Atheism is responsible for more crimes in history than all religions

Then the Catholic Church didn't start the Inquisition in the name of Christianity, they did it for political reasons as well. The Catholic priests of the era were making money by having people pay to have their sins forgiven by them, and when the Protestant Reformation started, Protestants started telling people that they didn't need the clergy to have their sins forgiven - so this was a threat to their monetary racket and political power, however militant atheists in their ignorance often try to attribute the Inquisition solely to "Christianity - even though there were political and material motives involved as well.

You can't have it both ways, if North Korea executing Christians because of their religion isn't "killing in the name of atheism", then the Spanish Inquisition wasn't "killing in the name of Catholicism".

 

Jim Jones was a Communist and an atheist.

 

Killing everyone but virgins wasn't a "bad thing" in the culture of the time, it was the morality of the day and age. Obviously the authors of the OT weren't able to see beyond the morals of their day, even if 1000s of years later, it would be considered barbaric.

You're like the idiots who say that the Founding Fathers were "evil" because some of them kept slaves and didn't support women's right to vote, but again you're not looking at things from a historical perspective, just from a black/white "KILLING IS EVIL!" type of perspective.

If you wanted to make a case against the Hebrews, you'd have to show how they were vastly more barbaric than the other ancient tribes that existed in their time and place.

And in all honesty, many of the acts of the Hebrew armies were for their day and age not as brutal as atheists claim they are - for example, when the Hebrew armies killed the babies of their defeated foes, the only alternative would likely have been to let the babies lie and rot or get eaten by animals - so this was in fact the more merciful choice. As was taking the virgin girls in - if it was a choice between killing them, leaving them there to die with no one to sustain them, or taking them in as concubines/wives, then the latter would be the more merciful option of the day and age.

 

Then "Christian" probably doesn't have much meaning to her, it's just trendy for her to identify as one.

 

They do, the works of Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, etc are the "unwritten" Bibles of atheism.

Atheism, or at least the "atheist movement" is a religion/cult in everything but name.

 

Said doctrine is unofficial, but does exist despite atheist denial that it does. Atheists who follow people like Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens, etc effectively treat them like their "high priests", and their works (ex. The God Delusion, God is Not Great, etc) as "religious texts". But when confronted on it they play dumb about this and try to pretend it's just a "lack of belief" with no organized or institutionalized beliefs and practices.

The are a religion which tries to deny they are a religion in order to slip under the radar.

 

So then you are a moral relativist and don't believe that there is an objective moral standard?

 

Bizarre ideology even for a supernaturalist.

 

Or they could have let the kids' mothers live to take care of them. Anyway, I'm not saying the armies were evil. I'm saying what they did was an evil act. Similarly, slavery is an evil act, but that doesn't necessarily make the founding fathers evil. I can separate an act from the actor and decry one without reviling the other. And the point wasn't about whether the soldiers were evil. It was about god commanding them to do it, and the fact that some people (apparently yourself included) can't bring themselves to question these parts of their faith. God supposedly commanded the killing of children who posed absolutely no risk of any kind to anyone. That's evil. There is no situation in which that is not an evil act.

 

That's a fair argument to consider. Still, it's religious thinking that permits people to ignore their better judgment and good sense, and murder their fellow humans for some ideology. It's simply monstrous that the Catholic church engaged in such practices - and did so repeatedly and frequently!

 

This is laughable.

What about the atheists and agnostics who have never read the work of the Four Horsemen?

Where in your imagined "atheist doctrine" does it call for the acts of the Soviet Union? Please provide the page numbers or refrain from posting again on this subject.

 

Morality is the ability to discern right from wrong. Atheists in this thread seem to be defending their morality. Is there some sort of global Atheist moral code?

 

No. There's no global theist moral code either but that doesn't make all theists immoral?

 

This is the reason atheists are called arrogant. Because its hard to respond to such ignorance over and over again before you eventually have to just say it like it is.

When you say "follow" people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens what do you mean? I understand being religious following is such a natural thing for you that you might have a hard time understanding the difference between it and say learing from others without allegiance but I just want to be clear.

In your mind if I choose medical science over religion when it comes to getting sick or injured does that mean medical science is my religion?

If I choose to learn from people who know more than I do on a particular subject does that make them my "high priests" because if so it gives a whole knew meaning to every school on the planet.

How far did you take this line of reasoning before you thought it actually had validity? I understand that you NEED for atheism to be a religion, I understand that you want to be able to use the same arguements we use because they are so much better than yours but you can't.

Its not that difficult to understand and that is what makes us get frustrated.

Hot and cold

Day and night

Wet and dry

Atheism and theism

Opposites.

The arguement, even if somehow was made to at least sound valid would mean all the same things you hate about us would now belong to religion...

 

Our history is full of atroscities done in the name of religon or God. I think it depends on whose God you worship, Christian, Muslim, Budda, money, drugs and the list goes on.

 

And what about people like me who don't follow Dawkins, Hitchens "etc"? I read their books, found them interesting but disagreed with them on several things, and I actually dislike them on a personal level. What part of the "atheist doctrine" does this atheist follow?

 

Just when I start to think that the superstitious can't possibly get any sillier, one of you makes a post like this and proves me wrong.

 

I'm struggling to find a time when anyone ever went out to literally strike a blow for Atheism.

 

There is no global atheist moral code. Atheism does not come with a moral code, you have to find one elsewhere. However, it's not that hard to find. Most modern atheists use a humanist morality, in the past, some have adopted a morality based on communism and some I guess go without one at all or an inadequate one.

Of course, equating the morality of those with different bases with each other is as least as faulty as equating all Christians' morality with that of the Westboro Baptist Church.

 

They wouldn't fall into the "Atheist Movement" then - just like there are many people who believe in God or a God, but have never actually read the Bible.

The "Atheist Community" or "New Atheist Movement" is a defacto religion.

Josef Stalin had people executed for being religious, therefore atheism was a motivator for his crimes.

 

Yup, just like not collecting stamps is a defacto hobby.

 

Unless you're using the word metaphorically, (which I assume you're not since you use the term 'de facto') religion is "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power". To think that the atheist community (no caps required, it isnt an actual organisation as far as I'm aware) is a religion you'd have to think that we believe in a superhuman power that controls everything, and you'd have to think that we worship that power, in a religious sense rather than just in the sense of a Justin Beiber fan worshipping a crap musician. Go on, have a bash at showing us those two things. Should be interesting to see.

 

I couldn't have said this better myself!!!!!

 

Spending one's free time protesting against stamp collecting is a hobby - a lame one sure, but so is being an anti-religion religious activist.

 

I agree. However, atheism is equivalent to not collecting stamps in the analogy, whereas being an anti-religious activist is equivalent to protesting against stamp collecting.

You'd have a hard time finding someone who argues against collecting stamps and who at the same time collects stamps, but that doesn't mean that collecting stamps and arguing against stamp collecting are the same thing. Therefore, many atheists also fall into the group of people who attack religion, but that doesn't mean the groups are one group.

Remember that the lion share of atheists are not attacking religion on the internet, do not protest art and maybe do not even tell their friends and family they're atheists. However, those atheists are invisible and while they are atheists, they have no connection to religion bashing.

I agree that religious people have all the right to attack the attacks on their religions, but assuming that atheism is the one common denominator is like attacking people with moustaches for being Hitler and Stalin.