Why atheists are bothered?

[Autumnleaf]

First of all - get of your noble high horse about these people getting killed for their religion... THEY WEREN'T. Of course some of the bravest people could well have been religious, indeed some could well have been atheist too, what is the common factor for all the executions is that they were killed for resisting the regimes who forced undesirable changes onto them.

And this is what atheists are currently trying to do - stop groups forcing others to conform to their beliefs

I never said they were killed for their religions. They were killed by atheists who did not have any religion.

 

[Paulos23]

I never said they were killed for their religions. They were killed by atheists who did not have any religion.

But, those communist leaders and their flunkies didn't kill because they where atheist, they killed because those people where not doing what was in the interests of the state (which usually falls in line with the leader's interests oddly enough). This makes these killings not religious based killings, but political based killings. These governments could had any other state religion, and these killing would still have happened because these people would not get with the state's (and therefore the leader's) program.

 

[DaisyDay]

Another suggested that Muslims not participate in any Christmas parties or birthday parties, because it is tolerating nonbelief in Allah.

"Sorry, Julie. Going to have to miss the birthday party in the office because you don't believe in Allah."

At least they'll have a party pooper...

It's Jehovah Witnesses who don't celebrate birthdays, not Muslims. Muslims are also more likely to celebrate the birth of Jesus, his being a prophet in their book and all, than are JWs.

 

[Autumnleaf]

These governments could had any other state religion, and these killing would still have happened because these people would not get with the state's (and therefore the leader's) program.

If you are right go ahead and name one religious based country which killed millions of people.

China, Germany, USSR, and Cambodia are examples of nonreligious governments killing millions of people. It would seem to take a lack of religion to make such massive murder acceptable. I think individually atheists are smarter and often kinder than religious people. But when they run a country history seems to suggests very bad things tend to happen to the people in those places.

 

[IzzyPop]

If you are right go ahead and name one religious based country which killed millions of people.

China, Germany, USSR, and Cambodia are examples of nonreligious governments killing millions of people. It would seem to take a lack of religion to make such massive murder acceptable. I think individually atheists are smarter and often kinder than religious people. But when they run a country history seems to suggests very bad things tend to happen to the people in those places.

Make sure you throw Sweden in there as well, they are atheist and are killing billions now a days...

 

[Autumnleaf]

Make sure you throw Sweden in there as well, they are atheist and are killing billions now a days...

You're clouding the argument from atheists taking over a country virtually overnight like the examples I mentioned versus a Christian country waning in values over time. But I'll bite, Sweden is aborting itself while accepting in many immigrants. It is committing cultural suicide.

 

[StromRider]

China, Germany, USSR, and Cambodia are examples of nonreligious governments killing millions of people. It would seem to take a lack of religion to make such massive murder acceptable.

Hitler was non-religious?

"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.."

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter"

"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."

"In the life of nations, what in the last resort decides questions is a kind of Judgment Court of God.... Always before god and the world the stronger has the right to carry through what he wills."

"The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie."

etc,etc,etc........

 

[rebelEnigma]

Hitler was non-religious?

"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.."

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter"

"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."

"In the life of nations, what in the last resort decides questions is a kind of Judgment Court of God.... Always before god and the world the stronger has the right to carry through what he wills."

"The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie."

etc,etc,etc........

And yet, Hitler did nothing that a Christian is called to do: he did the very opposite in fact! He slaughtered millions of Jews, countless millions of others, practically rewrote the Bible into a Nazi manifesto, and secularized the entire German army. You of all people should know that just because you claim to be something, does not mean that you are. Look at Hitler's actions and you can tell that, despite the garbage he spoke, he was not a Christian.

Also, is it really so hard to imagine that Hitler, being an excellent persuasive speaker, only said those things to get the people of Germany to follow him? Politicians will truly say ANYTHING to get into power.

 

[Paulos23]

Also, is it really so hard to imagine that Hitler, being an excellent persuasive speaker, only said those things to get the people of Germany to follow him? Politicians will truly say ANYTHING to get into power.

You are so close to the point here. So if Hitler would say anything, can't the same be said for any other leader?

 

[clarksided]

And yet, Hitler did nothing that a Christian is called to do: he did the very opposite in fact! He slaughtered millions of Jews, countless millions of others, practically rewrote the Bible into a Nazi manifesto, and secularized the entire German army. You of all people should know that just because you claim to be something, does not mean that you are. Look at Hitler's actions and you can tell that, despite the garbage he spoke, he was not a Christian.

Also, is it really so hard to imagine that Hitler, being an excellent persuasive speaker, only said those things to get the people of Germany to follow him? Politicians will truly say ANYTHING to get into power.

He did what many christian leaders do; he used the religion as justification for his hateful agenda. This use of religion is being continued today by the likes of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and it was, though thankfully he has died, by Jerry Falwell.

And no, I'm not calling these people mass murderers like Hitler, for those of you who wish to circumvent the point of this point by crying that nonsense out, I'm comparing a tactic these evil men use to a tactic hitler used.

 

[Phred]

If you are right go ahead and name one religious based country which killed millions of people.

Spain, England and Italy off the top of my head.

China, Germany, USSR, and Cambodia are examples of nonreligious governments killing millions of people.

Germany? Surely you jest. A more Catholic state hardly exists outside Italy. Even if you can manage to prove Adolf to be non-religious, and I don't think you can, the people doing the actual atrocities were good Christians one and all. The Soviet Union's people never stopped being Eastern Orthodox under the thumb of the officially atheistic state. China and Cambodia are just religious in ways you don't understand. But their governments don't recognize religion in an attempt to replace religion with the state.

It would seem to take a lack of religion to make such massive murder acceptable.

Very few Catholics in Germany stood up and complained.

I think individually atheists are smarter and often kinder than religious people. But when they run a country history seems to suggests very bad things tend to happen to the people in those places.

You're forgetting all those who died of smallpox delivered on blankets infected by good Christians. Or those burned at the stake by good Christians. Or those accused of being witches by good Christians. Entire wars fought between protestants and catholics both of whom claim to be good Christians. How many have died in N. Ireland due to good Christians? Yet, not one person was ever killed by anyone due to belief in no god. They were killed due to their resistance of the state... a state which just happened to be trying to stamp out religion. You've confused the fact that a government claims to be atheistic with the reasons it makes people disappear. Unlike those who died in England during the rule of Bloody Mary just for being Protestant.

 

[RaveyDavey]

Spain, England and Italy off the top of my head.

I'd add portugal in there too... Spain and Portugal who between them carved up the new world under agreement from the Pope and proceeded to massacre entire civilisations under enforced christian conversion?

But we're digressing, and this point has been argued countlessly but as always falls back on the 'true scotsman' arguement...

So lets get back to the OP - objecting to enforced beliefs WITHIN a state. In particular extending it to groups of people enforcing their beliefs onto state or public companies, where necessary irreligious secularity exists so that noone is granted extra privileges... hence equal treatment for all.

 

[Autumnleaf]

I'd add portugal in there too... Spain and Portugal who between them carved up the new world under agreement from the Pope and proceeded to massacre entire civilisations under enforced christian conversion?

But we're digressing, and this point has been argued countlessly but as always falls back on the 'true scotsman' arguement...

So lets get back to the OP - objecting to enforced beliefs WITHIN a state. In particular extending it to groups of people enforcing their beliefs onto state or public companies, where necessary irreligious secularity exists so that noone is granted extra privileges... hence equal treatment for all.

The deaths in the New World were from disease by and large. Are you convicting microorganisms of a moral crime? Sure there was attempted conversion and even enslavement of the people there but it wasn't like the mass exterminations aforementioned by atheists.

 

[Verv]

Autumn Leaf is right about that and furthermore the largest champion of the rights of native groups was the Church. St. Jerome and the likes advocated endlessly the rights of Natives to live and not be enslaved by people, to be treated with dignity.

The Church was all about the spread of Faith; rather, it was Spain and Portugal that was about the spread of power.

 

[TheManeki]

The deaths in the New World were from disease by and large. Are you convicting microorganisms of a moral crime? Sure there was attempted conversion and even enslavement of the people there but it wasn't like the mass exterminations aforementioned by atheists.

I think he's talking about the primitive forms of germ warfare Europeans used on the native Americans. Europeans would sometimes give gifts (like blankets) infected with a disease that they had more immunity to than the native Americans (like smallpox). It caused the exterminations of some American Indian nations.

 

[Phred]

The deaths in the New World were from disease by and large. Are you convicting microorganisms of a moral crime? Sure there was attempted conversion and even enslavement of the people there but it wasn't like the mass exterminations aforementioned by atheists.

The indigenous peoples of the Americas were in many cases purposely infected by these "missionaries" in the name of their god... your god too I believe. It was ok to kill them since they were heathens. The people killed by atheistic states were not killed in the name of religious faith but by people who had no faith for other reasons entirely. You're right... it's not like the deaths caused by the "aforementioned atheists"... it's worse.

 

[NavyGuy7]

Very few Catholics in Germany stood up and complained.

Maybe because they'd be killed? And besides, those people will be judged by God for it. What they did was outside of Christianity. Period.

 

[NavyGuy7]

The indigenous peoples of the Americas were in many cases purposely infected by these "missionaries" in the name of their god... your god too I believe. It was ok to kill them since they were heathens. The people killed by atheistic states were not killed in the name of religious faith but by people who had no faith for other reasons entirely. You're right... it's not like the deaths caused by the "aforementioned atheists"... it's worse.

And yet the past is the past. Just because people may have done these things, that's just it. They were PEOPLE. HUMANS, in other words. They did things that were not of God, correct? Just because they may have done it in his name does not mean God approved of it. I hate it when people assume the sinful actions of humans reflect what God wants.

 

[selfinflikted]

I hate it when people assume the sinful actions of humans reflect what God wants.

Yes, but for me it's analogous to the boy who cried wolf. Christians say and do SO many things "in god's name", how do we know when they are doing what god wants? It's most definitely impossible to tell what "god wants" by judging the myriad of behaviors of christians.

 

[DaisyDay]

Maybe because they'd be killed? And besides, those people will be judged by God for it. What they did was outside of Christianity. Period.

They didn't think so.