That's It. I Can't Wait Anymore. WELCOME to the Religion of the Future...

reply to post by Bigwhammy


Oh please...

First, why don't you cite your sources, or is that article from a Christian website.

Second, this is ridiculous. Just look at one of the first sentences itself:

Nevertheless, atheists claim that people of faith are to blame for mass amounts of people's lives being taken. This is not based on facts.

Really? So instances like the inquisition were made up?

Here, look, I'll post something too:

How many people in Communist Russia and China have been killed because of atheism and secularism?

Response:
None, probably.

How can that be? After all, millions and millions of people died in Russia and China under communist governments — and those governments were both secular and atheistic, right? So weren't all of those people killed because of atheism — indeed, in the name of atheism and secularism?

No, that conclusion does not follow. Atheism itself isn't a principle, cause, philosophy, or belief system which people fight, die, or kill for. Being killed by an atheist is no more being killed in the name of atheism than being killed by a tall person is being killed in the name of tallness.

People were killed in communist nations for a lot of different reasons.

Some were communists who disagreed with those in power and were killed because of that. Some were anti-communists opposed the government and were killed for that. Some were simply in the way or inconvenient and were killed for that. These are political disagreements that people were being killed over, not murder in the name of atheism.

But weren't a lot of people killed because they were Christian? Certainly — but not simply because they were Christian. Communists typically regarded religious organizations as a hinderance towards the creation of a worker's paradise. Some religious groups also opposed the communists. Once again, we are generally looking at political issues, not a question of atheism.

Even if some people were killed simply because they followed a religion, it does not follow that they were killed in the name of atheism. Why? Because atheism is not inherently opposed to religion: it is possible to be both an atheist and religious and some religions are themselves atheistic. Atheism also isn't a belief system or ideology which can, by itself, inspire people to do things — good or bad.

To understand this better, consider times in the past when religion has been involved with violence — the Inquisition would be good. How many people were killed during the Inquisition in the name of theism? None. Those doing the killing acted not because of theism, but rather because of Christian doctrines. The belief system is what inspired people to act (sometimes for good, sometimes for ill). The single belief of theism, however, did not.

Similarly, communism certainly inspired people to act and gave them motivations to do certain things, but atheism — which is the absence of a belief and not even a belief itself — did not. The assumption that people in Russia and China were killed merely on account of atheism is based upon two other myths: first, that atheism is itself some sort of philosophy or belief system which can motivate people, and second that atheism is somehow interchangeable with the actual belief system of communism. It also pretends that all the various elements of communist totalitarianism were irrelevant to what happened — which is utter nonsense.

The aforementioned parallel explains why this response is not one which religious theists can use to deny their religion's responsibility for violence in the past. Atheism and theism may not themselves be sufficient to justify violence and murder (or good behavior, for that matter), but belief systems which incorporate them are more than sufficient. Communism (or at least certain forms of it) can be blamed for communist violence; Christianity (or at least certain forms of it) can also be blamed for Christian violence. As a belief system with specific doctrines that were openly held up as justifying or sanctioning violence, religion must be held responsible for the violence committed in its name.

Whether theism can be slightly more culpable than atheism is a matter of dispute. Not being any belief at all, atheism can't motivate anyone in any direction to do anything. Theism is a belief, however, so at least the potential for some sort of motivation in some direction exists. It's been argued, for example, that monotheism is inherently more prone to violence because of the way it tends to be exclusivist — unlike polytheism, which tends to be more tolerant of cultural and religious differences.

It's difficult to say, though, how many of these problems are really inherent in the type of theism and how many are cultural products of the religious belief systems that incorporate them. Whatever culpability theism itself might have, it's likely small enough to dismiss, allowing us to treat it and atheism as functionally equal in this context.

SRC: atheism.about.com...


You see, you can't just blame this communist stuff on no religion. It's preposterous. We could of course go back and forth of how atheists did one thing, or theists did the same thing. It's a stalemate in that direction.

[edit on 6/4/2008 by bigbert81]

Source was cited. Its the video description from youtube.

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

By Dinesh D'Souza

RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. – In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."

In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts - in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka - show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in jail due to malnutrition or illness.

These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

Moreover, many of the conflicts that are counted as "religious wars" were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival claims to territory and power. Can the wars between England and France be called religious wars because the English were Protestants and the French were Catholics? Hardly.

The same is true today. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not, at its core, a religious one. It arises out of a dispute over self-determination and land. Hamas and the extreme orthodox parties in Israel may advance theological claims - "God gave us this land" and so forth - but the conflict would remain essentially the same even without these religious motives. Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.

Blindly blaming religion for conflict

Yet today's atheists insist on making religion the culprit. Consider Mr. Harris's analysis of the conflict in Sri Lanka. "While the motivations of the Tamil Tigers are not explicitly religious," he informs us, "they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe many improbable things about the nature of life and death." In other words, while the Tigers see themselves as combatants in a secular political struggle, Harris detects a religious motive because these people happen to be Hindu and surely there must be some underlying religious craziness that explains their fanaticism.

Harris can go on forever in this vein. Seeking to exonerate secularism and atheism from the horrors perpetrated in their name, he argues that Stalinism and Maoism were in reality "little more than a political religion." As for Nazism, "while the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, it was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity." Indeed, "The holocaust marked the culmination of ... two thousand years of Christian fulminating against the Jews."

One finds the same inanities in Mr. Dawkins's work. Don't be fooled by this rhetorical legerdemain. Dawkins and Harris cannot explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler. How can a self-proclaimed atheist ideology, advanced by Hitler as a repudiation of Christianity, be a "culmination" of 2,000 years of Christianity? Dawkins and Harris are employing a transparent sleight of hand that holds Christianity responsible for the crimes committed in its name, while exonerating secularism and atheism for the greater crimes committed in their name.

Religious fanatics have done things that are impossible to defend, and some of them, mostly in the Muslim world, are still performing horrors in the name of their creed. But if religion sometimes disposes people to self-righteousness and absolutism, it also provides a moral code that condemns the slaughter of innocents. In particular, the moral teachings of Jesus provide no support for - indeed they stand as a stern rebuke to - the historical injustices perpetrated in the name of Christianity.

Atheist hubris

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people - the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped - have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted."

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

It's time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

www.csmonitor.com...

[edit on 6/4/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by toasted


'Con job'?

Are you kidding? Do you know how truly old this philosophy truly is? I could call Christianity or any other organized religion the exact same thing, with MORE to back up MY claims.

Toasted knows... "CON JOB " is right.

Agenda 21, Secular Humanism, and the Animalization of Americans

The murderous secular humanist religions of Communism and Nazism were spawned by the anti-God/utopian tradition of Revolutionary France. The Black Book of Communism, an 800-page compendium of the crimes of Communist regimes worldwide, graphically details the terror, torture, man-made famine, mass deportations, starvation, and massacres undertaken on behalf of revolutionary utopian ideals. The reality of Communism, which claimed to be an emissary of the Enlightenment, of universal brotherhood, and of happiness for all as envisioned by Gracchus Babeuf, turned out to be not only a sadistic engine for unimaginable evil but also the creator of hells on earth.

The book’s authors point to Communism’s “biological and zoological strain of thinking” as the engine of evil that proved itself to be a most effective means of denying the humanity of Communism’s millions of victims. “This strain of thinking,” explained Stephane Courtois, “is why so many of the crimes of Communism were crimes against humanity, and how Marxist-Leninist ideology managed to justify these crimes to its followers.” (The Black Book of Communism; p. 751)

Biocentrism: the Biological/Zoological Strain of Thinking

Biocentrism or ecocentrism, terms synonymous with today’s sustainable development/global warming crowd, is the “biological and zoological strain of thinking” in disguise. Biocentrism is antithetical to America’s Judeo-Christian worldview in that it not only reduces man to a soulless ape, but makes his life less valuable than cockroaches, earthworms, spotted owls, trash fish, grizzlies, alligators, and wolves. Those who trace the genesis of ideas, such as Donald Worster, point to Charles Darwin as the most important spokesman for the biocentrism attitude. In short, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the malignant heart of biocentrism, leads to contempt and even hatred towards humanity.

“Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.”
(Earth First! Journal editor, John Daily)

“To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem.”
(Yale professor Lamont Cole)

Biocentrism and its morally-warped system of philosophy and morality thrive right here in America. Communism (multiculturalism/Cultural Marxism) and its diabolical mother, Secular Humanism, plus its twisted sisters, Postmodernism and Cosmic Humanism (New Age global warming crowd) are now the predominant way of thinking in most of America’s power centers. At the heart of each of these systems beats the black heart of Darwinian biocentrism.

Dr. James Dobson notes, “The Secular Humanist system…has outstripped Judeo-Christian precepts in the universities…judiciary…federal bureaucracy, in business, medicine, law, psychology, sociology…arts, in many public schools, and to be sure, in the halls of Congress.” (Understanding the Times; David A. Noebel; p. 7)

Patriots and Liberty

reply to post by Bigwhammy


Wow Whammy, you're REALLY digging here, aren't you?

Despite my last post, you decide to post another excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor. Are you really having that hard of a time finding good info from non-biased/non-religious sources?

Did you even read this article yourself?

Hmmm...let's see here:

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25.

I just LOVE the example they've used, don't you? 'Let's talk about the Salem Witch Trials as an example, because that, even though horrible, is the best example we can find to get our biased points across'. I guess they didn't think the estimated 9,000,000 people in the medieval inquisition was worth mentioning, or SLAVERY. They chose to use something considered minor in the whole outlook of things. What a joke.

ALSO, the writer of this apparently didn't do his homework either. Let's investigate, shall we? In the article, the writer says:

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

Well, perhaps a bit of history could help YOU out a bit more, Whammy, before posting crap like this. Hitler was NOT an atheist. He was a creationist who wrote in Mein Kampf 'I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work.' Even Stalin had several contradictions as to whether he was atheist or not.

This article is a joke. I can't believe that you go off of stuff like this that is so obviously under-researched. I'm not even going to cover the rest as that would take up my night.

And this second article you've posted is just as ridiculous. How can you think that an article that says:

Every day in our public schools, America’s children are ‘animalized’ through the teaching of Darwinian evolutionary propaganda.

is credible? C'mon Whammy, stop digging so damned deep here and open your eyes.

You know, we can both go at each other by just posting excerpts from various sources, but I doubt we'll get much done that way.

dudester are you a communist agent or something? This is like the 4th propaganda thread youve started.... what's up castro paying bonuses this month or somehting? we aint buying what yer selling kid.

reply to post by Yosimitie Sam


WTF are you talking about 'kid'?

Perhaps you should go and learn what Humanism actually is before stating something like you've just done.

Son do not give up hope. For Gods sake suicide is not the answer! It is a curable situation!!! It does not have to continue to ruin your life. Please please pleaseplease contact your nearest psychiatric hospital. Or email me and come to Africa. If you do not have insurance scholarships can be arranged.

reply to post by Reverend SamuelTophatJack


Another joke of a stance.

Funny thing is, HITLER WAS NOT AN ATHEIST!

Biased videos will get you nowhere.

Are all you 'Humanism = Communism' people aware that J. Edgar Hoover investigated the American Humanist Association and deduced that they were in fact NOT Communists and posed zero, I repeat, ZERO threat to national security?

Can't get a better non-Communist endorsement than that, now can we?

Or would we rather just say nonsense like Humanity=Communism without doing any research at all?

you need treatment for your astheim its caused by poor paternal relations and oedipal ideations. now face your own problems and stop forcing propganda on innoccents. youngman the philosphy was invented by Karl Marx it doesnt mattwer what you wrap it in to make it smell better its a communist ideology on one side and a nazi on the other- the only 1 whio lacks research is you son. goto a library for pete sake. MARXwww.marxists.org...

reply to post by Reverend SamuelTophatJack


I can't tell if you're joking or being serious. Honestly.

'Atheism is caused by poor parental relations and Oedipus syndrome'? What kind of joke is that?

And Karl Marx didn't invent the philosophy of Humanism. Go back and hit the books, because you're WAYYYYY off base here.

[edit on 6/5/2008 by bigbert81]

reply to post by bigbert81



Listen ,you sound like a pretty decent guy to me, that just happened to buy into another fraud.

Welcome to the club!

Back in the 80's I was looking for answers and joined the rosicrucians for a while, I had no idea how connected they were to the mystery religions.

I wasn't internet friendly back then, so I didn't have the advantage of the incredible amount of info here. In fact back then, it was the 1st time I heard the term illuminati...I jotted down the word and tried to find a book and ran into a dead end at the library and mass media bookstore.

What I'm trying to say is, there is a ton of info, and depending on your starting point, and the info you bump into, your view on reality has a certain look to it, kinda like it looks to you now compared to before you found humanism....if you get my meaning.

I don't know where you started or what you've read, but I KNOW that during the earlier part of my journey, everytime I looked under a rock and found some new info...reality changed...just like that. And everytime I found another chunk, the picture just morphed again...and the weird part is, everytime I found a chunk, I thought thaat was the final piece...boy was I WRONG!!!!!

You may find the reference to the humanist manifesto, in the following link, quite interesting;

Just scroll to e-books and right clik of this
[ Chronological History of The New World Order - By Dennis Cuddy.pdf ]

www.nwowatcher.com...

I hope you'll take the time to read about 6 pages, you should get the idea by then. Hope to hear your comment, good or bad.

:-)

He's either compleletely snowed by the fraud or hes a NWO communist disinfo agent posting to ATS. End religion - make humanism the new religion - classic NWO illumninati propaganda.

NWO flavored

Maybe its one of these guys posing as a young humanist pinko.

THE END DAYS

The Confessions of a Communist Agent On The Attempt to Destroy the Roman Catholic Church from Within

I. Introduction.

This is the story of a Communist agent who infiltrated into the Catholic Church in 1938, went to the Seminary, became a Priest who wielded enormous power behind the scene, participated in the Second Vatican Council, and without the intervention of Pope Paul VI himself he would have destroyed its works. He succeeded, however, in fostering the adoption of ambiguous Council documents which laid the ground work for future experiments by unsuspecting Prelates and Priests. These experiments based on the "Spirit of the Council" are destroying the 2,000-year Traditions of the Church, leading the Catholic faithful on the road to the Great Apostasy, and preparing the Church for the election of the Anti-Pope and for the reception of the coming Anti-Christ. He stated: "'The Spirit of the Council' has become for me a master-trump." The reader should observe that many harmful changes that the agent proposed have been implemented, some in direct disobedience to the the Pope, at the local dioceses throughout the world.

This agent had no name, only a code number AA-1025 given by the Russian Secret Police, meaning the Anti-Apostle number 1025. There had been 1024 agents like him before him. By now there must have been at least several thousands of them in the Catholic Church. Some must have risen to the rank of Archbishop and Cardinal, many of whom could have been heads of Departments in the Curia (Papal government) and religious Congregations. No wonder the 2000-year Traditions of the Church are being slowly demolished and replaced by heresies like Modernism, Arianism, Pelagian, Protestantism, Atheism, Liberation Theology. Nevertheless, Our Lord stated: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18).

meltingpot.fortunecity.com...


[edit on 5-6-2008 by Yosimitie Sam]

Originally posted by Critical
I think the ideal religion would be one in which the people who suffer the most would be considered the most "holy". People who suffer deserve happiness more than people that dont. It doesnt matter if youve "sinned", just the pain that you experience. The problem with this is if people tried to suffer, it defeats the purpose of living.

Its just a silly thought. Dont make me feel bad with criticism please. This is not worthy of a thread to itself like yours is.

Perhaps those who've suffered have experienced life, and have wisdom to share. No one can make you feel bad, only you can choose to feel bad.

reply to post by eye open doors


I think we have been taught and influenced to react to things in certain ways. When something bad happens to us we dont like it. Going of topic now so i wont continue.

Religions are based fundamentally on the benefit of someone.

Just editing to say: If you people keep making unproven claims you will keep getting burned by propaganda or just a single counter example.

[edit on 6/6/08 by Critical]

reply to post by Yosimitie Sam


Perhaps you could benefit from reading the thread before you comment.

Originally posted by bigbert81
WELCOME to the religion of the future. A religion that focuses more on people rather than deities. A religion that promotes togetherness instead of segregation. A religion that focuses on the good aspects of man, and not the bad.

Someone once said "It's the message thats important.. not the messenger."
He was indeed a humanist. which apparently makes him a communist.

..fruit falling far from the tree there.



[edit on 6-6-2008 by riley]

reply to post by riley


Whoever on this thread who has equated humanism with communism is indeed ignorant of what humanism is.

Humanism recognizes the indivdual freedoms and liberties in the individual, communism does not.

Everyone should feel free to look up J. Edgar Hoover's investigation of it.

reply to post by bigbert81



Did you bother to read the pdf at that link I posted;

on 5-6-2008 @ 02:47 ?

It's a fairly easy read [ only read 1st 6 pages ]
I'd love to hear what you have to say
good or bad.