Come on JR, stop trolling/elfing. This is just dumb.
Evil Atheist Thread
- Thread starter Love
- Start date
Yeah, Jesus was clearly a utopian socialist, not a scientific socialist.
(And, of course, he wasn't really either. But he was a little bit like the former.)
(And, of course, he wasn't really either. But he was a little bit like the former.)
Which post was this?
Well, there are two different claims here:
1. There exist atheists/theists who did bad things.
2. People do bad things as a result of their atheistic/theistic belief.
1 is not what is being argued here - saying that theism is bad because some people happened to do bad things is not a good argument, and the same applies to Stalin for atheism, too. Since this is not what is being argued, to argue against this point is a strawman.
As for point 2 - well, it could be argued people do things because of their religion, or because they believe God told them too; people use religion in place of rational logic and evidence to justify actions and laws, instead appealing to "it's my religious belief" or "God says so". Since atheism is simply a lack or rejection of belief, I'm not sure how the same can be said here. I've never heard an atheist say "God doesn't exist, therefore this action/law is justified", or "God doesn't exist, therefore X is morally wrong".
Anyhow, my point wasn't to attack religions on this ground anyway - indeed, in the "Islam is evil" threads, you'll often find me bending over backwards to point out that this is only a minority of muslims, when everyone else is saying all muslims are terrorists.
I was merely rebutting the absurd claim that atheists like Dawkins are on a "crusade" and are "attacking" religion.
See above, I'm not making that argument for religious people.
Correlation does not imply causation. Otherwise we would say people with moustaches are evil, because Hitler had one. The question is, is there a stronger link when someone justifies something in the name of their religious belief? And would the world be a better place if we required more evidence for justification than simply a religious belief?
I don't think it is at all absurd to say that Dawkins and Hitchens and so on are attacking religion. They are doing it with words, not political power or anything, but there it is. And of course, they are a small minority of atheists etc. etc.
Since you're an atheist, you've already convinced him.
Communist = librul = atheist = baby killer = people who don't wash their hands after using the toilet. DUH.
Well indeed, it's conflating meanings of the word "attack". They may be attacking in the sense of "To criticize strongly", but there is nothing wrong with anyone doing that. As you say, isn't the same as attacking in the sense of violence or political means. Just because one word can mean two things doesn't mean those two things are the same (curiously this fallacy seems a common one when debating religion - e.g., conflating meanings of "faith" to claim that atheists have faith just like theists do, or conflating meanings of "religion" to try to argue that atheism is a religion just like Christianity).
I have read a little of of Hitchens' work, and I would say he has left the realm of "strong criticism". The word "attack" is generally understood to include verbal forms, and is thus a perfectly legitimate use of the word.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Excepting, of course, the mere fact that Jesus wasnt a communist.
Nabbed that job at 'The Onion' yet Jolly?
There are few killings associated with not being a stamp collector, you mean.
That too. My point was, atheism is not-an-ideology just as stamp collecting is not-an-ideology, not the sort of thing that directly makes people kill each other (although instincts might - if someone has a stamp I really want and they won't sell it . . .)
Excepting, of course, the mere fact that Jesus wasnt a communist.
I agree. A communist would have taught others how to feed thousands with a few loaves and fishes. A capitalist would patent the trick, and only sell it for a proper price.
And someone to whom neither label applied, would not tell anyone how it's done.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Well, both of you are wrong in that Jesus was very forward in how his miracles were accomplished and was very up front in stating that anyone with faith as small as a mustard seed could do the same.
Hello!
"A capitalist would patent the trick, and only sell it for a proper price."
"A capitalist would patent the trick, and only sell it for a proper price."
DJ Bonebraker
a.k.a Laura
Hey, what I mean is that noone is any MORE evil than I am, but at the same time, noone is LESS evil than I am as well, if looked at from a certain viewpoint... More on this later... It's going to be a LONG post, and I'm going to have to type it up in a WP program, because I have the feeling that I'm going to go over the 3000 charachter limit, but I will deal fully and thoroughly with this subject of evil as best as I can (with some help from the Lord, because debate/apologetics is NOT my strong suit).
Is it really? If you read Marx, Atheism is one of the central pillars of communism, what with the whole "Religion is the opiate of the masses" bit...
This one:
Sweedishguy said:
That sounds rather hostile, and speaks of narrow-mindedness in itself...
Sweedish Guy: I have friends who are Pantheist, Wiccan, Druid, Agnostic, Shinto-Buddhist, Native American Animists, and even atheist. Who is being narrow-minded now?
MDWH: As for the rest of your post, I was trying to point out that Atheists were just as guilty as theists when it comes to trying to justify their evil acts (Hitler, for example tried using natural selection to justify his policies, although he wasn't exactly atheist, he didn't believe in any conventional religion, either... more of a combination of ancient teutonic polytheism and mysticism with a bit of Christian stuff thrown in here and there). Again, more on this later when I try to fully explain.
Also, since someone asked this question in regards to experience with the Holy Spirit earlier:
zxcvbnm said:
...and since I've also recieved the Holy spirit, I'll try to describe the experience as best as I can....
As Aran said, it is difficult to describe, but in a way it was kind of like that time I attempted to disconnect a lead from this one capacitor I thought I'd discharged (this one was 500microfarads and rated at 5000 volts inside a radar power supply).... But not quite....
I could feel an enormous amount of energy flowing through me, but unlike the capacitor incident, which hurt like hell and left me feeling like I'd just run my annual Physical fitness test and was jumped by a gang of hoodlums immediately afterwards, I felt perfect peace during the experience, and was completely re-juvenated after the experience (like I'd just had 12 hours of the best sleep you could possibly imagine on the most comfortable bed in the world).
Love
Deity
Well, the pastafarists still beats the ass out of everyone else and i made this tread so i get the cookie.
yeah i'd say atheism is a tenet of communism. let me speak for mao. i'm chinese, my parents were in the cultural revolution, and the guy screwed my grandfather over because he was a professor.
funny thing about mao is, he tried to set himself up as a god. people sang hymns honoring and praising him every day. my parents still have cassette tapes of mao hymns. they tell me about how everyone during the cultural revolution was whipped into a fanatical craze over the guy, so much so that it was like a cult.
crazy stuff. mao knew that religion was a good tool to control people, so he didn't want to get rid of it, he just made the religion about himself. here's a link to one of his hymns, called "Mao's Words Are Engraved in Our Hearts". even if you can't speak chinese, you can get the nature of the song from the melody:
http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/conf/propaganda/audio/Track%2025.mp3
my chinese isn't that good, but among the lyrics i can distinguish are - "our hearts think of you".
but whatever. the point as i say over and over again, is that there are good and bad atheists, just like there are good and bad christians. so you don't need religion to be good, but you can definitely be religious and do great evil. Its stupid to say that atheists are immoral when the stats show that atheists comprise about 1% of the jail population while xtians comprise about 80%. religion doesn't make you moral.
funny thing about mao is, he tried to set himself up as a god. people sang hymns honoring and praising him every day. my parents still have cassette tapes of mao hymns. they tell me about how everyone during the cultural revolution was whipped into a fanatical craze over the guy, so much so that it was like a cult.
crazy stuff. mao knew that religion was a good tool to control people, so he didn't want to get rid of it, he just made the religion about himself. here's a link to one of his hymns, called "Mao's Words Are Engraved in Our Hearts". even if you can't speak chinese, you can get the nature of the song from the melody:
http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/conf/propaganda/audio/Track%2025.mp3
my chinese isn't that good, but among the lyrics i can distinguish are - "our hearts think of you".
but whatever. the point as i say over and over again, is that there are good and bad atheists, just like there are good and bad christians. so you don't need religion to be good, but you can definitely be religious and do great evil. Its stupid to say that atheists are immoral when the stats show that atheists comprise about 1% of the jail population while xtians comprise about 80%. religion doesn't make you moral.
From what I hear, those prison statistics are questionable at best.
questionable because it makes you uncomfortable about its implications that atheists can be moral with a 24/7 camera in the sky and the thread of hell, whereas christians are hypocritical criminals? i mean, the stats came from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
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