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Here is some information about “Atheist” and how it is that they have an evil agenda.
While they might pretend this is not so, history tells other wise.
Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history
RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. –
In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as “End of Faith” author Sam Harris puts it, “the most potent source of human conflict, past and present.”
Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. “The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries.”In his bestseller “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.
The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.
It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in jail due to malnutrition or illness.
These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.
Moreover, many of the conflicts that are counted as “religious wars” were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival claims to territory and power. Can the wars between England and France be called religious wars because the English were Protestants and the French were Catholics? Hardly.
The same is true today. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not, at its core, a religious one. It arises out of a dispute over self-determination and land. Hamas and the extreme orthodox parties in Israel may advance theological claims – “God gave us this land” and so forth – but the conflict would remain essentially the same even without these religious motives. Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.
“Blindly blaming religion for conflict“
Yet today's atheists insist on making religion the culprit. Consider Mr. Harris's analysis of the conflict in Sri Lanka. “While the motivations of the Tamil Tigers are not explicitly religious,” he informs us, “they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe many improbable things about the nature of life and death.” In other words, while the Tigers see themselves as combatants in a secular political struggle, Harris detects a religious motive because these people happen to be Hindu and surely there must be some underlying religious craziness that explains their fanaticism.
Harris can go on forever in this vein. Seeking to exonerate secularism and atheism from the horrors perpetrated in their name, he argues that Stalinism and Maoism were in reality “little more than a political religion.” As for Nazism, “while the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, it was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity.” Indeed, “The holocaust marked the culmination of … two thousand years of Christian fulminating against the Jews.”
One finds the same inanities in Mr. Dawkins's work. Don't be fooled by this rhetorical legerdemain. Dawkins and Harris cannot explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler. How can a self-proclaimed atheist ideology, advanced by Hitler as a repudiation of Christianity, be a “culmination” of 2,000 years of Christianity? Dawkins and Harris are employing a transparent sleight of hand that holds Christianity responsible for the crimes committed in its name, while exonerating secularism and atheism for the greater crimes committed in their name.
Religious fanatics have done things that are impossible to defend, and some of them, mostly in the Muslim world, are still performing horrors in the name of their creed. But if religion sometimes disposes people to self-righteousness and absolutism, it also provides a moral code that condemns the slaughter of innocents. In particular, the moral teachings of Jesus provide no support for – indeed they stand as a stern rebuke to – the historical injustices perpetrated in the name of Christianity. Source
There is much more out there.
WJ
I believe you are quite wrong on this. And until a couple hundred years ago, it was hard to find any self proclaimed athiests.
Quote In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Here is 30 pictures of Hitler shaking hands with Catholic clergy, who fully supported him. Catholic (and maybe some protestant) soldiers fought his wars, not athiest soldiers.
http:
//www.remnantofgod.org/NaziRCC.htm
There are also pictures of the pope, bishops, and cardinals meeting with him, of the clergy saluting him.I think there has been far more bloodshed spilled because of people claiming to be “Christian” than by athiests.
This should be an interesting discussion.
It always seems ironic to me how atheists hate religion, yet their belief system produces if not the same, worse conflicts.
I know when I was an atheist, I loved to point to how religion causes wars. At the time, I was blind to how murder is committed in the name of atheism.
It is man who is sinful. It is man who needs help. Men who deny God are denying the cure. Men who create different religions actually do not trust God.
The most obvious is true. Seek and you will find. If you have an agenda, then how can you find? Some use what they can to support an agenda. These people are not looking for the truth. That is why they don't find it.
And yet it is not an interesting discussion, is it. I think I have seen people here (or elsewhere) present two examples of people who, when confessing, attributed their murderous deeds to their atheism. Two.
And yet, when the islamic suicide bomber is about to detonate, she shouts GOD IS GREAT.
When the christian bigot incites against a gay man, he says it is because it is an ABOMINATION TO GOD.
When a Jew chops off his son's foreskin without asking him, it is to make a COVENANT WITH GOD.
When Stalin had slaughtered millions Nikita Khrushchev gave a denunciation of Stalin's actions: “It is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics AKIN TO THOSE OF A GOD.”
Steven Weinberg was right. It takes religion for a good man to do evil.
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Feb. 24 2010,21:22) I think I have seen people here (or elsewhere) present two examples of people who, when confessing, attributed their murderous deeds to their atheism. Two.
The two worst maybe. Anyway I count the three worst in the first post. Hitler, Stalin, Mao.How many murderers in the world do you think are atheists?
Do you still think two?Wakey wakey Stu. How many people were killed by drug or drink induced individuals. Do you think it might be possible that some of these were atheists. I wonder. I mean yes it is possible, but not that probable that those cases of murder that were P induced are not likely to be devoted believers of God who help little old ladies across the street. Sure it is possible, but they are most likely people who haven't thought much about the afterlife. That is my guess.
Quote (t8 @ Feb. 24 2010,21:51) Quote (Stu @ Feb. 24 2010,21:22) I think I have seen people here (or elsewhere) present two examples of people who, when confessing, attributed their murderous deeds to their atheism. Two.
The two worst maybe. Anyway I count the three worst in the first post. Hitler, Stalin, Mao.How many murderers in the world do you think are atheists?
Do you still think two?Wakey wakey Stu. How many people were killed by drug or drink induced individuals. Do you think it might be possible that some of these were atheists. I wonder. I mean yes it is possible, but not that probable that those cases of murder that were P induced are not likely to be devoted believers of God who help little old ladies across the street. Sure it is possible, but they are most likely people who haven't thought much about the afterlife. That is my guess.
You wrote:I was blind to how murder is committed in the name of atheism.
So I mentioned that I had heard of two who attributed it to their atheism.
The ones you listed did not attribute their murder to their atheism.
So we are still at two.
If you want to change the question to what are the relative proportions of atheists and theists committing murders, then it is much easier. It is theists by a long way. That is what the prison statistics tell us, which I think might be a less rough indicator than your guess at it.
Of course it could be that the atheists are too smart to get caught.
Stuart
Hitler was inspired by Martin Luther. His anti-Semitism arose from his childhood Aryan Christian education.
Oh guys sorry. Atheism must be the answer to all man's ills. Atheists never do wrong and always pay their taxes. Every single person in the word that was ever murdered was over a religious difference.
Quote (kejonn @ Feb. 24 2010,22:43) Hitler was inspired by Martin Luther. His anti-Semitism arose from his childhood Aryan Christian education.
Uh huh. Oh yeah.All those posters about Jews being closer to primitive apes than Aryans has absolutely nothing to do with evolution and his attempt to wipe out the Jews because they were a supposed lower form of human also had nothing to do with his belief in evolution.
So the strategy is, ignore the facts, start with a biased conclusion, then say things that back the biased conclusion.
Conclusion: Hitler was not motivated in any way by his belief in evolution. Why, coz evolutionists don't want him in their club. So just say that he wasn't motivated by evolution and all will be rosy and fluffy.
Quote (david @ Feb. 24 2010,18:43) I believe you are quite wrong on this. And until a couple hundred years ago, it was hard to find any self proclaimed athiests. Quote In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Here is 30 pictures of Hitler shaking hands with Catholic clergy, who fully supported him. Catholic (and maybe some protestant) soldiers fought his wars, not athiest soldiers.
http:
//www.remnantofgod.org/NaziRCC.htm
There are also pictures of the pope, bishops, and cardinals meeting with him, of the clergy saluting him.I think there has been far more bloodshed spilled because of people claiming to be “Christian” than by athiests.
“Christianity [the sect] is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery….When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity [the sect]. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease.”– From the book “Hitler's Table Talk” by H.R. Trevor-Roper
Quote “Christianity [the sect] is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery….When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity [the sect]. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease.” Wow, if Hitler was an athiest, and did all that, can you imagine how much more bloodshed there would have been if he was religious?
“Hitler . . . had a Catholic as Vice-Chancellor and from practically the first day of the régime Franz von Papen became the drummer to attract the Catholic factions to a support of the new Reich. In every part of the Reich von Papen was to be heard exhorting the faithful to blind obedience to Adolf Hitler.”
“In early 1933 the following official announcement was made by the body corporate of Catholic action and thought in Germany, then led by [Franz] von Papen: ‘We German Catholics will stand, with all our soul and our full convictions, behind Adolf Hitler and his Government. We wonder at his love for fatherland, his energy and his statesmanly wisdom. . . . German Catholicism . . . must take an active part in the building-up of the Third Reich.’”
Franz von Papen was instrumental in achieving a concordat between the Nazi government he served in Germany and the Vatican in Rome. The concordat was signed July 20, 1933. A special communiqué stated: “Cardinal and Secretary of State Pacelli [later Pope Pius XII] to-day bestowed on Vice-Chancellor von Papen, the Grand Cross of the Order of Pius . . . Vice-Chancellor von Papen presented to the Cardinal Secretary of State a Madonna of White Meissen Porcelain as a gift of the Reichs Government. . . . All gifts bore the dedication: ‘A memento of the Reich Concordat 1933.’”—All quotes taken from Franz von Papen—His Life and Times, by H. W. Blood-Ryan.
Even if Hitler (despite growing up and being surrounded by catholics, was in fact an athiest, it was still by the hands of religious people and it was by religious politics that Hitler accomplished his goals.
Actually I don't know that much about Hitler, but he does seem to be in the vein of the Roman Empire (one thousand year reich) and like the emperors of Rome, they used Christianity to form their own Church or at least got some to sell out to them and do their bidding.
If the emperors did it, why not Hitler who was reviving the Roman Empire?
It doesn't make either emperors or Hitler a believer, but a cunning man who used all or any authorities and powers at his disposal.
Sort of reminds me of Mystery Babylon how she commits adultery with the Kings of the Earth. I think Hitler could be considered a king, albeit a short-live one, who committed adultery (entered a relationship) with Babylon the prostitute church.
Don't let your hate for that Church or the doctrine of your leaders blind you from this possibility.
Quote (t8 @ Feb. 25 2010,07:00) Oh guys sorry. Atheism must be the answer to all man's ills. Atheists never do wrong and always pay their taxes. Every single person in the word that was ever murdered was over a religious difference.
Atheism is the answer to only some of the world's ills, but secularism would be just as useful: people have the right, as they should to believe whatever fantasy worldview they want, but nothing should be imposed on everyone unless it conforms to universal standards, for example empirical evidence to support decision making and approaches to community ethics that are democratically based.By proportion, atheists do far less criminal harm than theists. As we have discussed twice already.
While it is not true that every person in the world ever murdered was over a religious, we only have note of two examples of people who attributed their killing to their lack of religion. Many theists have murdered, but I for one am not including those as 'christian murders' even though many of them will have been attributable to the killer's christian beliefs.
Stuart
Quote (t8 @ Feb. 25 2010,11:40) Quote (kejonn @ Feb. 24 2010,22:43) Hitler was inspired by Martin Luther. His anti-Semitism arose from his childhood Aryan Christian education.
Uh huh. Oh yeah.All those posters about Jews being closer to primitive apes than Aryans has absolutely nothing to do with evolution and his attempt to wipe out the Jews because they were a supposed lower form of human also had nothing to do with his belief in evolution.
So the strategy is, ignore the facts, start with a biased conclusion, then say things that back the biased conclusion.
Conclusion: Hitler was not motivated in any way by his belief in evolution. Why, coz evolutionists don't want him in their club. So just say that he wasn't motivated by evolution and all will be rosy and fluffy.
Boy are you going round the houses in this thread t8. It is exhausting running after you as you move the goalposts from place to place.“Jews being closer to primitive apes than Aryans” sounds just as islamic as it does National Socialist.
The insane Austrian with the silly moustache was motivated by the possibilities he saw in his crackpot idea of eugenics through artificial selection, which is not evolution by natural selection.
If you are so convinced of this, how about you tell us what change of gene frequency he had in mind, and how his strategy of attempting to exterminate Jews and others he considered undesirable would have achieved that goal.
This site suggests that actually Hitler was in practice a creationist. Which means he was a theist of some kind. Not Jewish, I would suggest and unlikely muslim.
Hindu, perhaps??
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Feb. 26 2010,13:44) Atheism is the answer to only some of the world's ills.
Oh yeah. It changed your life. You are now a much better man than all those who believe in God.Thank God you are an atheist. It makes you a decent person and one with very high morals.
The reality is that atheism denies that there is a God. God is the source of all good. Man is the source of his own problems.
I leave you to work that one out. I have accepted the grace of God. That is why I know he exists and that he is love. You don't have to accept God's grace. That is your choice. But spare me the atheism is the answer to some ills.
It is the denial of the answer. But like I said, you are free to choose or deny. I am certainly not forcing you to make a certain decision. I am only challenging your hypocrisy pertaining to saying that there is no God, when you haven't got a clue about what started it all.
Hey Stu.
Charles Darwin says: “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals.”
Adolph Hitler's view the Aryan struggle for survival was at he expense of the Jews and what he calls lower forms of human or humans closer to apes as his propaganda tried to demonstrate.
Stu, if you care to live in a society shaped by Darwinian principles, then expect groups of people to challenge you for the earth's ecosystem that you exist in. When they challenge you, do not be surprised at this, it is part of your belief system.
Thankfully whether you realise it or not. We have a law that is based on the Ten Commandments, although some of those commandments have been dropped such as adultery. If it wasn't for that, you might not even be alive to be debating with me.
So back to Hitler. If he was a true believer in YHWH, he would have believed that no murderer enters the Kingdom of Heaven. If he was an Evolutionist, then he had the right to challenge other groups to exert his dominance of an ecosystem. Hmm, which of the above did he do? You know them by their fruits.
Stu, be careful what you wish for.
Quote (t8 @ Feb. 26 2010,14:38) Quote (Stu @ Feb. 26 2010,13:44) Atheism is the answer to only some of the world's ills.
Oh yeah. It changed your life. You are now a much better man than all those who believe in God.Thank God you are an atheist. It makes you a decent person and one with very high morals.
The reality is that atheism denies that there is a God. God is the source of all good. Man is the source of his own problems.
I leave you to work that one out. I have accepted the grace of God. That is why I know he exists and that he is love. You don't have to accept God's grace. That is your choice. But spare me the atheism is the answer to some ills.
It is the denial of the answer. But like I said, you are free to choose or deny. I am certainly not forcing you to make a certain decision. I am only challenging your hypocrisy pertaining to saying that there is no God, when you haven't got a clue about what started it all.
The foolish thing about Atheism is that the Atheist not believing in God continually try to blame God for the ills of the world.Even if there was no God then even believing in God could not cause any act good or bad to occur. This is why I say that the Atheist has a Disease.
Why would anyone talk about the very concept of God being a cause for anything if that thing does not exist?
Quote (t8 @ Feb. 26 2010,14:38) Quote (Stu @ Feb. 26 2010,13:44) Atheism is the answer to only some of the world's ills.
Oh yeah. It changed your life. You are now a much better man than all those who believe in God.Thank God you are an atheist. It makes you a decent person and one with very high morals.
The reality is that atheism denies that there is a God. God is the source of all good. Man is the source of his own problems.
I leave you to work that one out. I have accepted the grace of God. That is why I know he exists and that he is love. You don't have to accept God's grace. That is your choice. But spare me the atheism is the answer to some ills.
It is the denial of the answer. But like I said, you are free to choose or deny. I am certainly not forcing you to make a certain decision. I am only challenging your hypocrisy pertaining to saying that there is no God, when you haven't got a clue about what started it all.
No, my life has never changed in that way, because I have never been a theist.I don't think you have to be an atheist to be a decent person. Steven Weinberg is right though, as has been shown time and again: to make a good person do evil takes religion.
Indeed an atheist would say that atheism denies gods, and that humans (and natural disasters) are the causes of human problems. Are you suggesting that there is a god that is a source of human problems? I dare say the OT would support you on that. Why does your god need to cause problems for humans?
Define 'grace' in the sense you are using it.
I choose to deny the emperor's new clothes.
I cannot see any hypocrisy in taking that position.
If it is that your god has made me blind, then will punish me by digging up my dead remains, sparking them back to life in order that it may finally punish me by burning, then I think all the hypocrisy lies with it, not with me.
Stuart
Quote (bodhitharta @ Feb. 26 2010,14:57) The foolish thing about Atheism is that the Atheist not believing in God continually try to blame God for the ills of the world.
Where have I, as an atheist, ever blamed any god for the ills of the world, other than in mockery of god belief?Stuart
t8
Quote Charles Darwin says: “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals.” Adolph Hitler's view the Aryan struggle for survival was at he expense of the Jews and what he calls lower forms of human or humans closer to apes as his propaganda tried to demonstrate.
Go back and read again what I wrote. It may be that in both cases there is a struggle for survival, but the kind of struggle for survival described by Darwinian natural selection is not the same kind as the struggle for survival that happened at the hands of Hitler. Another difference is that although biologists may refer to ‘lower life forms’ it is as a means to categorise roughly, not as a judgment on different species.Quote Stu, if you care to live in a society shaped by Darwinian principles, then expect groups of people to challenge you for the earth's ecosystem that you exist in. When they challenge you, do not be surprised at this, it is part of your belief system.
What is a Darwinian principle, and how would it apply to my idea of the kind of society I would care to live in? I think it is a fact that people have challenged others for the resources they have. Have you heard of the concept of war, t8?Quote Thankfully whether you realise it or not. We have a law that is based on the Ten Commandments, although some of those commandments have been dropped such as adultery. If it wasn't for that, you might not even be alive to be debating with me. You shall have no other gods before me
Not illegal in NZ.You shall not make for yourself an idol
Not illegal in NZ.You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God
We have a blasphemy law, but you know that it would be laughed at if ever applied. It is an unenforceable law.Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
Not a law of NZ.Honor your father and mother
Not a law of NZ.You shall not murder
This one is a law. Do you really think that prior to one of the various people who constituted the figure of Moses supposedly lugging stone tablets down Mount Horeb, the Children of Israel thought that murder was fine?? Whether the law is based on this commandment or not, it is not the original source of the principle.You shall not commit adultery
As you say, not illegal in NZ.You shall not steal
Illegal in NZ, but see comment above for murder.You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
Not illegal in NZ, except in a court of law.You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor
Not illegal in NZ.I’ll give you 0.5 out of 10 for your assertion that laws are based on the ten commandments. That 0.5 is for the joke law that probably contravenes human rights to free speech. The other two that coincide with the commandments on murder and theft may just as likely be based on evolved ethics: cultures that have never claimed to follow Judeo-christian ideas also have such laws.
Quote So back to Hitler. If he was a true believer in YHWH, he would have believed that no murderer enters the Kingdom of Heaven.
Do you think he saw himself as a murderer? He told people he was a champion of Jesus against the Jews.Quote If he was an Evolutionist, then he had the right to challenge other groups to exert his dominance of an ecosystem.
You mean if he was a Social Darwinist. Biology is a study of, and set of explanations for the living world, not a rationale for crackpot ideology.Quote Hmm, which of the above did he do? You know them by their fruits.
Well as that linked website showed, he was actually a creationist.Stuart
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