The "atheists have killed more people" argument

I've used this Youtuber's videos in the past to prove points I make because he is far more articulate and well researched than I ever could hope to be. While I am no longer an atheist (I'm a spiritual free thinker), this man's arguments still stand. I'm posting this to ask all Christians to never again say this to an atheist.

Political conservatives will be thrilled to hear this man's condemnation of communism. So with that I hope you Christians who are politically conservative can be open minded and listen to him.

 

I tried but just cant watch this because if the silly gimmick, and I am atheist.

 

I hate these things. I'd rather read.

Mao killed around 60 to 80 million people in the last century in his crusade of state-worship. Can you demonstrate that theists killed more than that?

 

3 things (as mentioned in the video):

1. There is the Christian mindset that without the worship and infallibility of a deity, we would automatically worship and make infallible a state. How about no worship and having nothing beyond question

2. Mao had the modern means of killing more people. Do you think the Spanish inquisitor would stop after show trialing, torturing and killing 1000 people if he had the tools for more?

3. This statement is whataboutism. Just by drawing comparisons, the Christian fails to self-evaluate.

There is much more but you will need to watch the video or make a follow up question.

 

Wow what a mess of babblistic apologetics that guy talks more and says more nothing than I've ever heard in my life.

Dude pretends that it's no worse to kill 80 million people than it is to kill one person in his attempt to pretend that it's a more proper measuring stick.

Then he skips around from believing in deities to fundamentalists and pretends they are the same thing then talks about the Inquisition and other deity belief killings which in so far is who killed the most isn't even comparable.

Then his apologetic excuse for Stalin is that Stalin had more power bigger weapons and more people to kill therefore it's justifiable that he'd kill far more people than the deity based murders.

There's more people and bigger guns and more power so it's A-OK to kill more that's the logic behind that dude's lunacy.

That's like saying if you buy a gun then you got to go kill somebody just because you got a gun and that makes it okay!

Stalin wasn't more murderous he just had better tools to work with, that's the dude's reasoning!

Holy **** what a ****ing moron.

He makes the asinine analogy that if Christians had more tools and more people and were in power that effectively they'd do the same thing as Stalin because they had the power and they had the tools so now they're going to wipe out all the atheists and anybody else who doesn't agree with them, I'm sorry but that's absolute lunacy because that runs 100% contrary to all Christian teachings and values that I have ever heard in my lifetime.

Then the idiot goes on to blame Christians for what Joshua did some 1250 years prior to the existence of Christ, what a brain dead maroon.

Now he's rambling on about how in his uneducated opinion that atheism isn't a religion, despite the fact even the supreme Court agrees that the several variants of atheism are religions.

Here we go now he doesn't even understand what the word worship means! Where he goes on to pretend that atheist don't worship.

Now he's got a better solution then any idiot that believes in a deity because atheists are smarter and they have science therefore they're atheist views are far more advanced and intellectual than anybody who worships a deity.

And of course atheism is not a religion, just ask him! LoL

Total orwellian double think on one hand he talks against the state and on the other hand he supports and worships it.

That's some seriously flawed logic and reasoning it's closer to illogic and unreasoning and that's not coming from a Christian that's coming from an agnostic.

The moral of that story is anytime an atheist starts babbling on about how good they are just remind them about Stalin and Mao, and this joker who thinks it's no worse to kill a million people or two people.

 

Just remember, most things that we say were done 'in the name of religion', were not really done because of religion, or for religious reasons. The religious justification was just the cloak under which far more material or pragmatic reasons hid. The same thing will be true of atheism.

 

Can YOU demonstrate that Mao killed more people than your imaginary god has killed?

 

Just to put this into perspective about 130 million people are born each year but miscarriages occur in a range between 10% and 50% of all pregnancies.

Taking a conservative approach at 10% and rounding down to keep the numbers simple that would be 10 million MURDERED by the imaginary Christian deity every year.

In a decade that would be 100 million and in a century that amounts to ONE BILLION.

Since Christianity has been around for 2 millennia that comes to 20 billion SLAUGHTERED by their imaginary deity.

On that scale Mao and Stalin are rank amateurs.

 

Good for you, I'm a scientific free thinker. Nothing but the facts, and the facts are not on your side.

 

On that at least I'm entirely with you.

So not because of atheism, because of "state-worship" (or "nationalism" for some modern context). If we're just talking about people who happened to be atheist or theist, regardless of why they killed, theists would account for the vast majority of societies throughout human history and therefore the vast majority of killing.

The simple truth is that theism and atheism in themselves aren't going to inspire anyone to kill nor are they going to prevent people from killing. In general, people internally justify whatever they want to do regardless of what they believe. Neither the existence or non-existence of gods have ever been used as a reason to kill but either can be attempted as an excuse. They're also often attempted as an excuse for the irrational condemnation of individuals based on simplistic labelling. Wouldn't it be nice if people stop doing both?

 

if my God is imaginary, He has killed no people

 

Bravo!

I was laughing so hard when I seen that craziness I almost had coffee running out of my nose!

 

On the other hand, if we buy into this notion that atheism is just another form or religious belief ( which I don't ) we can add all Mao's and Stalin's deaths and murders and genocides to the ledger of total deaths due to belief in religion!

This whole discussion is fraught with agenda driven absurdities and a sense of history driven by a grade schooler's simplistic understanding that there is one motive, one line of argument behind a human's decisions to act, and a movement towards war and peace, or genocide can only afford one directional traffic

 

I haven't watched the video yet, but there's also the fact that 1) Many . . . most, actually . . . of those people died from poor agricultural planning. They weren't killed in the name of atheism. 2) Theists are taking advantage of the fact that we can't actually count how many people were killed in the name of theism. Most of those deaths happened at a time when we kept no substantive records of such atrocities/they were considered commonplace. 3) Theists like to play a trick where they want to lump all atheists together (holding all atheists responsible for revolutionary Marxists) but insist that they are special snowflakes (Christians are not responsible for the murders committed by Islamic jihadists or even their own predecessors).

 

Then feel free to explain what facts he got wrong.

 

He calls himself a "spiritual free thinker", for starters. He's not a "free thinker" at all, he's just parroting political talking points.

 

Making such claims without being able to point out any actual inaccuracies is textbook "parroting" of "talking points."

 

LMAO, they were killed by atheists in the name of atheism religion.

But nothing to show us Christians did the same, theres that 800 pound gorrila again

Wel if atheists dont want to be lumped in with other atheists then maybe they should change their name or their beliefs.

Feel free to explain what 'facts' you refer to.

Yeh the joker in the video was nothing more than another rambling atheist apologist with no substance behind all that babble.

 

The sort of guy that becomes a dictator doesn't typically have a religion beyond themselves.

I could argue that Hitler killed millions, and was Christian. But the idea that Hitler was religious is laughable.

"British historian Richard Overy, biographer of Hitler, sees Hitler as having been a skeptic of religion: "Both Stalin and Hitler wanted a neutered religion, subservient to the state.."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler

What these guys all have in common is an obsession with power, and a willingness to crush anyone or anything that gets in their way. That includes any religion in their background, or their church.

There are things to be said, like how this is idiotic Right wing propaganda that uses those ignorant of history to try and ensnare others that are similarly ignorant.

But I've done that many times, and I'm tired of it.

 

As this thread comes along, people are actually posting dumber things, rather than smarter ones. Let's start reaching for a better premise, rather than a worse one, simply because the worse premise is a few inches closer. Look for one that can handle a little bit of weight. If you can't find one, maybe its because the whole tree is rotten and diseased, and its time to climb down.

 

State worship is a religion. Atheism is not. Though from my perspective there are an awful lot (a minority, but a sizeable one) of self claimed 'atheists' that I think are more aptly described as anti-theists who seem to hate the god they 'don't believe in' and/or want the state to be god.

This minority of 'atheists' I would argue are not atheists. One cannot hate a god that doesn't exist, nor can one not believe in a god that they are trying to create.

 

What is the line between the state just being an institution and the state being a "deity" in the sense that you describe these atheists as wanting it to be?

The distinction is important because although God and the state are both being described as gods here, their existence would function under different rules. God is God because he's god. He's all-powerful, omnipotent, and eternal because he is. His authority is a direct result of that and has no limits. It is not bound by anything human beings do.

On the other hand, the state only has the power given to it by the laws under which it operates. It has authority but is not a God, and even it's authority is limited. It is not omnipotent nor eternal. It also does not require any belief that it exists.

One can hate the version of a God or gods that have been created by human beings just like one can hate a character in a TV show or a book.

 

China is a good example of what I would consider 'state as god'.

No one ever chastized me for enjoying a movie or book that had a character in it that they hated... I don't think thats quite the same.

 

This is one of those posts, where if I concentrate on the one or two minor points on which I disagree, so we end up losing sight of the majority of your post with which I heartily agree. I like the term 'anti-theist' because is an apt way to distinguish between the majority of atheists who do not believe in God, but don't much care if others do, and a subset of atheists who also do not believe, and who think belief in God is inevitably destructive to the larger culture and should be opposed. But its not quite perfect. We have not yet coined a term for those who don't care much if others believe in God, but can't stand organized religions as an expression of that belief, which is where most of these anti-theists get their passion and ammunition from.

Anti-theists will do for now, and they can be as annoying and arrogant as anti-atheistic theists can be.

I am going to follow this discussion on State worship. to see where it leads or my questions will be redundant.

 

Yes lot of ignorance going around these days.

“Germany is our public enemy number one. It is our object to declare war without mercy against her. It is our task to organise the moral and cultural blockade of Germany and disperse this nation. It is up to us to start a merciless war.” – Bernard Lecache, President of the World Jewish League


- An extract from The Forrestal Diaries, in which the US Secretary of State William Forrestal quotes British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as complaining that “the world Jews” have forced England into the war.

Hitlers powers were conferred by the Riechstag and due process of law. The enabling act. If hitler was in fact a dictator is was by grant from the government and had a sunset clause.

Same **** we do in the US with the War powers act.

There are written orders for the mass killing of German civilians and German POWs from Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin but not Hitler.
For example:

“I do not want suggestions as to how we can disable the economy and the machinery of war, what I want are suggestions as to how we can roast the German refugees on their escape from Breslau.” Winston Churchill

Which is exactly what they did with Dresden