The Evangelical Atheist

[phlogistician]

Thank you

That is my viewpoint also.

IMO, makes no difference if the person is a theist or an atheist, its the power that attracts.

Everyone wants to lead the next movement for saving humanity from itself.

Er SAM, that defeats the point you were trying to make about Stalin being an atheist. Motivation was political, not religious, whereas other atrocities have been committed by religious groups in the name of their religion.

 

[Turduckin]

Without consciously planning their lives out, this faith allows them to coast along, racking up sins, and then later in life when they're sitting around enjoying their pensions and waiting to die at a time when life isn't very challenging, they figure they'll repent, do a bunch of really good deeds like decorating the nursing home for Christmas, and they'll go to heaven alongside you who (regardless of my philosophical criticism of your faith) I'm sure live a life of enviable charity and selflessness.

This characterization is straw man BS. It's a complete distortion of mainstream christian theology, and completely antithetical to mainstram protestant as well as protestant evangelical doctrine. Anyone behaving in this way is not practicing christianity in accordance with said doctrine, any more than someone throwing out inconvenient data is practicing science.

 

[S.A.M.]

Er SAM, that defeats the point you were trying to make about Stalin being an atheist. Motivation was political, not religious, whereas other atrocities have been committed by religious groups in the name of their religion.

And what makes you think the theists motivation was not political? Or that Stalins persecution of the religious or his attempt to wipe out the unmodern unscientific dogma of religion was not due to his atheism?

Its the new boss, same as the old boss, but better able to mask his intentions. Or not. Depending on how you consider the targeting of theists to be especially different than the targeting of atheists or infidels.

 

[phlogistician]

And what makes you think the theists motivation was not political?

Oh dear, you are really so stubborn as to appear retarded Sam. You have been given many and various instances by Fraggle where organised religions have killed people.

Or that Stalins persecution of the religious or his attempt to wipe out the unmodern unscientific dogma of religion was not due to his atheism?

A minute ago you accepted it was political motivation, acquiring assets and disbanding the opposition, now you seem to have flip-flopped. Which end are you playing, Sam?

 

[S.A.M.]

Oh dear, you are really so stubborn as to appear retarded Sam. You have been given many and various instances by Fraggle where organised religions have killed people.

A minute ago you accepted it was political motivation, acquiring assets and disbanding the opposition, now you seem to have flip-flopped. Which end are you playing, Sam?

I'm saying there is no difference between the two, except that a handful of atheists have racheted up a tremendous casualty list.

 

[spidergoat]

Not due to atheism, though, unlike the many religiously inspired massacres.

 

[John99]

The problem here is that the Atheist cannot claim that all these Atheist (NO GOD) regimes who committed horrible atrocities had nothing to do with their being Atheist then point their fingers at religion and call these conflict religiously inspired.

Edit: on another forum i seen someone claiming a particular religion was bad because they pointed to two violent cases as their proof, two cases out of billions of people is proof?

 

[spidergoat]

These weren't just regimes with no concept of God. They also happened to be smokers, disbelievers in the flying spaghetti monster, and communists. It's completely irrelevent that their leader happened to not believe in God.

However, it is relevent when massacres of Jews were inspired by the Passion Plays, or massacres of women were inspired by the original sin of Eve, or the deaths of Muslims were inspired by the crusades.

 

[S.A.M.]

These weren't just regimes with no concept of God. They also happened to be smokers, disbelievers in the flying spaghetti monster, and communists. It's completely irrelevent that their leader happened to not believe in God.

However, it is relevent when massacres of Jews were inspired by the Passion Plays, or massacres of women were inspired by the original sin of Eve, or the deaths of Muslims were inspired by the crusades.

Then you have to accord the same to the destruction of churches, mosques etc and the torture and murder of religious people by irreligious people who wanted to wipe out religious belief.

 

[spidergoat]

Where did that ever happen where people were following the non-existent tenets of atheism and not some other ideology like communism, socialism, class-warfare, ethnicity, race, etc...?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I'm saying there is no difference between the two, except that a handful of atheists have racheted up a tremendous casualty list.

The largest casualty list in history (normalized to the population of the region reachable by available transportation technology) was compiled by Genghis Khan. He is presumed to have been born and raised as a shamanist, a faith that neither you monotheists nor we atheists have to claim as one of ours. Once he completed his bloody rise to power, he may have become interested in Buddhism and the Dao, just as we all adopt a nicer philosophy once we are done with the vile acts of our youth.

With that out of the way I continue to object to the way you measure evil, and to glibly insist that there is no important difference between the one-god faction and the zero-god faction except for the debatable thesis that atheism is responsible for a larger mountain of human corpses.

Even accepting that thesis for the sake of the argument, we must still face the fact that all human lives are ultimately finite and that sooner or later almost every one of us will be unmourned. The whole point of civilization is that it is an organism unto itself that transcends the lives of the mortals who build and maintain it. The immortality we seek is not in some imaginary afterlife, but in our civilization. Civilization is qualitatively more important and more valuable than we are.

Civilizations are rare and irreplaceable. To destroy a civilization is qualitatively worse than murdering almost any number of people. To destroy three civilizations--half of the six we managed to create--as the Children of Abraham have done, is the greatest evil that has ever been performed.

I cannot hold every individual Abrahamist responsible for this, since most people of any stripe are not that familiar with world history. But I can and will forever hold it up as the ultimate rejection of any educated Abrahamist with the temerity to argue that his religion has, on the balance, been a force for good in the world. The evil of Abrahamism is, at least so far, unmatchable.

 

[S.A.M.]

The evil of Abrahamism is, at least so far, unmatchable.

Perhaps we have different criteria for evil.

The way I see it, even Genghis Khan went on to establish a society that was both admired and emulated.

While, if you add up the religious and political persecution of all the known atheists in positions of power, not one could create a society until they acceded to the peoples desire for religious freedom, and even then only societies that others like them would choose to emulate. In the meantime, their toll on those societies was unbelievable.

Look it up if you don't believe me.

 

[Turduckin]

If there have been six civilizations and Abrahamists have destroyed three, then we'd better get going on the soil erosion problem... between it and the Abrahamists, we don't stand a chance.

Soil Erosion Destroys Civilizations

 

[iceaura]

Its the new boss, same as the old boss, but better able to mask his intentions.
- - -
While, if you add up the religious and political persecution of all the known atheists in positions of power, not one could create a society until they acceded to the peoples desire for religious freedom, and even then only societies that others like them would choose to emulate. In the meantime, their toll on those societies was unbelievable.

Yet another evidence of the validity of some of the more severe accusations laid against institutionalized theistic belief. Did you notice ?

It's the bossed, same as the other bossed, that is at issue.

No argument based on the personal beliefs of people who have gained power has anything to do with the majority of the problems of theistic religion as identified by evangelical atheists of various kinds. The "evangelical atheist" (meaning any that publically criticise theistic religion in any terms or manner) does not much care whether the Pope who set the Spanish Inquisition in motion was sincerely theistic or not.

You have seen posts going through some major horrors of recent times, and been pointed to their theistic religious context. I have pointed out that atheists are found even in the hierarchies of established theistic religions - that does not change their effects, or answer the accusations of the "evangelical atheists".

Mindreading mass murderers misses the point.

 

[phlogistician]

The problem here is that the Atheist cannot claim that all these Atheist (NO GOD) regimes who committed horrible atrocities had nothing to do with their being Atheist then point their fingers at religion and call these conflict religiously inspired.

Dude, Crusades? Holy wars? Jihad? Catholic vs Protestant? Muslim vs Christian? Have you read the Old Testament? God himself commanded people to go to war ffs!

 

[phlogistician]

I'm saying there is no difference between the two, except that a handful of atheists have racheted up a tremendous casualty list.

No difference? Those that were involved in the Spanish Inquisition just happened to all be Catholic, did they? Are you trying to say it was a political group?

Atheists may have committed atrocities, but they were not inspired to do so by their atheism. There is no credo, no gospel, nothing to inspire you in atheism, so please explain just how you think that could happen.

Religion does entice people to kill, however. The God of the OT commanded people to go to war, you cannot deny that.

 

[Turduckin]

Dude, Crusades? Holy wars? Jihad? Catholic vs Protestant? Muslim vs Christian? Have you read the Old Testament? God himself commanded people to go to war ffs!

Barara Tuchman held that the purpose for the Crusades was to drain the mercenaries out of Europe during breaks in the 100 years war, so France could build up resources for the next round. The mercs, roaming France in a wave of extortion between campaigns, didn't care who they fought as long as they got paid. France lobbied, cajoled, threatened, etc the Vatican hard to part with the funds, which they eventually did. Politics and the will to mainain power, had everything to do with the Crusades, and that the finest thoughts and ideals of Christianity were (and ever will) be subverted by that will.

To the point of the OP, athiest are not immune from the desire to crusade any more than theists are, and all the finger pointing and body counting doesn't change that. There is something more fundamental going on here, because ideas don't kill people. People kill people.

 

[iceaura]

To the point of the OP, athiest are not immune from the desire to crusade any more than theists are, and all the finger pointing and body counting doesn't change that. There is something more fundamental going on here, because ideas don't kill people. People kill people.

People don't very often kill people by Crusading.

I don't think there is any natural desire to Crusade that anyone would need immunity to avoid feeling. It's one thing to want to gang up and do shit, it's another thing entirely to organize into an army and set out on a thousand mile rampage. The sense of mission required for that isn't just lying around in the back of the mind on a nice summer afternoon.

Maybe if we dropped the "killing people" subject, and picked something that people don't want to deny, for starters. How about barn-raising, Amish style ? The situation is: every so often the local Amish community gets together and builds a barn, which then belongs to just one guy - the community has no more control over it, and he treats it as his own personal possession, without his having paid or recompensed anyone involved.

My claim is that religion has something to do with that custom - that with a different religion, or none, that custom would not exist. As evidence I point to the rarity of that custom among even very similar people, only without the religion. That you can't explain that kind of organized community behavior by appealing to individual human nature. (The religion involved is theistic. )

 

[S.A.M.]

Yet another evidence of the validity of some of the more severe accusations laid against institutionalized theistic belief. Did you notice ?

It's the bossed, same as the other bossed, that is at issue.

No argument based on the personal beliefs of people who have gained power has anything to do with the majority of the problems of theistic religion as identified by evangelical atheists of various kinds. The "evangelical atheist" (meaning any that publically criticise theistic religion in any terms or manner) does not much care whether the Pope who set the Spanish Inquisition in motion was sincerely theistic or not.

You have seen posts going through some major horrors of recent times, and been pointed to their theistic religious context. I have pointed out that atheists are found even in the hierarchies of established theistic religions - that does not change their effects, or answer the accusations of the "evangelical atheists".

Mindreading mass murderers misses the point.

So clearly the absence of long term survival of any atheistic society to the same extent as theistic societies shows that they are incompatible with social health and human endeavor. Like the appendix, one is only aware of their existence when they get inflamed.

 

[spidergoat]

Buddhist societies are atheistic. The long-term survival of Tibet, for instance, was threatened by their essentially peaceful nature. An Islamic-style guerilla war would have been easy in the mountains of Tibet. Instead, it's a part of China now.