberation theology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology


The first paragraph of that link makes it explicit that Liberation Theology is not Marxist:

"Liberation theology[1] is a political movement in Roman Catholic theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in relation to a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions. It has been described as "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor".[2] Detractors have called it Christianized Marxism.[3]"

Notice, it is even critical of Catholic faith and Christianity!




> Regarding modern atheists, such as Dawkins, I am wondering how close their atheism can be associated with Marxist-Leninist atheism especially with their evident hostility toward religion. Clearly, these modern atheists do not have the political power to commit genocide, but do their writings suggest that they would favor undermining the secular state's civil liberties when it comes to religious groups?


No.

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## Ecurb

The notion that morality is an aesthetic rather than a logical philosophy suggests that we cannot reason our way to our ethics -- but I don't see any way around it. I mentioned David Copperfield because of the book's opening: "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

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## mal4mac

"The Epicurean notion of morality is both logical and practical..."

http://wiki.epicurus.info/Morality

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## cacian

> Those links provide good evidence that atheism was key to Marxist-Leninist communism. 
> 
> In the last link, Paul Kengor wrote:
> 
> [I]Marx dubbed religion the opiate of the masses, and opined that, *Communism begins where atheism begins.[/*I]
> Atheists cannot rationally excuse atheism from the resulting genocide by pointing a finger at communism.


wow that is a loaded comment.
how does one prove one leads to the other??

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## Ecurb

Philosophies (in general) are rationalizations. We know genocide is evil. We know slavery is evil (although our ancestors did not). Logic is a system exporing non-contradiction. So we must develop philosophical principles (if such is our bent) that don't contradict a morality that deplores murder, genocide and slavery. 

When science tries to develop taxonomies to order the universe, the taxonomies are secondary to the essential definitions --pointing and saying, "This is a plant, this is a plant, this is an animal." So philosophers try to develop principles from which the morals we all already accept can be derived. Any philosophy that promotes (or even allows) genocide must be descried because we know genocide is evil, prior to any philosophic principles that prove it is. Any taxonomy that lists a rose as an animal is incorrect, because we already know that a rose is a plant.

Now I'll grant that both philosophies and taxonomies are useful. We can use our philosophic pinciples to make judgments that are less obvious than our judgments about genocide. That's where the principle of non-contradiction (logic) is valuable. However, I think we all BASE our principles on cases, and only on close calls base our judgment of cases on principles. 

Let's look at YesNo's argument about atheism being responsible for mass killings. He doesn't bother arguing about whether the mass killings are good or evil, just about whether atheism can be blamed for them. That's because we all agree that mass killings are obviously evil ("we" meaning all of us non-Communists and non-ISIS members). (The flaw in YesNo's argument is that although it would be reasonable assert that the evidence shows that atheism is CONSISTENT with mass killings, there is no evidence that it is RESPONSIBLE for them.)

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## YesNo

> The first paragraph of that link makes it explicit that Liberation Theology is not Marxist:
> 
> "Liberation theology[1] is a political movement in Roman Catholic theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in relation to a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions. It has been described as "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor".[2] Detractors have called it Christianized Marxism.[3]"
> 
> Notice, it is even critical of Catholic faith and Christianity!


My point is that communism exists without the genocide associated with Marxist-Leninist atheism. The claim that it was communism that caused genocide rather than atheism has to be questioned. This points the finger back at atheism.

Regarding how close Dawkins is to Marxist-Leninism, I am wondering to what extent he would like to replace secular society with a state atheism.

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## YesNo

> wow that is a loaded comment.
> how does one prove one leads to the other??


I am not saying atheism causes genocide. There is nothing deterministic about it.  It is "consistent" with genocide, as Ecurb admits, and based on these quotes it looks as if it actually was a justification for the genocide that occurred under Marxist-Leninism.

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## YesNo

> Philosophies (in general) are rationalizations. We know genocide is evil. We know slavery is evil (although our ancestors did not). Logic is a system exporing non-contradiction. So we must develop philosophical principles (if such is our bent) that don't contradict a morality that deplores murder, genocide and slavery. 
> 
> When science tries to develop taxonomies to order the universe, the taxonomies are secondary to the essential definitions --pointing and saying, "This is a plant, this is a plant, this is an animal." So philosophers try to develop principles from which the morals we all already accept can be derived. Any philosophy that promotes (or even allows) genocide must be descried because we know genocide is evil, prior to any philosophic principles that prove it is. Any taxonomy that lists a rose as an animal is incorrect, because we already know that a rose is a plant.
> 
> Now I'll grant that both philosophies and taxonomies are useful. We can use our philosophic pinciples to make judgments that are less obvious than our judgments about genocide. That's where the principle of non-contradiction (logic) is valuable. However, I think we all BASE our principles on cases, and only on close calls base our judgment of cases on principles. 
> 
> Let's look at YesNo's argument about atheism being responsible for mass killings. He doesn't bother arguing about whether the mass killings are good or evil, just about whether atheism can be blamed for them. That's because we all agree that mass killings are obviously evil ("we" meaning all of us non-Communists and non-ISIS members). (The flaw in YesNo's argument is that although it would be reasonable assert that the evidence shows that atheism is CONSISTENT with mass killings, there is no evidence that it is RESPONSIBLE for them.)


Specific human beings are _responsible_ for genocide, not ideologies. All I care to show is that atheism is _consistent_ with genocide and atheism was used as a motivation for genocide under Marxist-Leninism. So, I think we agree.

Assuming someone is an atheist, how does that person know that genocide is evil? What standard does that person use? For example, what about people who believe in anti-natalism? I would claim that such a person has a natural intuition that genocide is evil and atheists would get that same intuition whether they acknowledge the source or not, but that does not stop the atheist from presenting a rational argument claiming we should voluntarily end the human species.  (Just because an argument is "rational" doesn't mean it fits reality in any way. The steps just logically follow from previous, sometimes inane, assumptions.)

EDIT: It occurred to me that when I said "human beings are responsible for genocide" I do not want to claim that "individual" human beings are responsible. The responsibility is shared by a group of them to a greater or less degree.

Your introducing "consistent" in the discussion made me wonder what religious positions are "consistent" with genocide? Although there have been religious wars, I don't think genocide is consistent with any worthwhile theistic religion--no matter what some of their texts might have to say about it.

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## HCabret

> Specific human beings are _responsible_ for genocide, not ideologies. All I care to show is that atheism is _consistent_ with genocide and atheism was used as a motivation for genocide under Marxist-Leninism. So, I think we agree.
> 
> Assuming someone is an atheist, how does that person know that genocide is evil? What standard does that person use? For example, what about people who believe in anti-natalism? I would claim that such a person has a natural intuition that genocide is evil and atheists would get that same intuition whether they acknowledge the source or not, but that does not stop the atheist from presenting a rational argument claiming we should voluntarily end the human species. (Just because an argument is "rational" doesn't mean it fits reality in any way. The steps just logically follow from previous, sometimes inane, assumptions.)
> 
> EDIT: It occurred to me that when I said "human beings are responsible for genocide" I do not want to claim that "individual" human beings are responsible. The responsibility is shared by a group of them to a greater or less degree.
> 
> Your introducing "consistent" in the discussion made me wonder what religious positions are "consistent" with genocide? Although there have been religious wars, I don't think genocide is consistent with any worthwhile theistic religion--no matter what some of their texts might have to say about it.


what if an ideology specifically calls for genocide?

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## mal4mac

> Specific human beings are _responsible_ for genocide, not ideologies. All I care to show is that atheism is _consistent_ with genocide...


So is "wearing a flat cap" or "eating frankfurters". Why attempt to show useless points?




> ... and atheism was used as a motivation for genocide under Marxist-Leninism.


No it wasn't. Take the last paragraph of the most influential text of Marxism, the Communist Manifesto:

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."

Not a mention of atheism there! In fact no word beginning with "athei" appears anywhere in this foundational Marxist scripture, you can check it and see:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/mar...ist-manifesto/




> Assuming someone is an atheist, how does that person know that genocide is evil?


Atheism is simply the belief that God doesn't exist! Alone, it doesn't contain the concepts necessary to decide if genocide is evil or not.

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## mal4mac

> I don't think genocide is consistent with any worthwhile theistic religion--no matter what some of their texts might have to say about it.


I think no worthwhile theistic religion has texts that inspire genocide - even if those texts aren't being used today. 

The problem is that characters like Cromwell may dig out the genocide-inspiring texts and put them into action. However moderate most of today's Christians are, there is always the possibility of their successors becoming immoderate, and the texts might lead them to kill witches, and other heretics. The Salem witch trial wasn't that long ago. I'm willing to concede that the early church might have been moderate, at some stage, but in keeping the texts alive they laid the foundation for the Witchfinder General to emerge. So the only safe thing is to relegate the Bible to being "just another work of fiction", with some nasty bits in it (and some wisdom.)

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## Oedipus

> I am not saying atheism causes genocide. There is nothing deterministic about it. It is "consistent" with genocide, as Ecurb admits, and based on these quotes it looks as if it actually was a justification for the genocide that occurred under Marxist-Leninism.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correla...mply_causation 

Have fun.

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## YesNo

> what if an ideology specifically calls for genocide?


I think anti-natalism would be an ideology that specifically aims to eliminate all human beings. This is not genocide but a sort of suicide. Is that ideology responsible or the human beings actually implementing it? I assume that was your point, but perhaps you were making some other point.

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## YesNo

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correla...mply_causation 
> 
> Have fun.


Hmm. I'm not trying to show causation. Atheism is consistent with genocide. In the form of communism called Marxist-Leninist, it was part of the ideology and there atrocities occurred.

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## YesNo

> I think no worthwhile theistic religion has texts that inspire genocide - even if those texts aren't being used today. 
> 
> The problem is that characters like Cromwell may dig out the genocide-inspiring texts and put them into action. However moderate most of today's Christians are, there is always the possibility of their successors becoming immoderate, and the texts might lead them to kill witches, and other heretics. The Salem witch trial wasn't that long ago. I'm willing to concede that the early church might have been moderate, at some stage, but in keeping the texts alive they laid the foundation for the Witchfinder General to emerge. So the only safe thing is to relegate the Bible to being "just another work of fiction", with some nasty bits in it (and some wisdom.)


My problem is that characters like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao may dig out genocide-inspiring, _atheistic_ texts and put them into action.

When you claim that you want to relegate the Bible to being just another work of fiction, are you saying that you want the state to mandate that in some way? 

My concern is that atheists today may want to replace our secular society which protects civil liberties for religious groups and others with an atheistic state in which religion is banned.

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## Oedipus

> Hmm. I'm not trying to show causation. Atheism is consistent with genocide. In the form of communism called Marxist-Leninist, it was part of the ideology and there atrocities occurred.


I'm not sure what you are trying to prove. If, as you admit, correlation has no bearing on causation, than atheism being "consistent" with genocide (and why not try to prove that?) has no impact whatsoever on whether it caused Communist states to commit genocide.

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## mal4mac

> Hmm. I'm not trying to show causation. Atheism is consistent with genocide. In the form of communism called Marxist-Leninist, it was part of the ideology and there atrocities occurred.


Good link Oedipus! 

YesNo, you are suffering from the cum hoc ergo propter hoc ("with this, therefore because of this") fallacy. You are saying "Atheism is with communism, therefore genocide because of atheism." This is illogical.

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## YesNo

> I'm not sure what you are trying to prove. If, as you admit, correlation has no bearing on causation, than atheism being "consistent" with genocide (and why not try to prove that?) has no impact whatsoever on whether it caused Communist states to commit genocide.


It would be more interesting if you would try to show that atheism were inconsistent with genocide.

Rather than saying "Communist states" to emphasize the communism part to protect atheism, say "Marxist-Leninist atheist states". I think that would be more accurate.

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## YesNo

> Good link Oedipus! 
> 
> YesNo, you are suffering from the cum hoc ergo propter hoc ("with this, therefore because of this") fallacy. You are saying "Atheism is with communism, therefore genocide because of atheism." This is illogical.


And you are doing the same with "communism".

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## Oedipus

> It would be more interesting if you would try to show that atheism were inconsistent with genocide.
> 
> Rather than saying "Communist states" to emphasize the communism part to protect atheism, say "Marxist-Leninist atheist states". I think that would be more accurate.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philoso...urden_of_proof Since you are making the positive claim it is you who have to provide evidence.

There's a reason why Stalinism and Maoism are regarded as distinct from Marxism and Leninism. 

Trotskyism is regarded as (according to James P. Cannon) "the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early days of the Communist International." -because of how far Stalinism divulged from Marxism. 

If the term "Communist" protects atheism by intent, "Marxist-Leninism atheist" implicates it by intent and overstates its importance in Stalin's USSR particularly since the cult of personality was far more important and indeed from 1941 on Stalin became increasingly lenient towards the Orthodox Church. Neither is objective but Communist alone, while more vague, is more accurate.

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## mal4mac

> My problem is that characters like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao may dig out genocide-inspiring, _atheistic_ texts and put them into action.


Name such a text.




> When you claim that you want to relegate the Bible to being just another work of fiction, are you saying that you want the state to mandate that in some way?


No. People can go on doing their own thing, as long as they don't cause actual physical harm. But my "Church of Pickwick" should have an equal opportunity to the "Church of Jesus".




> My concern is that atheists today may want to replace our secular society which protects civil liberties for religious groups and others with an atheistic state in which religion is banned.


Most atheists in Western Democracies are liberal atheists, following in the footsteps of J.S. Mill, and protection of civil liberties for all groups (including religious groups) is a priority. Many Christians try to come across as liberal, but I doubt their liberality because the Bible is not liberal - Moses wasn't liberal with the Baal worshippers! The Salem Christians were not liberal to witches. So in an election between an atheist J.S. Mill scholar and a Christian, assuming both are making equally liberal noises, I'd vote for the atheist, because how can you trust someone whose favourite book says, "Never suffer a witch to live!" or "Murder those who worship Baal!"

So Moses said to Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor." -- Numbers 25:5

It can do truth no service to blind the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected the Christian faith.
-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

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## mal4mac

> And you are doing the same with "communism".


No I'm not! I'm saying "Communism directly and explicitly encourages genocidal violence." Why try the impossible, why try to link violence to atheism, when the call to violence is staring us in the face, as written in the Communist Manifesto and in endless articles?

Heres Marx in an 1848 newspaper article: there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror. 

Here's a very comprehensive selection of quotes from Marx & Engels that shows their call to genocide:

http://www.orgonelab.org/MarxEngelsQuotes.htm#QUOTES

Not one points to atheism as a reason for genocide! The call to violence is all based on the Marxist myth that the workers must overcome their "oppressors" through genocidal violence.

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## Jackson Richardson

The question is not whether atheism causes genocide or not. The question is whether religion (what sort of religion? Mother Goddess cult? The Society of Friends? Buddhism) causes hatred and prejudice. Human beings can be hateful, prejudiced and prone to support genocide whether or not they have religious belief. And if they do, they are likely, such is our fallen nature, to refer to their beliefs to support hatred, etc.

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## mortalterror

> I'll choose Epicurus





> "The Epicurean notion of morality is both logical and practical..."


Hmmm. Are you sure about that, mal? Are you sure you want to be an Epicurean?



> Philodemus, On Piety, Vol. Herc. 2, II.110 [p. 128.5 Gomperz] {Obbink I.26.730}: Furthermore, it will appear that Epicurus loyally observed all the forms of worship and enjoined his friends to observe them, not only because of the laws but for physical causes as well. For in On Lifecourses he says that to pray is natural for us, not because the gods would be hostile if we did not pray, but in order that, according to the understanding of beings surpassing in power and excellence, we may realize our fulfillments and social conformity with the laws. http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/epicurea.html





> Let us sacrifice to the gods... devoutly and fittingly on the proper days, and let us fittingly perform all the acts of worship in accordance with the laws... Moreover let us sacrifice justly. For in this way it is possible for mortal nature, by Zeus, to live like Zeus. http://books.google.com/books?id=eYh...atural&f=false

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## mortalterror

> Philosophies (in general) are rationalizations. We know genocide is evil. We know slavery is evil (although our ancestors did not). Logic is a system exporing non-contradiction. So we must develop philosophical principles (if such is our bent) that don't contradict a morality that deplores murder, genocide and slavery. 
> 
> When science tries to develop taxonomies to order the universe, the taxonomies are secondary to the essential definitions --pointing and saying, "This is a plant, this is a plant, this is an animal." So philosophers try to develop principles from which the morals we all already accept can be derived. Any philosophy that promotes (or even allows) genocide must be descried because we know genocide is evil, prior to any philosophic principles that prove it is. Any taxonomy that lists a rose as an animal is incorrect, because we already know that a rose is a plant.
> 
> Now I'll grant that both philosophies and taxonomies are useful. We can use our philosophic pinciples to make judgments that are less obvious than our judgments about genocide. That's where the principle of non-contradiction (logic) is valuable. However, I think we all BASE our principles on cases, and only on close calls base our judgment of cases on principles. 
> 
> Let's look at YesNo's argument about atheism being responsible for mass killings. He doesn't bother arguing about whether the mass killings are good or evil, just about whether atheism can be blamed for them. That's because we all agree that mass killings are obviously evil ("we" meaning all of us non-Communists and non-ISIS members). (The flaw in YesNo's argument is that although it would be reasonable assert that the evidence shows that atheism is CONSISTENT with mass killings, there is no evidence that it is RESPONSIBLE for them.)


We don't have to look to ISIS or communist governments for examples of atheists supporting genocide. What about abortion? In the past, when I've looked up the numbers they seemed to support it with the consistency that the Christian right has opposed it in the USA.



> According to the Guttmacher Institute, since 1973, roughly 50 million legal induced abortions have been performed in the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortio..._United_States





> “With respect to those meanings of ‘human’ that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig,” -Richard Dawkins March 13, 2013 Twitter http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...-an-adult-pig/

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## mortalterror

> So is "wearing a flat cap" or "eating frankfurters". Why attempt to show useless points?
> 
> No it wasn't. Take the last paragraph of the most influential text of Marxism, the Communist Manifesto:
> 
> "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
> 
> Not a mention of atheism there! In fact no word beginning with "athei" appears anywhere in this foundational Marxist scripture, you can check it and see:
> 
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/mar...ist-manifesto/
> ...


You might be looking up the wrong term if you are searching for atheism in a marxist text, mal. Here's a quote from an essay of Lenin's about religion where he cites Marx and Engels:



> The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism, which has fully taken over the historical traditions of eighteenth-century materialism in France and of Feuerbach (first half of the nineteenth century) in Germany—a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion. https://www.marxists.org/archive/len...909/may/13.htm


Dialectical materialism is maybe the term to search for in the text instead. It's funny how the Soviets classified things. Besides the anti-religious laws the enacted, they would commonly classify and try clerics under mundane secular statutes to maintain their propaganda about freedom of religion. For instance, I've seen a number of cases where priests were sort of classified as "parasites" like homeless and jobless people. If you didn't do work which the party approved of they could say you didn't have a job and send you to the gulags, like they did with writers who didn't get some part time work as a janitor or something. You had freedom to believe what you wanted, but it was a crime to tell other people your beliefs since that could be classified as counter revolutionary and criticizing the state philosophy of atheism. You can worship, but only at select publicly authorized meeting houses, except the State appropriated all the land and closed the churches. It was even illegal to educate your own children in your faith, etc. But the point is that often religious people were persecuted under the guise of committing some other crime, and often the Marxists used terms alien to the ones we would know them by today.

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## Iain Sparrow

> The pain of trying to read Ulysses may help you grow as a reader, but ISIS torturing and beheading a child are not helping that child grow as an individual. Reading Ulysses may, overall, be a case of the pleasure outweighing the pain. So the "pleasure principle" is still involved when you are seeking growth in the future through an acceptable level of pain in the present. You need to also ask why you are seeking growth. So you can be an inch taller than the next fellow?  In reading Ulysses, a work of literature, I'm guessing you must be expecting to grow towards aesthetic pleasure. A low level of unwanted pain, from bullies say, may help you practice the virtue of courage and lead to less mental pain in the future - again the "pleasure principle" is paramount. 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasu...e_(psychology)


And I agree with most all that... though I found the reading of Ulysses to be torturous in the extreme. Then again, Moby Dick was almost as bad.

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## mal4mac

> Hmmm. Are you sure about that, mal? Are you sure you want to be an Epicurean?


OK, you caught me painting with broad bush strokes; more precisely, I'm a liberal atheist with a strong admiration for Epicurean ethics. 

Note that Epicurus loyally observed all the forms of worship "because of the laws". This was a sensible move - Socrates was murdered by the religious people of Athens for supposedly inspiring the young men to doubt the gods. Fortunately, as I live in a liberal democracy, I don't have to adopt the life-defending move of pretending belief in God. 

I doubt that Epicurean philosophers *really* believed in gods, because they see the gods as so ineffective, so unresponsive, that they might as well not exist! 

Note Philodemus says the gods would not be hostile if we did not pray. Also he did not say they would help us if we do pray! He says we will gain a better "understanding of beings surpassing in power and excellence" so "we may realize our fulfilments and social conformity with the laws." There is not even a suggestion that these beings exist! Note, again, the strong suggestion that social conformity with the laws is main thing; he's saying to the heavily armed theocrat: "Of course we believe in god, look we even pray, and that makes us better, honest..." Recently I've been staring into space and thinking how I might be more like Pickwick. You might call that prayer...

The first part of the "four part cure" that lies at the centre of Epicurean philosophy and practice is "Don't fear god", and the only way that is possible for us is to believe that god has no power over human life. Of course, as there is no evidence that such a god exists, the modern atheist can adopt that maxim with ease!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos

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## mal4mac

> We don't have to look to ISIS or communist governments for examples of atheists supporting genocide. What about abortion? ...


Yes, the Christian right has even bombed abortion centres, causing great suffering for millions of medical staff members and vulnerable young women.

Abortion is simply the removal of a few cells that have no nervous system, and no capacity for suffering. Christian "thinking" leads to the conclusion that a few cells with the mental capacity of yoghurt are the moral equivalent of vulnerable pregnant teenagers. There is no clearer indication that Hitchen's axiom, "Religion is poison", is the axiom that every right thinking person should start with.

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## mal4mac

> Dialectical materialism is maybe the term to search for in the text instead.


I was reacting to YesNo's suggestion that atheism in-and-of-itself causes genocide. "Dialectical materialism" is not simply another name for "atheism". 





> I've seen a number of cases where priests were sort of classified as "parasites" like homeless and jobless people. If you didn't do work which the party approved of they could say you didn't have a job and send you to the gulags...


They had a point  :Smile:  The most famous parasites in Britain are to be found in the unelected House of Lords, which includes a shed full of Bishops, and they get paid a large allowance for dozing through the tedious ramblings of their fellow parasites.

As a liberal atheist, I think taking the "slow but sure(ish)" British path is the way to go - less suffering all round. Start by closing the Shed of Bishops. With a "palace tax" we may further reduce the parasitic plague of Bishops, over time. Maybe in a hundred years the church will have become so poor that the only money bishops get is from there dwindling congregations. I hope they will be as poor as Jesus. (Is that a bad thing!?) 




> You had freedom to believe what you wanted, but it was a crime to tell other people your beliefs since that could be classified as counter revolutionary and criticizing the state philosophy of atheism.


Atheism was not the state philosophy, communism was the state philosophy. You are mistaking a part for the whole.




> You can worship, but only at select publicly authorized meeting houses, except the State appropriated all the land and closed the churches.


Even under a capitalist system we have to pay death duties & land tax, why not the churches? All the liberal atheist is asking for is for the churches to "cough up taxes" like everyone else. Churches should close if the congregation can't pay for them.

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## YesNo

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philoso...urden_of_proof Since you are making the positive claim it is you who have to provide evidence.


One reason that I am suggesting that you make the argument is because I don't know what you mean by atheism. If atheism is as bland as not believing in Gods, then it is consistent with genocide, because there is nothing in atheism prohibiting genocide.

However, maybe your version of atheism has some additional assumptions besides not believing in Gods that would make it inconsistent with genocide. If so, what are they?




> There's a reason why Stalinism and Maoism are regarded as distinct from Marxism and Leninism. 
> 
> Trotskyism is regarded as (according to James P. Cannon) "the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early days of the Communist International." -because of how far Stalinism divulged from Marxism. 
> 
> If the term "Communist" protects atheism by intent, "Marxist-Leninism atheist" implicates it by intent and overstates its importance in Stalin's USSR particularly since the cult of personality was far more important and indeed from 1941 on Stalin became increasingly lenient towards the Orthodox Church. Neither is objective but Communist alone, while more vague, is more accurate.


I don't think it overstates the importance of atheism in the genocide that occurred. The more I've thought about this thread the more I think atheism is crucial to the genocide that occurred. 

Communism can exist without atheism as seen in the liberation theology of some Catholics in Latin America. I think Catholicism, and in general any worthwhile theistic religion, would be inconsistent with genocide because of the Gods and ethics involved in those religions. Atheism doesn't have any of that.

----------


## YesNo

> No I'm not! I'm saying "Communism directly and explicitly encourages genocidal violence." Why try the impossible, why try to link violence to atheism, when the call to violence is staring us in the face, as written in the Communist Manifesto and in endless articles?


Communism does not _cause_ genocide. Human beings cause genocide. What one needs is an ideology that would justify killing someone. One needs an ideology that is "anti" others. That is why atheism is important. 

Again, I am not saying that atheism _causes_ anything. People are the agents, not ideologies, but the ideologies justify the behavior. Because of its "anti" nature, atheism, rather than communism, can consistently be seen as the supporting ideology for genocide. 




> Here’s Marx in an 1848 newspaper article: “there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.” 
> 
> Here's a very comprehensive selection of quotes from Marx & Engels that shows their call to genocide:
> 
> http://www.orgonelab.org/MarxEngelsQuotes.htm#QUOTES
> 
> Not one points to atheism as a reason for genocide! The call to violence is all based on the Marxist myth that the workers must overcome their "oppressors" through genocidal violence.


I understand why you must put the blame for genocide on some other source besides atheism. However, I don't think communism works. You need to find some other explanation rather than an ideology that is no longer fashionable and is politically safe to trash.

Here is an article linking Marxist-Leninism with the atheism of Feuerbach and with a belief in materialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist...ninist_atheism

Rather than communism, maybe you could try pointing the finger at materialism. However, this may not be far enough away from atheism to help much.

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## Jackson Richardson

If socialism means realising the goods of this world are not owned by individuals but are to be shared, then Christian monasticism is definitely socialistic.

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## mal4mac

> One reason that I am suggesting that you make the argument is because I don't know what you mean by atheism. If atheism is as bland as not believing in Gods, then it is consistent with genocide, because there is nothing in atheism prohibiting genocide.


The problem with saying "Atheistic Communists have committed genocide" is that you are tarring a benign ideology with a non-benign ideology. It's like saying "Chubby Communists have committed genocide". You'd have chubby people complaining if you said that!




> I don't think it overstates the importance of atheism in the genocide that occurred. The more I've thought about this thread the more I think atheism is crucial to the genocide that occurred.


Well you don't seem to be convincing anyone.

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## Oedipus

> One reason that I am suggesting that you make the argument is because I don't know what you mean by atheism. If atheism is as bland as not believing in Gods, then it is consistent with genocide, because there is nothing in atheism prohibiting genocide.
> 
> However, maybe your version of atheism has some additional assumptions besides not believing in Gods that would make it inconsistent with genocide. If so, what are they?


We've already established that being "consistent" with something does nothing to prove a connection. I also notice that, in your mention of my "version of atheism" that you seem to have assumed I am an atheist. I won't confirm or deny, but what makes you think that?






> I don't think it overstates the importance of atheism in the genocide that occurred.


 What you "think" is irrelevant. Your evidence, which I look forward to seeing, is not.




> The more I've thought about this thread the more I think atheism is crucial to the genocide that occurred. 
> 
> Communism can exist without atheism as seen in the liberation theology of some Catholics in Latin America. I think Catholicism, and in general any worthwhile theistic religion, would be inconsistent with genocide because of the Gods and ethics involved in those religions. Atheism doesn't have any of that.


As far as I can see you believe that since atheism doesn't explicitly condemn genocide it must cause it. Expressed so plainly you will of course see how patently ridiculous that is.

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## mal4mac

> If socialism means realising the goods of this world are not owned by individuals but are to be shared, then Christian monasticism is definitely socialistic.


Socialism requires that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community *as a whole*. Monasteries regulated the production, distribution and exchange of books. The serfs, who provided their food, were not allowed to partake of these books, and had nothing to say about their production and use.

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## Jackson Richardson

There were monasteries that had servants, but that is not what St Bendictt expected. The Benedictine nuns I stay with don't own serfs as a matter of fact: they do employ some staff to look after the gardens or clean the guest house, but they do their own cleaning and all of the cooking.

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## YesNo

> The problem with saying "Atheistic Communists have committed genocide" is that you are tarring a benign ideology with a non-benign ideology. It's like saying "Chubby Communists have committed genocide". You'd have chubby people complaining if you said that!


I don't think atheism is benign. Communism, as illustrated by the communal nature of monasteries, as JonathanB pointed out, shows that communism is not the underlying problem. 




> Well you don't seem to be convincing anyone.


I am only trying to clarify the ideas for myself. Thanks for being on the opposite side of the discussion.

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## YesNo

> We've already established that being "consistent" with something does nothing to prove a connection. I also notice that, in your mention of my "version of atheism" that you seem to have assumed I am an atheist. I won't confirm or deny, but what makes you think that?


I have a version of atheism, but I do my best not to be an atheist. So, it is irrelevant whether you are an atheist or a theist. The question is whether you think atheism is consistent with genocide. I think theism, generally speaking, is inconsistent with genocide. Theism would put a brake on genocidal people. I don't see how atheism could do that without additional assumptions.




> What you "think" is irrelevant. Your evidence, which I look forward to seeing, is not.
> 
> As far as I can see you believe that since atheism doesn't explicitly condemn genocide it must cause it. Expressed so plainly you will of course see how patently ridiculous that is.


Atheism doesn't "cause" genocide. People do. Atheism does provide ideological support and emotional self-righteousness for social hostility. Carried far enough, under the right political structures, that support could justify genocide.

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## Ecurb

I think Jennocide may be justified, because ever since Brad Pitt dumped Jenn for Angelina Jolie, what does she have to live for?

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## Oedipus

> I have a version of atheism, but I do my best not to be an atheist. So, it is irrelevant whether you are an atheist or a theist. The question is whether you think atheism is consistent with genocide. I think theism, generally speaking, is inconsistent with genocide. Theism would put a brake on genocidal people. I don't see how atheism could do that without additional assumptions.
> 
> 
> 
> Atheism doesn't "cause" genocide. People do. Atheism does provide ideological support and emotional self-righteousness for social hostility. Carried far enough, under the right political structures, that support could justify genocide.


Theism demonstrably does not prevent genocide. See Armenia for instance. As for doing your best not to be an atheist, that shows some "self-righteousness" in itself.

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## Iain Sparrow

> Atheism doesn't "cause" genocide. People do. Atheism does provide ideological support and emotional self-righteousness for social hostility. Carried far enough, under the right political structures, that support could justify genocide.


That is an unfounded, and thoroughly ridiculous statement.
Again, as others have mentioned... atheism is not an ideology, not a basis of economic or political theory and policy, nor is it a banner for which people die or kill for. Atheism at best/worst, plays second fiddle to Communism, it does not empower or fuel it... it is Communism itself that is the engine behind such atrocities. And to be more accurate, it is less genocide and more a series of "purges" when reviewing the history and spread of communism.

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## YesNo

> Theism demonstrably does not prevent genocide. See Armenia for instance. As for doing your best not to be an atheist, that shows some "self-righteousness" in itself.


If Armenia is an example against theism, then Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao are examples against atheism. 

I try to avoid self-righteousness, but I don't claim to be any better than anyone else.

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## YesNo

> That is an unfounded, and thoroughly ridiculous statement.
> Again, as others have mentioned... atheism is not an ideology, not a basis of economic or political theory and policy, nor is it a banner for which people die or kill for. Atheism at best/worst, plays second fiddle to Communism, it does not empower or fuel it... it is Communism itself that is the engine behind such atrocities. And to be more accurate, it is less genocide and more a series of "purges" when reviewing the history and spread of communism.


I do understand that atheists have to find something else to blame for the massive atrocities committed under state atheism. 

I agree that the word "genocide" is thrown around too much. Let's just call them atrocities.

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## mal4mac

> There were monasteries that had servants, but that is not what St Bendictt expected. The Benedictine nuns I stay with don't own serfs as a matter of fact: they do employ some staff to look after the gardens or clean the guest house, but they do their own cleaning and all of the cooking.


Nuns? You're allowed to be there? Recommended reading: The Devils of Loudon by Aldous Huxley, The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong.

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## Ecurb

> I try to avoid self-righteousness, but I don't claim to be any better than anyone else.


You don't claim to be better than Pol Pot or Torquemada? How about John Wayne Gacy? If you don't claim to be better than he is, I'll make the claim for you. In my opinion, YesNo is a better man than John Wayne Gacy was! (I might be wrong,of course.)

People do cause atrocities, and their motives are inevitably unique and complex. Each Nazi involved in the Holocaust had his own personal history, psychological profile, and individual motives (see Tolstoy on this one). Nonetheless, it makes more sense to blame Religion for the Inquisition than to blame Atheism for the massacres of the Khmer Rouge. The Inquisition punished crimes that were specifically religious in nature (heresy), the trials and tortures were conducted in Ecclesiastical courts, and the Judges and Prosecuters were officers of the Church. Of course it is also true that greed (confiscation of property) and other non-religious motives were involved. The case for blaming Catholicism for the Inquisition is (it seems to me, although I'm no expert) far stronger than that for blaming "atheism" for the killing of priests during the Spanish Civil War (we'll stick to the same location). Although it is true they were killed because they were priests, the Church's political support for Franco was probably the primary motive, as well as the role of priests in economic oppression of the proletariat (both of which are political rather than religious motives).

By the way, in the European witch craze (1520-1660) religion is, perhaps, less easily blamed. According to Oxford historian H.R. Trevor-Roper, 500,000 witches were executed in Europe in this period. Their crimes were religious in nature, but most of the courts in which they were tried were civil courts rather than ecclesastical courts. Also, it's interesting to compare the crimes of heresy and witchcraft -- neither of which is criminal to our modern way of thinking. Heresy doubtless exists; we just don't think it is a crime. Witchcraft would be a crime (if Witches were kidnapping babies and killing people), but we don't think it exists. (It is true that the Craze was partly kicked off by the publication of and Papal support for "The Hammer of the Witches", published in the 1490s.

Both the Inquisition and the Withcraft Craze were fueled by torture, which led to confessions and accusations, which led to more confessions and accusations.

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## mortalterror

As odd as some people's religious beliefs are, for all the mental hoops they have to jump through, and irrational nonsense they have to believe, I can't say any of them have impressed me more than the contortions and blindness atheists must go through to deny all the atrocities they've committed throughout history. Between that and the guys who deny the existence of historical personages, you've got some strong mental dissonance coming from the people who claim to stand for reason.

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## Ecurb

> As odd as some people's religious beliefs are, for all the mental hoops they have to jump through, and irrational nonsense they have to believe, I can't say any of them have impressed me more than the contortions and blindness atheists must go through to deny all the atrocities they've committed throughout history. Between that and the guys who deny the existence of historical personages, you've got some strong mental dissonance coming from the people who claim to stand for reason.


I don't see atheists in this thread "deny(ing) all the atrocities (atheists have) committed throughout history". Instead, I see them (and me, to a lesser extent) denying that atheism per se was the reason (or even a key reason) for the atrocities. In the Inquisition, religion was clearly an important factor in torture and execution, since the crime (heresy) was a religious crime, the courts were religious courts, and the torturers were officers of the Church, fullfilling their official functions. The reason I mentioned the killing of priests in the Spanish Civil War (which you mentioned earlier) is that it seems like the best case for atheism being an important causal factor in atrocities -- and it doubtless was a factor. The priests were clearly executed BECAUSE they were priests. Nonetheless, the importance of Atheism (per se) in that case was significantly less in that case than the importance of Catholocism in the torture and execution of heretics in the Inquisition.

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## 108 fountains

YesNo,

You surprise me here with some of your comments. 

_Atheism is consistent with Genocide. 

Assuming someone is an atheist, how does that person know that genocide is evil? 

If atheism is as bland as not believing in Gods, then it is consistent with genocide, because there is nothing in atheism prohibiting genocide. 

I think Catholicism, and in general any worthwhile theistic religion, would be inconsistent with genocide because of the Gods and ethics involved in those religions. Atheism doesn't have any of that. 

I think theism, generally speaking, is inconsistent with genocide. Theism would put a brake on genocidal people. I don't see how atheism could do that without additional assumptions._

In other threads, Ive always found you to be reasonable and open-minded. Do you hear what you are saying here? Do you really believe that atheists cannot know the difference between good and evil? Do you really believe that human morality is based on a set of rules imposed by a supernatural being instead of being an intrinsic part of human nature? 

Yes, genocide has occurred under atheist leaders; and what are the religious wars that have occurred throughout history if not genocide? Genocide, atrocities, evil deeds, and bad behavior are no more consistent with atheism than they are with non-atheists. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that atheists lack morality because they do not believe in God. This is bullcrap!

I am on intimate terms with one atheist who received a Masters Degree in Health Services Administration in 1985. One the same day he was offered two jobs  one was as Chief Financial Officer of a hospital in Lafayette Louisiana at the then astronomical salary of $75,000/year. The other was as Public Health Officer with the International Rescue Committee in the Ethiopian famine camps in eastern Sudan at a salary of $400/month. After much introspection (what a theist might call soul searching), this atheist went to the Sudan and stayed for 18 months in horrendous, miserable conditions trying to do some good in this world. That atheist was me, and I am sick and tired of hearing atheism branded as morally or ethically inferior.

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## Iain Sparrow

> As odd as some people's religious beliefs are, for all the mental hoops they have to jump through, and irrational nonsense they have to believe, I can't say any of them have impressed me more than the contortions and blindness atheists must go through to deny all the atrocities they've committed throughout history. Between that and the guys who deny the existence of historical personages, you've got some strong mental dissonance coming from the people who claim to stand for reason.


What?.. but those atheists did not commit atrocities in the name of Atheism, nor was Atheism a rallying cry... it was Communism, Fascism, that propagated the evil.

By all accounts, Hitler had two dogs and those dogs were well treated and cared for... with that logic, I will now state the obvious; Dog Lovers are responsible for the greatest atrocities of the last century! Now it will be interesting to see all the Dog Lovers on this forum jump through "mental hoops" denying that some of their fellow Dog Lovers have done horrible things.
Wow, I feel like a super genius.

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## Jackson Richardson

> Nuns? You're allowed to be there? Recommended reading: The Devils of Loudon by Aldous Huxley, The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong.


I'm a friend of the community. They had a little ceremony to admit me officially and Mother Abbess kissed me on both cheeks. One of the sisters and I are correspondents of a man on death row in Texas. Since the average age of the community is about 65, a Loudon situation is rather unlikely.

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## YesNo

> YesNo,
> 
> You surprise me here with some of your comments. 
> 
> _Atheism is consistent with Genocide. 
> 
> Assuming someone is an atheist, how does that person know that genocide is evil? 
> 
> If atheism is as bland as not believing in Gods, then it is consistent with genocide, because there is nothing in atheism prohibiting genocide. 
> ...


Atheists can know about good and evil because theism is true. It is the same thing that happens when someone who doesn't believe in electricity flips a light switch. The light nonetheless goes on.

Consider the "supernatural being" as transcendent Consciousness and it may make more sense. Then again it may not. If it doesn't make sense, then I would need more information about your beliefs. Do you think our consciousness is reducible to physics? Do you believe in materialism? Your atheism may simply be an unexamined cultural habit.

Just to make sure we are clear, I am not trying to convince you to accept any particular theism. I am just trying to question habitual ways of thinking.




> Yes, genocide has occurred under atheist leaders; and what are the religious wars that have occurred throughout history if not genocide? Genocide, atrocities, evil deeds, and bad behavior are _no more consistent with atheism than they are with non-atheists_. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that atheists lack morality because they do not believe in God. This is bullcrap!


I think that would depend on what you mean by atheism. If atheism is as bland as simply believing in no Gods, as I hear it being presented on these forums to protect atheism from charges of genocide under Pol Pot or Mao or Stalin, then how is that simplistic view of atheism inconsistent with genocide? That atheism does not have enough content to be inconsistent with much of anything.

Again, a non-believer in electricity can turn on the light. An atheist can make moral decisions and feel good or bad about them. But if atheism is truly inconsistent with genocide, as I think theism clearly is, what are the assumptions that atheists accept to show that inconsistency? I can't think of any. 




> I am on intimate terms with one atheist who received a Masters Degree in Health Services Administration in 1985. One the same day he was offered two jobs  one was as Chief Financial Officer of a hospital in Lafayette Louisiana at the then astronomical salary of $75,000/year. The other was as Public Health Officer with the International Rescue Committee in the Ethiopian famine camps in eastern Sudan at a salary of $400/month. After much introspection (what a theist might call soul searching), this atheist went to the Sudan and stayed for 18 months in horrendous, miserable conditions trying to do some good in this world. That atheist was me, and I am sick and tired of hearing atheism branded as morally or ethically inferior.


I sympathize with you. I am also "sick and tired" of hearing religious people trashed for whatever atrocities they might have done by atheists. What particularly irks me is to hear those same atheists cover up the atrocities committed under Marxist-Leninist atheism.

----------


## YesNo

> People do cause atrocities, and their motives are inevitably unique and complex. Each Nazi involved in the Holocaust had his own personal history, psychological profile, and individual motives (see Tolstoy on this one). Nonetheless, it makes more sense to blame Religion for the Inquisition than to blame Atheism for the massacres of the Khmer Rouge. The Inquisition punished crimes that were specifically religious in nature (heresy), the trials and tortures were conducted in Ecclesiastical courts, and the Judges and Prosecuters were officers of the Church. Of course it is also true that greed (confiscation of property) and other non-religious motives were involved. The case for blaming Catholicism for the Inquisition is (it seems to me, although I'm no expert) far stronger than that for blaming "atheism" for the killing of priests during the Spanish Civil War (we'll stick to the same location). Although it is true they were killed because they were priests, the Church's political support for Franco was probably the primary motive, as well as the role of priests in economic oppression of the proletariat (both of which are political rather than religious motives).


This article summaries the role of atheism in Marxist-Leninism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist...ninist_atheism

Mortalterror has posted links regarding atheism (#136). This one comes from that list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless

I understand that atheists need to distance themselves from these atrocities. I don't see how anyone can remain an atheist given the historical record atheists have left.

----------


## Hwo Thumb

> I understand that atheists need to distance themselves from these atrocities. I don't see how anyone can remain an atheist given the historical record atheists have left.


Ummm... Point of interest; If your beliefs depend entirely on what people before you have believed, then they're not really your beliefs. If somebody has a hard time believing that an all-powerful, supernatural being governs their lives and determines the fate of their souls when they die, why would they suddenly _start_ believing that because a bunch of atheists is Russia committed genocide? There is literally no reason why atheists would become theists because other atheists did bad things. That logic only works the other way around.

Besides, countless people have committed atrocities in the name of their religion. In my mind, that doesn't make religion any more or less evil than atheism. People do bad things because people do bad things. Whether they throw a guise of religion or atheism over it, that doesn't change the facts: Atrocities, at their core, are humans being *******s. Not Christians being *******s, not atheists being *******s, not Muslims being *******s... It's just people.



> Atheists can know about good and evil because theism is true. It is the same thing that happens when someone who doesn't believe in electricity flips a light switch. The light nonetheless goes on.


Also, what you're saying on the subject of atheism and morality doesn't make sense to me. I might be misinterpreting you here, but it sounds like what you're saying is that the atheist code of morals - or lack thereof - does nothing to prohibit genocide, and it's only because theism is true that people have a moral compass.

You're welcome to believe that, and it may or may not be true, but that doesn't mean atheism is consistent with genocide. I would assume that most atheists put the roots of morality in our genetic code; Altruism is beneficial for the species, selfishness is beneficial for the individual, so there has to be a balance between selfishness and altruism for a species to survive. Therefore, our instinctive moral code is our genetic programming telling us to do what's best for society.

It's late, and I'm sleep deprived, so I might not be communicating well, but I'm pretty sure that if I were lucid I would still strongly disagree with you. It's weird, because as Fountain said, even though I don't hang out too much on this forum, I've found you to be a pretty open-minded, reasonable person here.

----------


## YesNo

> What?.. but those atheists did not commit atrocities in the name of Atheism, *nor was Atheism a rallying cry*... it was Communism, Fascism, that propagated the evil.
> 
> By all accounts, Hitler had two dogs and those dogs were well treated and cared for... with that logic, I will now state the obvious; Dog Lovers are responsible for the greatest atrocities of the last century! Now it will be interesting to see all the Dog Lovers on this forum jump through "mental hoops" denying that some of their fellow Dog Lovers have done horrible things.
> Wow, I feel like a super genius.


Here is a rallying cry from the League of Militant Atheists coming from this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless

_The League's slogan was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism"_
Here's another quote about the same group:

_In 1929, the Second Congress changed the society's name to The Union of Belligerent (or Militant) Atheists. At this Second Congress of Atheists, Nikolai Bukharin, the editor of Pravda, called for the extermination of religion "at the tip of the bayonet."_
At that same conference some guy named Yaroslavsky, whom the Central Council chose as its leader, had this to say:

_It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept... If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done._
I assume someone who wants to "destroy every religious world-concept" would considered himself an "atheist".

----------


## YesNo

> Ummm... Point of interest; If your beliefs depend entirely on what people before you have believed, then they're not really your beliefs. If somebody has a hard time believing that an all-powerful, supernatural being governs their lives and determines the fate of their souls when they die, why would they suddenly _start_ believing that because a bunch of atheists is Russia committed genocide? There is literally no reason why atheists would become theists because other atheists did bad things. That logic only works the other way around.


Perhaps I should have said proclaiming that they were atheists.




> Besides, countless people have committed atrocities in the name of their religion. In my mind, that doesn't make religion any more or less evil than atheism. People do bad things because people do bad things. Whether they throw a guise of religion or atheism over it, that doesn't change the facts: Atrocities, at their core, are humans being *******s. Not Christians being *******s, not atheists being *******s, not Muslims being *******s... It's just people.


I agree.




> Also, what you're saying on the subject of atheism and morality doesn't make sense to me. I might be misinterpreting you here, but it sounds like what you're saying is that the atheist code of morals - or lack thereof - does nothing to prohibit genocide, and it's only because theism is true that people have a moral compass.


I am saying that any natural morality comes from somewhere. Atheism offers no option for it to come from anywhere.




> You're welcome to believe that, and it may or may not be true, but that doesn't mean atheism is consistent with genocide. I would assume that most atheists put the roots of morality in our genetic code; Altruism is beneficial for the species, selfishness is beneficial for the individual, so there has to be a balance between selfishness and altruism for a species to survive. Therefore, our instinctive moral code is our genetic programming telling us to do what's best for society.


If atheism is not consistent with genocide, where does the inconsistency lie?




> It's late, and I'm sleep deprived, so I might not be communicating well, but I'm pretty sure that if I were lucid I would still strongly disagree with you. It's weird, because as Fountain said, even though I don't hang out too much on this forum, I've found you to be a pretty open-minded, reasonable person here.


Thank you for the kind words. I've enjoyed your posts as well.

----------


## 108 fountains

> I don't see how anyone can remain an atheist given the historical record atheists have left.


What kind of idiotic statement is that?

----------


## mortalterror

As usual, I'm mostly on YesNo's side of things. However, I get how people can still call themselves atheists after Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Robespierre, Lenin, Ceausescu, Khrushchev, Kim Il-sung. I don't think it's any different than how people can continue to hold their heads up as Christians after the Crusades and the Inquisition. What I find annoying is the hypocrisy of calling foul on one and denying the other.

There are a lot of good atheists in the world, and there are a lot of good theists. The difference is that theists are more likely to receive instruction in ethical behavior. Most people have no philosophical training or ethical guidance besides their religious experience. Atheism is an incomplete religion largely based on negation and pessimism. It needs a second ism to give it's followers ethical guidance and balance. I think it needs humanism, something to absorb all that aimless, defeatist, nihilistic, relativism which often comes packaged with their materialism, scientism, and rationalism. Men have a need for the sublime, and if you can't find it in the supernatural, perhaps you can place your faith in aesthetics, or something else equally uplifting and life affirming. But as it stands, most atheism tends to undercut the value of human life, like that quote by Dawkins about fetuses being less human than pigs.

In The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins anthropomorphizes a bacterium and allows it to speak in the first-person point of view.




> 'Look at life from our perspective, and you eukaryotes will soon cease giving yourselves such airs. You bipedal apes, you stump-tailed tree shrews, you desiccated lobe-fins, you vertebrated worms, you Hoxed-up sponges, you newcomers on the block, you eukaryotes, you barely distinguishable congregations of a monotonously narrow parish, you are little more than fancy froth on the surface of bacterial life. … We were here before you arrived, and we shall be here after you are gone’ (p. 558).


Atheism needs positive, upbeat, uplifting, messengers, instead of these angry white dudes. Perhaps, a statement affirming the concept that life has meaning, even though it's fleeting, anything but the message of hate which the New Atheists, the Communists, and the French Revolutionaries brought with them.

I'm not implying that this is a panacea for all ethical ills. Christians error and sin all the time. Some types of human compulsion like psychopathy are immune to all therapies or systems which attempt to reform them. But I think that a little ethical training can help curb some of the worst impulses of ordinary people, and the habit, or being regularly reminded (mindfulness) to do good deeds does have a slight positive effect on behavior. You see this in the pronounced difference between secular and theist charitable giving.

----------


## 108 fountains

> Atheists can know about good and evil because theism is true. It is the same thing that happens when someone who doesn't believe in electricity flips a light switch. The light nonetheless goes on.


The logic is flawed. The existence of electricity can be demonstrated by evidence.

----------


## 108 fountains

> if atheism is truly inconsistent with genocide, as I think theism clearly is, what are the assumptions that atheists accept to show that inconsistency?


Atheism is not inconsistent with genocide, but it is no more inconsistent with genocide than is theism, despite religious rules intended to guide moral behavior. 

Estimates of total number of deaths attributable to the Crusades range from 1 to 3 million. Contemporary estimates put the number of people killed during the German Peasants War of 1524-1525 at about 100,000. Estimates of total number of deaths attributable to the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants in the mid to late 1500s range from 2 to 4 million. During the 30 years War, which began as a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire approximately 30 percent of the population of present-day Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia were killed by the war and the resulting famine. In the 17th century Cromwellian Protestant conquest of Ireland, the depopulation of Ireland’s Catholic inhabitants from the ravages of war and the resulting famines and plague is estimated by historians at anywhere from 15 to more than 50 percent. 

There are plenty more examples of theism not being inconsistent with genocide, especially if you want to look at the problems with modern Islam, but I would point out that all these wars had at least as much to do with economics, geopolitics, and ethno-linguistic divisions as they had to do with religion. 

Hitler was raised Catholic and the thousands of Nazis who carried out atrocities and genocide against the Jews and gypsies were all (or nearly all) Christian, but they generally did not carry out their murders in the name of religion (although there was an element of that). 

Similarly, the examples given of genocide under Pol Pot, Mao, and Stalin had more to do with ideology and consolidation of dictatorial power than atheism (although there was an element of that). 

It's true that theism's religions have codified rules of behavior that prohibit murder, but history demonstrates that these rules are ignored by political and religious leaders and even large numbers of religious people when it is convenient to them. I just simply cannot agree that theism is any more inconsistent with genocide than atheism is.

----------


## 108 fountains

I'm tempted, but I will not say, "I don't see how anyone can remain a theist given the historical record theists have left."

----------


## 108 fountains

> Here is a rallying cry from the League of Militant Atheists coming from this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless
> 
> _The League's slogan was "Struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism"_
> Here's another quote about the same group:
> 
> _In 1929, the Second Congress changed the society's name to The Union of Belligerent (or Militant) Atheists. At this Second Congress of Atheists, Nikolai Bukharin, the editor of Pravda, called for the extermination of religion "at the tip of the bayonet."_
> At that same conference some guy named Yaroslavsky, whom the Central Council chose as its leader, had this to say:
> 
> _It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept... If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done._
> I assume someone who wants to "destroy every religious world-concept" would considered himself an "atheist".


I guess I am naïve. I've never heard of the League of Militant Atheists. From your description, they sound like a bunch of nutbags. But I hope you do not assume that all atheists share their this group's ideas or objectives any more than I would assume that all Muslims share the ideas and objectives of the Taliban or that all Christians share the ideas and objectives of the Army of God or the Ku Klux Klan.

----------


## 108 fountains

> I am saying that any natural morality comes from somewhere. Atheism offers no option for it to come from anywhere.


It comes from the mind of man. One thing I guess I will never understand about religious people is how they so willingly accept responsibility for humanity's faults and failures, but feel a need to separate themselves from the beauty and goodness within them and attribute that to some supernatural being or cosmic consciousness.

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## Oedipus

> If Armenia is an example against theism, then Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao are examples against atheism. 
> 
> I try to avoid self-righteousness, but I don't claim to be any better than anyone else.


If you had read my post properly you would know that I said that theism does not _prevent_ genocide, not that it causes them.

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## Oedipus

> As odd as some people's religious beliefs are, for all the mental hoops they have to jump through, and irrational nonsense they have to believe, I can't say any of them have impressed me more than the contortions and blindness atheists must go through to deny all the atrocities they've committed throughout history. Between that and the guys who deny the existence of historical personages, you've got some strong mental dissonance coming from the people who claim to stand for reason.


For some reason many have trouble realizing that atheism is not a united movement. One atheist has no connections for another; they are not in the grand scale united and are not part of a world-wide party or church. No atheist, unless they are part of a specific localized group of atheists (and none of these are all-encompassing with most being responses to religious hatred), has to make excuses for any other.

----------


## mortalterror

> For some reason many have trouble realizing that atheism is not a united movement. One atheist has no connections for another; they are not in the grand scale united and are not part of a world-wide party or church. No atheist, unless they are part of a specific localized group of atheists (and none of these are all-encompassing with most being responses to religious hatred), has to make excuses for any other.


New Atheism is a social and political movement in favour of atheism and secularism...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism

The American Atheists Center is a unique and rich resource for scholars, students, and those interested in the history of the atheist movement.
www.atheists.org/

The atheist movement must begin to openly care about and fight against class inequality and poverty...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/new-atheism-movement/

Greta Christina, the author of Coming Out Atheist describes the changes in organized atheism: “[T]he movement has become much more ...
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/05/forg...hange_partner/

Not long ago, the atheist movement was the preserve of a few eccentric gadflies like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whose endless lawsuits helped earn her the title “the most hated woman in ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/ma...anted=all&_r=0

FFRF is the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and skeptics) with over 20,000 members. Since 1978, FFRF has acted on countless violations of the separation of state and church, and has won many significant complaints and important lawsuits to end state/church entanglements.
ffrf.org/

The Secular Coalition for America - A coalition of groups. The "purpose in founding the coalition was to formalize a cooperative structure for visible, unified activism to improve the civic situation of citizens with a naturalistic worldview."
http://bornatheist.com/organizaitons.html

Organization of religion-free groups and individuals around the world. Aims to promote democratic, atheistic societies.
www.atheistalliance.org/

The atheist feminist movement has also become increasingly focused on fighting sexism and sexual harassment within the atheist movement itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

In August 2012, Jennifer McCreight (the organizer of Boobquake) founded a movement within atheism known as Atheism Plus, or A+, that "applies skepticism to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, politics, poverty, and crime".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

As of January 2010 over 50,000 Brights registered from 186 nations.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brights_movement

Who Controls the Atheist Movement?
http://www.atheistrev.com/2013/02/wh...-movement.html

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## Oedipus

> New Atheism is a social and political movement in favour of atheism and secularism...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism
> 
> The American Atheists Center is a unique and rich resource for scholars, students, and those interested in the history of the atheist movement.
> www.atheists.org/
> 
> The atheist movement must begin to openly care about and fight against class inequality and poverty...
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/new-atheism-movement/
> 
> ...


Exactly my point. Isolated networks at best. No overarching structure. Plenty (probably a majority even amongst those who are "out") of independents, as in my opinion it should always be.

----------


## mal4mac

> ... I get how people can still call themselves atheists after Stalin... I don't think it's any different than how people can continue to hold their heads up as Christians after the Crusades and the Inquisition. What I find annoying is the hypocrisy of calling foul on one and denying the other.


It's because atheism is simply "not believing in god", while Christianity is "believing in the Bible", which says "Never suffer a witch to live!" The Crusaders and "moderate" Christians think there is something special about this dangerous book. So, even if the moderates don't recommend killing witches, they are still making it more likely by pretending that this book is special. 




> There are a lot of good atheists in the world, and there are a lot of good theists. The difference is that theists are more likely to receive instruction in ethical behavior. Most people have no philosophical training or ethical guidance besides their religious experience.


It is dangerous to only have ethical teaching in RE lessons, because it means that the non-religious are likely to throw out the ethical baby with the religious bath water. In my case, I gave myself a moral education through reading Bertrand Russell & similar authors in the public library. The school should have been providing this education. I've heard that most UK schools do now give classes on ethics without religion. I hope so!



> Atheism is an incomplete religion largely based on negation and pessimism.


It's simply not believing in god! Many people who don't believe in god are positive and optimistic. 

Even if a person is negative and pessimistic does that mean they are a bad person, or having a bad life?



> It needs a second ism to give it's followers ethical guidance and balance.


Of course! No atheist would disagree with this. Imagine someone who is *only* an atheist faced with a moral quandary: "Should I pay my taxes? I don't believe in god, therefore... hmmm doesn't help on this question, OK I'll just sit here and do nothing."




> Men have a need for the sublime, and if you can't find it in the supernatural, perhaps you can place your faith in aesthetics, or something else equally uplifting and life affirming. But as it stands, most atheism tends to undercut the value of human life...


Most atheists *do* engage with the aesthetic. Even those with a devotion to science, which may be equally uplifting and life affirming, often engage with great literature. Dawkins, for instance, has a lot to say about poetry in some of his books (Unweaving the Rainbow...) and is a FRSL as well as an FRS. You don't get an FRSL without having a significant devotion to the aesthetic in literature. (Dawkins, it's not said often enough, is a wonderful writer! Is there a better writer in the popular science field?)




> In The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins anthropomorphizes a bacterium and allows it to speak in the first-person point of view.


It's called, "using your imagination".




> Atheism needs positive, upbeat, uplifting, messengers, instead of these angry white dudes. Perhaps, a statement affirming the concept that life has meaning, even though it's fleeting,...


Dawkins is always going on about the sense of meaning he gets from science in quiet reverential tones. It's getting a bit tedious. I wish he would do more angry attacks! Still as you appear not to have caught him going on at length on this topic, here's whole forty minutes plus of him (episode 3):

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/s...guide/series-1

Note that "admiring science" isn't the only way that atheists find meaning, Ricky Gervais finds it by "being creative". Personally, even with two science degrees, I don't get much of my meaning from science these days, or from "being creative", for me meaning comes more from reading literature, forum discussions(!), and modest Epicurean living. Actually, the flexibility that atheism promotes seems much more appealing in the "pursuit of meaning" than religion. With religion you are expected to find meaning from trying to believe in God, praying, singing hymns,... What if these things don't appeal?!




> You see this in the pronounced difference between secular and theist charitable giving.


Then why is poverty and deprivation so much less in modern secular Britain than in Christian Victorian times? All those 19th century church goers didn't do as much as in charitable giving as today's' secular authorities do through good use of taxes. I might admit a draw here, as the secular authorities contain religious people as well as atheists, but you have no grounds for saying that Christians alleviate poverty more effectively than atheists.

----------


## mortalterror

Digital churches

r/Atheism receives about 250,000 unique visitors a day and 3,000,000 unique visitors a month.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendl...mean-anything/

RichardDawkins.net
Daily Unique Visitors: 17,861
http://richarddawkins.net.cutestat.com/

List of Facebook atheist groups
http://www.atheismunited.com/wiki/Fa...Atheist_Groups

Twitter atheists
http://www.atheismunited.com/wiki/Twitter_Atheists

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## mal4mac

> New Atheism is a social and political movement in favour of atheism and secularism...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism


Please stop quoting Wikipedia, it's always producing claptrap like this. In what way is it a coherent "social and political movement"? Can you point to a manifesto? It's just a media label with no referent. Your other links are, mostly, to throw-away articles in which the journalist didn't have his or her thinking cap on. There is no "atheist movement"! There *are* movements in which some, perhaps all, the supporters are atheists. Can you imagine an atheist movement? 

Manifesto of the Atheist Movement: "Let's all get together and not believe in God! There's nothing else we do or don't believe. We just don't believe in God." FAQ: What about poverty? "We are the atheist movement, our only belief is that we don't believe in God. We have nothing to say about poverty." Law & Order? "Nothing to say..."

Google define:

atheism
ˈeɪθɪɪz(ə)m
noun: atheism
disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

And that's it! No other meaning - my concise OED agrees. Any journalist using it to mean anything else should be fired for not understanding the simplest of terms, or for being too drunk to open a dictionary.

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## mal4mac

> Digital churches...


A forum post should not be just a load of links. Imagine Socrates in the forum and his opponent holding up a pile of books, and saying "My answers are all in here Socrates!" Please make an argument, if you have one.

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## mortalterror

Godless Americans March a Success!
The Washington Post estimated somewhere between two and three thousand attended the November 2 event.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...nnay_18_4.html


The Reason Rally was a rally for secularism and religious skepticism held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 2012.[1][2] The rally was sponsored by major atheistic and secular organizations of the United States and was regarded as a "Woodstock for atheists and skeptics".

The Atlantic said 20,000 people were in attendance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_Rally


The 2013 National Convention hosted more than 900 fellow atheists, plus vendors, speakers, comedians, entertainers, an art show and silent auction, and much more!
http://www.atheists.org/convention2013


Atheist 'mega-churches' take root across US, world
http://news.yahoo.com/atheist-mega-c...214619648.html


Camp Quest, founded in 1996, is the first residential summer camp in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Norway specifically for the children of nontheistic or freethinking parents (including atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, skeptics, rationalists, and others who hold a naturalistic worldview).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Quest

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## mortalterror

> A forum post should not be just a load of links. Imagine Socrates in the forum and his opponent holding up a pile of books, and saying "My answers are all in here Socrates!" Please make an argument, if you have one.


Oedipus said there is no atheist movement, no structure, no organization. I think I proved him wrong.

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## Oedipus

> Oedipus said there is no atheist movement, no structure, no organization. I think I proved him wrong.


Than you need to do a lot more thinking.

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## mortalterror

> (Dawkins, it's not said often enough, is a wonderful writer! Is there a better writer in the popular science field?)


Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Feynman, Thomas Kuhn, Darwin, E.O. Wilson, Jared Diamond, Karl Popper




> With religion you are expected to find meaning from trying to believe in God, praying, singing hymns,... What if these things don't appeal?!


There are many roads to God, my friend. If one were so inclined they might just as easily approach him by way of reason and logic the way that Aquinus and Descartes seem to have. Singing and praying may be more common methods of worship, but Andre Rublev the icon painter found he worshipped God best with paint, and each man must worship the Lord in his own capacity, with the temperament he was given.




> Then why is poverty and deprivation so much less in modern secular Britain than in Christian Victorian times? All those 19th century church goers didn't do as much as in charitable giving as today's' secular authorities do through good use of taxes.


Growth of excess capital, industry, larger markets, more wealth to spread around for one thing.




> I might admit a draw here, as the secular authorities contain religious people as well as atheists, but you have no grounds for saying that Christians alleviate poverty more effectively than atheists.


Don't I? It's not even a close race.



> LONDON -- Muslims give more money to charity than people of other religions, according to a new British poll. 
> 
> More than three in 10 Muslims, Catholics and Jews donated money during 2012, ICM Research found.
> 
> Followers of Islam gave an average of $567 compared to Jewish givers who donated around $412, according to the survey of just over 4,000 people in the U.K.
> 
> Christians gave considerably less. Protestants donated an average of $308, while Roman Catholics gave around $272, the poll found. Atheists averaged just $177. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...poll-says?lite


or



> Q. We often hear that religious people give more to charity than secularists. Is this true?
> A. In the year 2000, “religious” people (the 33 percent of the population who attend their houses of worship at least once per week) were 25 percentage points more likely to give charitably than “secularists” (the 27 percent who attend less than a few times per year, or have no religion). They were also 23 percentage points more likely to volunteer. When considering the average dollar amounts of money donated and time volunteered, the gap between the groups increases even further: religious people gave nearly four times more dollars per year, on average, than secularists ($2,210 versus $642). They also volunteered more than twice as often (12 times per year, versus 5.8 times).
> 
> Very little of this gap is due to personal differences between religious and secular people with respect to income, age, family, or anything else. For instance, imagine two people who are identical in income, education, age, race, and marital status. The one difference between them is that, while one goes to church every week, the other never does. Knowing this, we can predict that the churchgoer will be 21 percentage points more likely to make a charitable gift of money during the year than the nonchurchgoer, and will also be 26 points more likely to volunteer.
> 
> Q. But aren’t they just giving to religious charities and houses of worship?
> A. These enormous differences are not a simple artifact of religious people giving to their churches. Religious people are more charitable with secular causes, too. For example, in 2000, religious people were 10 percentage points more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities, and 21 points more likely to volunteer. The value of the average religious household’s gifts to nonreligious charities was 14 percent higher than that of the average secular household, even after correcting for income differences.
> 
> Religious people were also far more likely than secularists to give in informal, nonreligious ways. For example, in 2000, people belonging to religious congregations gave 46 percent more money to family and friends than people who did not belong. In 2002, religious people were far more likely to donate blood than secularists, to give food or money to a homeless person, and even to return change mistakenly given them by a cashier. http://www.american.com/archive/2008...tion-of-givers

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## mal4mac

> Oedipus said there is no atheist movement, no structure, no organization. I think I proved him wrong.


Well you certainly didn't convince him! Or me.

Is ballroom dancing a social movement? It just seems silly to call it that! Almost tautologically - for something to be a social movement, society must move in a significant way, or (at least) the aim must be to move society in a significant way. So the "labour movement" is (or was!) certainly a social movement. Ballroom dancing changes nothing of social significance, therefore we don't call it a social movement. 

You could imagine a bunch of people becoming atheist and it not changing society at all. One day they believe in gods, the next day they don't, but no one notices any social change. No one would know, unless it came up in conversation. So I don't think you can call atheism a political or social movement.

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## mal4mac

> There are many roads to God, my friend. If one were so inclined they might just as easily approach him by way of reason and logic the way that Aquinus and Descartes seem to have.


That road leads to disbelief! Aquinas and Descartes have only bad arguments for god, and can't be trusted because their social advancement (and indeed life!) depended on their belief in god.

Secular people believe in giving through tax, and tax increases are opposed by the religious right. Indeed the religious right in Victorian Britain supported charitable giving, but wanted to keep taxes down; result: poverty. The secular Labour movement in the UK increased taxes, and as more people became atheists, Christian giving went down; result: less poverty.

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## Iain Sparrow

> Oedipus said there is no atheist movement, no structure, no organization. I think I proved him wrong.


LOL!
Exactly to what end is this "structured", "organized", atheist "movement" going toward?.. I'm not aware of a single member in the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House and Cabinet Secretaries, or even a member of any State Legislature that is an atheist!
We atheists must really suck eggs when it comes to organizing a movement when all we have to show for it is ZERO people representing us in government! In fact, if you admit to being an atheist in America you couldn't get elected Dog Catcher.

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## mal4mac

There are atheists in the British Parliament, e.g., Nick Clegg, leader of the SDP, and Deputy Prime Minister. So it's only American atheists who suck eggs  :Smile:

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## YesNo

> The logic is flawed. The existence of electricity can be demonstrated by evidence.


The existence of your own consciousness and the world around you plus the absence of substance at the quantum level to support reductionist materialism is evidence for transcendent Consciousness. 

I still haven't heard from anyone on what grounds atheism can claim that it is inconsistent with genocide? It is not enough for the atheist to say that they can make moral decisions. Anyone can. They need to justify those moral decisions based on their atheism. Otherwise the analogy holds. Atheists can make a moral decision the same way a disbeliever in electricity can turn on the light.

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## Oedipus

> The existence of your own consciousness and the world around you plus the absence of substance at the quantum level to support reductionist materialism is evidence for transcendent Consciousness.


Your claims about quantum mechanics have been refuted numerous times by posters far more knowledgeable about the subject than you multiple times. 




> I still haven't heard from anyone on what grounds atheism can claim that it is inconsistent with genocide?


That's because everyone else has realized that whether it does or not is irrelevant to what you are claiming.

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## YesNo

> Atheism is not inconsistent with genocide, but it is no more inconsistent with genocide than is theism, despite religious rules intended to guide moral behavior.


The religious rules and their justifications are part of what make theisms inconsistent with genocide. Theisms also direct practitioners' attention positively toward some transcendent Other through a positive approach toward the other people the believers encounter. 

What about atheism? That would depend on how one defines it. Atheism, as a quasi-religion in its militant, fundamentalist form, replaces this positive approach to others with self-righteous hostility. Instead of singing hymns or chanting, the militant atheists generate opposition to other people as the only "spiritual" practice they know how to perform. 




> It's true that theism's religions have codified rules of behavior that prohibit murder, but history demonstrates that these rules are ignored by political and religious leaders and even large numbers of religious people when it is convenient to them. I just simply cannot agree that theism is any more inconsistent with genocide than atheism is.


Given the body count, theism is far more successful against genocide than atheism. Atheism offers nothing to stop atrocities. 

I don't think it makes sense to talk about an ideology being more or less consistent with something else. The ideology either is or isn't consistent with genocide. Atheism, because it offers nothing, is consistent with genocide. Theism, because it offers an Other, is not.

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## mal4mac

> It is not enough for the atheist to say that they can make moral decisions. Anyone can. They need to justify those moral decisions based on their atheism.


No they don't. Atheists have, and need, other principles (liberal, socialist...) on which to base moral decisions.

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## mal4mac

> Theisms also direct practitioners' attention positively toward some transcendent Other through a positive approach toward the other people the believers encounter.


Maybe, but their books also contain statements like, "Never suffer a witch to live!", and inspire Crusades.




> Instead of singing hymns or chanting, the militant atheists generate opposition to other people as the only "spiritual" practice they know how to perform.


Well we all like a good argument  :Smile:  But even Dawkins reads poetry, so this is a straw atheist (easy for Christians to burn!) And even if there is such a straw atheist in reality, what's wrong with that, as long as the straw atheist isn't violent.




> Atheism offers nothing to stop atrocities.


Neither does ballroom dancing, but I don't see Christians maligning sequinned dancers (unless they're homosexuals...)

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## 108 fountains

> The existence of your own consciousness and the world around you plus the absence of substance at the quantum level to support reductionist materialism is evidence for transcendent Consciousness.


By the same logic: Easter eggs appear on my lawn on Easter morning; therefore the Easter Bunny exists.

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## 108 fountains

> Given the body count, theism is far more successful against genocide than atheism. Atheism offers nothing to stop atrocities. 
> 
> I don't think it makes sense to talk about an ideology being more or less consistent with something else. The ideology either is or isn't consistent with genocide. Atheism, because it offers nothing, is consistent with genocide. Theism, because it offers an Other, is not.


I disagree completely, for reasons I've already stated.

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## 108 fountains

Is Christianity consistent with slavery?

Defenders of slavery in the United States argued that the Bible recounts that Abraham was a slave-owner. They point to the Ten Commandments, noting that "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house... nor his manservant, nor his maidservant..." (Exodus 20:17) They reference Pauls return of a runaway slave to his master in the New Testament and point out neither Jesus nor the Apostles ever spoke out against it.

An editorial in the January 1, 1820 _Richmond Enquirer_ stated, [Slavery] was expressly sanctioned by the old, and recognized without censure by the new testament." In another editorial in the same newspaper on February 19, 1820: "Not a single sentence do we find in sacred writings that tends in the most distant manner, to disapprove of any one part of the conduct of this illustrious slave-buyer. 

Senator James Barbour of Virginia, stated that [Slavery was] a link in that great concatenation which is permitted by omnipotent power and goodness and must issue in universal good." _Annals of Congress_ 16 Cong., 1st sess., 1 February 1820, p. 335.

On January 10, 1828, Representative John C. Weems of Maryland, referred to Leviticus 25:44-46 during a debate in the U.S. House of Representatives, Slavery, the right of property in the human family, by purchase with your money, to be held and transferred in perpetuity to posterity, had been recognized by the Almighty Himself, to the fullest extent (_Congressional Debates_, 20 Cong., 1st sess., 10 January 1828, pp. 967-68.) (The passage from Leviticus 25:44-46 reads, "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life) 

Reverend Frederick Dalcho of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, enjoined, "obedience, submission, [and] subjection, to a bad, as well as to a good master. There is nothing in the law of God which can, in the slightest manner, justify the disobedience and revolt of slaves [Dalcho], _Practical Considerations Founded on the Scriptures Relative to the Slave Populations of South Carolina_, 1828, p. 25.

Richard Furman, president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, wrote in a letter to Congress in 1829, The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example..." (Furman, _Exposition of the Views of the Baptists_, p. 8. _Congressional Debates_, 20 Cong., 2d sess., 7 January 1829, p. 185)

In a speech to the U.S. Senate in 1837, John C. Calhoun said, "Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually."

In the January 1845 edition of his monthly publication, the Millennial Harbinger, the Reverend Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ churches and of Bethany College in West Virginia, wrote, "There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral If they [slaves] will not faithfully serve their Christian masters then they are to be put under whatever other discipline a Christian master under the existing laws of the state may inflict.

In a speech to the U.S. Senate on 14 February 1850, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, said, "[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God... it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation... it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts."

On May 26, 1850, James Thornwell, a Presbyterian minister, said in _The Rights and the Duties of Masters, A Sermon Preached at the Dedication of a Church Erected in Charleston, S.C., for the Benefit and Instruction of the Coloured Population_, "The parties in this conflict are not merely Abolitionists and slaveholders, they are Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins on the one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battlegroundChristianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake. "

So is Christianity consistent with slavery? I would like to think that slavery is inconsistent with the basic ideology of Christianity, but others, apparently, including notable Christian clergymen, have thought otherwise.

For myself, I believe that the desire to wield power over other human beings, including enslavement, is an intrinsic, albeit pernicious, aspect of human nature as evidenced throughout human history. People who are unable or unwilling to resist this desire for power will use force, violence, economic pressure, and legal and religious arguments to seize and maintain that power. 

But to say that Christianity is consistent with slavery is about as absurd as saying that atheism is consistent with genocide.

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## Ecurb

The headquarters of the American Humanist Association are deep in the bowels of an aging skyscraper in lower Manhatten. As I entered this Shrine, I could hear low, monotonous chanting. Members were entoning the Humanist Manifesto, rendered (of course) in Esparanto. 

"Welcome, brother," said the armed guard at the door. He had no need to examine my credentials. I'd been there before, many times.

In the rich, upholstered lounge I was greeted by a fellow Atheist, with a capital "A".

"Ecurb!" said the bearded, slightly overweight fellow whom I will not name lest doing so would endanger his life. "What's up! What say we go out and commit some atrocities!"

"Atrocities?" I asked. "What kind of atrocities"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe assasinate some priests, or gouge the eyes out of some Bahai'is. What's to stop us? We have no moral compass!"

"Well, I grant that we have no morals," I replied. "But I'm not sure I really feel like gouging out anyone's eyes right now. I'm just not in the mood for it."

"Don't be such a spoil sport!" replied my associate. "What's the point of being an Atheist if you can't commit a few atracities?"

"Good point," I said. "But couldn't we just try to get into a pick-up basketball game? Or maybe catch a movie?"

"Booooring! I'd rather video a beheading or two. I mean, why not? What do we have to lose?"

"We have nothing to lose," I replied. "But same old, same old. Didn't we just behead that guy last week? I don't object to beheading innocent people on moral grounds -- I just want to do something different, like play Scrabble or take the Ferry to Staton Island."

"You're a disgrace to Atheism," said my friend. "I suppose next you're going to say, 'Thou shall not kill' or 'Thou shall not commit adultery'."

"Well," I replied. "Now we're getting somewhere! I'm not in the mood for eye gouging -- but adultery sounds like it might be fun...."

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## mortalterror

> Is Christianity consistent with slavery?


If you want to go that road I could show that there is a secular version of every theist atrocity, delusion, or error. Racism in the bible used as a justification for slavery: racism in science (anthropology, craniometry, phrenology, anthropometry, ethnology, polygenism, eugenics) used to justify racism, slavery, the Holocaust, imperialism, apartheid: 




> In the United States, scientific racism justified Black African slavery to assuage moral opposition to the Atlantic slave trade. Alexander Thomas and Samuell Sillen described black men as uniquely fitted for bondage, because of their "primitive psychological organization".[57] In 1851, in antebellum Louisiana, the physician Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863), considered slave escape attempts as "drapetomania", a treatable mental illness, that "with proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented". The term drapetomania (mania of the runaway slave) derives from the Greek δραπετης (drapetes, "a runaway [slave]") + μανια (mania, "madness, frenzy")[58] Cartwright also described dysaesthesia aethiopica, called "rascality" by overseers. The 1840 United States Census claimed that Northern, free blacks suffered mental illness at higher rates than did their Southern, enslaved counterparts. Though the census was later found to have been severely flawed by the American Statistical Association, John Quincy Adams, and others, it became a political weapon against abolitionists. Southern slavers concluded that escaping Negroes were suffering from "mental disorders".[59][60]
> 
> At the time of the American Civil War (1861–65), the matter of miscegenation prompted studies of ostensible physiological differences between Caucasians and Negroes. Early anthropologists, such as Josiah Clark Nott, George Robins Gliddon, Robert Knox, and Samuel George Morton, aimed to scientifically prove that Negroes were a human species different from the white people species; that the rulers of Ancient Egypt were not African; and that mixed-race offspring (the product of miscegenation) tended to physical weakness and infertility. After the Civil War, Southern (Confederacy) physicians wrote textbooks of scientific racism based upon studies claiming that Black freemen (ex-slaves) were becoming extinct, because they were inadequate to the demands of being a free man — implying that Black people benefitted from enslavement. In 1850 Louis Agassiz commissioned a series of daguerreotypes of slaves of Columbia South Carolina for studying of races


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

Secularism used to justify social inequality:



> The term social Darwinism is often used to describe the use of concepts of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism; but similar concepts have motivated ideas of eugenics, racism, imperialism,[4] fascism, Nazism and struggle between national or racial groups


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

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## mortalterror

> Well you certainly didn't convince him! Or me.


Well, obviously some people there is no convincing. This reminds me of a note I scribbled down one night to myself earlier this month while thinking about the argumentum ad populum fallacy. I'd like to share it with you:

"When we say an idea is popular, we don't mean that it is more true than an idea which is unpopular. An idea is either true or false. What we mean by it's popularity is that it has reached or exceeded the bar truth claims must reach in order to be believed by a great many people. If the majority hold a view then the justification is great enough to sway a majority and it is assumed that the parties who would not be persuaded by the same evidence make higher demands for belief than the average. This can be a sign that not believing something is more a function of a person's skepticism than the believability of the claim."

I posit to you, the possibility that your demands for proof, or your ability to be persuaded by reasonable argument on certain topics are impossible to reach, and no matter how subtly I reason or how much evidence I proffer you will not be moved, because you are unmovable. However, I offer the second conjecture that you are not unmovable or unassailable to argument on all fronts, else you would never have been convinced of your atheism, which I assume you did not hold to the same rigorous standards of proof which you hold religious belief to. Thus, you harbor an inconsistent skepticism and use reason like a mistress, when it suits you.

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## 108 fountains

> If you want to go that road I could show that there is a secular version of every theist atrocity, delusion, or error. Racism in the bible used as a justification for slavery: racism in science (anthropology, craniometry, phrenology, anthropometry, ethnology, polygenism, eugenics) used to justify racism, slavery, the Holocaust, imperialism, apartheid: 
> 
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism
> 
> Secularism used to justify social inequality:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism


I agree completely, and I repeat, "To say that Christianity is consistent with slavery is about as absurd as saying that atheism is consistent with genocide."

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## 108 fountains

> Well, obviously some people there is no convincing. This reminds me of a note I scribbled down one night to myself earlier this month while thinking about the argumentum ad populum fallacy. I'd like to share it with you:
> 
> "When we say an idea is popular, we don't mean that it is more true than an idea which is unpopular. An idea is either true or false. What we mean by it's popularity is that it has reached or exceeded the bar truth claims must reach in order to be believed by a great many people. If the majority hold a view then the justification is great enough to sway a majority and it is assumed that the parties who would not be persuaded by the same evidence make higher demands for belief than the average. This can be a sign that not believing something is more a function of a person's skepticism than the believability of the claim."
> 
> I posit to you, the possibility that your demands for proof, or your ability to be persuaded by reasonable argument on certain topics are impossible to reach, and no matter how subtly I reason or how much evidence I proffer you will not be moved, because you are unmovable. However, I offer the second conjecture that you are not unmovable or unassailable to argument on all fronts, else you would never have been convinced of your atheism, which I assume you did not hold to the same rigorous standards of proof which you hold religious belief to. Thus, you harbor an inconsistent skepticism and use reason like a mistress, when it suits you.


Atheists can never prove that God does not exist because it is impossible to prove a negative assertion; theists can never prove that God exists because He doesn't.

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## mal4mac

Atheists don't have to prove that God doesn't exist, just as they don't have to prove the tooth fairy doesn't exist. It's up to theists to give us convincing evidence for the existence of the sky fairy. Any nice photos?

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## mortalterror

> Atheists don't have to prove that God doesn't exist, just as they don't have to prove the tooth fairy doesn't exist. It's up to theists to give us convincing evidence for the existence of the sky fairy. Any nice photos?


I had a lot on my mind that night, nearly a month ago, and while I was scribbling down notes to myself (the ad populum one was #6) #2 was in reference to Bertrand Russell's teapot and disproving a negative.

"Santa Clause, Big Foot, ghosts, Easter Bunny, Unicorns = Things few people believe in, not unprovable things, or things without evidence. Miscategorized. Not like R. Teapot."

There is evidence for any of those, but whether there is sufficient evidence for them to be believed is another matter. That matter is the matter of justification for belief. You say you require "convincing evidence", not just evidence, which implies that there is a level of sufficient evidence whereby a belief becomes justified. However, those standards are personal and variable. 98% of the planet find sufficient evidence to believe in a god or gods, however you still aren't "convinced." Thus, we may return to my earlier comment that your standard is an impossible one, and no amount of evidence would convince you.

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## cacian

> Atheists can never prove that God does not exist because it is impossible to prove a negative assertion; theists can never prove that God exists because He doesn't.


atheist cannot prove god does not exist either.
it is therefore a lost cause either way.

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## YesNo

> Neither does ballroom dancing, but I don't see Christians maligning sequinned dancers (unless they're homosexuals...)


But ballroom dancers aren't saying things like this:

_It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept... If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done._
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless

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## totoro

I heard a quote once that says, "You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion."

Yes its true that everyone falls short of being perfect, but it seems to me that the very religious believe and do what they shouldn't either more often, or often enough that we notice it more because they're being so hypocritical.

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## HCabret

> atheist cannot prove god does not exist either.
> it is therefore a lost cause either way.


Everything is possible. It's probably possible to prove whether god exists or not, it's just very hard.

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