90-200 million dead.

[SteveB]

Explains why I've killed so many people.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Nearly every body I killed was on orders from a christian.

[Seth]

Yeah, religious zealotry is a bad thing, whether it's seen in theists or Atheists. Still, all of Islam throughout history are pikers compared to Atheists Stalin and Mao.

You miss the point. I'm an atheist - do you think I'm a potential Stalin?

Hitler called himself a Christian - do you think anyone here blames Christianity for Naziism?

Not all atheists are potential Stalins, but all potential Stalins are atheists.

[Ian]

And all potential Hitlers are Christian.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And all potential Hitlers are Christian.

Killing "in the name of atheism" makes as much sense as "drowning in the name of water."

[Ian]

What Seth doesn't realize (and is probably incapable of realizing) is that the word atheism shouldn't even exist. There is no "ism" to follow. It's just another religion or ideology as much as "off" is just another TV channel.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What Seth doesn't realize (and is probably incapable of realizing) is that the word atheism shouldn't even exist. There is no "ism" to follow. It's just another religion or ideology as much as "off" is just another TV channel.

*Seth's reply. Off the track and oblivious as usual.*

[JimC]

What Seth doesn't realize (and is probably incapable of realizing) is that the word atheism shouldn't even exist. There is no "ism" to follow. It's just another religion or ideology as much as "off" is just another TV channel.

However, to be fair, there are strands of modern atheistic thought which want it to be a movement, an "ism", and even some of the writings of Dawkins et al can take on a very intolerant tone...

[Svartalf]

What Seth doesn't realize (and is probably incapable of realizing) is that the word atheism shouldn't even exist. There is no "ism" to follow. It's just another religion or ideology as much as "off" is just another TV channel.

I' don't follow atheism, ideologists follow me to tell what atheism is from my sayings.
Every atheist about christian persecutors.

[rasetsu]

"If anyone does not remain joined to me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and dries up. Branches like those are picked up. They are thrown into the fire and burned."

Jesus Christ


....oooh, can ya feel the love?

He's just telling you what his Father will do if you don't "remain joined" with him. It's a warning, not a threat.

It's like saying "Hey, don't jump into that thermal pool or you'll get burnt," or "Hey, don't step off that ledge or you'll fall to your death."

Do you know where the idea of sending people to hell to burn in eternal torment comes from? It's not in the Old Testament. The doctrine of hell is from Christianity. The Jews didn't believe in hell as such. It took the loving Christian God to decide, "Hrm, why not, instead of simply letting mortals die, I roast the bad ones for all eternity in a pit of fire? Yes, I'll do that instead." I can see how you consider that a loving God.

But you know what's amazing, Seth? Here you are, without the slightest bit of humility, claiming to know the mind of God, and what he meant in making that statement about twigs and fire. On the other hand, there are those who are equally as humble who would find that statement supportive of violence against nonbelievers (and by humble, I mean, "believing themselves to be the arbiters of God's truth"). So in the very same breath, you're committing the arrogant act of claiming to speak for God, and trying to convince us that people who do that in support of violence are misappropriating God, and it's them and not their religion which is at fault. You've just yourself demonstrated exactly why and how Christianity becomes a force for evil in the world: if one can argue it means peace when the argument calls for it, it can also mean war when the argument calls for it — and both claim the authority of God. If the bible and its interpreters aren't claiming the authority of God, then what is a bible anyway? If the bible isn't the word of God, Christianity as such ceases to exist. If it is the word of God, its interpreters, which include yourself, claim to speak for God, and claim his Authority.

Is the passage ambiguous? Yes. Can it be argued that it doesn't support violence, sure. The problem is that there are hundreds of pages of ambiguous moral commands, many of which have straight forward readings supporting violence. (Recall that Jesus said both that he is not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, and that until all is done, not one jot nor tittle of the law shall be removed. And the Old Testament contains plenty of support for violence.) And of course, Jesus came not to bring peace, but a sword. (And of course, since God is omniscient, it's futile to claim that men are responsible for misinterpretations; God knew these misinterpretations would be made and left them in the bible anyway. If some Priest or Bishop claims God supports war based on some passage, then he is justified in believing he has God's sanction, because that's the rules of the game: God --> Bible --> holy man.)

Do you know how many such ambiguous commands from the God of atheism are in the Holy Bible of atheism? (You know, the one Pol Pot and Stalin were reading.)

Better yet, since you're the one claiming that atheism supports violence in the same way that Christianity does, why don't you supply me with some juicy quotes from the sacred texts of atheism that can equally be used to support violence. Something that a large proportion of atheists consider to be the divine and authoritative word for all atheists. (You'll have to excuse me, I seem to have misplaced my copy of the Bible of atheism.)


"It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster."
Voltaire

[rasetsu]

And as long as I'm here, I'll weigh in on the body count vis a vis God versus Satan. In a nutshell, biblically, Satan is an incredibly minor character. In the Old Testament, Satan didn't have any of the attributes we now assign to him.1 It took Christianity and the New Testament to create that myth. And even then, much of the mythology of Satan is extra-biblical. Satan didn't kill many people in the bible for the very simple reason that his role was nothing more than a bit part.



1The first intimations of the current Satan we now have are, I believe, in Maccabees, which again is extra-biblical.

[Robert_S]

"If anyone does not remain joined to me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and dries up. Branches like those are picked up. They are thrown into the fire and burned."

Jesus Christ


....oooh, can ya feel the love?

He's just telling you what his Father will do if you don't "remain joined" with him. It's a warning, not a threat.

It's like saying "Hey, don't jump into that thermal pool or you'll get burnt," or "Hey, don't step off that ledge or you'll fall to your death."

This is nice me. If you don't give me regular payments for protection, you never know what angry me might do. Just a warning, not a threat.

Either Christians are monotheists or Father and Son and different people and Jesus is not part of the Trinity which is God.

Or it's just some shit some priests made up to extort the gullible.

[Seth]

What Seth doesn't realize (and is probably incapable of realizing) is that the word atheism shouldn't even exist. There is no "ism" to follow. It's just another religion or ideology as much as "off" is just another TV channel.

I know you like to think that, but as several other threads, along with a body of atheist dogma prove, it's not the case. Atheists have turned a-theism into just another religion. They've made the lack of faith in god into an active denial of the existence of god and an active hatred of theists as the central tenets of their belief system and have built an entire religious order around it. Many such orders in fact.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Bullshit.

[Ian]

Seth, you really don't know what you're talking about.

Or, as Zilla put it: Bullshit.