Saudi man executed for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

[Rick]

If not Hiltler at least his right hand man was into the occult.

Stalin was into Vodka...

[Crackpot]

What you mean like pol-pot?

[Rick]

Not all witches are killed by Christians or any other religious affliation

Don't know this fella but it aids in the refutation so why not

[MajGenl.Meade]

As has been correctly pointed out a number of times, there were many more people slaughtered by those claiming to be Atheists in the 20th Century, than were slaughtered by those claiming to be Christians in the previous 19 centuries combined....

I'm going to assume that you're talking about Hitler and Stalin Jim. Can you provide a shred of evidence to show that they did what they did in the name of Atheism? If not, there is no basis for comparison.

What has "in the name of" got to do with it? Mind you, the eradication of the church and the creation of an atheist system of Soviets was a stated goal of Leninism and whether or not Stalin truly acted "in the name of Atheism" his policy was a continuation of the plan. Besides, 'unbelievers and pagans' are not restricted to atheists.

Fact is, anti/non Christians and other pagans have killed, tortured, genocided (ooh!) and maimed a bazillion more people than have those who claimed to be Christians. So the constantly (stupid) refrain that "Christians" have for 2,000 years done X is a rather banal observation that some sections of humanity have throughout history acted no better than other sections.

If the point is that perfect Christians would never had done things so inconsistent with the teachings of Christ, well that's true enough. But of course we'd also have to agree that there are (and can be) no perfect Christians, all of whom are as much sinners as the ROW.

To infer that "all" Christians have done X for 2,000 years is as illegitimate as it would be to say that atheists have been killing millions since the dawn of time - long predating the Christian church - and inferring by that "all" atheists.

Really it's a stupid game that rubato plays from time to time and it's actually quite mentally bankrupt

Meade

[Gob]

What has "in the name of" got to do with it?

Errrr... Everything?


You see lumping together everyone who has committed an act of war or killed others, for whatever reason, is disingenuous at best, facile at worse. To try to argue that religion is not a main cause of organized conflict, war, slaughter, genocide, as "lots of other people have started wars etc for non-religious reasons," and then to try to lump these disparate unrelated groups together as a counter balance to the vast organised historical mass of religious slaughter does not bear up to scrutiny.

[Scooter]

As has been correctly pointed out a number of times, there were many more people slaughtered by those claiming to be Atheists in the 20th Century, than were slaughtered by those claiming to be Christians in the previous 19 centuries combined....

I'm going to assume that you're talking about Hitler and Stalin Jim. Can you provide a shred of evidence to show that they did what they did in the name of Atheism? If not, there is no basis for comparison.

Even if the comparison were valid, the difference in magnitude is nothing but a function of technology. The Thirty Years' War, to name just one fraternicidal conflict between Christians slaughtering each other in the name of their version of Christianity, managed with the rudimentary weapons of the time to wipe out up to 40% of the German population alone. Had it taken place in the post-WWII period with the same level of barbaric ferocity, combatants would have thought nothing of using nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that would have reduced the whole of Europe to an uninhabited wasteland.

[MajGenl.Meade]

To try to argue that religion is not a main cause of organized conflict, war, slaughter, genocide

I'm sorry - did someone do that somewhere? Or is that the same thing as this.....

If the point is that perfect Christians would never had [have] done things so inconsistent with the teachings of Christ, well that's true enough . . . To infer that "all" Christians have done X for 2,000 years is as illegitimate as it would be to say that atheists have been killing millions since the dawn of time - long predating the Christian church - and inferring by that "all" atheists

????

AFAIR rubato said nothing about "religion" but chose to select "Christians" in the usual bigotted way he employs.

In the hostility toward Christ, a messenger of peace, non-believers prefer to ignore the fact that men (the true common denominator) kill each other for many reasons, among them ethnic, racial, religious, and whatever other differences offend men at a given time. The Roman empire itself was not given to religious war and famously 'tolerated' religions of all kinds - except for Christianity of course. There is nothing new in hatred for Christ being expressed by bigots. That some who claim to follow Christ are evil is of course obvious.

I have no doubt that the atheistic Union of Soviets and other forms of communism dedicated to eradication of religion tortured and killed (by several orders of magnitude) more people in 100 years than did "Christians" in 2000 (sic). I think Christians should be blamed for that too .

Meade

[Lord Jim]

I've been meaning to respond to this:

As has been correctly pointed out a number of times, there were many more people slaughtered by those claiming to be Atheists in the 20th Century, than were slaughtered by those claiming to be Christians in the previous 19 centuries combined....

I'm going to assume that you're talking about Hitler and Stalin Jim. Can you provide a shred of evidence to show that they did what they did in the name of Atheism? If not, there is no basis for comparison.

First, let me say I was not referring to Hitler. (the National Socialist "religion" was a neo-Pagan cultist-mysticm fueled by an mythological made-up misunderstanding of history about as bollixed as rubato's; it's an interesting topic in and of itself, but I wouldn't call it "Atheism"...though it certainly had nothing to do with Christianity either)

I was referring to the Communists, and the principle butchers in their ranks:

Such as Mao Zedong (100 million killed) Josef Stalin ( 30 million) Pol Pot (3 million)

Were these millions murdered in "the name of Atheism"?

Well, they were certainly murdered in the name of an ideology for which Atheism was a key belief and component:

Marx:

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.

The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

http://www.angelfire.com/or/sociologyshop/marxrel.html

Lenin on religion

Vladimir Lenin was highly critical of religion, saying in his book Religion

Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism.[3]

In About the attitude of the working party toward the religion, he wrote

Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.[4]

Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky on religion

In their influential book The ABC of Communism, Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky spoke out strongly against religion. "Communism is incompatible with religious faith", they wrote.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism_and_religion

[liberty]

There are some 'belief systems' which have not done so. Tibetan Buddhists, Jains, Western empiricists, Jews, and Quakers (to name only a few) have not engaged in systematic murder as Christians have a 2,000 year habit of. Cathars were slaughtered to the last person (about 250,000 souls) by Christians precisely because of their tolerance

A belief in the periodic table of the elements or Le Chatlier's Principle has not, to my knowledge, ever led any groups to murder people systematically as Christianity has done in staggering numbers. The periodic table and Le Chatlier have both reduced the amount of human suffering while Christians have generally increased it.

yrs,
rubato

What is the sound of one man crapping? Why say 'Christians' when you could with more justice say 'Europeans' or 'Western society' and thus be more inclusive? (Actually to include Jews is laughable - have you forgotten the Old Testament?). And the issue is not one of belief in a particular scientific theory but non-belief in the existence of God.... atheists and pagans of one kind and another have a far more enviable record of slaughtering humanity than any amount of Christians can claim. True ignorance is based upon ignoring

Meade

Oh General, shame on you. You know very well that Attila the Hun and Ghengis Khan were peace loving like all pagans. The stories of Ghengis massacring entire cities are just Christian Propaganda. The sky god of Ghengis did not permit such things. Ghengis was a loving and gentile man. Shame shame shame and more shame and more.