Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

marienbad wrote: »

I did'nt request the discussion move to another forum Impaopml- I threw out a one liner about 300 posts ago concerning one specific issue and I don't know how I became so entangled in it again.

You became entangled in it because you attacked the posters or moderators rather than admit you could not prove your case and you then avoided the issue. You became entangled in it again because i pointed out atheists will make a claim they can't support and then just not mention it rather than withdraw it. Later on they will re enter the same unproven claim. The reason to me seems to be that they have these fundamentalist beliefs which they will not change even though there is plenty of counter evidence. they want to believe religion is bad or clergy are abusers so they believe it . Wheh faced with having to support their belief or compare it critically to non religious or to non clergy they withdraw and later re enter with the same claims. I have experienced the same of Holocaust deniers and indeed the recent JW posts in this forum.

I will have to think about the anger though, I was'nt aware I came across as such.

Good for you. Ill be honest for my part them and state I bear you no ill will and will try to help you in any way I can.

Worztron wrote: »

The 2nd and 3rd films are very different. I find it hilarious that you would use the word 'fabrication' - the very essence of all religions.

What do you mean all religion is constructed like art like mathematics or like science?

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Its shame that instead of whinging and moaning some parents of other philosophies are not willing to put in the hard work themselves. Where they have put the work in, Educate together schools have been successful.

Not alone that but I'm sure the COI or RCC are happy to assist them. and if educate together want religion teachers I'm sure the church will provide them also.

The thing is ET need some time to judge whether people actually want this and establish and ethos and tradition of their own. I still don't know if all the past pupils and parents will not just walk away after they get their six years.

Morbert wrote: »

I added it because I believe it. What on earth does "accepting a false premise" mean? You specifically said you had no problem with it. Now you are saying you do have a problem with it.

I don't have a problem with accepting it. i don't happen to believe it is true but Im quite happy to accept the premise that "neither atheism or Christianity caused atrocities" because it means that you can't in future ever say Christianity was responsible for atrocities.
The usual smart ass comments college undergrad atheists who think they know it all come up with are neatly sidestepped. The "Bible is a rape manual" "murder He wrote ..." etc.
type comments.
I'm happy not to mention that atheism was much much much worse in terms of their hundred of millions of dead if believers are not singled out. I'm content to focus on the positive things done by religion and the almost zero positive things caused by atheism (any of which can be argued encompass the same natural law values that faith does)

No we're not. Whatever grievances Popes or Christian institutions might be responsible for, the responsibility lies at their feet, and not Christianity.

So the leader of Christianity acting i8n a certain way because he believes that is best for Christianity has no connection whatsoever with christianity and the expressed atheist members of an atheistic regime enforcing "there is no God" are actually doing that whithout actually believing "There is no God" ? Or is it that they believe there is not God but the fact that they enforce "there is no God" is totally unconnected to their belief? Bizarre.

Wow. In this very post I explicitly said atheistic regimes were deeply religious. You even quoted this sentence. Of course North Korea is an atheistic regime."Atheist" and "religious" are in no way exclusive.

LOL! This ioos you "get out of Gaol free" card is it?
Whenever you are confronted with atheistic slaughter regimes that did the killing not because they believed in "there is no God" but because they were religious about their atheism?
So your whole point boils down to "it isn't whether people believe or not which causes genocide it is their committment to having a singly enforced set of beliefs"?

So care to tell me how come when they have christian beliefs and have a belief christian beliefs should be enforced that people do well out of that although sometimes people do get killed but when they have atheist beliefs and enforce atheism nothing good comes of it and millions always get killed?

[edit] - I feel the PDN posts deserve some addressing. The post about theism being a source of persecution is unrelated to our discussion. The post about Juche, however, is not. Juche theory (the academic abstraction) is not a religion. But the Juche movement (which bears little relation to Juche theory) is a deeply religious movement. The Jucha movement holds that the Korean masses are subject to a Dear Leader, whom they are actively bound to, and must visibly worship. Note however, this does not mean "Religion causes atrocities" is true. It means some religious instruction can be harmful.

And in comparison "religious" atheism is always harmful?

Again, I am asking you to specifically argue the case that atheism, as opposed to, say, atheistic personality cults or Totalitarianism, causes atrocities. All you've done is try to explain away your double retraction and talk about Totalitarian states, Oligarchies, and leader worship.

Again how can you say "there is no God" is not a central reason for "there is no god" regimes killing people but instead the regime enforcing any tenet whether it is "there is no god" or "there is a God" or "there are several Gods" ? If it is all about the enforcing system ( the religion) and not the actual belief being enforced ( atheism or theism) then how come atheist "religions" are so much more efficient at killing people than Christianity for example?

koth wrote: »

that doesn't show that what I said was incorrect.

No you are not incorrect.
Most primary schools are catholic or church of Ireland.
I'm not certain but something like 95 to 98%
Most parents want things that way and what they want is constitutionally protected.
We can argue about "most" - it might be as low as say 85%
And the church are happy to assist other religions or atheists or Educate Together in this.
It certainly is not lower than 50%
Claiming "lets get it to 50% for starters" ( as atheist Minister Quinn expressed) is just outrageous.

Morbert wrote: »

This strange ball of contradictions (I accept it but I don't really) is more confusion for you to hide behind. The premise that atheism causes atrocities has no evidence to support it. You have repeatedly parroted the line "All atheist states commited atrocities, and they were far worse than atrocities committed by theists.", and I replied with

a) The number of atheist states compared to theist states is incredibly small (Revolutionary France and Mexico, where atrocities were committed on both sides, and a few Communist countries.)

I did not want to gwet back into this but you just had to bring it up.

Another "scotsman" argument
France , Mexico, Albania, Romania, Cambodia, Russia (Or the Union of slavery and supression of religion) largest country in the World also with several hundred millions - minus the 50 million or so wiped out by atheistic communism) , China ( most populous country in the world with about 25% of the population - minus about 50 million after the atheist Maoist great leap backiiwards and the cultural deevolution)

Seven so far.
Czechoslovakia
Mongolia
North Korea.
That's ten.

But there are more to add.
Nineteenth century china?
Ancient China?

Statistics Of
Pre-20th Century Democide
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP2.HTM

Even close to our time people have been murdered in the millions, as in the Teiping Rebellion in China in the mid-18th century. Of all pre-twentieth century killing--massacres, infanticide, executions, genocides, sacrifices, burnings, deaths by mistreatment, and the like--that for which corpses have been counted or estimated, surely but a fraction, add up to a range of near 89,000,000 to slightly over 260,000,000 million men, women, and children dead. An appropriate mid-democide estimate might be around 133,000,000 killed.

How many by Christianity?


Here is a list of 219 countries/incidents since WWII - It covers democratic Totalitarian and Authoritarian regimes
How many deaths because of Christianity?
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB16A.1.GIF


http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB2.2.GIF
Totals see row 50 - 1.3 billion plus in PRE Christian times.
How many of them were because of Christianity?

So "always" is in no way convincing, especially when looking at the other historical factors (such as the rise of fascism, and the impact of such in high population densities).

You are going over old ground with the population density argument.
And the "better technology " argument


80 years of ATHEISM vs. 250 CENTURIES of RELIGION -atheists kill more, over 70,000,000 - Atheist excuses #1: "It's GOD'S FAULT!"
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.agnosticism/browse_thread/thread/48afe334c786a01f

But the point is, you moron, no theocracies DID achieve 1.6 billion
deaths, even though theists VASTLY outnumber atheists, (i.e. they
are more numerous, and always have been OVER MILLENNIA.. though I
am happy to agree with you that the atheist regimes, like you,
are MORE DENSE! B^D

I want everyone to observe closely what that moral defective is arguing!

He now accepts the horrific death toll of the atheist regimes, but now
he wants to pretend that the MASSIVE SLAUGHTER in the USSR, Mao's
Great Leap Backward and Cultural Devolution, Pol Pot's genocide and
other atheist tyrannies..is all because of "population density" and
"the power of technology". 8^o

Sheer BALDERDASH. THE USA HAS THE MOST POWERFUL MILITARY TECHNOLOGY
ON EARTH, and it is a majority religious society, but it has never,
in absolute numbers or in percentage of population, killed the
equivalent of 40,000,000 people as the atheist regimes, USSR and
Maoist China, each did!

Q.E.D.

China has always had massive population, but only under atheist tyranny
did it's death toll achieve such record proportions.

China, the USSR and Cambodia had ALMOST IDENTICAL POPULATION DENSITY and
TECHNOLOGICAL LEVELS, IMMEDIATELY PRIOR to the atheist regimes being
imposed on them.. but not the massive death toll.. that only occurred
ONCE THE ATHEIST TYRANNY WAS IN PLACE!

And it occurred when free, open, tolerant, and progressive MAJORITY
RELIGIOUS societies were evolving secular democratic government,
expanding human rights and civil society, firmly establishing the
freedom to THINK, BELIEVE and SPEAK as you will, and ..FEEDING THEIR
PEOPLE... none of which the CATASTROPHICALLY FAILED ATHEIST REGIMES
COULD MANAGE!

Your 'population density' and 'technology' arguments are easily
demolished by observing that BOTH were DIMINISHED under the atheist
regimes from what they were under previous, better, times

b) Atheist atrocities have not been far worse.

Yes they have. Read the figures for the above ten regimes and the noineteenth century china and ancient china. And pre christian europe. ( the last example is a NOT Christian example rather than a strictly atheist one)

The Belgian Congo,

We have been over that before. Not an example of christianity or of religion. a totally personal acquisition by Leopold and not doen for any christian reasons or any other expressed religious belief.
Meanwhile next door in the other part of the congo atheistic marxists moved in ( you can now add then to the ten regimes above)

Nazi Europe,

Theosophy is not Christian. christianity opposed the Nazis!

the Japanese Occupation of China,

One atheist country fighting another atheist country.

and the invasion of the New World were some of the most abhorrent periods in history, and none of them were atheistic regimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan
About 70 percent of Japanese profess no religious membership

Marquis Hirobumi Ito, four time Prime Minister of Japan (the 1st, 5th, 7th and 10th), who made Japan a Great Power is reported to have said "I regard religion itself as quite unnecessary for a nation's life; science is far above superstition, and what is religion - Buddhism or Christianity - but superstition, and therefore a possible source of weakness to a nation? I do not regret the tendency to free thought and atheism, which is almost universal in Japan because I do not regard it as a source of danger to the community

Now instead of trying to start a new tangent. You must argue why your conclusion is a reasonable one.

Quite simply. Christian countries with "there is a Christian God" have been around for 2000 years and quite possibly millions have di4ed at their hands. at the same time they created great civilizations. Atheism has created nothing and "there is no God" when adopted as a national slogan resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions.

The above is indeed bizarre. But it has nothing to do with what I said. Whatever grievances Popes or Christian institutions might be responsible for, the responsibility lies at their feet, and not Christianity.

Oh bit you don't apply the same reasoning to Leopold of Belgium. His Congo debacle was because of "religion" according to you?

They might have connections with Christianity, but Christianity is not responsible. Similarly, there are atheist dictators who believe there is no God, but atheism is not to blame for their acts.

Even when they torture and kill people for professing any faith and leave alone those professing atheism? Killing non atheists and leaving professed atheists alone has nothing to do with atheism? I suppose killing Jews and leaving non Jews also has nothing to do with antisemitism and killing blacks while leaving all whites live has nothing to do with racism?

Your complete inability to understand even simple points without inferring nonsense along with it might explain your wrong interpretation of history.

History is the interpretation itself! You may mean my history is an incotrrect interpretation of the past. The fact is there are statistics there. The regimes saying "there is no God" slaughtered people by the new-time. It is a recorded statistic.

And I have said before: Theist, and sometimes Christian, rulers do indeed kill millions.

No they don't! Christianity has only killed millions over decades or centuries and only in a few very rare instances. The Crusades for example responsible for a million ( and not as many as two million) over centuries. Again human greed was involved but they were acting under call to arms of the Pope and they were going on a Holy War.

Atheist religions are not always harmful.

Atheists left in command of society caused more harm than anyone else. As I stated Im happy for atheists or for atheist religions to exist. I just don't want them given control of the state.

Again (and again and again and again). I am not claiming the Christian religion kills people (nor am I claiming atheistic religions kill people, there are peaceful atheist religions too).

Christianity only very rarely resulted in death. Atheism as a religion or as a controller of the State always did.

And as I have said before, atheistic states were efficient (but by no means more efficient) in killing people because the small handful were mostly Totalitarian regimes executing socio-economic experiments in high population densities.

And as I posted in response - see above -
Your 'population density' and 'technology' arguments are easily
demolished by observing that BOTH were DIMINISHED under the atheist
regimes from what they were under previous, better, times.

Morbert wrote: »

And this handful (even including the contentious examples) is small enough to analyse the underpinning historical factors.

I think you may mean "is large enough". I would think yes.
How many countries in the UN about 150? that is about a fifteenth. Put it this way if it was the population of Ireland and you did a survey of 266,000 people would you consider that representative. In fact if you include China and Russia you are up near a third of the population of the world. So in terms of population that would be a sample of 1.2 million Irish people - more than vote in elections. I would not consider that a "handful".

Similarly communist countries can be examined to determine any patterns caused by Marxism. In terms of religion Cuba for example was not respectful of Christianity but it was more tolerant. And China became economically successful co incidentally when it relaxed it's pro atheist anti religious policies.

We can also look at ancient and nineteenth century atheistic regimes which predate State communism.

As I have stated how big does a "handful" or a Scotsman have to be before you eventually say it is a sample?

So I ask you (again): Why do you infer that it is atheism, rather than, say, Totalitarianism, anti-clericalism, state-enforced suppression of religion, that is responsible for atrocities?

AS I stated so long as you leave Christianity alone I didn't want to go into all this. But if you insist atheistic regimes are different to theistic ones then I have to take you to task on that.
Either you can't ever criticise Christianity or you have to accept the same for atheism.

Let us take your examples in reverse
If a State is enforcing one religion over another ( almost never happened with Christianity) then I accept that is an atrocity you can chalk up to Christianity.
How many dead did it cause in 2000 years?
If it is Christians supporting the persecution of clerics or other faiths or of a different christian denomination I also accept it can be added to christian atrocities.
Again how many dead?

The Totalitarian I have also dealt with. If it was authoritarian Totalitarian or democracy i supplied figures.

How is it the atheistic ones always come out on top for murdering?

Again, you are trying to introduce a tangent. You said atheism is the cause of atrocities. History shows both atheists and theists (not just Christians) causing great atrocities.

It shows Christians vanishingly small in the atrocity league with atheism consistently holding top place.

If you cannot defend non-Christian theists, you cannot defend the premise that great atrocities are a facet of atheism, and hence you cannot defend the claim that atheism causes atrocities.

That isn't a valid logical argument. Islam could also cause atrocities or Paganism. They still don't get anywhere near atheistic regimes but this group is about Christianity and I have no interest in rehearsing the differences between Christianity and Islam or Christianity and animism or whatever.

Which you never addressed. Do you believe the great leap forward would have killed on the order of 50 million if there were only, say 1 million people living in China?

I like the way you switched "population density" with just simply "population"
Nice try. The thing is above try to dismiss the same huge population of China as a "handful"

As stated before
'population density' and 'technology' arguments are easily
demolished by observing that BOTH were DIMINISHED under the atheist
regimes from what they were under previous, better, times.

Countries with similar population densities thrived without atheism. Countries with atheism as a central principle in society became economic backwaters.

This is unrelated to what I said. How many times do I have to explain this? I am not saying population densities caused the atrocities. I am saying the reason the death toll is so high is because when state-sponsored famine atrocities are executed, the number will be high.

All that is saying is if an atheist causes an atrocity because of atheism he will kill the same number of people that a christian will kill doing the same atrocity because of Christianity. so how come the atheists do it far more frequently?
How come all the atheistic regimes committed atrocities ( whether they had huge or tiny populations) and not all the Christian regimes did ( in fact only a tiny minority of them)?

The idea that atheism only comes about in huge populations is also untrue just as Countries which are religious have huge populations of followers. Ther are more christians that anyone else. christiany make atheists look like a small number. So how come there are few christian famines and how come if you look at famines it is the Christians who are first on the scene and the atheists are nowhere to be found?

I am refuting your naive claim that "atheism" was why the number was so high.

Well it certainly was not Christianity. You can refute away to my friends from china who were persecuted for their beliefs by a State who want their own official atheist version of the Church.

And again, I ask you not to quote the morons from those groups. They make you look bad for both associating your view with theirs, and for trying to build a straw-man.

...'population density' and 'technology' arguments are easily
demolished by observing that BOTH were DIMINISHED under the atheist
regimes from what they were under previous, better, times.

And I said I did not tender the above as examples of Christianity causing atrocities. I tendered the above as demonstrating the flabby logic of "atheism causes atrocities". The above categorically shows that atrocities are clearly an effect of something other than atheism.

I don't know about that but I'm happy to leave atheism alone as a root cause when you and other atheists are happy to accept Christianity isn't a threat to the world and a cause of atrocities.

A deliberately dishonest tactic. Emperor divinity only collapsed after WWII.

Those were the stats I got.
I resent you calling me dishonest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China#Buddhism
introduced from India during the Han Dynasty, traditionally in the 1st century.

Buddhism is effectively atheist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan
Buddhism first arrived in Japan in the 6th century
...
From the beginning, the largest form of Buddhism in Japan was the Mahayana school. According to the Agency of Cultural Affairs, 91 million Japanese identify themselves as Buddhist.

Before 1868, there were three main forms of Shinto: Shrine Shinto, the most popular type; Folk (or Popular) Shinto, practiced by the peasants; and Imperial Household Shinto, practiced by the imperial family of Japan. In the 18th and 19th centuries, independent Shinto sects – Sect Shinto – formed, some of which were very radical, such as the monotheistic Tenrikyo. These became known as the Shinto Sects or the New Religions. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Shinto and Buddhism were forcefully separated. The Emperor Meiji made Shinto the official religion, creating a form of Shinto known as State Shinto by merging Shrine, Folk, and Imperial Household Shinto. The radical Sect Shinto was separated from State Shinto. Under Meiji, Japan became a moderate theocracy, with shrines under government control. Shinto soon became a reason for Japanese nationalism

Yes Ill admit in WWII they enforced Emperor Worship. But similar arguments apply as to juche; or to Shinto/Bhuddism being atheistic; or to the "religion" only becoming established in 1868. But I'm happy to accept this non christian regime just like the Nazis was also non atheist. It certainly was not christian.

Modern Japan is not religious. Japan during WWII was not only religious, but theistic, worshipping a God King.

Which only became imposed at that time. traditionally they were atheist/Buddhist. But yes like elevating Hitler for nationalist purposes they evevated Emporor Worship . But like North Korea I look on this as not an example of religion . But whatever argument for it not being atheist it certainly isn't christian

Atheistic religions (atheism itself is not a religion) have not always. I have corrected you on this before.

Nope . you gave examples of a few groups who did some good charitable works along christian principles. I don't recollect you showing me "There is no God" governments which did great works.

Morbert wrote: »

I mean small enough to look at in more detail. If there had been, say, 1,000 atheist regimes over history, and they had all committed atrocities, then there might be something to the claim.

So given there was only ONE Nazi regime you thing the Holocaust didn't have anything to do with Naziism?

Using population as metric is completely irrelevant.

So why did you bring it up then? your words " Do you believe the great leap forward would have killed on the order of 50 million if there were only, say 1 million people living in China?"
Why use a fictional population of 1 million as a metric to judge anything especially if it is as you claim "irrelevant" ? By the way the metric i was using is the sample as a percentage of the overall numbers. One country in fifteen ; one person in fifteen.

You would have took at a "regime population" throughout history. We see that the number of such regimes are small enough to analyse in more detail.

There are enough to d the analysis and enough to determine what governments were atheistic ( i.e. with "There is no god" as a central principle) . Im not aware of any "There is no God" administrations over countries that were not regimes. I know plenty of christian administrations that were not.

We can indeed look at these regimes. That is what I am asking you to do. What is the argument, based on these regimes, that atheism will lead to atrocities, as opposed to, say Totalitarianism, anti-clericalism coupled with anti-pluralism?

I didn't make the claim. the claim is that belief ( in specific in Christianity) causes atrocities.
My counter claim is "not in any way as much as atheism"
I happy to let atheists go their own way until they start attacking religion and making smug jokes about Christianity as if it is unreasonable.
All the atheistic regimes caused mayhem and left nothing for posterity but piles of skulls.
Only few christian regimes did.

Modern Japan has a largely atheist population.

Who was it stated that they were not referring to post WWII Japan accusing me of dishonesty?...

A deliberately dishonest tactic. Emperor divinity only collapsed after WWII. Modern Japan is not religious. Japan during WWII was not only religious, but theistic,

and now you want to refer to "modern" Japan

Modern Japan produced Aum Shriya do you know of any other country who used SARIN gas in a terrorist attack? No doubt you might claim christian influence.

In fact, it is an example of a secular pluralist society, where Christianity et al are in the minority, but free to practise their religion without persecution. Do you believe they are on the road to another massacre?

I hope not. But i dont think "ther is no god" is a central tenet of the Japanese constitution.
Which was influenced by the US and their constitution. Which was written to avoid religious division. The irish constitution as it happenms acts in a diffferent way to support religion in schools. If only the US example existed people would never realise that "freedom of belief" or "rights of the family" can mean the State supports such things as religion.

I am not insisting they are different. I have said before that I want neither. I want secular pluralism.

Im happy for you to want it. I wont be voting for 50% of schools losing their ethos.

Sure, I would be pleased if atheists were in the majority, but only if this came through discourse and not oppression.

I dont think the Church of Ireland or Catholic church are oppressive regimes.

I am specifically addressing the claim that atheism causes atrocities: That if a society becomes atheist, through whatever means, they will start killing people.

Whenever they got in control in the past they did. But Im happy to leave you alone if you accept that they are not in charge and that Christian people when in power using Christian principles did not oppress and actually built society.

Does this mean you are now changing your position from "Atheism causes atrocities." To "state-enforced Christianity is comparatively benign"?

It means as always if you state "neither atheism or Christianity caused atrocities " I am willing to let that go because it means your claim ( I only make counter claims) means you won't criticise the past of Christianity in the future.

Stop trying to change the claimn to ME claiming "Atheism causes atrocities." when the original claim was yours "neither atheism or Christianity caused atrocities "

You are the one who brought them into it when you said history shows that atheism causes atrocities. It is perfectly appropriate that theist atrocities are up there as well, implying other causes.

Christian theist atrocities (and indeed no doubt other mainstream religions - i gave you the stats) are in no way "up there" compared to atheistic Mao Stalin etc.


They are all regimes but
1. atheistic regimes dwarf the others.
2. Atheistic regimes always murder
3. christian regimes dont always kill everyone
4. There are non regime Christian governments.

I have made it perfectly clear what I mean by population density (not just population). From my post #1830 (A post I assumed you missed, as you did not respond to it) :

I probably did. But instead of stating that I missed it you instead accused me of dishonesty.

"And I refer you to my earlier remark about not imposing other discussions onto this one. I have never made the "Leopold of Belgium is evidence of Christianity causing regimes in the Congo" argument (as I have pointed out numerous times),

So you can leave Leopold out of your repertoire of Christian regimes then.
Mind you the Congo can re enter as another atheistic nightmare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marien_Ngouabi
Africa's first Marxist Leninist state - i.e. atheist

and I am well aware that high population does not automatically result in famine. Mao's famine was entirely state-sponsored. It was a repulsive socio-economic experiment in rapid industrialisation that cost millions of lives. But the number of deaths is directly linked to the high population. Is it an excuse? Of course not, but you are acting like atheism was the contingency, when it was clearly a number of factors, none of which being atheism."

If atheism is equally as bad as Christianity how come there are few christian caused famines and atrocities which killed few people and so many killed by atheists . Especially since atheists are ain tiny numbers and christians are the largest group on the planet.? and how come if you look at famines it is the Christians who are first on the scene and the atheists are nowhere to be found?

Bingo. Atheism is not the reason the death toll was so high.

So how come the atheistic regimes have all the high totals and the Christians even after 2000 years don't?
Do you really think naziism and the nazi philosophy had nothing to do with the Holocaust and it was just coincidence that they killed so many people at the same time they had an anti Jew and anti Gypsy philosophy?

And I am not saying it was Christianity.

You are not saying it wasn't are you?


Do you mean:

"I no longer believe atheism is a root cause."

or

"I still believe atheism is a root cause, but I will not supply an argument for why I think this."

I have supplied you with the stats. It is completely plausible when most slaughter do insides with "there is no god" regimes and a tiny proportion with "christian God" regimes to consider that the philosophy might have something to do with it. Do you really think naziism and the nazi philosophy had nothing to do with the Holocaust? But apparently atheism of the Stalinist and Maoist regimes had nothing at all to do with their killing of non committed atheists?

WWII Japan was not an atheist regimes.

Nor was it christian.

While North Korea and Stalinist Russia can be called atheist (North Korea came close to theism when it was suggested Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were the same, transcendant being), the Emperor of Japan was a God. Again, I do not tender examples to argue that they committed atrocities because they were theists. I do it to show that atrocities stem from something other than atheism.

But not from Christianity. I admit Nazis and other non atheists who also were not christian committed atrocities.

Do you see, for example, similarities between atheist regimes like Stalin's russia, and "non atheist" regimes like Nazi Germany, or WWII Japan, or a variety of examples in Africa?

Yes . they were all non Christian.

North Korea is definitely atheist (Though WWII Japan wasn't).

It had only recently become nationalist just as Germany had.

You specifically said atheist religions all cause atrocities.

Yes i did. all atheist regimes i.e. any givernment with "ther is no god" as a central tenet.

Jainism is an example of a peaceful atheist religion, as are atheist branches of Unitarianism

As Is Buddhism sometimes. But what examples have you of them actually controlling the government or constitution of a country?
I admit Jainism has positives. Im sure there are positive atheists like yourself as well. I don't think running the world based on jainism or Falun Gong or Bhuddism would be ideal but it would be a far sight better than basing it on atheism.

tommy2bad wrote: »

This board needs a 'banging your head against a brick wall' smiley just for this thread.

http://www.criticalthinking.com/company/articles/inductive-deductive-reasoning.jsp

Most arguments are mainly inductive. In fact, inductive reasoning usually comes much more naturally to us than deductive reasoning.

Inductive reasoning moves from specific details and observations (typically of nature) to the more general underlying principles or process that explains them (e.g., Newton's Law of Gravity).

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.php

I observe that atheistic regimes killed people en masse. It isn't invalid reasoning having looked at such a pattern to arrive at a hypothesis that atheism when used as a central tenet of society resluts in destruction and christianity when adopted as a central tenet doesn't! No amount of "correlation is not causality" or "you can't logically deduce atheism causes atrocities" will dismiss that.

marienbad wrote: »

ISAW , when you are ready can I have an answer to this please.

I already addressed it but :
You asked two questions

1. since when is it for you to decide what are we concerned with here ?

It is a matter of definition. I you claim "god ordered rape" or "Christianity caused atrocities but atheism didn't" then ift is for you to provide evidence.

2. hard atheism, soft atheism, new terms to me, What are their opposite might I ask - Hard theism ?


Actaull if you do a search you will not i have been uasing them for years and have referred to the Triniuty college "nones" survey several times before. If you never heard the term before your ignorance is not my problem. I clearly stated exactly what I meant by atheism , i.e. "There is/are no God(s)" I have clearly stated this umpteen times. Ther is no fudging or muddying waters or any other unclear definition as you seem to want others to believe.
Not alone that you asked for a definition. Having supplied one you asked for a definition from a reference work. You now have one. Feel free to consult ARIS whenever you need to look up what "nones" are.
http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/

A further issue I would like to raise is the constant variety of comments you make in the mode of ''I have no problem with atheists so long as....
You do realize the consequences of lumping loads of people in to catagories based on one commonality.

If you are not interested in saying anything about atheists as a group then fine. I am referring to hardline evangelising atheists who attack religious belief as silly and attempt to degrade it. I have no problem putting all such people into a group. If you think that putting nazis , Islamofacists, revolutionary communists or religious fundamentalists into groups is segregating them unfairly or insensitive to them well that's tough. WEhatever next putting "criminals" is insensitive to people who commit crime?

Take out atheists for example and substitute Jews, Blacks ,Women, Red heads .

Nice work on the type selection. take out Jews, Blacks ,Women and Red heads and put in nazis , Islamofacists, or revolutionary communists. How does htat grab you?

Your attitude joins the ''so long as'' list of actual examples listed below, and these are only the milder ones

''I have no problem with Black people so long as they don't intermarry with white women''

'' I have no problem with Jews so long as they don't go about in that funny dress and hairstyle''

''I have no problem with women so long as they realize their place is in the home''

And now we can add ISAW's Law !

'' I have no problem with atheists so long as they keep it to themselves and not try to proselytize or get into government''

Or fascists, or Islamofacists, or Marxist Leninists, or Bolsheviks, or Nazis.

The logical consequence of the ''so long as'' line of argument is - what would you do to prevent that possibility. So what would you do ?

Well the Germans banned Nazism. I would not go that far. Indeed I have supported the right of such people to speak. I would support laws which prevent them form damaging society. I don't think the Church of Ireland or RCC have a damaging influence on society.