Oh...one more question to Atheist...what do you think?

Question

I've gone to numerous athesit web-sites and I recently heard a college professor (atheist) speaking about Christians who have murdered in the past...crusades etc. I think most of you know what I mean, it always seems to be a common theme to talk about Christians who have killed people etc...but I've always wondered how they (respectfully) explain numerous atheist who were also have committed
horrible murder such as chairman Moa (a very outspoken atheist) who murdered 200 million people, Joesph Stalin (who said Christianity is for the weak) murdered 70 million and the Vietnam guy (I think Poli was his name) who murdered 3-5 million for the crime as being Christian or other religion. All of these were just in the past 80 years.

It just seems a little hypocritical.....

what's the defense of this?

No stupid answers please...I would like to know what the counter argument against this is...if you don't know please don't answer.


thanks!

Answer 1

Everyone has nutcases. Atheism, Christianity, Islam... all have been used to justify genocide.

Answer 2

Your comparison is not entirely accurate.

The historical events such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials are not significant merely because they were perpetrated by Christians. They are important because they were perpetrated in the NAME of Christianity. Christian beliefs and biblical teachings were used, not only as justification, but as the impetus for these events.

There is a strong comparison between these events and the regimes of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot (Cambodia), and Ho Chi Minh (Viet Nam), but it has nothing to do with these men's religious beliefs. All of the above leaders were communists, specifically the violent breed of Bolshevik Communism that Stalin developed. Like Torquemada, Pope Innocent III, and Cotton Mather before them, these Communist leaders took a basically non-violent philosophy and turned it into a system for gaining personal power at the expense of their fellow men.

There is no encompassing belief structure or rule book for atheism. All that is necessary to be an atheist is a lack of belief in G(g)od(s). As such, the violence that the men in question commited against established churches and religious people was politically motivated, not religiously motivated. Churches and other organized social structures are often bastions of loyalty and power. The early communist leaders saw organized religion as a threat to their own power, and so targeted religious organizations. For the same reasons, they also persecuted intellectuals, artists, political adversaries, and the wealthy.

My point is that the fact that these men may or may not have been atheists is no more important than the fact that they all wore pants. They never killed in the name of atheism. They killed in the name of Communism, much like some Christians have killed in the name of Christianity. The lesson is that any system of dogmatic belief can be twisted to serve those in power.

Answer 3

The point of noting the Crusades is that no group is perfect and should not attempt to portray themselves as such. The difference is the reason behind the killings, i.e. for your religion vs. for political power. None of those people you mention cared about religion. They may have used it as an excuse, but their real motivation was personal power.

Not all atheists organize AGAINST religion. Most simply live their lives without it. Just like fundamentalist Christians are a small, crazy subsect of the religion, religion-hating atheists are a similar subsect of that group.

Answer 4

The issue is does a core belief cause a person to murder. Atheism is not a belief. It is a lack of a belief in gods. I don't see how not believeing in something would cause you to murder. Stalin also had a lack of belief in the Easter Bunny. In fact I would guess 99% of all murderers lack a belief in the Easter Bunny. You can see the problem with this type of reasoning. The question is does a belief influence one to kill. Since witch burning was a direct result of biblical teaching it would seem that it was. I don't see how not believing in gods, ghosts, fairies, etc. is going to cause anyone to do anything let alone murder.

You can't show a cause and effect by just showing there are members of X who are also members of Y. That should be obvious, yet that is what you are trying to do. If all atheists did was show there were christians who murdered you would be correct. But sadly some christians based their killing on biblical teaching. You can see that directly from their writings on the matter.

Answer 5

The counter argument is that we atheists don't knock on your door and tell you "Atheism is love and will save you from hell" we accept the world and reality for what it is. I'm sure some atheists have killed people, but it was for their own selfish plans, not in the name of atheism itself. The same cannot be said of the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem bonfires. Those killings were done in the name of the christian faith. That's the difference. If you were as intelligent as you like to think you are, you would've realized the difference already. No offence.

Answer 6

It's not hypocritical at all, because atheists don't go out and preach about how 'evil' it is to commit murder and kill the innocent and then turn around and murder and kill innocents. Get it?

Christians talk about being 'good' and then commit bad deeds. Atheists don't talk about being 'good' because we know 'good' is a value judgement and a relative term. Therefore there is no hypocrisy as with the Christians.

Is this clear enough? Couldn't you have figured this out for yourself? Did you REALLY need me to explain it to you? Are you 12?

Answer 7

There is a difference.. These Atheists killed for political power over resources.. While religion does the same, it uses the excuse that God is okay with millions of people dying.

It is not okay for people to die, regardless of if you believe a God is okay with it, or if it is just for gain.

Today's Atheists should know better. There are still ones out there that only wish to accumulate power, but most of us just want to advance and accumulate knowledge without being at the expense of others.

Many of today's religious are still using their God as an excuse to as to why it is okay to kill people.

Answer 8

Pol Pot... Cambodia, not Viet Nam. And he didn't kill them because of their religion... he killed them because they were intellectuals.

While it is true that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were atheists, and that they were responsible for the deaths of millions of people, there is NO INSTANCE where such leaders had people killed 'in the name of' atheism... rather, they conducted their excesses in the name of political ideologies. Contrarily, there are dozens... perhaps hundreds... of instances where people were killed 'in the name of' religion.

An atheist is simply somebody that does not believe in god(s). It has no broader connotations than that. There is no underlying atheist philosophy, of belief systems.

Your question is nothing more than a very lame straw man argument.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." ~ Steven Weinberg, Freethought Today, April, 2000

Answer 9

Communism was the pseudo-religious dogma that Mao and Stalin shared. Their atheism was not what lead to the atrocities. If you have a beef, it's with communism, not atheism. The difference is that the Crusades and the Inquisition were in the name of religion, very different from communism, which was a political crusade.

Answer 10

Easy.. Atheist dont claim divine justification. christians need to see they dont have any, they are just as prone to evil as anyone else. Its just that given christian doctorine, it is logically conclusive to be all the more evil.
Reason is whats needed for all people. Ignorance is dangerous not bliss.
Religeous history shows that belief in a God does not make people moral. Atheist history is much better, not best, but much better and they dont have a religion.
The point trying to be made is that Religeous people dont know squat about a God and its requirements. And its about time people realized that so we can actually live more peacefully and can actually spend time on more important things, like education and reason.

Answer 11

It seems a little hypocritical? OF WHO???

You christians CONSTANTLY say you have higher standards, say you have better values.

Yet, JUST LIKE THIS VERY POST OF YOURS, when called to the carpet, you answer is always the same. "Well, atheists do it, too!"

You brag about your values...you say how others should be like you...you even try to make government legislate the crap from your cult book, the bible, to make everyone follow it.

then, when you are shown to be hypocrites, haters, and killers, all you can say is "see, atheists do it, too..."

Well, so much for your values, if your own yardstick for christian behavior is to say "we're no worse than they are".

LOOK TO YOURSELF FOR THE HYPOCRISY -- THEN ask yourself why people are so tired of your crap.


And -- just a little note for you. Unlike christians who used the bible as their excuse to kill hundreds of millions all through history, the people you talk about -- Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot -- it wasn't their religious dogma as atheists that did anything, it was their political dogma (communism) which drove their actions. There's quite a big difference there. By the way, Hitler was a Catholic, very driven by biblical dogma.