The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

[joe]

I think this is the wrong connection to be making.

The big connection is between strong, central governments and mass murder.

And while people play the democrat Vs. republican game, the US federal government has made it legal to assassinate or kidnap us if it suspects us of being terrorists. The president is starting offensive wars on his own will, and thousands of new laws are being added every year. Our economy is overregulated by unchecked bureaucrats, and our money is being printed to the point of worthlessness.

The mainstream media ignores these issues. The people largely ignore them. Every presidential candidate but one is on the same page when it comes to these issues. I won't get into that, but you bitches know how I feel.

[sawyersauce]

These are all unusual outliers. Every example cited in the OP was either an active revolution or a totalitarian regime. They were all subject to unique socio-political circumstances, or extreme eliminationist ideology. There have been millions of atheists who were normal decent human beings. Picking a bunch of extreme political regimes that committed horrific crimes and trying to pass that off as an accurate representation of all of atheism is ridiculously reductive.

And none of these crimes were carried out 'in the name of atheism'. Atheism was not a motive. There were either distinct ideologies divorced from atheism or clear political motivations (such as consolidating power) at work. Can you say the same for the Crusades or the Inquisition?

Yes agreed. But what I'm saying is being religious seems to lead to a certain cut-off point in terms of mass moral depravity, whereas having no religion seems to have no cut off point in terms of morally disgusting acts that humans will commit.

Tell that to the children who were systemically raped by Catholic Priests.

It was the very fact that those Priests were assumed to be pious morally sound men that allowed them to avoid scrutiny and get away with their crimes for so long. It

[joe]

I don't get why people are so against being able to assassinate terrorists. Once they start assassinating people for political gain is when you should get worried. Democracy doesn't exist because of written laws. It exists because people uphold and believe in it. Killing terrorists doesn't change that lol

Because, who defines what a terrorist is? How do we know someone is guilty, once accused? That's what the courts are for. If we give the state the power to assassinate American citizens they "suspect" of being terrorists, all Americans are at risk. Especially with the dubious definition of terrorism that has been established here.

Think about it as rapists instead of terrorists. Imagine it was legal for the government to assassinate anyone they suspected of being a rapist. And, they could legally kidnap suspected rapists and lock them in secret military prisons. No trial, no innocent until proven guilty, nothing.

Now, anyone is at risk of being killed or tortured or locked in Guantanemo Bay, whether they're guilty or not. If some higher up in the Presidents cabinet doesn't like you for whatever reason.. your life is over. Do you see how that's alarming?

And you have to think in terms of the future. Right now, it seems impossible that our government would do anything like that. But what if terrorists attack the US again? What if the economy starts to really stumble and go into the dumps? What if occupy wall street becomes less peaceful? And now, imagine if someone like Rick Santorum is president at the time. Or, some political, lying sociopath that we've yet to be introduced to? These powers are now on the books for these people. It's not like the powers fade away when Obama leaves office.

[Milton]

Most of those examples are flawed Nazi Germany for example emphasized its Christianity. Also i would argue that all the communist examples did not abandon religion just switched there god from god to the government or state. A better way to look at this is big powerful central governments lead to mass murder.

[Jackass18]

How about we blame the people and not their religious affiliation? There's plenty of examples of religious people doing dispicable things (just look at serial killers). Some people just had the means to kill on a grander scale. How many people did Hussein kill and torture?

[RidonKs]

The Catholic Franks under Charlemagne butchered their fare share of Saxons and other infidels under the guise of doing it for The Laws.

All mass murder in the ancient world could be argued to be theocratic genocide because of how intertwined religion was in every day life, warfare, and government.

The modern genocides you list were made possible by technological advances.

this sums it up nicely. terrible thread.

[GilZero]

Sweden is THE LEAST religious country in the world as of today. Also one of the best rated economies (better than the US, though smaller of course), and most peaceful country in modern times, stayed out of every major war.

Religion is for the weak minded.

[dunksby]

I think it's time we elevated Nick Young to Godzuki/Bladers status.

[QUIZZLE]

I don't get why Nick Young creates threads that I don't he genuinely gives a shit about. He just does it to start controversy and get big views. No one cares about your threads Nicholaus.

[Nanners]

I think it's time we elevated Nick Young to Godzuki/Bladers status.

its kind of cute how every week nick young posts a thread on the newest world ending revelation he had during his women studies class at community college. the thread on feminism from last week was actually fvcking hilariously stupid. he is pretty damn similar to bladers in a lot of ways, the black and white worldview being one example. i dunno if he needs to be elevated, i think nick young has already achieved bladers status of lifetime troll.

[Nick Young]

It can absolutely not be argued that Nazism rejected religion. Absolutely not. Revisionist history.


That leaves communism exclusively then. And pretty much only Stalin's Russia and a few marginal countries. (Because the horrors committed in Mao's China are actually quite overstated and subject to much negative propaganda here in the west)

Some trend you got there! Yeah, the Stalinistic communism is bad, you are really dropping intellectual gemstones here! Let's conveniently forget that Russia is at least 85% religious and at the time probably an even higher percentage. Let's forget almost all of the government officials of communist Russia were raised on Christian ideals and values. And above all let's forget that 99.99% of Russia's population under the Trarist Theocratic rule basically lived in horrible slavery for centuries. Very convenient indeed.

"Marginal countries"

Pol Pot in 3 years killing 10 times the amount of people killed in the European witchhunts over 200 years. How is that marginal?

[Nick Young]

The OP tries to show a correlation between "the rejection of god and religion" and "depraved acts of mass murder", using Nazi Germany as an example.

There was nothing non-religious or rejecting of god in Nazism, in fact Nazi's embraced religion and vice versa.



Never did I post that Nazi's did their thing because they were Christians (although you could certainly make a convincing case it was an important prerequisite). Read the premise of the thread boyo.

Stop going off on tangents and arguing sub-points in order to distract from the original thesis.

Jesus christ this always happens on here, people are confronted with an inconvenient truth they do not want to accept or deal with, so to make themselves feel better they go off on some random tangent and begin arguing a minor detail in order to avoid discussing the big picture.

[Nick Young]

[QUOTE=sawyersauce]These are all unusual outliers. Every example cited in the OP was either an active revolution or a totalitarian regime. They were all subject to unique socio-political circumstances, or extreme eliminationist ideology. There have been millions of atheists who were normal decent human beings. Picking a bunch of extreme political regimes that committed horrific crimes and trying to pass that off as an accurate representation of all of atheism is ridiculously reductive.

And none of these crimes were carried out 'in the name of atheism'. Atheism was not a motive. There were either distinct ideologies divorced from atheism or clear political motivations (such as consolidating power) at work. Can you say the same for the Crusades or the Inquisition?



Tell that to the children who were systemically raped by Catholic Priests.

It was the very fact that those Priests were assumed to be pious morally sound men that allowed them to avoid scrutiny and get away with their crimes for so long. [B]It

[lakers_forever]

It can absolutely not be argued that Nazism rejected religion. Absolutely not. Revisionist history.

Hitler had quotes praising God and Christianity, but also had quotes like these:

National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things.

Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State

The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease.

[Nick Young]

Religion is for the weak minded.

Rejecting religion is for the weak minded. People have evolved to have a god instinct for a reason. Why are you consciously trying to fight your natural instincts? Because Bill Maher told you atheists are cool and you are a mindless sheep?