Atheist rules vs Religious rules

[Jotto999]

Considering the mountains of skeletons created specifically for things like Christianity and Islam, it's comical for anyone to try and argue that atheism has killed many people.

Besides, there is this:

A few keywords here.

Numerous Crusades, numerous Jihads.

Both were /are exclusively religiously driven.


Stalin, Hitler etc were not religiously driven, they were politically driven. They didn't murder because they were atheists and were not more susceptible to murder because they were atheist (bring up statistics comparing atheist populations in prisons to those in the general population), they murdered because they were fascists etc.

Exactly. And even if they were motivated for atheistic reasons, it still wouldn't amount to anything significant compared to the death toll of Christianity or Islam.

 

[nasher168]

You mean to tell me that ever American and British citizen is responsible for the million dead Iraqi's and Afghani's?

No, no. I agree with you. He was not a communist, but he did it in the name of communism. Just as a priest can be un-christ-like in the name of christ, Stalin was un-communist in the name of communism.

 

[theatheistguy]

No, no. I agree with you. He was not a communist, but he did it in the name of communism. Just as a priest can be un-christ-like in the name of christ, Stalin was un-communist in the name of communism.

Well no, if a priest rapes a boy (and hence is un-Christ-like) you cannot blame Christianity, but if the same priest marries a rape victim to her rapist or slaughters thousands of non-Christians in the name of god (and hence is Christ-like) then Christianity can indeed be blamed. The priest does not rape the child in the name of Christ, but even if he did, it would mean as much as him claiming to do it in the name of carrots.

Indeed, if the ideals of Communism were from each according to his ability, to each according to his need and also the slaughter of thousands of non-communists in the name of Communism, then indeed, Stalin and Communism would be both to blame. However, communism does not say anything about, in fact, as all forms of socialism emphasise independence, justice and peace, and therefore cannot be held accountable. Again, you may as well also blame carrots.

 

[MillionSword]

No, no. I agree with you. He was not a communist, but he did it in the name of communism. Just as a priest can be un-christ-like in the name of christ, Stalin was un-communist in the name of communism.

Well no, if a priest rapes a boy (and hence is un-Christ-like) you cannot blame Christianity, but if the same priest marries a rape victim to her rapist or slaughters thousands of non-Christians in the name of god (and hence is Christ-like) then Christianity can indeed be blamed. The priest does not rape the child in the name of Christ, but even if he did, it would mean as much as him claiming to do it in the name of carrots.

A priest may not rape a child in the name of christ, but it is still the fault of christianity. The whole celebacy thing and all that sexual repression etc.

 

[theatheistguy]

A priest may not rape a child in the name of christ, but it is still the fault of christianity. The whole celebacy thing and all that sexual repression etc.

To an extent perhaps, but that doesn't remove the responsibility and guilt from the individual.

 

[DeistPaladin]

We need to distinguish between correlation and causation in order to stay off the slippery slope.

It's not sufficient to say that person A committed an atrocity and person A was a member of a certain religion, political affiliation, culture, etc. This is simply correlation.

Causation is where you can demonstrate that the religion (or lack thereof), political ideology, culture or whatever created a mentality that ultimately led to the atrocity.

Take Hitler for example. His victims in the concentration camps included Jews, gays and Gypsies along with political prisoners. The anti-semitism of Nazism wasn't just created in the 20th century. It was the culmination of 2000 years of bigotry against the Jews. Largely, this bigotry was fostered by Christianity and the "Christ-killer" myth. The gays and occult-practicing Gypsies were also targets of Christian wrath in European history. It's not hard to show how Christianity at least played a role in the holocaust.

Now let's suppose evidence surfaced that Hitler was, in fact, an atheist. All his speeches about his professed "duty to the Lord" were just for show. Does that mean atheism led to his atrocities? Can it be logically argued that "if only Hitler believed in God, none of this would have happened"? Did the Christian beliefs of his soldiers make them incapable of carrying out his orders? Proving correlation here is a harder task, to say the least.

 

[Zylstra]

When ever i bring up Atheism and "ruling" countries/having great power at home.

My father usually brings up that the worlds greatest mass murders have all been Atheists he mentions Hitler Stalin and Mao Zedong have all been Atheists.
I have since been able to refute Hitler by pointing out that he wasn,´t an Atheist, but a Catholic.

But what about the others can we call them Atheists or where they on the Religious side instead of the Atheists?

And what about the religious Rulers have they been more "benign" then their Atheist counterparts?

your father's a fucking retard (that's probably why he's religious)

read the Torah; they brag about committing genocide all through it

the inquisition, the conquistadors, salem...

 

[MillionSword]

A priest may not rape a child in the name of christ, but it is still the fault of christianity. The whole celebacy thing and all that sexual repression etc.

To an extent perhaps, but that doesn't remove the responsibility and guilt from the individual.

I agree, but my point is that if the religion didn't exist then we wouldn't have this problem. I'm not saying we wouldn't have people raping children but anyone of us could be driven to such desperate acts of sexual compensation if we were priests.

 

[5810Singer]

my point is that if the religion didn't exist then we wouldn't have this problem. I'm not saying we wouldn't have people raping children but anyone of us could be driven to such desperate acts of sexual compensation if we were priests.

That's a very broad claim with only tenuous support, and it's also refuted by the fact that most priests, and other forms of religious celibates DON'T commit sex crimes. I think you're guilty of unfairly tarring a lot of people with the same brush.

Besides, most psychiatric experts agree that the purely sexual element of sexual coercion/violence is secondary to the element of power and control, IE: the abuser gets off on the power more than the sex.
So enforced celibacy probably isn't the psychological trigger anyway.

 

[MillionSword]

my point is that if the religion didn't exist then we wouldn't have this problem. I'm not saying we wouldn't have people raping children but anyone of us could be driven to such desperate acts of sexual compensation if we were priests.

That's a very broad claim with only tenuous support, and it's also refuted by the fact that most priests, and other forms of religious celibates DON'T commit sex crimes. I think you're guilty of unfairly tarring a lot of people with the same brush.

Besides, most psychiatric experts agree that the purely sexual element of sexual coercion/violence is secondary to the element of power and control, IE: the abuser gets off on the power more than the sex.
So enforced celibacy probably isn't the psychological trigger anyway.

Yeah this makes sense. But I didn't say MOST priests do this, I'm just saying that the ones that DO could have had otherwise very normal sexual habits had they not had a sexually opressive lifestyle. The key words being "COULD have".