Why do Atheists Continue?

Question

To use the crusades and inquisition agruments to denouce christianity?

You want to play this game thats fine but here are some interesting statistics for you

The Crusades reportedly killed 100's of thousands of people on both sides

The Inquisition kill numbers are around 20,000

But wait heres more

Stalin killed around 20 million
Pol Pot is atributed to killing anywhere from 600000 to 4 million
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC is atributed to killing millions of people

and thats just 3 people with Atheist beliefs
There are sooo much more

when will people learn that its not the religion or lack of one that is causing this. But the greed of mankind

You guys are yelling at me and then turning it around making my point for me

READ THREW MY ENTIRE POST DIP WADS.

I SAID " Its not the religion or LACK OF ONE that causes this..But the greed of mankind."

...idiots

Answer 1

Yes, I, too, am tired of hearing Atheists blame us for everything from the Holocaust to the downfall of our American government because if Hitler and Bush claim to be Christians then that just makes it so.

Answer 2

I am an Atheist. I do not practice the religion, but I do not believe in God, so I assume I am an Atheist. If there is a god, why does he not show himself? Give people a sign that he is there? There are absolutely no grounds for most religions, like Christianity and Atheism. I am 10 years old. I haven't killed anyone and I hope that I never do. What about Hitler? He killed 6mil and was not an Atheist. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin-Laden, and many others killed people, yet were not Atheists. That those people killed that number of others, is a coincidence.

Answer 3

The problem is.......... and was in the crusades and throughout the inquisition is that the greed of mankind was carried out under the mask of religion.....

Manifest destiny sound familiar.......

religion has and is being used to control the masses, hands down. Or Course, propaganda(Stalin etc..) and other lies have been used too, which I'm not a fan of either

Answer 4

Atheists can believe in what is essentially summed up in the 10 commandments (as most of those have nothing to do with religion anyway).
The difference is atheists do not lead their lives narrow mindedly clinging to a book that has dubious authors and was written 1000s of years ago.
Your arguments about Stalin, Hitler etc. are very weak indeed. They did not kill people because they believed in a particular god. If anything, the church and the pope collaborated with "religious" Hitler and his genocide because they were really scared about themselves (true leaders hey?)
What would you say about the religious stand of the Christian church on abortion (even in the cases of rape), on the ban of condoms - thus encouraging the spread of AIDS and killing silently the population of entire continents, on the intolerance to gays and minorities etc? Do you think that this is the true path to human evolution?
You are welcome to add the above victims on the account of the church and check your maths again.

Answer 5

Under the umbrella of fanaticism we find theism and fascism.

We'll look at Hitler and the OT God.

Both have an all-power leader who is beyond criticism.

He is also ruthless. The OT God murdered countless of people by drowning them (in the Flood), ordering his followers to massacre inhabitants of various cities, and the first born of Egypt. Hitler murdered many people, in his death camps, and ordering his followers to massacre inhabitants of various cities.

Both leaders strictly regulated sexuality and social roles for men and women.

Both did not have problems with slavery, and in fact, both promoted it.

Both had real enemies. But they also had more imagined enemies. For Hitler, it was the Jews, Communists, and most other people who did not agree with him. For Christians, it is the devil, atheists, gays, and most other people who do not agree with them.

They also a book that is unalterable, and contains the words of the leader. For the Christians, it is the Bible, for the Nazis, Mein Kampf.

You might argue the this is unfair, surely Christians have matured since the dark ages. But they still have their OT rules which commands them to murder. See Lev. 20: 9, 13, Lev 21: 9, among others.

I still remember Jonestown, where thousands of people were murdered.

By the way, you forgot to mention that the Christians crusaders also massacred Jews and their own kind on their way to the Holy Land.

You also forgot to mention the Spanish carried their Inquisition to the New World, murdering millions of Indians in the process. The 20,000 applies only to Europeans in about a year's time.

So let me ask you a question.

If you thought God, or a representative of God, commanded you to kill someone, would you??

If you do not, then God might let you live, but it would be hard to argue that you follow Christianity, instead of just picking and choosing which laws and commandments to obey.

If you did kill in His name, then you are leading credibility to my argument.

Rob

Answer 6

The really funny thing about Atheists is they always say it's the EVIL GUY not ATHEISM but for Religion it's ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE not just the EVIL GUY

Well, STALIN never pulled trigger it was just someone following order.

A good, card carrying Communist just doing what he was told to do least it be done to him for not doing it!

So I guess there's a lot of evil people in the world and they aren't all religious. So everyone has to take a little blame there.

But Atheist's keep doing that side step trying to DISTANCE themselves from the fact that DECLARED ATHEIST states do bad things too!

AND, of course, WE'VE NEVER ADDRESSED THE ISSUE of How Atheists intend to STAMP OUT RELIGION IN THE WORLD.

With the sword or a gun.

You going to do what they did, CHANGE OR ELSE!

What is YOUR GRAND PLAN TO STOMP IT OUT, burn books.

Are ATHEISTS BOOK BURNERS do they intend to BURN ALL THE BIBLES AND QURANS IN THE WORLD

Is that how wonderful atheists behave!

YOu going to black list people who are religious. Prevent them from having jobs.

How you going to ARM twist us, for that is the ONLY way it's going to change. With arm twisting.

What JOB in your NEW WORLD ORDER will the Pope have. Janitor.

You going to do like Mao, another great Atheist, did. Confiscate all the Western musical instruments. Go into peoples homes and take their Bibles, Crosses, Pictures of Jesus make a big pile and throw some gasoline on it.

Whatcha gonna do. How you gonna stop it. How do you JUSTIFY stamping out and idea, an ideology, just because you don't like it.

Answer 7

The Crusades are estimated to have killed 1.5 million people, but let's not quibble over numbers. When you compare the deaths as a percentage of total world population at the time, the Christians come off as quite successful killers.

The point is not that Atheists are universally good and wholesome, but the Christianity is supposed to be good and wholesome and is not.

Atheists are as diverse as Christians if not moreso, so for atheists to believe that murder is valid is no surprise.

But when Christians are subject to a commandment that says, "Thou shalt not kill", then assassinate medical personnel in the name of "Pro-Life" or commit genocide over "one iota", they are no better than Islamic terrorists or atheists.

Answer 8

Noone is trying to say there are not bad people. But these bad people did not do what they did in the name of god.

In fact, the bible is full of stories of murders and wars conducted at the direct instruction of god.

Just because you now see that what people did in the crusades was wrong does not mean that they did it because they were bad - they were religious and had precisely the same motives as you.

Thankfully for us society has moved on and it would no longer be acceptable for you to behave as the bible or your god instructs.

Answer 9

I accept that. I'm not atheist - am Agnostic - they are greatly different but neither accept a living, cognitive supreme being. The Crusades and Inquisition do not denounce Christianity at all. They denounce some crazy rulers of the time. I've heard arguments along those lines and they are clearly ludicrous.

Answer 10

That may or may not be true but they did nit kill in the name of atheism. They killed for whatever reason and may have been atheists unlike the inquisition and crusades which killed for and in the name of Christianity. See the difference. Using your rationale we could add Hitler (and his 6 million plus) to the tally of Christian killing.

Edit: Read Gazoo's answer. He said what I was trying to say, yet his answer was twice as good and half as long.

Answer 11

Understand the MOTIVATION for the Inquisition and the Crusades was religious. Hitlers motivation with respect to the Jews was religious.

Stalin and Pol Pot's MOTIVATION was political.

You aren't going to find anyone who's motivation was not believing in a god.