ADNAN
Hello Darren,
DAR
It is Darrel
ADAN
I was asked by Jochen some questions about atheism. I need
some info about these issues.
DAR
Yes you do. I'll send you some FAQ's. This should help.
JOCHEN
Maybe Adnan should ask his atheist friends a few probing
question why the people who enforced atheism on their societies
have murdered millions of people.
DAR
Maybe Adnan should ask this theist friends why people who
enforced Christianity on societies have murdered millions of
people.
A common misunderstanding of the word and implications of
ATHEISM. Please understand that the word only tells you ONE
thing. That ONE thing is that the person LACKS ONE thing.
This one thing that an atheist lacks is:
A BELIEF IN THE EXISTENCE OF A DEITY.
That's all. Therefore, the only thing that is absolutely
incompatible with atheism is belief in a deity. Atheists can be
gay, straight, black, white, brown, yellow, nice, bad, friendly,
assholes, peacemakers, brilliant, stupid, murderers, world leaders
etc. and this has nothing to do with atheism.
Thus the word atheism is very different than the word
Christian which DOES pretend to correlate with a host of certain
beliefs (which are based supposedly on the Bible and are
therefore hopelessly confusing to Christians who cannot seem to
agree them).
Someone else posted this which I largely agree with:
"I think it is important to make a key distinction here, because
the elementary christian response is always to point out
atrocities committed under supposed "atheist" governments. The
atrocities carried out by expressly christian governments is a
testament against christianity because many of these actions
were based on and justified by, the bible. Christianity is a belief
system that is often rooted in the bible. Atheism however, is
*not a belief system*. Even the strongest connotation of the
word does not include a belief system; it simply makes the
statement that god(s) do(es) not exist. [Note, this is a singular
belief, not a belief system. Further, it is a subset of atheism.]
Thus to say that a person is an atheist is to say *nothing* about
his or her ethical structure. There are no necessary ethical
implications to being an atheist. Thus even if stalinist russia
executed millions, and Russia was at the time, an officially
atheistic state, this has no bearing whatsoever on the ethical
validity of atheism. There can be no government based on
atheism (though governments can be officially atheistic) because
atheism is not a belief system."
--clayton@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
JOCH
Stalin about 20 million
DAR
Well if you want to do a body count I really think that
Christianity would lose big time.
A good friend from errancy posted this a couple of months ago
when someone made this assertion regarding Stalin:
"Well, Stalin's mother wanted him to be a priest. He got
extremely high marks at the Seminary that he went to and was
one of their best pupils. I've never seen any evidence that Stalin
was an atheist. Georgian peasants tend to believe in God, but he
may well have been an atheist in later life . Of course, he was
against the Russian Orthodox Church, but that was it because it
was a possible source of power and he felt all power should be
in his hands." --Steven Carr 4/1
JOCH
Mao about 50 million as far as I remember.
Those are only the prime champions.
DAR
Sounds a little low really. What has this to do with atheism?
You think the number would have been lower if he was a
Christian? How funny. Hitler was a good Catholic and Jew hater
(as was Martin Luther) Christianity didn't seem to slow him
down. In fact it certainly encouraged him. Have you ever heard of
the INQUISITION? Does the word CRUSADES ring any bells?
JOCH
Others have a couple of hundred thousand 'only'...
and it still continues.
DAR
Yes, atrocities occur. As Christianity declines their ability to
instigate atrocities has diminished. Good I say. Let's get
secular, and civilized.
JOCH
And in the Soviet Union many Christians also were put into
mental asylum and treated with psychopharmaka since the
scientific atheism has proven that there is no God, so
that anyone who believes in God must be mentally insane.
DAR
What a nice little anecdote, but I doubt that you can back it
up. I don't think "scientific atheism has proven that there is no
God" but there very well could be a correlation between the worship of
invisible spooks and some sort of mental illness.
Reminds me of an Ingersoll quote:
"I am saying nothing against the charity of Christians; nothing
against any kindness or goodness. But I say the Christians, in my
judgment, have done more harm than they have done good. They
may talk of the asylums they have built, but they have not built
asylums enough to hold the people who have been driven insane
by their teachings." --Robert G. Ingersoll, 19th century
statesman, attorney and orator
JOCH
Currently about 160,000 Christians die each year due to
persecution targeted at them for being Christians, mainly
concentrated in the communist countries and the Islamic
countries.
DAR
Don't believe everything you read, especially if it is a
Christian source. Most Christian persecution today is from
competing religions just as most just as in the past Christianity
enjoyed persecuting everyone who didn't believe exactly as they.
I think religion and intolerance are very closely related and
always have been. Try reading the book of Joshua in the Bible
some time. And most of the other books too. Come to think of it,
the New Testament isn't exactly into supporting the toleration of
other religious beliefs either.
JOCH
That adds up really fast.
Jochen
DAR
Not enough to exceed that atrocities committed by
Christianity all through history. Not even close.
I will be forwarding this to errancy-l and you can respond to it
there since I do not have time to be having extensive private e-
mail debates.
cheers,
Darrel
----------------------
"Over the past centuries bibliolatry has led Christians to bigotry,
the persecution of Jews and other non-Christians, murder and
terrorism, the oppression of women, the suppression of
sexuality, censorship, cult mentality, and other aberrations.
These destructive behavior patterns can be easily traced to the
unchallenged authority accorded biblical writing."
--from "Going by the Book" by Ernie Bringas, Master of
Divinity, minister of the United Methodist Church.