Atheist terrorists are as bad as any other religious extremist

Not every terrorist happens to be a christian/muslim/atheist is also a christian/muslim/atheist terrorist. The motivation is what its all about. To pin all terror conducted by atheists as a result of their atheism is idiotic.

There are indeed atheism-motivated (or anti-theism?) killings and terrorism, my own family from the fathers side was harrased by communists because they went to church etc. Plenty of people were killed. That is something I have to admit as an atheist. But these were only a small fraction of total victims of communism, or atheists in general.

I'm confused, if there is no proof for the existence or non-existence of a deity or deities or what have you, wouldn't belief and disbelief just be two sides of the same coin? Wouldn't the most reasonable approach be to have neither belief or dis-belief until their is evidence to support one or the other?

reply to post by CirqueDeTruth

Originally posted by CirqueDeTruth
Every single human in the world could turn atheist, and we would still war with one another. It's just human nature. Period.

I agree with this. Being atheist doesn't change the nature of the human being. I don't think anyone is trying to say that all atheists are peace-niks. They aren't. Atheists kill people, obviously. But attributing the motivation of the Khmer Rouge to atheism (don't forget slash Communism) is really just a matter of ignorance.

To the OP:

Seems theists always have to "hook" atheism up with some political or social structure to make it seem like something bad, scary and dangerous. .

Is Atheism Communistic?

A common complaint made by theists, typically those of the fundamentalist variety, is that atheism and/or humanism are essentially socialist or communist in nature. Thus, atheism and humanism should be rejected since socialism and communism are evil. Evidence indicates that bigotry and prejudice towards atheists in America is due in no small part to anti-communist activism by conservatives Christians in America, so this claimed connection has had serious consequences for American atheists.
...
Perhaps it is Christianity which is inherently communistic? After all, there is nothing in the gospels which even so much as suggests a divine preference for capitalism. On the contrary, quite a bit of what Jesus said directly supports many of the emotional foundations of socialism and even communism. He specifically said that that people should give all they could to the poor and that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Are we certain that Christianity was meant to be somehow anti-Communistic or anti-Socialistic? Let's go to the textbook, shall we?

Biblical Communism

"There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need."
...
This is what the Lord has commanded: Gather of it, every man of you, as much as he can eat; you shall take an omer apiece, according to the number of persons who each of you has in his tent. And the people of Israel did so; they gathered some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to what he could eat
(Ex. 16:16-18)

Wow! Socialism! I could make an argument that Christians are the evil Socialists and Communists!

But that would be a stupid generalization, wouldn't it? Get my point?

reply to post by MrXYZ


@ Mr XYZ

To quote yourself " didn't use atheism as an excuse "

Well they did to be honest. The real underlying cause was power but atheism WAS the EXCUSE Stalin used to carry out his religious purges.

I wholeheartedly agree that this is not an act of terrorism but a terror campaign waged by a government that is worried about conceding power to church.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


@ Titen
" The fact that when I die I am gone, actually DEAD" - this is not fact. You have no proof to back this up. Maybe the words in my opinion would be more suited.

Speaking as a non religious person myself btw

reply to post by minkmouse


Love your post! I heard something the other day by Wayne Dyer which I will reiterate to the best of my ability.

IF we consider that there is a "source" of our existence - call it God, a higher power, the creator, or don't label it at all - then it is the source of everything. The earth, planets, mankind and the animal world, emotions, thoughts - ALL come from this source, in one way or another. Therefore, we are all PART of the source. A fraction of the whole.

Unfortunately, in our ignorance, we have decided that we are separate from that source. And all the other creations that stem from that source are also separate from us. As we progress, we continue to separate ourselves more and more from the source and from each other, AND from the things we say we want in life.

If we would just remember that EVERYTHING is a part of the source and therefore all the same, just like water drops from the same pitcher, there would be much less sadness, shame, hatred, bigotry, war and fear... Because everything we see is just another part of ourselves.

I am an atheist. I use the label for convenience sake because it's easier than explaining my thoughts about it in a paragraph or two. But not because I am a "proud atheist" who thinks I have it all figured out... In fact, I am an atheist for the OPPOSITE reason - because I'm pretty sure we don't have a clue. I don't believe in the biblical God or the stories told by men about "him". I reject all religions and silly "cults and cliques" formed in the name of the source of our existence. We are far too young, selfish and stupid to think we have any clue about such things. People make up stories and adhere to them closed-mindedly, as if their lives depend on it and it's just sad. It separates us more and more. People use these stories to kill each other. How stupid is that?

Originally posted by SpookyVince

Originally posted by borntowatch
Atheism is a religion

No.

Atheism is

NOT

a religion.

Connect your brain and try to start thinking about the idiotic things that you are stating as universal evidence. You are obviously talking about things that you have not the slightest ideas about.

Originally posted by borntowatch
Thats an answer from a 11 year old school child, are you 11 SV?

Slightly over 3 years. In Jupiter years of course, which everybody knows is the absolute universal reference of counting time here down on earth.

Originally posted by borntowatch
Pity you cant justify your at best base comments with any evidence.
Pity the average fool here on ats gives you a star without seeing you justify your unreasonable and unfounded comments.

Clearly proof has no value here on ats, clearly the average clown hat reading your comments shows the ignorance of those who star your fumbling words.
Evidence justifies your position, you have NO evidence.
I dismiss you categorically, please accept the accolades of fools...it fits you

Originally posted by borntowatch
Atheism/communism has killed more people than all the religious wars together, thats a fact
Stalin caused 43 million deaths at the very least
democraticpeace.wordpress.com...

Deaths Caused by Christians:
1562-1598 – French Wars of Religion – France – 4 million
1095-1291 – Crusades to the Holy Land – Middle East, Spain, Africa – 1.5 million (This does include all sides of the conflict)
1184-c. 1860 – Various Christian Inquisitions – Europe – 17,500
scottfromsc.blogspot.com.au...

Let me mock your inane comments some more, read this site that exposes your ignorance
thekingdomcome.com...

Atheism is a religion with a fairly hefty death toll, so effectively you are also right.

Seriously, when are you going to stop? You are making yourself ridicule. You are arrogant, if not insultant. You are using fallacious arguments to "prove" what your hatred of atheism wants to prove. You look much more yourself like an integrist. Your methods are those of fascists. You despise and insult whenever someone tries to disagree with you.

Atheist terrorism does not exist. Terrorists, killers of all sorts, dictators, blah, have all their own motives to kill, which motives are other than their atheism. They do not do it because they are atheists. They do it because of other reasons.

I suggest you stop posting on ATS. You're reducing the average quality of the site with posts like yours. It is very sad to see.

Or else, you also have the option to consider that others might have a right to a different opinion, instead of unloading your own truth (which, besides, is not even true) as fact.

Will this fit in your head? Atheism is NOT a religion, nor a "belief in nothing", far less even a "belief that life is worth zero". Your very first statement, the subject of your thread in itself, is already flawed. And all of your answers smell hate, despise, anger and close-mindedness.

Relax and open to the others.

edit on 18-7-2012 by SpookyVince because: (no reason given)

edit on 18-7-2012 by SpookyVince because: (no reason given)

Great retort to me personally. What I like best is your inability to connect with the subject at all.
Just venting?
What you have said is irrelevant and churlish
Atheist terrorists are as bad as any other religious extremist

My comments dont label all atheists, you make that assumption and its wrong.

I suggest a simple comprehension course at the college of your choice will help you form intelligent conversation.

You say this SV
Atheist terrorism does not exist. Terrorists, killers of all sorts, dictators, blah, have all their own motives to kill, which motives are other than their atheism. They do not do it because they are atheists. They do it because of other reasons.
Now how about I say this
religious terrorism does not exist. Terrorists, killers of all sorts, dictators, blah, have all their own motives to kill, which motives are other than their religion. They do not do it because they are religious. They do it because of other reasons.

Just silly baseless words.
Pol Pot Stalin and Mao were a few atheists who killed millions to further atheism. Deny that...Further atheism as a doctrine, as the state forced belief.....a religion. Forced to believe in the society imposed faith.

The op is so wrong. it does not matter what religion you are or whether you believe in religion period.

Except many, mainly athiest believe that Religion is the cause of war when in reality the cause of war is men.

Some men use religion, or some kind of political ideology to justify their killing or to get support for their motives.

Religion has been used in a way where a man/government uses it to justify the killing of opposing religions or those who have no religion.

Political ideology or social ideology or simple conscious evolution by some men/government do the same thing. In where they convince people to believe their political objecives or social objectives or they simple convince people that if they support a cause they help in evolving man. Typically but not always when these are the driving factors for some men/governments these men and governments are of an atheistic nature. Where they can view their objectives as over all good for man even if they have to eradicate those who oppose their ideology. They really do not have to come out and say they are atheist because there is no GOD no religion and man has control of his destiny. So these men (who are atheist) can justify killing because there is no GOD we randomly evolved here by chance and they can mold humanity as they see fit. Killing others is not wrong as if they do not believe in their ideology they are against man made progress.

Now saying all atheist are capable of killing and destroying is like saying all religious people are killers and destroyers.

The underlying problem is MEN. Men are the problem not religion or in this case atheism.

Except athiests are too pig headed to see this and crap on religion all day. If I really wanted too i can argue exactly why atheist cause just as much war and destruction as alleged religion does but I am not pig headed and realize the problem is not atheism.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


I agree completely well put! And yes i do out of convenience too, the fact its treated as a religion is a massive problem, i dont see why so many people lack the basic sense of wonder, im perfectly happy with the fact we dont know, because whatevers really going on is probably more incredible than we could ever imagine! It literally bedazzles me i cant imagine having the christian mindset where they feel they know literally everything with no need to question

Religion is not relevant anymore, this is why people like the OP feel the need to criticise atheists, religion is dying and is morally bankrupt look at the C of E, The Vatican, the majority of TV preachers, Islam, and Judaism they are all as far removed from what they all preach religion to be. So in short why even bother giving people like the OP the oxygen he craves in order to make his religion relevant.

Originally posted by Arles Morningside
I'm confused, if there is no proof for the existence or non-existence of a deity or deities or what have you, wouldn't belief and disbelief just be two sides of the same coin? Wouldn't the most reasonable approach be to have neither belief or dis-belief until their is evidence to support one or the other?

Faith doesn't need objective evidence of God.
Agnostics are confused IMO.
There is no middle way.

Wars fought in the name of "religion"... A government or leader decides "hey I wanna take those other peoples stuff!" Or "I just really don't like those people" So he or they convince the masses that their God is the one who wants them to go to war. There MIGHT be the few nutcases who believe it, but for the most part the leader is just using religion as a tool to control the people. So, was that war REALLY fought in the name of religion?

Originally posted by deepankarm
Faith doesn't need objective evidence of God.

Indeed, that's exactly what faith is all about. Believing.

Agnostics are confused IMO.
There is no middle way.

Well, not really. Saying they are confused is not quite right. And there are middle ways.

Agnosticism is the position that it is impossible to know whether or not a god exists. An agnostic refuses to decide a way or another, or admits being incapable of deciding. There are different levels of "skepticism" (but I'd rather use the word undecidedness) about it.

Atheism is the position that no god exists, altough it can be a deepened approach of agnosticism, sort of Occam's razor: if it is impossible to decide whether or not a god exists, then the hypothesis that one doesn't exist is considered true by default. It is a matter of personal point of view.

Deism is the position that there exists a supreme being, a sort of undefined god, but that it doesn't interact with the world and they avoid ritualised religions.

Skepticism (hence why I prefered another word above) is rather an attitude considering that the truth about what goes over or beyond the "common experience" can never be known with certainty.

Lastly, there are even people who are "apatheists". What the heck is this? Well, I just found out not long ago about this intriguing word... And those are people who consider that the question of the existence or not of divinities is of no practical use or interest.
Sort of a "I don't give a f..." attitude

Hope I brought you light

Religion is horrible ?

one of the things there is out there right now is 2 books on the NY times best seller the god delusion by richard dawkins another one is letter to a christian nation by sam harris. Now, as for Mr dawkins, basically what he does is he takes the best of science and says "look how great we are" and he takes the worst of religion and he says look how horrible they are "Boo , down with religion" according to dawkins ! You know, not really fair to respected religions.Science has a lot of good in it and it also has a lot of bad.We tend to forget there's a lot of bad science in the world, for instance, there was a move in united states in the early 20th century in the 1920's, to basically sterilize poor people, because they were seen scientifically as unworthy of breeding(Google or look into public library "Buck v. bell sterilization case 1927") that was a scientific theory.

That scientific theory manifests in the nazi movement, because the nazis believed in the "Science of Eugenics" that they were actually a superior race! And they believed that the jews were an inferior race ! Thats science, thats not RELIGION.So dawkins doesn't talk about that science, science is only whats good and wondeful according to him.So science has its downside as well, now religion has its downside also, but its kind of unfair fight like when you take the best of science, the worst of religion and write a book about that ! And just say hey, science is the answer and religion is evil.Sam harris, another person he say's "Gee, isn't religion horrible, it caused all these WARS". I say Well gee, what was the 20th century? World war 1 ? was that about religion? wasn't that NATIONALISM? World war 2 was that about religion? Wasn't that Fascism? All the cold wars, weren't those about COMMUNISM? Communism is anti-religion! So the 20th century, the bloodiest century in human history is all wars that weren't fought about religion , they were fought about idealogies.So i think the problem is a human problem , it's not a problem of religion ! Humans are the problem.So religion is okay, we need to get rid of all humans....You see animals are being true to their nature ! The question is , are we being true to our nature? thats the question and religion says NO and you know why? because god expects a lot more from you than you expect from yourself.

Its not our religions that have failed us sam harris, mr dawkins....IT'S WE THAT HAVE FAILED OUR RELIGIONS!

"God has no religion"

Mahatma Ghandi


I never believed in a god as described in any holy book. And when I was young, I never had to call myself an atheist because there was no need for it. I was just a girl.
However when religious types [humans mind you, speaking for their god, who for some reason needs their help] ram their belief down your throat on bill boards, churches, leaflets, knocking on my door, following me around in town, shouting out whilst standing on boxes, carrying self painted signs, writing and insulting me on websites that are supposed to be for thinkers, then and only then do I feel the need to mention that I am an atheist.

I have very high standards and morals BECAUSE I am not bound by rules. I love and cherish nature and have learned that the only beings that are without any fault are animals [except for humans].
Animals do what nature makes them do and it works beautifully.
Non human animals also have no religion and neither have trees or flowers yet all these things are IMO as close to perfection as you can get.

And just to keep the 'running gag' going:
99% of people who drowned in the sea ate ice cream on that day. Therefore eating ice cream makes you drown...

Nuff said.

I feel people who still belive in "God" should all be shot.

Blind faith is the tool of the iggnorant, and anyone stupid enough to follow such jibberish is a threat to humanity as a whole, and they should be removed from the gene pool entirely.

Athiest Terrorist? No. just tired of the BS that your stupid blind faiths have caused.

Originally posted by borntowatch

I note the anti Christian and anti Muslim arguments, but I think its worth noting that atheism has more bloody hands and a larger death toll than all the religions put together.

You must seriously be out of your mind or under-educated in the field if you really believe that.

Originally posted by deepankarm

Originally posted by Arles Morningside
I'm confused, if there is no proof for the existence or non-existence of a deity or deities or what have you, wouldn't belief and disbelief just be two sides of the same coin? Wouldn't the most reasonable approach be to have neither belief or dis-belief until their is evidence to support one or the other?

Faith doesn't need objective evidence of God.
Agnostics are confused IMO.
There is no middle way.

As a person of intelligent faith, I prefer to look for the truth, even if it would mean all that I hold sacred ended up being wrong. Having a belief does not necessarily mean one will not seek out the truth.
What are Agnostics confused about? They havn't been proven to be confused about anything.
If there is no middle way, land is land, water is water, and bridges have no place. Two things ring true but our poor bridge is denied because of a lack of vision in this equation of no middle way. Why is there no middle way?

Originally posted by borntowatch
atheism is a belief, no evidence supports it as a fact. Clearly atheists congregate and plan as a corporate group
www.atheistfoundation.org.au...
They have conventions
www.atheistconvention.org.au...
Its a religion by definition
re·li·gion   [ri-lij-uhn] Show IPA
noun
1.
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe,
2.
a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons
3.
the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices

from here dictionary.reference.com...

Now the point is not the argument, the point is ALL people are as bad as each other.

Atheists have no moral high ground, they are according to history far more violent oppressive and brutally disgusting than those they accuse.

Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin believed in anything but religion and killed MILLIONS AND MILLIONS.

There can be no argument, the facts speak for themselves, atheists and atheism have no right to the moral high ground, they have more blood and lives on their hands than all the religions put together.

CHALLENGE THAT

I've just had to take a minute here and some deep breaths before responding as this is the single most offensive, narrow minded, idiotic, pathetic thing I've read on here.... It's right up there with Hitler was a hero....

Engage your brain mate,

As you quoted: re·li·gion   [ri-lij-uhn]
noun
1.
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe,

Atheism (thats A-theism... An ABSENCE of theism!) this is an ABSENCE OF BELIEF which is the VERY CONTRADICTION OF YOUR DEFINITION OF RELIGIOUS! I'm not sure if you're a troll or an idiot....

If you cared to research the motivations of the people you mentioned you will find that they did not kill because of atheism. In fact, I contend that it is IMPOSSIBLE to kill for reasons of having an absence of belief... People kill FOR their beliefs, if you have none then it is evident that you cannot cite that as a motivation..... If you can't follow this I suggest just going back to your bible or whatever and continue beating yourself over the head with it Monty Python style....

I must apologise to all for the angry tone of my reply but I am infuriated by the ignorance this person has displayed and the disgusting attempt to justify the horrific atrocities committed in the name of one imaginary fairy in the sky or another by slinging mud at innocent people.... I also take HUGE exception to the assertion in the OP that religious people have greater morals and values than that of people who don't believe in fairies. What a load of tripe, the church is rife with paedophiles and child abusers and THE HIGHEST LEVEL of authority not only know about it but ACTIVELY COVER IT UP! Great moral compass religion is eh? Morals, decency and values can exist perfectly well without recourse to silly stories, threats of damnation and child abusers telling us all what to think....

Originally posted by Maslo
Not every terrorist happens to be a christian/muslim/atheist is also a christian/muslim/atheist terrorist. The motivation is what its all about. To pin all terror conducted by atheists as a result of their atheism is idiotic.

There are indeed atheism-motivated (or anti-theism?) killings and terrorism, my own family from the fathers side was harrased by communists because they went to church etc. Plenty of people were killed. That is something I have to admit as an atheist. But these were only a small fraction of total victims of communism, or atheists in general.

edit on 18/7/12 by Maslo because: (no reason given)

Atheist and anti-theist are completely different.... And I would suspect that the harassment from the communists was based on their communism and not an absence of belief in a deity... Not having a go, I just don't think you have to admit or concede anything here..... Atheism isn't a belief, it's the very opposite and therefore cannot be cited as a motivation for anything....