Are Atheists Air Brushing History?

I think it's fairly obvious that religion has nothing to do with how intelligent a person is or isn't. If it were true that religious people are less educated and less intelligent, many of the Nobel Peace Prize winners would have to renounce their awards on the grounds that they were jewish and religious people are just less educated/intelligent and couldn't have possibly won the awards on the merits of the data.

Alot of the arguments in this thread are pointless. Whammy, I think you should start a different thread on a happier topic so you don't internalize all the negativity here.

Riley where is your source because 25 looks about right everywhere I check,

www.salemwitchtrials.com...

Hmmm this source says less only 22
answers.yahoo.com...

This source just says over 20

library.thinkquest.org...

Are you big enough to admit you just made a mistake?

My bad.. I missread it. I apologise

I thought it meant 25 deaths world wide.. I didn't realise it was specifically about the salem witch trials. Edit. I only got that impression as the quote your used said 'thousands' and I figured they must have been talking world wide as Salem was a small town of probably only a couple of hundred people.

Edit. In fact that quote you used is missleading in itself.


I've NEVER heared claims that hundreds or thousands [lol] were killed in the Salem witch trials.

[edit on 25-3-2008 by riley]

reply to post by riley

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There were more people killed in high school shootings in the last 12 years than the Salem Witch Trials yet Atheists still love to bring it up.
school shootings
Maybe because they took prayer out schools? Who knows? It seems to be an increasing phenomenon. Back when they did pray in schools there were zero school shootings. Hmmmm maybe they are related. No way to know for sure I guess. But fascinating none the less.

Just to clarify exactly what was said. IT WAS NOT MISLEADING



Thanks for admitting you were wrong Riley.

Goodnight All.










[edit on 3/25/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Lennox's arguments pretty much suck. Just the same old tripe we've been hearing for years, C.S. Lewis blah blah, I'm really moral blah blah, i have absolutes blah, those immoral theists don't have my god blah blah.

Anyway, you still appear to want to push the darwin leads to communism canard. People like Marx did see something in darwin's theory that they contorted into their own ideas. But even a cursory glance at each readily illustrates the vacuity of such an argument.

Darwinism is essentially saying that all agents/organisms have variations/characteristics. All agents/organisms are acting in an environment for limited resources, they are competing against each other. Those agents/organisms most adapted to the environment will be most successful reproductively. They therefore have more descendents in the following generation. Natural selection acting on variations.

Marxism/communism is a socio-economic theory that proposes an economic structure in which there is no competition. No private property. All forms of production are state owned. All work for the good of the state. No real meritocracy. Education free for all. Health care free for all. No natural selection, variations give no real benefit.

There is absolutely no relationship between marxism/communism and a social form of darwinism.

Indeed, darwinsim is much more like the libertarian free market ideas that the likes of Thatcher and Reagan took from particular economic theories. That is, a very open capitalist economy. The sort that leads to people benefiting (larger share of resources - wealth) from particular adaptations (e.g., intelligence, ideas, social class etc), and as such we might find a few have yachts and lots of have nots (i.e. our capitalist society).

It doesn't matter that Marx imagined some relationship. There is none. Even Darwin saw this. Marx was living in a fantasy-land when he suggested there was.

[edit on 25-3-2008 by melatonin]

At least I admitted missreading it.. but it was in part because of the way it was written.

It WAS extreamily missleading and the ONLY reason I missread it was because the article said 'thousands'.. obviously there could not have been thousands of people killed in a town of apx 500 people so why would that article infer that otherwise had been claimed? Missleading.

[edit on 25-3-2008 by riley]

His arguments were intellectually superior. Are you forgetting he won the debate? They only suck to you because your man lost. Sour grapes doesn't become you mel.


Anyway I am going to bed. I will consider your Communism stuff tomorrow.

Cheers!

reply to post by riley

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It's not misleading, Riley. What the article is implying is that the way atrocities of the Salem Witch trials are repeated, you would have thought there was a slaughtering of millions of people. Since it is really the only true atrocity in American Christian history done for purely religions reasons, the SWT's are basically the only thing propagandists have as ammunition. Slavery and the slaughtering of the natives could be seen as economic and political while the SWT's are the only true Christian-caused tragedy. Again, it's saying you would think it was a world wide crisis where untold numbers were killed with the way it is constantly tossed around.

Oh. And...





Edited to add: Due to my awesome psychic powers, I know this comment will be used in a word-twisting spectacular but I have to go to bed. I will clean out whatever inevitable surprises are left for me here in the proverbial kitty litter box tomorrow.

P.S.S. Or I can hope against all hopes my above edit will be an act of reverse psychology and auto-clean the ATS kitty litter box for me.

Nighty night.

[edit on 3/25/2008 by AshleyD]

Jesus was the major influence on the new testament. The NT influenced Luther and de Gobineau. Luther and de Gobineau influenced Hitler's anti-semitism and divine race ideas. Hitler was a theist. You cannot possibly claim they are not related in any way.

Really. What's the point of this? It's like groundhog day.

I already showed exactly how it is. It certainly does not change on your say so.


Again:



No-one has EVER claimed hundreds or thousands were killed. The article implies they have.

What the article does prove however is that some christian site 'articles' exaggerate for dramatic effect.. in this case in order to make people who mention the witch trials look like they're being overly sensitive or something.

[edit on 25-3-2008 by riley]

reply to post by melatonin

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I do not think it's just a canard because many other people are seeing it.
How about Leon Trotsky? He's a Russian communist second only to Lenin. He says they are related.

Since he helped to create communist Russia I think his opinion trumps yours mel.


The Tasks of Communist Education

Put the airbrush away it's time for bed.





[edit on 3/25/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by melatonin

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Hi mel, you have put up a good intellectual battle, and obviously you are enjoying it. But as for me I've long ago resolved not to argue with religious believers. Now after all these many pages, haven't my initial observations still relevant? Consider this, at this moment we have a religious zealot in the White House that has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in what we call the middle east. Should we place these deaths at the doorsteps of the Religionists? You and I know that when a fanatic slaughters innocent people because he feels compelled to do so by his religious beliefs, then those deaths can be attributed to the influence of that particular religion on that person. We do not have to go through a Rube Goldberg contortion excercise to point the finger at religious influence. When atheism is being blamed for the deaths of humans can you follow the contortions to arrive as such conclusions? For example: Stalin was as an atheist. Stalin was a communist. Then atheists are like communists and must be blamed for Stalins actions! Oh no! Not his political views, those must have been colored by his atheistic mind! How can you refute such deep intellectual insights? It's useless dear fellow. "Your muderers have killed more people than my murderers"! Isn't this the conclusion to be drawn? Vindicated at last!

Not really. Because debates are pretty much meaningless. Who decided the winner? How did that work?

Do you think we find truth by two people verbally joisting to a biased structure (i.e., book quote, Dawkins comment, Lennox argument on book, no time to reply), then asking a (bi)partisan audience to give marks, like a pair of intellectual ice-skaters? I've even seen debates were someone like Kent Hovind can appear to run rings round a well-educated dude. It's a game, rather than anything meaningful. Rhetoric and sophistry can easily win the day.

His arguments are naff. I listened to the debate months ago and I've heard the same stuff over and over for years. Actually, not much new since the days of C.S. Lewis. The 'resurrection is evidence' argument was roflworthy, he was just preaching really.

[edit on 25-3-2008 by melatonin]

Yeah, he was bumped off by Stalin's goons.

It doesn't matter, whammy. It really doesn't. If Trotsky said that banana ice-cream was the foundation of communism would it make it true?

You only need to look at the two concepts to see they are in no way related. You can argue by quotation if you like, but so what? Neo-Marxists and Marx attempted to suggest Darwinian theory was supportive of communism. Darwin's theory was like the trendy idea at the time, everyone wanted to jump on board. Later, people like stalin jumped off.

If you look at the two ideas, it's pretty obvious they are not really related. Argue against my points, show me how darwinian theory is like communism. Forget the quotes.

Again Jesus straight through to Hitler, via Xians. Doesn't matter that we can see Jesus said nowt about nazism and dead-jews, it's clear as day.

You take Hitler and his dead-jews, and I take Stalin with his bad agricultural policies via non-darwinian pseudoscience, and dead people in gulags.

As I said. What's the point?

Some atheists kill people, most atheists don't.

Some theists kill people, most theists don't.

Considering you suggest that theists have some amazing god-given morality, why is the fact atheists can kill people more important than the fact that theists can kill people?

I even posted a quote the other day by an evangelist preacher who said that christianity was the apex of evolution. Does it make it true?



sweet dreams, lack of sleep ain't good for frontal lobe function.

[edit on 25-3-2008 by melatonin]

I think it's always worth making the effort with anyone, religious or not. However, once we start going round in circles, then I see there is no point. Might as well discuss it with my parrot.

me: 'but the problem is that darwin said that his theory is nothing like socialism, they are totally different'.

parrot: 'sqwark! cup of tea!'

me: 'no, honestly, if you look at the two ideas, they are diametrically opposed.'

parrot: 'sqwark! cup of tea!'

[edit on 25-3-2008 by melatonin]

Originally it is clear riley claims 25 was way too small a number.



Instead of simply saying "I made mistake ." Riley offers an excuse. riley now claims it was misleading because it was too big of a number.



Talk about airbrushing your posts

Well which one is it riley?

Was it confusing you because it was too small a number or too big a number?

reply to post by melatonin

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I am not an authority on Marxism. So I'm going with the source that helped develop the soviet union. I think it is authoritative over your biased opinion. You are trying to defend atheism by breaking the connection. You failed. The man was a founder of the soviet union and you expect me to take your word over his? That is absolutely absurd. I think you should be ashamed of yourself.

Sorry guy but it's true,, wouldn't be the first time someone ramonced the religious elders for election, but not soon after Hitler hated Christianity and Religion, the Nuremburg trials showed us the Nazi Party was an Atheist political party. Hitlers fetish for social Darwinism, his interest in a government run by the state.

I see it everywhere and your embellished surprise as if WE are nuts for saying all this, is just more of what you all know to say. You all say the same sound bytes as if you were reading passage from scripture. You aren't a small group, Christianity not withstanding, you make up more of the population then all the other religions combined.

The thing I think that worries me the most, and mostly for Atheists sake is they think they can tell me how to raise my kids.


That will get many of them a fat lip if it wasn't for the internet anonymity.

Just last month the Atheist websites that had no information about that garbage , are now all carrying the same lame cry. Christians are comiting child abuse

You would expect a little more rationality a little more reason out of the so called most intelligent segment of Society.

Guess that was a lie too.

- Con





[edit on 25-3-2008 by Conspiriology]

25 people out of 550 put to death for witchcraft is not a small number.
I originally thought it was talking about world wide figures as it mentions thousands of people when talking about a small village of apx. 550 which made no sense.
I thought they must have changed subjects mid paragraph from Salem to world wide stats as talking about thousands when you're talking about 550 people is illogical.. and it was written that way in order to misslead the reader into thinking [pro-witch] people claimed/believed thousands were killed in Salem which is an untruth. Lucky I got it wrong and spotted it!

Of course.. I went back and re-read it and it IS both illogical and missleading and clearly I apologised prematurely. That article is full of rhetoric and half truths.


Actually I apologised and went back and had a look as to why I made such a mistake. That was why.. the way it was written actually led me to it.

Thousands is too big a number of people to be killed in a village of 550 people.

25 Is too small a 'witch' mortality rate for the entire world.

[edit on 25-3-2008 by riley]

Its like everything thing else whammy, not only are they airbrushing their history but they are embellishing the hell out of ours attaching Religion to everything evil from the Salem witch trials where typically we the rant about thousands of witches we put to death. The actual number,,,

18

The spanish inquisition they say hundreds of thousands we killed,, the actual number

2000

Atheist will deny the same dialogue we are seeing today was the same dialogue that went from a movement in a society telling us how to run our lives and raise our kids to the Atheists actually taking control thast way.

The reason Atheists were able to kill millions of Christians was the same thing you see now,, they simpy do not acknowledge any of their own crimes against humanity

- Con