Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

a reply to: ArnoldNonymous

The article is more focused on the fact that most mass murders were done that has absolutely no connection with religion.

It did not matter if an individual believed in a specific religion or not. If the reason for the war did not have to do with religion than it is not a religious war.

Wait, how is that the case when you specifically called out Atheism as the force behind the mass murders of history...

Thread title: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

So if an action is taken without specifically stating its for a religious purpose, its automatically atheist?

Please help me understand this logic. If a Christian goes to the bathroom and didn't specifically state he was going to the bathroom for Jesus, does that mean Atheism was the force behind his visit to the bathroom?

All i did was point out a small example of the countless mass-murders that are specifically attributed to a religion. None of the examples I listed can be attributed to Atheism.

a reply to: adjensen

Now you see the frustration. Call it lunacy or not....
people are upset.

originally posted by: defcon5

originally posted by: Badgered1
Mao was a Marxist-Leninist Communist - atheism wasn't the catalyst.
Stalin was a Bolshevk/Communist - atheism wasn't the catalyst.
Pol Pot was a Marxist/Communist - atheism wasn't the catalyst.

Atheism is not a belief system, and has no creed. No agenda.

It was a catalyst. Part of creating communism is to remove any god and replace it with the state. If you don't give people a higher power to 'worship', you can't expect them to overrule their natural selfish tendencies, and peacefully submit to a communist system. Most just won't do it. Since they could never force all their citizens to believe in a single religion, they removed all religion, and replaced it with state worship.

I disagree.
The absence of deities is a minor part of the bigger ideology. The 'State' - as you put it - was the ideology, the atheism was a small side-effect. These tyrants took away basic human rights too, but they didn't use a need for no human rights as the catalyst for their revolutions and dictatorships.

If you don't give people a higher power to 'worship', you can't expect them to overrule their natural selfish tendencies, and peacefully submit to a communist system.

- Why do people need a higher power to worship? Perhaps the communists recognized the division and, sectarianism inherent to religion and thought it better not to have that sort of thing. History shows how awfully the religions get on with each other.
Any ideology that promotes intolerance is bad. Communism is no different to religion or to ultra-conservatism in that respect.

Heh ... heheh. The philandering and campaign criminal Dinesh D'Souza is back up and running eh?

I guess he needs some cash for alimony payments or legal bills or something.

Atheism, as such, is an modern phenomenon. The word was coined in the 16th Century and wasn't used on any scale by individuals to describe themselves until the very late 18th Century.

So, er, ***[X]BAANT[X]** thanks for playing.

Adolf Hitler was a professed Christian (Roman Catholic) and believed wholeheartedly that he was doing the Lord's work. (And had the Vatican's full support for quite sometime, by the way ...)

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian
and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Naw, he's a nut. He was screaming that all Christians should be put in prison because we're homophobic anti-semites. Last time I checked, I was neither.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Adolf Hitler was a professed Christian (Roman Catholic) and believed wholeheartedly that he was doing the Lord's work.

I wonder why he put this in Mein Kampf, then:

antiquity was better than modern times because it did not know Christianity and syphilis.

Adolf Hitler was not a practicing Catholic, and any Nazi historian will tell you that.

I would suggest that you read this July 1945 Office of Strategic Services report: The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches and educate yourself on the relationship between the Nazis and the Christian churches.

My perspective is different, if either non-believers or believers actions are the same, that is they are killing people, that tells me they have no fear of God or how he feels about it, or what he will eventually do to them for their evil actions.

Really it is not theists or atheists, it's more of level of accountability to God, and many religious people have acted just like atheists showing they have no accountability towards God, otherwise they wouldn't act like hypocrites.

To me both these men are atheists at their core of their souls shown by there actions.

I think there needs to be a clarification between atheism and anti-theism. While an atheist CAN be an anti-theist. Being an atheist does not automatically make one anti-theist.

a reply to: adjensen

I know you're neither, my friend.

Still, the smug attitude of the sign-holder guy was quite, well, instigative.

a reply to: adjensen
Good points adj. Makes you wonder why Hitler said a lot of things. I think he used Christianity when it was to his advantage. Just like so many others...

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.

Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922
Hitler's Christianity

a reply to: xDeadcowx

The title of this thread is the title of the article, as per T&C.

I agree, it is not the best title for this argument. If it were me, I would have chosen secularism instead of Atheism.

It feel like you are looking to pick a fight so let's keep this civil. Thanks!

a reply to: Klassified

I think he used Christianity when it was to his advantage. Just like so many others…

I believe that, at the time, the percentage of Germans who were professed Christians was in the high 90% range, so it would have been in his best interests to leverage it as well as he could, whether he believed in Christianity or not.

The ultimate solution was to create their own church, though it ultimately proved to be unsuccessful.

In 1936, the Reich Church was created. This did not have the Christian cross as its symbol but the swastika. The Bible was replaced by "Mein Kampf" which was placed on the altar. By it was a sword. Only invited Nazis were allowed to give sermons in a Reich Church. (Source)

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Still, the smug attitude of the sign-holder guy was quite, well, instigative.

I dunno, looks to me like he's just standing there with his sign, taking the verbal abuse with some degree of amusement. Were it me, I'd have laughed out loud in the crackpot's face.

Reminds me of this kook:Warning: extreme language and lunacy (even if I do agree with him, mostly, lol)

Howdy,

I'm young, naive, and I haven't been living long enough to see many of the wars some older (not even significantly older) posters might have lived through or fought in, so take what I say with that in mind.

That said, I don't think wars have ever been fought in the pursuit of atheism, whereas wars have obviously been fought in the name of religions around the world and throughout history. I do not blame the normally peaceful religions for the actions of one group of people who may have used said religions as a tool for their wars. Unless stated otherwise, wars are fought for purely human reasons, devoid of religion and religious influence, except perhaps as a tool of recruiting or providing a sense of cause.

Obviously, if there is a religion which openly calls for war, then I find that religion distasteful, but I do feel that wars are not usually fought on religious principles. This does not make a war atheistic, it makes it secular, and it does not necessarily reflect the religiousness(/lack thereof) of those fighting.

Though, even if it were the case that some genocidal people were atheists, why would you condemn atheism as the cause of war? Atheism is merely a lack of a certain belief, and all other beliefs (justice, morality, greed, hatred) are independent of that lack of belief. Atheism has no dogma attached, and as a result no two atheists act as similarly as two people of the same religious denomination might.

Aside from that, atheists are overwhelmingly the minority when compared to the sum total of religious peoples in the world. By attributing war to atheism, are you saying that the minority holds some disproportionate power over the majority? Why would such a small group have so much ability and so much public support? (I suppose it isn't unreasonable, but do you think it the case?)

I know I've repeated a lot of what has been said in other posts in this thread, but I feel... not insulted or offended, but perhaps frustrated that someone could believe that war is fought for anything but secular (not atheistic) reasons.

Sincere regards,
Hydeman

a reply to: ArnoldNonymous

You will find that behind most atrocities there is an occult connection or something very close to the occult. Even the Nazi's had something called the Black Sun and the Vril Society.. I would categorize those types of groups as Luciferians and Satanists because these are considered religions, not Atheism. The reason why we continue to have global problems is because these people never gave up their power while everything else collapsed around them.

What about all the "honor" killings and people here who kill their kids because they think god told them to? While not war I bet those totals are pretty high after thousands of years.

Also, if atheists are such killers how come they never kill anyone now, while religious people kill people left and right?

originally posted by: CB328
What about all the "honor" killings and people here who kill their kids because they think god told them to? While not war I bet those totals are pretty high after thousands of years.

They are just psychopaths.

Also, if atheists are such killers how come they never kill anyone now, while religious people kill people left and right?

Well one of the fundamental teachings of most religions is not to Murder anyone. So how can you call them religious when they are committing something which religion teaches against?

a reply to: adjensen

Yeah, AH put a lot in Mein Kampf didn't he?

Like,

I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.

Mein Kampf, Volume 1, Chapter 1

Or maybe,

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

Mein Kampf, Volume 1, Chapter 2

Or this?

Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.

Mein Kampf, Volume 1, Chapter 5

And on, and on and on ...

The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine.

Mein Kampf, Volume 1, Chapter 12

So, enough of that. So, all Nazi Historians would tell me that Hitler was neither Christian nor Catholic?

Are you quite sure, what about John Toland, or maybe Donald Dutton, or Susannah Heschel?

I think maybe you have some more recent reading to catch up on.

As far as the Nuremberg Document ... did you think they were going to say nice things about the Nazis at the trials???

a reply to: glend

i guess it depends on which expert you listen to then, cause what i've read/listened to says the death toll of russian citizens, was around 40 million and as high as 50. many were sent to russia's version of concentration camps in siberia and worked to death. every day, he would make up a list of 100 random people to kill for no reason other than to keep people so afraid of him that they would be utterly obedient, else risk dying in the gulag or siberia, or simply taken out and shot. the guy was out of his mind.

there ya go