90-200 million dead.

[Animavore]

If we tally up all the serial killers inspired by Satan we might be up to about, at best, a few thousand.

That settles it. Atheism is out.

HAIL LUCIFER!!!

If we tally up the amount of kills in the Bible attributed to God vs Satan we see God wins over a thousand fold. God > Satan

[Seth]

Has anyone ever killed anyone else in the name of atheism?

Yes. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot among other socialists and communists.

People kill others on a grand scale because of dogma, be that religiously, socially, or politically inspired. You can add atheism into your political or social ideal, if you choose to disavow existing religions, but it does not make atheism the cause of whatever atrocity you choose to commit to achieve your new world order.

It doesn't matter whether atheism is the "cause", all that matters is that the facts of history prove that atheists are more likely to kill people in great numbers than people of religion. Atheists are untrustworthy in that regard because nothing but their own sense of morals and ethics constrains them. Margaret Sanger, by way of example, was an atheist, a socialist, a radical, a racist and an eugenicist who advocated forced sterilization of "inferior" peoples, including blacks. That's why Planned Parenthood, which she founded, puts most of its abortion facilities in minority neighborhoods and why PP provides most of its abortions to blacks and other minorities as it carries on Sanger's sub-rosa eugenics program even today.

Does it matter that she didn't "kill anyone else in the name of atheism?" Nope. It just matters that because she was an atheist, she had (unlike her devoutly Catholic mother) no moral compass or respect for the sanctity of human life.

Plenty of other atheists have the same moral defect. This is not to say that all atheists are amoral scumbags, just many of them, and some of those have perpetrated the worst mass murders in history.

Are you really going to go down that "no moral compass" road? I mean, seriously!
The idea of blacks being inferior is not an 'atheist' thing. Plenty of Christians supported eugenics leading to World War II and a few churches in Europe still have the Great Chain of Being painted on their columns which show God at the top followed by archangels, then angels, white man above white woman and below them people of colour followed by birds, land animals, fish and insects. And let us not forget the KKK and their Hamite view on human divergence.

Anyway. All this tit-for-tat arguing over who done what (remember the Way Back Fallacy?) does nothing for any arguments for or against theism/atheism. Being an evil scumbag is not confined to any religious groups, cultures, races, sexes or social classes. It doesn't prove shit to point at anything any group has done.

Thanks for remembering the Wayback Machine Fallacy, a term I coined. And you're quite right, the truth is there are evil scumbags everwhere, and there are good, honest, moral, ethical, loving, altruistic, charitable, caring people everywhere. And there are more of them than there are scumbags. My use of hyperbole was intended to point out the dishonesty of blaming all of any group for the actions of a few who may, coincidentally, claim membership with that group. Take Catholic priests for example. Of the 400,000 or so priests worldwide, only about 4,000 have had any sustained charges of child abuse against them, but it's commonplace for Atheists to insult all Catholics (priests and laypersons alike) and tar the entire one billion Catholics with the same brush. That's intellectually dishonest, morally bankrupt and ethically repulsive.

Interestingly, studies indicate that people of religion tend to be more charitable than atheists. Hm.

[Animavore]

Has anyone ever killed anyone else in the name of atheism?

Yes. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot among other socialists and communists.

People kill others on a grand scale because of dogma, be that religiously, socially, or politically inspired. You can add atheism into your political or social ideal, if you choose to disavow existing religions, but it does not make atheism the cause of whatever atrocity you choose to commit to achieve your new world order.

It doesn't matter whether atheism is the "cause", all that matters is that the facts of history prove that atheists are more likely to kill people in great numbers than people of religion. Atheists are untrustworthy in that regard because nothing but their own sense of morals and ethics constrains them. Margaret Sanger, by way of example, was an atheist, a socialist, a radical, a racist and an eugenicist who advocated forced sterilization of "inferior" peoples, including blacks. That's why Planned Parenthood, which she founded, puts most of its abortion facilities in minority neighborhoods and why PP provides most of its abortions to blacks and other minorities as it carries on Sanger's sub-rosa eugenics program even today.

Does it matter that she didn't "kill anyone else in the name of atheism?" Nope. It just matters that because she was an atheist, she had (unlike her devoutly Catholic mother) no moral compass or respect for the sanctity of human life.

Plenty of other atheists have the same moral defect. This is not to say that all atheists are amoral scumbags, just many of them, and some of those have perpetrated the worst mass murders in history.

Are you really going to go down that "no moral compass" road? I mean, seriously!
The idea of blacks being inferior is not an 'atheist' thing. Plenty of Christians supported eugenics leading to World War II and a few churches in Europe still have the Great Chain of Being painted on their columns which show God at the top followed by archangels, then angels, white man above white woman and below them people of colour followed by birds, land animals, fish and insects. And let us not forget the KKK and their Hamite view on human divergence.

Anyway. All this tit-for-tat arguing over who done what (remember the Way Back Fallacy?) does nothing for any arguments for or against theism/atheism. Being an evil scumbag is not confined to any religious groups, cultures, races, sexes or social classes. It doesn't prove shit to point at anything any group has done.

Thanks for remembering the Wayback Machine Fallacy, a term I coined. And you're quite right, the truth is there are evil scumbags everwhere, and there are good, honest, moral, ethical, loving, altruistic, charitable, caring people everywhere. And there are more of them than there are scumbags. My use of hyperbole was intended to point out the dishonesty of blaming all of any group for the actions of a few who may, coincidentally, claim membership with that group. Take Catholic priests for example. Of the 400,000 or so priests worldwide, only about 4,000 have had any sustained charges of child abuse against them, but it's commonplace for Atheists to insult all Catholics (priests and laypersons alike) and tar the entire one billion Catholics with the same brush. That's intellectually dishonest, morally bankrupt and ethically repulsive.

Interestingly, studies indicate that people of religion tend to be more charitable than atheists. Hm.

I've read studies that say the opposite. I think it depends on country anyway. Not sure but there was something on RatSkep about it last week. I'll have a look around.

[Ian]

Interestingly, studies indicate that people of religion tend to be more charitable than atheists. Hm.

Citation? And while you're at it, would you care to define charity?

Studies also indicate that people of religion tend to be happier than atheists. I suspect another study would show that people who are drunk tend to be happier than people who are sober. The reasons would be the same.

[Audley Strange]

If we tally up all the serial killers inspired by Satan we might be up to about, at best, a few thousand.

That settles it. Atheism is out.

HAIL LUCIFER!!!

If we tally up the amount of kills in the Bible attributed to God vs Satan we see God wins over a thousand fold. God > Satan

That's my point. God like Stalin and umm Hilter is an insane ideologue. Old loosh just wants us to have some fruit, bask in the sun and occassionally convince someone to rape and murder a dozen or so women with a hammer. Horrible yes but hardly Dachau or the Gulags.

Dachau and the Gulags.... good name for a band.

[Animavore]

Interestingly, studies indicate that people of religion tend to be more charitable than atheists. Hm.

Citation? And while you're at it, would you care to define charity?

Studies also indicate that people of religion tend to be happier than atheists. I suspect another study would show that people who are drunk tend to be happier than people who are sober. The reasons would be the same.

Not sure what study that was. I did hear of one which said that regular church goers tend to be happier than atheists and theists who don't go to church rather than simply it being belief alone was sufficient for well-being.

[Animavore]

Ah yes. Here's the piece on religious people and charity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bri ... lp00000009

Churchgoers like to think of themselves as generous and cheerful givers, but for many the flesh appears to be weak when it comes to living up to their own standards for charitable giving.

A quarter of respondents in a new national study said they tithed 10 percent of their income to charity. But when their donations were checked against income figures, only 3 percent of the group gave more than 5 percent to charity.

The people most likely to misreport high levels of giving were those who said faith was very important to them and those who attend services more than weekly, according to a report by University of Notre Dame sociologists Christian Smith and Heather Price presented at the recent Association for the Sociology of Religion meeting in Denver.

The findings from the Science of Generosity Survey not only suggest the need to take a closer look at self-reported figures on tithing, but indicate the strong internal conflicts many religious individuals face when it comes to giving.

Continued on the article.

So it seems that rather than giving more to charity religious people, or at least those who claim religion is really important to them and go to church regularly, are more likely to misreport the amounts they give to charity.

[Seth]

Ah yes. Here's the piece on religious people and charity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bri ... lp00000009

Churchgoers like to think of themselves as generous and cheerful givers, but for many the flesh appears to be weak when it comes to living up to their own standards for charitable giving.

A quarter of respondents in a new national study said they tithed 10 percent of their income to charity. But when their donations were checked against income figures, only 3 percent of the group gave more than 5 percent to charity.

The people most likely to misreport high levels of giving were those who said faith was very important to them and those who attend services more than weekly, according to a report by University of Notre Dame sociologists Christian Smith and Heather Price presented at the recent Association for the Sociology of Religion meeting in Denver.

The findings from the Science of Generosity Survey not only suggest the need to take a closer look at self-reported figures on tithing, but indicate the strong internal conflicts many religious individuals face when it comes to giving.

Continued on the article.

So it seems that rather than giving more to charity religious people, or at least those who claim religion is really important to them and go to church regularly, are more likely to misreport the amounts they give to charity.

And yet they still give more to charity than Atheists do.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why respond to his bullshit?

[rasetsu]

Ah yes, the old, they weren't TrueAtheistsTM, but those Christians, them was TrueChristiansTM. Atheists have been gerrymandering around this one like a man with a hot coal in his drawers forever and a day.

We were discussing this at a recent book club (instead of discussing God Is Not Great, which was the assigned selection), and something occurred to me. In attempting to explain away the involvement of atheists, atheist regimes, and doctrines involving atheism, atheists are falling for the same bankrupt argument that creationists attempt to use in order to refute evolution. Typically, the creationist will dredge up some fakery, like the Lady Hope deathbed conversion story, or that Darwin may have been a racist. This is paradigmatic religious thinking, that the validity of a doctrine depends upon its originators authority. In the creationist mind, if you topple Darwin, you topple evolution. But it doesn't work that way. Any failing of Darwin, any evil of eugenicists, any racism founded on misconstruals of Darwin, these are not effective critiques of evolution, because a rational doctrine doesn't depend on the authority and virtue of its source. Its authority transcends human authority.

It occurred to me that atheists in their apologetic dance are doing the same thing in reverse. They are attempting to defend accusations of infidelity, immorality and outright evil that may have involved atheism. Atheists are treating these modern day horrors like a Darwin that cannot get dropped in the mud. As if. That's not how it works. If atheism is a rational doctrine or idea, it doesn't depend on the saintlihood of past atheists for its force and authority. It is its own authority, independent of what any specific atheists may have done in the past.

Of course, I'm not sure that will sell well to the Christian, but I think it's at least a core part of any realistic analysis of the issue, an analysis which in my opinion needs to progress beyond the "frantically sweeping the dirt under the rug" stage. If anything that makes you look guilty, and all too similar to the ways the religious protect themselves.

I've got other pieces of the puzzle, but I think this piece is necessary. And I'm tired of typing. For another day.

[Robert_S]

Great point rasetsu.

There is the more mundane Pascal's wager: Does belief in God reduce evil, increase it, or is it irrelevant. I think that's what we might be defending. The pragmatic truth value of atheism.


I hold the position that belief itself was at the root of the Communist massacres. Belief in the Great Leader, some economic theory is as bad or worse than belief in some sky daddy. But who senselessly ever killed a stranger over something they didn't believe in or something that they weren't trying to get others to believe that they believed?

[Rum]

As a species we have shown we are capable of really nasty disgusting and cruel things. I'm not sure it is worthwhile, helpful or even relevant what someone believed in or didn't as they massacred their fellow human beings. We seem supremely capable of finding ways to justify it, whatever we believe.

[Thinking Aloud]

It occurred to me that atheists in their apologetic dance are doing the same thing in reverse.

Show me where, in the doctrines of the Abrahamic religions (and many others), the followers of said god(s) are instructed by their deity (or its spokesperson) to go out and slay the unbelievers, or slay the believers of other gods, or slay the occupants of a particular stretch of land. It's not hard to do. Now show me where, in the doctrines of atheism, non-believers are instructed to go out and slay the believers, or slay people of other races due to their genetic differences.

When you can do that, you can argue that the "atheists ... are doing the same thing in reverse" and bring a parity to the ideas of "no true Atheist" versus "no true Christian".

[Robert_S]

As a species we have shown we are capable of really nasty disgusting and cruel things. I'm not sure it is worthwhile, helpful or even relevant what someone believed in or didn't as they massacred their fellow human beings. We seem supremely capable of finding ways to justify it, whatever we believe.

But just as guns make it easier to kill, do religions and other dogma make it easier to justify mass killing? If a society doesn't Truly Believe in anything, are they less likely to go on a murderous rampage?

[Thinking Aloud]

As a species we have shown we are capable of really nasty disgusting and cruel things. I'm not sure it is worthwhile, helpful or even relevant what someone believed in or didn't as they massacred their fellow human beings. We seem supremely capable of finding ways to justify it, whatever we believe.

But just as guns make it easier to kill, do religions and other dogma make it easier to justify mass killing? If a society doesn't Truly Believe in anything, are they less likely to go on a murderous rampage?

If you agree with the old adage about "for good people to do bad things it takes [dogma]" then yes. Whether it's used as justification, or the cause of the rampage in the first place will depend on the circumstances of each conflict.