Apr 17th 2012, 18:51:38
Originally posted by ViLSE:
Orkin, that is really quite incorrect. And Atheism is most definitely not "on par" with anything even remotely like the damage relgion has caused.
Lets deal with a few of your issues:
1. Abortion, well actually we have been over this argument quite a lot already. I dont agree with you in any parts of it and abortions are done by xtians as well as non-xtians (as well as all other religious people) so you most definitely can not ascribe abortions to be something damaging that Atheists have imposed on you. But we can always keep arguing this if you want.
Lets deal with a few of your issues:
1. Abortion, well actually we have been over this argument quite a lot already. I dont agree with you in any parts of it and abortions are done by xtians as well as non-xtians (as well as all other religious people) so you most definitely can not ascribe abortions to be something damaging that Atheists have imposed on you. But we can always keep arguing this if you want.
This is a misstatement by me. I was referring to abortion clinic bombings, not abortion.
Originally posted by ViLSE:
2. Cambodia / Pol Pot.
He was truly a monster, having killed some twenty-five percent of the entire population of Cambodia. Pol Pot targeted not just different religions, but education, science and medicine in his quest for total domination. Now, let's take a head count of atheists who are against education, science and medicine. Thought so...
Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge were composed of Buddhists and Pol Pot was a Theravada Buddhist. He studied at a Buddhist monastery and then at a Catholic school for 8 years. Cambodia's communism was influenced by Theravada Buddhism.
You just do not have your facts straight in this instance. Pol Pot killed everyone in the country who was not an atheist, Buddhists included.
Originally posted by Wikipedia:
The Khmer Rouge also classified people by religion and ethnic group. They banned all religion and dispersed minority groups, forbidding them to speak their languages or to practice their customs. They especially targeted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christians, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general,
Originally posted by ViLSE:
Likewise religious people like to try and discredit Atheists by bringing up China, Nazi Germany and the old USSR. All of them equally faulty.
Lets talk about China. Which you neglect to mention in the rest of your post.
[quote poster=Wikipedia]Marxist-Leninist ideology was opposed to religion, and people were told to become atheists from the early days of Communist rule. During the Destruction of Four Olds campaign, religious affairs of all types were discouraged by Red Guards, and practitioners persecuted. Temples, churches, mosques, monasteries, and cemeteries were closed down and sometimes converted to other uses, looted, and destroyed.[22] Marxist propaganda depicted Buddhism as superstition, and religion was looked upon as a means of hostile foreign infiltration, as well as an instrument of the 'ruling class'.[23] Chinese Marxists declared 'the death of God', and considered religion a defilement of the Chinese communist vision. Clergy were arrested and sent to camps; many Tibetan Buddhists were forced to participate in the destruction of their monasteries at gunpoint. [/quote]
Just add up all of the Tibetans that have been killed because of the Chinese government and the death toll in China thanks to atheism being forced upon the Buddhists there rises to the tens of millions.
Originally posted by ViLSE:
Adolph hitler was a Catholic and even had close relations with Pope Pius. Stalin was raised to be a Catholic priest. They were all awful people and did some awful things but you can not ascribe any of it to Atheism, doing is is totally incorrect.
Hitler's religious beliefs are widely disputed. Speer and Goebbels did not believe Hitler was a Christian. He definitely paid lip service to keep the population under control but said different things in private and didn't take any Catholic sacraments after childhood.
As for Stalin:
Originally posted by Wikipedia:
Stalin followed the position adopted by Lenin that religion was an opiate that needed to be removed in order to construct the ideal communist society. His government promoted atheism through special atheistic education in schools, anti-religious propaganda, the antireligious work of public institutions (Society of the Godless), discriminatory laws, and a terror campaign against religious believers. By the late 1930s it had become dangerous to be publicly associated with religion
[quote poster=ViLSE]Now lets compare some numbers shall we:
Add up the deaths that were attributed to Hitler, Stalin and Pot. Then round up for good measure. You can safely say that the number is staggering. Probably upwards of fifteen million.
Lets compare to:
•Albigensian Crusade, 1208-49 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Algeria, 1992-
•Baha'is, 1848-54
•Bosnia, 1992-95
•Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901
•Christian Romans, 30-313 CE [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Croatia, 1991-92
•English Civil War, 1642-46 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Holocaust, 1938-45
•Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•India, 1992-2002
•India: Suttee & Thugs
•Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947
•Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-
•Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92
•Jews, 1348 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Jonestown, 1978
•Lebanon 1860 / 1975-92
•Molucca Is., 1999-
•Mongolia, 1937-39
•Northern Ireland, 1974-98
•Russian pogroms 1905-06 / 1917-22
•St. Bartholemew Massacre, 1572 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91
•Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64
•Thirty Years War, 1618-48 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Tudor England
•Vietnam, 1800s
•Witch Hunts, 1400-1800 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Xhosa, 1857
•Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-
•Al Qaeda, 1993-
•Crusades, 1095-1291 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609 [b]Not in modern times[/b]
•Nigeria, 1990s, 2000s
If you add up all of the lives that were lost in the name of one religion or another, you come up with a staggering figure that is in excess of eight-hundred-million. That's eight-hundred-million. An eight, followed by eight zeros. So, even if the believers who are uneducated enough to think that Hitler, Stalin and Pot were psychotic mass murderers because they thought these men were atheists, it is horrifically clear that religious murder wins out. [/quote]
The reason comparing the comparative death tolls in modern times is relevant is because it is only in the last century that atheism has blossomed into a ruling philosophy in countries whereas religion has thousands of years of history prior. It would not be fair or reasonable to tally up the total of something that has existed for thousands of years vs something that has only really come into being in any significant way over the past ~150 years.
When you consider the tens of millions of people killed in Mexico(~250,000), China(Just taking into account the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution we are talking ~20-40 million, the number rises significantly if you account for those who died in death camps), Cambodia(2-2.5 million), ALbania(I'm not sure why you list this as religious since it was an atheist communist regime killing Muslims and Christians), Mongolia(~30k), North Korea(impossible to get a figure for due to their closed nature), the USSR(JUST under Stalin who was by far the worst about it ~50 million). Put this totals up against wars caused by religion in the past ~150 years and I'd bet they are at bare minimum equal if not larger.
Smarter than your average bear.