patrick.net

Dan8267 says

I'm talking about modern times just like you were in our conversation. Vocal atheists that people bitch about today like Hitchens and Dawkins. Yes, a hundred years ago Stalin, an atheist, was also a tyrant. But our discussion was about today, not a century ago as evident when

How short is your memory anyway? The Soviet Union was in existence till about 20 years ago. Some of its ideological derivative regimes still exist today, and account for a huge chunk of the world's population. Did Hitchens become ancient history to you too the moment he died a few years ago? Dawkins probably won't be long either, as much as I respect the man on his treatise on genetic evolution itself.

Dan8267 says

The context of the thread of discussion you created was the present. My statement makes perfect sense in that context. Just because we're on the Internet doesn't mean you can drop context after ever single post even if that post was like hours ago.

What the heck are you talking about? Your statement is little more than a re-run of the trite zealous anti-religious schoolboy that agitated for chopping the heads off the priests during the French Revolution, the Russian Communist Revolution, the Chinese Communist Revolution, and the Cambodian genocide.

What do you think the current state religion of North Korea is? The blind faith in the Government and the Great Leader! after all traditional religions are banned.

Reality says

...

Don't make me pull out a half-naked Tom Selleck again. Go read the old threads on this subject matter. Just look for Selleck.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

...

Don't make me pull out a half-naked Tom Selleck again. Go read the old threads on this subject matter. Just look for Selleck.

Not the least interested in reading what you said elsewhere.

Reality says

monotheism was invented to provide a check on the rulers.

LOL! That is the complete opposite of reality. For example, Constantine adopted Christianity and imposed it on Rome so he could increase his own power. Not coincidentally, Paul had written to respect those placed in authority above you.

But, you do have a point in observing that people tend to deify human leaders, from divine emperors to the divine right of kings to the imperial presidency. They also tend to create a pantheon of saints to worship, e.g. celebrities. To call that a "need" is a stretch though: as every parent has explained to every child, you don't need candy, you want candy, and it rots the teeth out of your head.

curious2 says

LOL! That is the complete opposite of reality. For example, Constantine adopted Christianity and imposed it on Rome so he could increase his own power. Not coincidentally, Paul had written to respect those placed in authority above you.

Constantine did not invent Christianity. Roman Empire was going to hell in a hand basket before Constantine ("Crisis of the Third Century"). Constantine's legalization of Christianity did lead to much lower cost of running the Roman government, as reflected in reduced inflation rate and re-stabilization in the 4th century.

curious2 says

But, you do have a point in observing that people tend to deify human leaders, from divine emperors to the divine right of kings to the imperial presidency. They also tend to create a pantheon of saints to worship, e.g. celebrities. To call that a "need" is a stretch though: as every parent has explained to every child, you don't need candy, you want candy, and it rots the teeth out of your head.

Whether need or want, roughly 80% of the population sells their body and soul to that which is perceived the most powerful. Richard Dawkins actually considers that phenomenon a genetic/viral mental disease caused by our evolutionary need for kids to follow parents' instruction when young. Given the prevalence of this mental disease among human population, wouldn't it be a good idea to have as diverse religions putting faith in various "heavenly fathers/mothers" as possible instead of putting faith in the hirarchy of men occupying our governments?

I liked science and built speakers in my High School Electronics class. The area near the beach where I lived had parents with german cars, and some of their kids drove these to High School. I was a geek, and they let me know it.

Now I was starting to understand human nature when a high percentage of the Kids with wealth were democrats, they were cool, they were elite.

And if you went in the Navy and took engineering they wont talk to you.

Now - I cant talk to them so much. They are Democrats still, and cant figure out why their Outdoor Studies degrees dont pay so well. Why not just offer a degree in Burger flipping?

Turns out - it the dems who are geeks.............

Reality says

Richard Dawkins actually considers that a genetic/viral mental disease due to our evolutionary need for kids to follow parents' instruction when young.

Son, are you and this Darkins feller retarded?
All animal species(well mammals anyway) are taught by example by their parents.
What asshole proposes, that a parent teaching their children is a mental disease. It's the Liberal POV taught in school by adults that should be old enough to know better, than the shit they are spouting off to children, that are fucking mental.

The folks on this board, never stops topping the stupid shit I heard.

In short, we individually reap what we sow, and collectively as a society, we reap what we sow.

Good Captain,

Dawkins was not talking about kids learning from adults per se, but the juvenile proclivity persisting into adulthood. i.e. the same genetic coding that makes the juvenile willing to believe and follow whatever the adult says persisting into adulthood and makes the adult susceptible to worshiping authority figures.

Reality says

Not the least interested in reading what you said elsewhere.

And I'm not the least bit interested in repeating myself to someone to lazy to do so.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

Not the least interested in reading what you said elsewhere.

And I'm not the least bit interested in repeating myself to someone to lazy to do so.

Then why bother posting anything at all? Do you actually believe the overwhelming majority of the ideas around here haven't been debated previously ad nauseum over the past few years, few hundred years, or few thousand years? Real original memes are extremely rare, just like truly original genetic mutations.

Original ideas happen all the time, and good ideas are worth repeating. However, feel free to put me on ignore if you don't like what I write. I have yet to see you add to a conversation.

Dan8267 says

There is no such thing as an anti-religious zealot. And I have yet to hear a vocal atheist who also advocated an all-powerful centralized government.

Seems all the great dictators ran police states which were highly agressive against religious institutions. Its simple. If there is something abstract higher than the state that is good and moral then the state has a challenger. So it must be eliminated. Maybe atheists dont plan on helping a police state form, but moral relativism, hedonism and police states have been around for a long time. I was pondering on the inflation of Diocletian and the conversion of the Empire to Christ by Constantine a generation later. And these romans knew how to party, they make the sick stuff of today look like peanuts. Child sacrifice, orgies, etc. But when the soul rots and the country rots from within, eventually people seek out goodness and morality.

So while atheists arent intrinsically evil or seek out disorder and amorality, they are just pushing Rome along until it turns to dust.

I also find that the fervor with which some atheists pursue their belief in no-god with great fanatical zealotry. And this is now "PC" to be that way. And its not going to turn out well - like it or not, but ecclesiastical factions in a society are a part of a greater balance.

Lol. You idiots lost any claim to the intelligence label. That was swiped from liberals by the libertarians a couple decades ago.

"I also find that the fervor with which some atheists pursue their belief in no-god with great fanatical zealotry. And this is now "PC" to be that way. And its not going to turn out well - like it or not, but ecclesiastical factions in a society are a part of a greater balance."

Right?

It's almost like each and every one of these individuals have unresolved emotional trauma related to their experience with religious upbringing or unresolved chemical imbalances that cause them to want to thrust atheism down the throats of others.

I've spent roughly half my life as an atheist and half as a born again Christian and not once have I had the desire to force someone else to accept my beliefs nor have I felt compelled to insult and/or belittle those who believe differently than I do.

Mick Russom says

Maybe atheists dont plan on helping a police state form, but moral relativism, hedonism and police states have been around for a long time.

Feel free to resurrect this old thread: http://patrick.net/?p=1219145

Finally got to read your old post. Thanks for providing the link to the article that you are so proud of.

Wow! It's amazing how narrow the knowledge base is among today's young kids. The Spanish Inquisition investigated a total of about 125k people, of which 1.8% were executed. That's about 2000 people total over about 170 years. 170 years! The French atheist revolutionaries killed more priests than that in one year! The Stalinist, Maoist and Pol Pottist executed more religious people in a day than that in pursuit of "scientific atheism."

The Holocaust was a racial event, not a religious one. The victims were targeted according to biology (1/8 biological Jew); many were converted Jewish Christians, even atheist Jews and non-practicing Jews. If anything, the theory was a vulgarized version of Darwinism made palatable to the first few generations of modern public-school educated crowd, Social Darwinism. Prussia was the first to implement mass brain washing in public schools. The Catholics were also persecuted by the Nazi regime, which was atheistic to occultist.

The extermination of native Americans and slavery again could hardly be attributed to religion. Pure greed drove both. Many religious groups actually tried to protect some of the victims by converting them to Christianity.

Reality says

The Spanish Inquisition investigated a total of about 125k people, of which 1.8% were executed.

Wow, trying to rationalize the Spanish Inquisition. That's a whole new type of fucked up I've never heard of before. How many countless thousands were tortured both officially investigated and not. How many millions were kept living in fear?

And the Inquisition was just one small part of the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity.

Reality says

he Catholics were also persecuted by the Nazi regime, which was atheistic to occultist.

Nazi atheistic? Why don't you just make out George Washington to be a smurf while you're rewriting history?

Dan8267 says

Reality says

The Spanish Inquisition investigated a total of about 125k people, of which 1.8% were executed.

Wow, trying to rationalize the Spanish Inquisition. That's a whole new type of fucked up I've never heard of before. How many countless thousands were tortured both officially investigated and not. How many millions were kept living in fear?

And the Inquisition was just one small part of the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity.

I just cited the stats, with no moral weighing whatsoever. You were the one who excused Stalinists and Maoists that killed thousands times more people in pursuit of their "scientific atheistic" states. On the order of 100,000,000 vs.
2,000

Dan8267 says

Reality says

he Catholics were also persecuted by the Nazi regime, which was atheistic to occultist.

Nazi atheistic? Why don't you just make out George Washington to be a smurf while you're rewriting history?

Nazis were indeed atheistic. In case you didn't know, "Nazi" stands for National Socialism. It was atheistic nationalism and atheistic socialism. Some of the particular leaders were (allegedly) into Occultism.

Yes, so very atheistic. Look at all those atheist symbols and people dressed in atheist garb.

Apparently you aren't able to tell the difference between state-controlled fake religious institutions vs. genuine religious institutions. Both Soviet Union and Red China also had fake "patriotic churches" entirely controlled by the atheistic governments.

If you believe Nazis were Christians, how do you explain their mass killing of Jews who had converted to Christianity? It was Social Darwinism.

All religious institutions are fake. And it's religion's control of the state that you really need to be worried about.

The historical record stands on it own.

Reality says

If you believe Nazis were Christians, how do you explain their mass killing of Jews who had converted to Christianity? It was Social Darwinism.

bigotry

Dan8267 says

All religious institutions are fake. And it's religion's control of the state that you really need to be worried about.

The historical record stands on it own.

What religion was in control of the worst governments in human history: Pol Pot's Cambodia, Mao's China, Stalin's USSR, and the Nazis? Scientific Atheism and Social Darwinism!

Dan8267 says

Reality says

If you believe Nazis were Christians, how do you explain their mass killing of Jews who had converted to Christianity? It was Social Darwinism.

bigotry

You are exhibiting plenty of that towards religious people.

Reality says

You are exhibiting plenty of that towards religious people.

I'm not pre-judging. I'm judging based on history. And my comments have always been directed towards religion itself, not religious people, so nice Straw Man argument.

Reality says

What religion was in control of the worst governments in human history: Pol Pot's Cambodia, Mao's China, Stalin's USSR, and the Nazis? Scientific Atheism and Social Darwinism!

Bullshit. See http://patrick.net/?p=1219145

Dan8267 says

Reality says

You are exhibiting plenty of that towards religious people.

I'm not pre-judging. I'm judging based on history. And my comments have always been directed towards religion itself, not religious people, so nice Straw Man argument.

You have a very warped view of history, probably thanks to brainwashing from a young age. Your emphatic criticism of religion for Inquisition and the death of one woman almost 2000 years ago while making excuses for the 4-8 orders of magnitude higher mass murder under "scientific atheism" goes to show that you are not only poor on history, but also extremely poor on math.

Your view on religion is very bigotted.

Reality says

Your view on religion is very bigotted.

Calling someone a bigot because he advocates a different political position than you is a form of bigotry and hypocritical.

Furthermore, the Spanish Inquisition was just one of dozens of atrocities I've listed here. But since you obviously want me to repeat them...

In A.D. 415, Christians tortured and murdered Hypatia and destroyed the Library of Alexandria, one of the great wonders of the ancient world at the bequest of the Christian bishop Cyril who was made a saint for his actions.

The destruction of knowledge and the suppression of women to the point of killing them was common throughout Christian history. During the Dark and Middle Ages, women were drowned or burned if accused of witchcraft.

Pope John XII (955-964).was born from an incestuous relationship between Pope Sergio III and his 13-year-old daughter Marozie. John, in turn, took his mother as his own mistress.
Pope at 18, he turned the Lateran into a brothel. He was accused by a synod of "sacrilege, simony, perjury, murder, adultery and incest" and was temporarily deposed.
He took his revenge on opponents by hacking off limbs. He was murdered by an enraged husband who caught him having sex with his wife.

In 1095, Pope Urban II called upon the Franks to invade the more civilized Muslim world. Begins five centuries of warfare because of religion.

In the 1300s, the glowing eyes and nocturnal behavior of the cat interpreted by the Church as clear proof of diabolic affinity. Wholesale trapping and burning of cats allowed free rein to the spread of the flee-carrying rat. Subsequently, Europe's population was decimated by the plague.

When the plague came, Christians then falsely accused Jews of poisoning wells and proceeded to torture them to death. In 1411 Dominican Vincente Ferrer revived anti-Jewish hysteria in Spain calling Jews "cohorts of the Devil and Anti-Christ, clever, warped and doomed".

In 1415 John Huss of Bohemia, critic of papal corruption but guaranteed personal safety, burned at the stake. "When dealing with heretics, one is not obligated to keep his word." – Pope Gregory XII.

In 1415 Pope John XXIII was deposed. "The most scandalous charges were suppressed; the Vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy and incest."
– Gibbon (Decline & Fall)

In 1478 Pope Sixtus IV, in alliance with King Ferdinand of Spain, establishes the Spanish Inquisition. Jews, Moors and heretics will be imprisoned, tortured and murdered for centuries.
The bisexual Sixtus, though suffering from syphilis, fathers children from his elder sister.

In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII decrees that cats are unholy creatures, to be burned along with the witches that own them. Not so innocent after all.

In 1553 John Calvin, the "Protestant Pope" of Geneva proves his Christian credentials by having Michael Servetus, the Spanish physician, burned at the stake for heresy. Servetus had opposed Trinitarianism and infant baptism.

In 1600 after a seven-year trial before the Inquisition, Giordano Bruno, who had the audacity to suggest that space was boundless and that the sun and its planets were not unique, is condemned and burned at the stake.

1618-1648 Central Europe devastated by Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants.

From the 17th to the 19th century, Christians wholesale slaughter the Native Americans or pagan heathens as they were known. The Christian destroyed all Native American religions in the same way they destroyed the religions of antiquity, though brute force.

By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand.

- Sharon Johnston, The Genocide of Native Americans: A Sociological View, 1996.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Christian churches endorsed slavery, racism, and the subordination of women. During the civil war, American Christians proclaimed, and rightfully so, that both the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible supported and advocated slavery. Here are some quotes from both testaments that the American Christian slavers used to justify slavery.

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. "But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given." (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

1834 The Spanish Inquisition finally ends. However, Church-sanctioned torture continues until 1917.

In 1844, the Protection of Children Act allows Church missionaries in Australia to kidnap aboriginal children.

In 1864 Pius IX issues the encyclical Quanta cura and the Syllabus of Errors. It condemns some 80 propositions derived from scientific method and rationalism. Liberalism and socialism are denounced.

In the 1930s/1940s Hitler, a Roman Catholic, is never excommunicated for causing the death of millions; whereas Martin Luther was excommunicated for criticism of the papal system.

In the 20th and 21st century, Christianity has been responsible for the spread of AIDS by condemning the use of condoms resulting in an epidemic in Africa, as well as discrimination against homosexuals and the murder of gay, lesbian, and transgender persons.

Preachers like Pastor Charles Worley call for the deaths of "queers and homosexuals" and rallies their flocks to hate. Tens of millions of Americans follow "conservative" preachers like this one. This is why Christians picket funerals with "God hate fags" signs and oppose gay marriage, something required by equality under law.

The kind that's willing to admit who the 1% are.

dodgerfanjohn says

Right?

It's almost like each and every one of these individuals have unresolved emotional trauma related to their experience with religious upbringing or unresolved chemical imbalances that cause them to want to thrust atheism down the throats of others.

I've spent roughly half my life as an atheist and half as a born again Christian and not once have I had the desire to force someone else to accept my beliefs nor have I felt compelled to insult and/or belittle those who believe differently than I do.

I think this bears repeating considering the content of this thread.

Dan8267 says

Feel free to resurrect this old thread: http://patrick.net/?p=1219145

Part of a greater balance. No faction of social control is perfect. There are plenty examples of police states and both religious and non-religious in nature. Often religion is co-opted to make dictators and kings look legitimate or ordained. However, hope and a belief in something more seems to reappear from the ashes of human ruin. And while you might think its funny to list the transgressions of religious leadership or the police states (governments) they affected or ran, there is the other side, the family and community and grass roots side, and this and its goodness are always ignored.

They are ignored or seen as a threat by those obsessed with complete control over others. I know extreme leftists who would have a maoist state if they got their way that derive peace in worhsip with others. There is something more to people than politics and government. Family, soul and immediate community and camaraderie are greater than any nasty government will be over the long term.

Dan,

Not sure what the purpose of your long lists is. Added up altogether, they don't even come to within the same order of magnitude as the vast numbers that Stalinist and Maoist regimes killed in the most recent century in pursuit of "scientific atheism." Perhaps you are so poor in math that you think you can beat 100,000,000 by listing atrocities by the other camp one piece at a time.

BTW, you are also being an ignoramus in history when you don't realize historical events have to assessed by contemporary standards of their own time. The Hebrew Laws that you cited were actually very enlightened for their time: the 6yr statue of limitation for fellow Hebrews sold into slavery was far more humane than what most of their neighbors had some 3500 years ago. Back then the most prominent cause for people selling into slavery in peace time (i.e. not war prisoners) was debt slavery. In most cultures, that was permanent and heritable! The Hebrew Law stipulating 6yr limit was almost as progressive thinking as bankruptcy protection. Likewise, the rule regarding what happens to the slave girl if married to the son actually was a direct expression of emancipation requirement.

Reality says

Added up altogether, they don't even come to within the same order of magnitude as the vast numbers that Stalinist and Maoist regimes killed in the most recent century in pursuit of "scientific atheism."

As stated in the other thread, Stalin and Maoist were not motivated to kill because of atheism any more than they were motivated by mustaches. However, from the Inquisition to the Crusades to 9/11, such attacks were motivated by religion as are the violations of civil rights like DOMA.

The only point you can make, and one that has never been disputed, is that an state without religion can be tyrannical. But the point I've made, which you have yet to even address, is that religion adds to the tyranny of a state, it never subtracts from it. A state that isn't oppressive must be one free from the influence of religion, plain and simple.