MURDER, GENOCIDE, and ATHEISTS.

[lukethethird]

An atheist is an atheist.,

An atheist is definitely not an atheist.

 

[Audie]

One need not be in this forum very long to learn that the atheists here, for the most part, are in full attack mode when it comes to Christianity.

One of their favorite lines of attack is to cite the historical violence of some Christians as a brand on all Christians, with the inference that Christianity is itself a failed endeavor.

Actually, there is a bit of truth to this, when the Church and government became one with Constantine, the greed for money and power superseded the Christian sensibilities of many who claimed to be Christians, and in the name of Christianity, murder and genocide occurred. The hybrid monster of the church and state, or the state and church working together for the same goals corrupted the church.

However, for every brutal leader supported by the church, there were many Christians with no government association who lived the Christian lifestyle and followed in the footsteps of Christ.

What was done in the name of Christianity by a corrupt church and government must be recognized, and cannot be defended.

Since atheists like to put the burning tire of murder and genocide on the neck of most any Christian, I thought a look at the atheist track record in this regard would be worthwhile.

I have pages of specific citations, so, if in the following you feel you need a citation for a sentence or paragraph, I will happily supply it.

According to an article by Christian apologist Gregory Koukl, with citations; " The assertion is that religion has caused most of the bloodshed in the world. There are people who make accusations and assertions that are empirically false, this is one of them"According to Le Monde, atheist regimes killed 100 million people in the 20th century, via genocide.

The reign of terror in France, whose leaders were influenced by Diderot, Voltaire, Sade, and Rosseau, who worshiped the cult of reason, murdered 300,000 Frenchmen, most for not being good atheists.,The details of their torture and their slaughter are revolting.

Koukl summarizes by stating that " It is true that religion can possibly produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the detail, it produces evil because the individual people are living in rejection of Christianity and the God that they are supposed to be following.n so it can produce evil but the historical fact is that the outright rejection of God and institutionalizing atheism actually does produce evil at incredible levels"

I am sad, because,
I like to think that you are really better than this.

 

[shmogie]

I am sad, because,
I like to think that you are really better than this.

The truth shouldn't make you sad.

 

[shmogie]

An atheist is definitely not an atheist.

What are they then ?

 

[Audie]

The truth shouldn't make you sad.

If the truth is that this is really
you, that I am wrong in what I thought
about you then I am sorry to learn it,
and now I am more sad.

 

[Augustus]

It is estimated that over 800 million people have been killed in these wars of religion...

Not correctly estimated mind you

It's so wrong that an estimate of zero deaths would certainly be considerably less wrong.

(to put this into context, there have probably not been 800 million deaths in all wars combined, and as has been noted, scholars estimate that maybe 6-9% of all wars have been primarily religious, with % death toll likely lower than this)

"US Western Expansion (Justified by ""Manifest Destiny""):20,000,000 deaths"
AIDS deaths in Africa largely due to opposition to condoms: 30,000,000 , ok not a war but deaths caused by religious opposition to condoms


Al Qaeda, 1993-
Albigensian Crusade, 1208-49
Algeria, 1992-
Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE
Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-
Armenian Genocide: 1,500,000
Atlantic Slave Trade (Justified by Christianity): 14,000,000
Aztec Human Sacrifice: 80,000
Baha'is, 1848-54 ... Muslim/Bab’i conflict
Bosnia, 1992-95
Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901
Christian Romans, 30-313 CE
Congolese Genocide (King Leopold II): 13,000,000
Croatia, 1991-92
Crusades, 1095-1291 - 6,000,000

Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609
Eighty Years' War: 1,000,000
English Civil War, 1642-46
First Sudanese Civil War: 1,000,000
French Wars of Religion: 4,000,000
Great Peasants' Revolt: 250,000
Holocaust, 1938-45
Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598
India, 1992-2002
India: Suttee & Thugs
Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947
Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-
Iraq War: 500,000
Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92
Islamic Terrorism Since 2000: 150,000
Jewish Diaspora (Not Including the Holocaust): 1,000,000
Jews, 1348
Jonestown, 1978

Lebanon 1860 / 1975-92 250,000
Molucca Is., 1999-
Mongolia, 1937-39
Muslim Conquests of India: 80,000,000
Nigeria, 1990s, 2000s- 1,000,000

Northern Ireland, 1974-98
Russian pogroms 1905-06 / 1917-22
Rwandan Genocide: 800,000
Second Sudanese Civil War: 2,000,000
Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE
Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38
Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91
Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834 - 5,000

St. Bartholemew Massacre, 1572
Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64
The Holocaust (Jewish and Homosexual Deaths): 6,500,000
Thirty Years War, 1618-48 - 11,500,000

Tudor England
Vietnam, 1800s
Witch Hunts, 1400-1800
Xhosa, 1857

Lists like this are not scholarly but derivative of some post on reddit years back made by some random punter on the internet.

This list probably overstates religious deaths by 150 million (only on the ones with attached casualty figures). Other than the numbers often being an order of magnitude too high, some of these links to 'religious' are ludicrously tenuous.

For example: "AIDS deaths in Africa largely due to opposition to condoms" this is total nonsense, compare HIV rates in Protestant and Catholic Africa if you don't believe

Muslim Conquests of India: 80,000,000: All casualty figures for all historical conflicts tend to be vastly overstated, this is one of the most egregious. Were it true, one would have to believe that a conflict of greater intensity than the 30 Years War waged for centuries and at the end of the 'greatest genocide in history' there were more Hindus than at the start of it and the country was far richer. (also the decision not to include many of these deaths as being part of the, purportedly 'not religious', Mongol conquests is pretty arbitrary really)

Even the more plausible ones like the 30 Years War are far more nuanced. it had some religious dimension, but was more about territory and the power rivalry. It would have been less than half as long if Sweden hadn't joined in to carve out some more territory. The Protestant Swedes were assisted by the Catholic French in this endeavour which shows that religion wasn't exactly the overriding concern. Or the fact that for the Dutch it was really part of the 80 Years War for independence.

 

[shmogie]

The scapegoat as to who is a true Christian and who is not goes around and comes around as who is a true atheist and who is not.

This is a fallible human issue, and one could generalize on this subject concerning Judaism, Christianity, Islam and of course, atheists. One thing the Christians cannot do is blame atheist as a belief system that is responsible for genocide.

Your accusations concerning the French Revolution and the cause demonstrate your ignorance of history. It is even worse that you generalize the Revolutionary regimes as atheist.

Ignorant of history, not hardly the French revolution, brought about because of a monarchy that cared nothing for it's people, was hijacked by the atheists like Robespierre . T=hey quickly began slaughtering people, the clergy being favorite targets, then the middle class, finally the lower class. Only 8% of the murders by the guillotine were aristocrats, and 30% were peasants," Operation parracide,: Sade, Robespierre and the French revolution" Von Kuhenelt-Leddihn, Erik.

Don;'t try and bS me with "you are ignorant of history " If yoyu tghinbk you inow better, cough it up with some citations, otherwise you are just a cricket.

So, one cannot make a factual indictment against atheists, for a plethora of reasons. One wonders why Christians aren't given the same consideration,

 

[Curious George]

Even the more plausible ones like the 30 Years War are far more nuanced. it had some religious dimension, but was more about territory and the power rivalry. It would have been less than half as long if Sweden hadn't joined in to carve out some more territory. The Protestant Swedes were assisted by the Catholic French in this endeavour which shows that religion wasn't exactly the overriding concern. Or the fact that for the Dutch it was really part of the 80 Years War for independence.

Are you suggesting we can extricate beliefs about territory from religion and religious influence? Was manifest destiny merely about territory as well?

 

[Augustus]

Ignorant of history, not hardly the French revolution, brought about because of a monarchy that cared nothing for it's people, was hijacked by the atheists like Robespierre .

Robespierre was a Deist (although the atheistic factions of Momorro, Hebert, etc. were as, if not more, violent)

 

[shunyadragon]

The truth shouldn't make you sad.

The truth does not make me sad, but your warped view of history does. Again and again Robespierre was not an atheist.

 

[shunyadragon]

Ignorant of history, not hardly the French revolution, brought about because of a monarchy that cared nothing for it's people, was hijacked by the atheists like Robespierre . T=hey quickly began slaughtering people, the clergy being favorite targets, then the middle class, finally the lower class. Only 8% of the murders by the guillotine were aristocrats, and 30% were peasants," Operation parracide,: Sade, Robespierre and the French revolution" Von Kuhenelt-Leddihn, Erik.

Don;'t try and bS me with "you are ignorant of history " If yoyu tghinbk you inow better, cough it up with some citations, otherwise you are just a cricket.

So, one cannot make a factual indictment against atheists, for a plethora of reasons. One wonders why Christians aren't given the same consideration,

You BS yourself enough without any help. Do you realize a number of our followers were Deist and atheist, and followed the philosophers you claim caused the genocide?

The two main causes of the French Revolution are the abuses the Monarchy supported by the church, and starvation of the peasants during the prior years of bad weather (due to the Laki eruption), and low crop yield, and the hoarding by the Christian royalty and elite of the food.

 

[siti]

No atheist has ever killed anyone in the name of atheism.

Not quite true - pained as I am to admit it @shmogie does allude to facts (albeit facts he doesn't properly understand) when he suggests the "Cult of Reason" was, to some extent, a case of atheists killing in the name of atheism - or at least in the name of "reason". But it hasn't happened often and certainly nowhere near as often as religious people have killed in the name of God and been proud of themselves for having done so.

 

[siti]

hijacked by the atheists like Robespierre

Once again, Robespierre was not an atheist - he was a Deist. Look up the "Cult of the Supreme Being" - instead of trying to rewrite history yourself, try to learn (at least something) from it.

 

[shmogie]

If the truth is that this is really
you, that I am wrong in what I thought
about you then I am sorry to learn it,
and now I am more sad.

What is really me that bothers you ? Stating facts about atheists ? How sad do you get when atheists mock, jeer, and and make statements like Christians murder, kill, etc. the latest title being "Christians have a dark history, have they changed ? " Did that make you sad ?

My Christian brothers and sisters patently endure this derogatory pap, I do not.

It is time for the sneering atheists to learn about their fellow believers in history, and to ponder why their fellow atheists in positions of power resort to genocide, more genocide than the world has ever seen.

Use history to blanket condemn Christianity and Christians, learn the sword cuts both ways, and a blanket condemnation of atheists is a much, much heavier burden to bear.

I have exempted you from the condemnation !

 

[Augustus]

Are you suggesting we can extricate beliefs about territory from religion and religious influence? Was manifest destiny merely about territory as well?

You can't isolate anything in complex systems like human society, but when others use the term 'religious war' as opposed to 'war of geography' or 'war of economics' or 'war of culture' or 'war of language' or 'war of history' or 'war of human nature' or whatever other countless variables were at play then it's fair enough to reply on their terms.

Do you believe the term 'religious war' has any meaning?

 

[shunyadragon]

What is really me that bothers you ? Stating facts about atheists ? How sad do you get when atheists mock, jeer, and and make statements like Christians murder, kill, etc. the latest title being "Christians have a dark history, have they changed ? " Did that make you sad ?

No your misuse of history to justify your own agenda.

 

[Father Heathen]

An atheist is an atheist.,

and a theist is a theist, right? Christian, Muslim, Hindu... all peas in a pod?

Trying to lump atheists together is like trying to lump people who don't collect stamps together. It's nonsensical.

 

[charlie sc]

What is really me that bothers you ? Stating facts about atheists ? How sad do you get when atheists mock, jeer, and and make statements like Christians murder, kill, etc. the latest title being "Christians have a dark history, have they changed ? " Did that make you sad ?

My Christian brothers and sisters patently endure this derogatory pap, I do not.

It is time for the sneering atheists to learn about their fellow believers in history, and to ponder why their fellow atheists in positions of power resort to genocide, more genocide than the world has ever seen.

Use history to blanket condemn Christianity and Christians, learn the sword cuts both ways, and a blanket condemnation of atheists is a much, much heavier burden to bear.

I have exempted you from the condemnation !

While you’re ranting away, the atheist demography is increasing. Fairly soon it’ll overtake mainstream religion

 

[Father Heathen]

" The truth is, the atheist position is incapable of supporting any coherent system of morality other than ruthless social Darwinism. That's why it has caused more deaths, murders and bloodshed than any other belief system in the history of the world"

A system of ethics/morals based upon reason, compassion, and real world cause and effect is far more coherent than a system of ethics/morals based upon irrational, unsubstantiated, and arbitrary superstitions.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

While you’re ranting away, the atheist demography is increasing. Fairly soon it’ll overtake mainstream religion

It did give me that final shove I needed.