ok, but how many weak and feeble minded people are out there? and are they avoiding going around raping, stealing and killing simply because of religion?

Rogue8, I will equally fight for your right to belive in whatever religion you want, any day of the week I will support you in it and I will always argue for your right to believe and in free speech, thats hugely important! HOWEVER that doesnt mean I think your beliefs has any merit to them whatsoever, you still believe in magic no matter how you twist and turn things. :)

But just to clarify a bit, there are plenty dumb atheists and plenty dumb religious people just as there are plenty intelligent ones on each side.

Its just the IDEAS/BELIEFS of religion that I find incredibly dumb, and NOT necessarily the people. Most are indoctrinated with this filth from birth and I can understand its not something they want to break loose of or will ever agree is incorrect. It will never stop me from voicing my opinion on it though, no matter how upset you get from it. Thats my right as you say just as much its your right to believe in it.

I hate it when the damn Christians visit my house and try to convince to support/join their church or i will burn in hell.

A new type of christianity? There's already onehundredbazillion types :P

Good, it's okay you don't agree with my opinion.

Also, thank you for fighting for my right to believe that religion has done more harm than good for mankind and that it's a bunch a fairytale bullfluff that, in my opinion, only the weak and feeble minded need :)

Calm down, Flanders :) [/quote]

Nice. Spoken like a true thinker! Very close minded and self-righteous. Keep slinging the mud buddy, it's ok because I know just how weak and pathetic you are now. :)

ViLSE, I agree that any organization where there is power over others evil tends to happen at times, even in religion. That's human nature though. It is no different with soldiers, scientists, doctors, coaches, lawyers, judges, CEOs and even family members. Anyone is capable of doing bad things...
I'm not saying I'm right, but that is my take on this.

Religion: Giving people hope in a world torn apart by religion

hehehehe...

http://www.funnyordie.com/...rts-presidential-campaign

Atheism has done it's fair share to tear the world apart in modern times. At least equal if not on par with the modern damage of religion :P

Abortion clinics and even the World Trade Center attacks pale in comparison to the religious purges done in the name of atheism in China and Cambodia.

Nice. Spoken like a true thinker! Very close minded and self-righteous. Keep slinging the mud buddy, it's ok because I know just how weak and pathetic you are now. :)

Wouldn't a true christian just turn the other cheek? lulz. Oh no some guy who believes in a magical fairy thinks im the weak minded one lulzzzzzzzzzzzz

Pointing out hypocrasy is not mudslinging. I have never denied that religion has caused ills upon the world.

I wasn't talking to you in my last post, mr fsu :P

What if there was,

A type of Christianity,

Didn't believe in Hell/Satan,

That was focused on following the teachings of Jesus in a way that applies his teachings towards a Heaven/Utopia that could happen on earth..

A place where everyone had access to clean water, and said this was possible
A place hunger/starvation was eliminated...and said this was possible...
where everyone had an adqueate roof over their heads,
They recognized other religions as equally valid approaches to God, that evolved in their unique times and cultures. And for the most part shared the same important teachings on things like Love, grace, forgiveness etc.
They understood the world through an dynamic, emergnt, evolutionary point of view vs a static, dogmatic. top down creationary view....
That didn't see God as a domineering male (with a penus) in the sky in control of all things, but rather as energy that accompnies us through all things.

its a very different approach,

it creates an approach that is positive....we do things b/c our teachings teach us to care for others and besides its the right tthing to do.

Rather than a teaching that is negative...If I don't do this....I'll burn in hell for eternity...

It creates a religion that can evolve and grow, vs one that is static/dogmatic and fights human growth/development.

its an approach that embraces diversity, including the GLBTQ community and fully accept every person for who they are.


Something like this negates MANY of the arguments listed above.....

Western Christinaity has been built on Greek Philosophy. What we are seeing is a rejection of Greek Philosophy in our post-modern era....as a result a rejection of the old assumptions....

But if a religion can evolve....

What I am proposing would be a Post-Greek approach to chrisianity...and eliminates many of the arguments presented in these posts.

SOmething built on vision from the great teachings...not fear mongering....(which I see a lot of from BOTH sides here...)

Your sentiments are spot on Servant, however you dont need god or religion for any of the things you are tryign to achieve.

In fact I would say that it would even be easier to get to where you want to be without religion altogether.

Trife, I don't follow the "rules" from religion... I just to you that I'm not really a religious man but that I do have the faith in God.

Vilse....

There are things that can only be accomplished as a group or at a community level.


What we forget, is that a POSTIVE approach, healthy, "religion" is the best community organiizing force on the planet.

Where will such values be Caught (notice I didn't say taught...) throgh the community
Where will groups latch onto ideas that seem impossible...through the community
where will we accomplish things together we can't by ourselves...through community
Where do we as human beings, find meaning???? through community

A community centered around the great teachings is a catalyst for positive change.


I would suggest that even as technology in many ways is driving us apart...(while in some ways bringing us together...) the detachment that we are expereince even as we do come together through tenhnology, is a detachment that can best be solved by community.

In community we learn how to debate, but not obliterate.
We learn to compromise,
I could go on and on.

Vilse, communities matter:) They just need an update on what they teach/pass down:)

Why call it christianity? Jesus isn't the only guy seen among his followers as someone preaching lots of good stuff and giving healthy advise on how to make your life better.

I disagree completely Servant.

This part is total bullfluff...
"What we forget, is that a POSTIVE approach, healthy, "religion" is the best community organiizing force on the planet."

Just because a group is religious in nature doesnt mean it is good or good at organizing things. I can post you loads of examples of religious groups that are absolutely awful. The catholic church topping the list, it is absolutely huge, has loads of influence/power over people and they use it to cover up when priests commit atrocities to children. That is NOT the kind or organization I would ever work with no matter how organized they may be.

Simply put religious organizations are not automatically good, and I would even argue that they are bad as they tend to be very introvert and only care about their own specific brand of religion. Add another religious group to the mix and you often get a lot of tension.

Better to work with a community on equal grounds in a fully secular setting where religion is not taken into account and all are accepted equally.

Relgion is not needed and is most definitely not a force "for good".

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.

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.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk said, "Pol Pot does not believe in God but he thinks that heaven, destiny, wants him to guide Cambodia in the way he thinks it the best for Cambodia, that is to say, the worst. Pol Pot is mad, you know, like Hitler."

So, while Pol Pot was definitely not a Christian, he was also definitely not an Atheist.

--

Likewise religious people like to try and discredit Atheists by bringing up China, Nazi Germany and the old USSR. All of them equally faulty.

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.

---
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
•Algeria, 1992-
•Baha'is, 1848-54
•Bosnia, 1992-95
•Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901
•Christian Romans, 30-313 CE
•Croatia, 1991-92
•English Civil War, 1642-46
•Holocaust, 1938-45
•Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598
•India, 1992-2002
•India: Suttee & Thugs
•Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947
•Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-
•Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92
•Jews, 1348
•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
•Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE
•Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38
•Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91
•Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834
•Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64
•Thirty Years War, 1618-48
•Tudor England
•Vietnam, 1800s
•Witch Hunts, 1400-1800
•Xhosa, 1857
•Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE
•Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-
•Al Qaeda, 1993-
•Crusades, 1095-1291
•Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609
•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.

I'd like those who think that atheism has an equal effect to religion in creating war to bring up an example where atheists has killed other atheists for the sake of not believing in "their kind of atheism". You can be a lunatic regardless of your religious stance, and surely one kind find atheists who are utterly despicable to most of us. But even so, I think the fact that (rational) atheists don't war/kill OTHER atheists due to their belief makes it unlikely that they'd war/kill religious based solely on their belief.

This is of course a huge differance to many religions. Orthodox, and later, reformation caused a lot of turmoil in a catholic dominated Europe. This turmoil also led to wars, notably for instance the 30 year war mentioned by Vilse, which was the longest continous war in modern European history, and in which most of Europe was involved in it at one time or another. Today christianity have calmed down (secularized governments anyone?). At the same time the younger islamic faith, whose followers still are more prone to have the mindset that christians had some hundred years ago and let religion guide them to a larger extent, still causes death among itself due to internal differances.

My only issue is with them making an analogy to coming out. Like we don't have enough homophobe fodder out there, now they will somehow find a way to blame this on gays as well.

This is a misstatement by me. I was referring to abortion clinic bombings, not abortion.



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.





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.



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:




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.

On Adolf Hitler...

Christians have been trying to discredit Hitler's faith for decades, turning their eyes away from history books. From the earliest formation of the Nazi party he expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. He was baptized as Roman Catholic in Austria, attended a monastery school and was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church. He was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ" and his goal was to become a priest. He was never excommunicated or condemned and the church had stated that he was "Avenging for God" in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus. Look it up!

Hitler was given veto power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany and forged a treaty whereas the National Socialist state was officially recognized by the Catholic Church. In a letter to the Nazi party, he wrote "…this treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie."

He allied with Pope Pius in converting German society and made a deal with the church whereas the church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons, and in turn, Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education. This lead to Hitler enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home.

He was quoted as stating,


"The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today…Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church."

In fact, the Holocaust grew out of Hitler's Christian education due mainly to Jews having an inferior status in Christian Austria and Germany. The Christians there blamed the Jews for the killing of Jesus and the hatred that Hitler fostered against Jewish people began from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany. It is well known that Martin Luther held a livid hatred for Jews and their religion. Luther wrote a book titled "On the Jews and their Lies" which set the standard for Jewish hatred all the way up to World War 2. Hitler, of course, expressed a great admiration for Luther.

The Nazis began to control schools insisting that Christianity was taught. They included anti-Semitic Christian writings in textbooks and were not removed from Christian doctrines until 1961. Nazi soldiers wore religious symbols and placed religious sayings on military gear. The official army belt buckle read "God With Us". They got sprinkled with holy water and listened to Catholic sermons before going out on maneuvers. The Nazis had a secret service called the "SS Reich" that would act as spies on the dealings of other citizens and if anyone was suspected of heresy they would be prosecuted.

Here are a few quotes from Hitler:

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933


"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." -Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922


"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf


"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Had enough of Hitler? OK, let's move on to Stalin:

Joseph Stalin was raised to be a Catholic Priest and I remain curious as to why his Christianity is shoved aside in all these arguments. Yes, there is no way to get around the fact that in his early career, Stalin made a vast effort to rid Russia of religion, but that had nothing to do with atheism. It was the only way he knew to seize power of the country.

For generations the entire populace of Russia had been taught that the head of state was supposed to be close to god. At the time in question, the head of the church in Russia was a tyrant. The Russians were already disposed to servility and all Stalin did was exploit these two facts, and place himself in the position of god. Once Stalin was firmly seated in office, he revived the Russian Orthodox Church in order to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. Stalin was part of a council convened to elected a new church Patriarch. Then the Russian theological schools were opened, and thousands of churches began to function. Even the Moscow Theological Academy Seminary was re-opened, after being closed since 1918.

So, while Stalin was no peach, he was not exactly what you would call a died-in-the-wool atheist. He was more a secular minded religious opportunist, which is a personal character trait. He did not use atheism to gain control, but religious principles that were modified to fit his own, sick and twisted method of revolution.

What about Pol Pot? (As mentioned before, and no, I am not wrong, YOU are)

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.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk said, "Pol Pot does not believe in God but he thinks that heaven, destiny, wants him to guide Cambodia in the way he thinks it the best for Cambodia, that is to say, the worst. Pol Pot is mad, you know, like Hitler."

So, while Pol Pot was definitely not a Christian, he was also definitely not an Atheist.

---

I'll have to dig around for the China stuff tomorrow, Im about to head to bed so more arguing later. :-)

By the way, I didnt write up all that myself, I have copied it from this website which made it easier for me. I shouldnt take credit for it which would seem dishonest (not that it makes it any less true of course!). :-)
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Continue reading on Examiner.com Refuting The Myth That Hitler, Stalin And Pol Pot Were Atheists - National atheism | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/...re-atheists#ixzz1sL3kO8kb

Those numbers seem way off, at least in respect to what could be attributed to atheism in any way. Are you suggesting that any and all deaths in an atheist regime can be attributed atheism?

Most of the deaths in China came from stupid policies following the transformation to communism. Most of the deaths during Stalin came from the second world war, in which Soviet was a defender (atleast during the casuality intense second part vs the Axis). Surely famine from transformation to communism and casaulities during defensive wars are equally attributable to atheism as deaths from the black plague nationalistic wars are to religion.

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Wiki Quotes
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Not all deaths during the Great Leap were from starvation. Frank Dikötter estimates that at least 2.5 million people were beaten or tortured to death and 1 to 3 million committed suicide.[97]

The true figure of those who were persecuted or died during the Cultural Revolution may never be known, since many deaths went unreported or were actively covered up by the police or local authorities. The state of Chinese demographics at the time was very poor, and the PRC has been hesitant to allow formal research into the period.[72] In their book Mao's Last Revolution (2006), the Sinologists Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals assert that in rural China alone some 36 million people were persecuted, of whom between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed, with roughly the same number permanently injured.[73] In Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday claim that as many as 3 million people died in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.[74] Sociologist Daniel Chirot claims that around 100 million people suffered and at least one million people, and perhaps as many as 20 million, died in the Cultural Revolution.[75]

Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths—6 million from famine and 4 million from other causes—are attributable to the regime,[109] with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, gulags, deportations and other causes.[110] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[111] In his most recent edition of The Great Terror (2007), Conquest states that while exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, the various terror campaigns launched by the Soviet government claimed no fewer than 15 million lives.[112] Others maintain that their earlier higher victim total estimates are correct.[113][114]

---

It's not impossible that all the conflicts you mention, even with your silly estimates, are shadowed by the largest religious war the last 150 years (by a stretch). While the Taiping Rebellion is usually estimated at 20 million deaths, some estimates go as high as 100 million. These are all deaths due to a war with a big religious component. Whereas removing the atheistic property of the governments in your two prime examples would still mean a large amount of deaths, removing the religious component in this case could well have prevented the war and thereby all its deaths all together.

bonus

This si the type of scorched earth approach of discrediting each other, that the word doesn't want to see anymore.

Whether its Fundamentalist Christian discrediting Muslim's, OR
Fundamentalist Muslim's discrediting Buddhists, OR
Evangelicals discrediting Atheism, OR
Atheism discrediting a religion....

people are tired of it:)


Both Atheism, and the great religions at their core's have a desire for the above kind of world I listed above. Eliminating hunger/war, thirst etc....

Then let's work together towards it. We can focus on the negatives of humanity whish shoes through EVERY human group eventually...

Or we can focus on the positives of what we can do together.
Even if we come to our conclusions by different rountes...the positive conclusions are not ALL that different.

Im going to make a longer post tomorrow but your post is crap. I'm citing a neutral source based on academic sources and you are citing an editorial piece from an atheist apologist that makes flat out false statements such as "atheism is not a belief it's the absence of belief".

This is a crock of horse fluff. Agnosticism is a lack of belief. Atheism is a positive statement of disbelief and they are not equivalent.

Orkin... It would seem that your "academic sources" arn't aligned with the rest of the world.

Wiki: Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown or unknowable.

Agnosticism has nothing to do with belief or lack there of. Its simply a statement about wheter we can know if there is a god/several gods or not.

Anyone who isn't theistic is atheistic. If theism is believing there is a god, atheism is a lack of a belief in a god. Atheism includes people who have never heard or thought about gods, because they quite naturally can't believe in a entity or concept they have never heard of or thought about. Atheism includes many stances on the supernatural, ranging from "I know for a fact that there is no god", to "god?" or "we will never know if there is a god or not".

http://upload.wikimedia.org/...Theological_positions.png

Most atheists are agnostic atheists (e.g. "I don't know if there are gods or not, and I don't follow any faith"). Many theists are agnostic too (e.g. "I don't know if god exists, but I'm considering myself christian to not risk winding up in hell").

You're right in one thing though; "atheism is not a belief it's the absence of belief" is a false statement, since just like "atheism is a positive statement of disbelief" it doesn't encompass all the possible stances an atheist may take.

I find it really hilarious that religious people often try to equate Communism to Atheism, that comparison is simply ludicrous.

Communism is not, however, inherently atheistic. It is possible to hold communist or socialist economic views while being a theist and it isn't at all uncommon to be an atheist while staunchly defending capitalism — a combination often found among Objectivists and Libertarians, for example. Their existence alone demonstrates, without question, that atheism and communism are not the same thing.

But while the original myth has been refuted, it is interesting to look and see if perhaps the Christians who made it have gotten things backwards. Perhaps it is Christianity which is inherently communistic? After all, there is nothing in the gospels which even so much as suggests a divine preference for capitalism. On the contrary, quite a bit of what Jesus said directly supports many of the emotional foundations of socialism and even communism. He specifically said that that people should give all they could to the poor and that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Marxist Communism IS inherently atheistic. It is one of the core tenants of that particular type of communism. However you are setting up a straw man and arguing against a point no one has made. There were a lot more countries who were communist then the ones I listed who persecuted people because of their religion. Cuba in recent years is a prime example of a communist country that has embraced Catholicism. Just because I listed countries run by atheists that killed religious people of all stripes that happened to be communist(I listed one which was not also, Mexico) it does not mean I was stating all communist countries are atheist oppressors of religion or that all atheists are communists.

I didn't realize we were actually parsing things now. Atheists do not afford religions that luxury when tallying up the death tolls of religious conflicts/deplorable acts. Are we going to go back and not count deaths in things like the Inquisition such as the mass murder of the Knights Templar which was done under the guise of religion but was really about the King not having to pay back his debts, against religion?

Not to worry Orkin, I wasnt really arguing with you there, I was merely making an observation that many Xtians confuse the two subjects and incorrectly make assumptions about them. It was jus something to post in between waiting for your next post so I had something more to argue with. Got to amuse myself somehow! :-)

Servant, the problem I have with this is that I do not believe that religious people will ever be able to do what you are claiming. They will always be busy trying to convert (or in worst case also kill) those that are not of their specific brand of religion that they will not be able to cooperate and actually build a better world. To be quite honest I dont even think many religions are even interested in building a better world and a fairer place for all. They simply seem to want to maintain a position of power that they have had for a very long time and will do that to whatever the cost may be.

This is really why I dont think what you say is possible to achieve with the religous people of today and this is why I keep arguing the point whenever I can (or feel like arguing). :-)

The best middle ground I can think of is to have a totally secular state in all countries on the planet, then at least we are starting to get somewhere. Then just keep educating people all over the world and religion will keep fading away into oblivion on its own. Or at least so I can hope.

All of this shows that you have a fundamental lack of understanding of both Pope Pious and Hitler. I will cite neutral sources. Pope Pious was essentially a prisoner in the Vatican during WWII. He did what he did and made deals with Hitler because he would have likely been killed and Catholicism washed away if he didn't. At one point he even offered himself up to Moussolini for deportation to a labor camp after warning Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg of impending Nazi invasion. He took as much of a stance as he could against the Axis powers without having the hammer cracked down on him as well. Sources:

http://www.britannica.com/...ked/topic/462400/Pius-XII


As for Hitler it is not "Christians" but historians which have questioned his religion and association with Christianity. There are many many many books and journals written about Hitler's religion from historians that call into question not only whether he was a believer but that he had intentions of doing away with the Catholic Church after the war.





Stalin was an atheist and the USSR had state enforced atheism. That's not even debatable and even Richard Dawkins will admit that Stalin was an atheist. Source:

http://www.jstor.org/...39256&sid=56056641463



Cite some sources other then a vague quote from a schizophrenic Prince that changed sides in the Cambodian conflict repeatedly. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were an atheist organization that kill anyone, including Bhuddists who practiced a religion. Source:

http://countrystudies.us/cambodia/29.htm


I'll have to dig around for the China stuff tomorrow, Im about to head to bed so more arguing later. :-)



Again you are not citing neutral or academic sources. You are citing editorial pages with an agenda.

Trying to discuss who killed most people in the last X years is kinda silly .. people will kill one another for really stupid reasons ..
sometimes the reason is because someone believe in a different fantasy figure
sometimes it's because of pieces off paper with numbers on them
sometimes it's because a line on a piece of paper is in the wrong place
sometimes it might be as silly as someone loving someone else who doesn't fit the 'norm'

Religion is nothing but a tool to control people, just as government is :)

personally i think the world would be a better place if people would just think for themselves and not follow idiots who scream alot :P be it politicians or priests :)

Vilse you know I highly respect you, but you are wrong:)

In the US, the number of interfaith counciles is rising,

In my city of 100K alone, our interfaith group has protestant, catholic, buddhist, unitarian universalist, Muslim, Jewish, and I'm missing 1 or 2 representatives.

I have yet to know of a culture that wasn't "religious" at some level. Can you name one? If so, there's a powerful evolutionary and/or genetic draw to this that crosses all people groups.

Long before Christianity, all religions got tied into ruling.

A great book on this, is called God and Empire
It points out that in the ancient world (at least Ancient western and near eat) all Empires had 4 pillars.
Economic,
Military
Cultural
Religious

Knock out one pillar, you knock out the empire.

While religion originally evolved outside of government structures it was brought into government by early empires as part of the "way" of ruling the masses....

it took millenia to undo this, and the damage it caused...as a result religions were nationalistic, and to fight another nation state was to fight another religion.

over time as religion evolved beyond their previous nation state support status, they continued to do what it is was that Nation States had taught them to do. They fought other religions over territory.


Yes, we maybe a minority...but fundamentalism has begin its delcine. As has Evangelcalism....They've both peeked, and rest on a theology that will not work in a post-modern era.....now an small brach of those 2 movements will get more and more radical but they they will disappear (this will take decades or longer...)

meanwhile, this appraoch I am talking about is gaining traction. I would estimate that 25-30% of our startup are people who have athetist or agnostic tendicies...as you know I classify myself as an Agnostic Chritian. I have multiple friends who are ministers who are either Agnostic or Atheists. They are doing great work!

Or more to the point, even many who are rejecting christianity, they're not running to atheism.,they are running to meditation groups, new age religions, eastern religions etc...the world isn't getting less religious, Christianity is just losing power.

And that's a good thing b/c Power is what corrupted it in the first place!
Damn Constantine....he exhanged the Pillar of the Emporer Cult, for the pillar of Christianity in order to sieze power. Worst thing that ever happened to Christianity.

Jeeze, are the same four people still arguing about this a week after all the fluff that I gave left the building??

lol

It doesn't make any sense to me to attribute deaths in a defensive war or from starvation during a failed society reform to atheism, nope. Given how many of the countries that could be considered religious 100+ years ago, doing the same for religious countries would increase the deaths caused by religions quite a bit...

Following that most countries could be considered religious, we'd have to attribute most war deaths to religion, since we're attributing the ones from Soviets defensive part in ww2 to atheism, and most deaths which could be spared through better leadership and legislation since we're attributing those during the great leap to atheism. How would this benefit your stance, and how does that make any sense?

The world is growing more and more peaceful. It's also slowly becoming more and more secular. Now correlation doesn't imply causation BUT more secular countries also tend to have less violence than religious, which strengthens the implication. You may argue a lot of this depends on scientific, technological and social advances enhancing the average life quality, which is true. But religions has traditionally shunned progress in either of these. If the popes had their way, we'd likely still live in theocracies under medieval conditions.

Join us! The voice which sometimes speak to me in my head says 5 is the best number.

so, basically only 800 million people have died for the 6,000 years that religion has existed? hmm, that's around 133,333.33 people a year. well, least you beat the number of people who die each year from getting an infection in a hospital.

I support this add