Christianity's Valuable Contributions to Humanity: An Examination of Militant Atheism

[The Architect Of Fate]

And more lies and evasion from you, since you have no names.

What Militant Atheists are claiming here is something like this:

Imagine it's A.D. 2050 and Abortion has been Universally Abolished or at least is now Universally considered wrong in most places.

Atheists and Agnostics, undermining the Christian contribution to Pro-Life Efforts, start claiming the Pro-Life Movement was entirely Atheistic!

Yeah, sure, bro, if you want to do that, go ahead. I've given you enough information for you to know the Truth. "My job is to inform, not to convince" ~ S. Bernadette.

Nope, it's nothing like that. You given no real information you just ramble and throw quotes up that don't refute the objection.

My job is to inform, not to convince" ~ S. Bernadette.

And you fail at both 

[The Architect Of Fate]

New Advent: "The Church made the enfranchisement of the slave an act of disinterested charity. Pagan masters usually sold him his liberty for his market value, on receipt of his painfully amassed savings (Cicero, "Philipp. VIII", xi; Seneca "Ep. lxxx"); true Christians gave it to him as an alms. Sometimes the Church redeemed slaves out of its common resources (St. Ignatius, "Polyc.", 4; Apos. Const., IV, iii). Heroic Christians are known to have sold themselves into slavery to deliver slaves (St. Clement, "Cor.", 4; "Vita S. Joannis Eleemosynarii" in Acts SS., Jan., II, p. 506). Many enfranchised all the slaves they had. In pagan antiquity wholesale enfranchisements are frequent, but they never include all the owner's slaves, and they are always by testamentary disposition — that is when the owner cannot be impoverished by his own bounty, (Justinian, "Inst.", I, vii; "Cod. Just.", VII, iii, 1). Only Christians enfranchised all their slaves in the owner's lifetime, thus effectually despoiling themselves a considerable part of their fortune (see Allard, "Les esclaves chrétiens", 4th ed., p. 338). At the beginning of the fifth century, a Roman millionaire, St. Melania, gratuitously granted liberty to so many thousand of slaves that her biographer declares himself unable to give their exact number (Vita S. Melaniae, xxxiv). Palladius mentions eight thousand slaves freed (Hist. Lausiaca, cxix), which, taking the average price of a slave as about $100, would represent a value of $800,000 [1913 dollars]. But Palladius wrote before 406, which was long before Melania had completely exhausted her immense fortune in acts of liberality of all kinds (Rampolla, "S. Melania Giuniore", 1905, p. 221).

Primitive Christianity did not attack slavery directly; but it acted as though slavery did not exist. By inspiring the best of its children with this heroic charity, examples of which have been given above, it remotely prepared the way for the abolition of slavery. To reproach the Church of the first ages with not having condemned slavery in principle, and with having tolerated it in fact, is to blame it for not having let loose a frightful revolution, in which, perhaps, all civilization would have perished with Roman society. But to say, with Ciccotti (Il tramonto della schiavitù, Fr. tr., 1910, pp. 18, 20), that primitive Christianity had not even "an embryonic vision" of a society in which there should be no slavery, to say that the Fathers of the Church did not feel "the horror of slavery", is to display either strange ignorance or singular unfairness. In St. Gregory of Nyssa (In Ecclesiastem, hom. iv) the most energetic and absolute reprobation of slavery may be found; and again in numerous passages of St. John Chrysostom's discourse we have the picture of a society without slaves - a society composed only of free workers, an ideal portrait of which he traces with the most eloquent insistence (see the texts cited in Allard, ''Les esclaves chrétiens", p. 416-23)."

And more obfuscation and excuse making

[arewethereyet]

[Nishant Xavier]

Gentle Reminder: "According to some sources, the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million. At least 106,300 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941."
The Soviet regime had an ostensible commitment to the complete annihilation of religious institutions and ideas. Communist ideology could not coexist with the continued influence of religion even as an independent institutional entity, so "Lenin demanded that communist propaganda must employ militancy and irreconcilability towards all forms of idealism and religion", and that was called "militant atheism". "Militant" meant an uncompromising attitude toward religion and the effort of winning the hearts and minds of believers from a false philosophy. Militant atheism became central to the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a high priority policy of all Soviet leaders. Convinced atheists were considered to be more politically astute and virtuous individuals."

Where has Militant Atheism ever been tried before, beside Revolutionary France, and Communist Countries?

NCRegister: "Being a devoted communist, Fidel Castro was possessed with a hatred of religion. In Cuba, like everywhere else, communists launched their standard war on faith. From country to country, no ideology has so consistently and viciously attacked Christianity like communism — starting with the Bolsheviks in 1917 and resounding throughout the century ahead. As Mikhail Gorbachev put it, communists launched a systematic “war on religion.”

Cuba was no exception. From the moment that Castro took hold in January 1959, churches were in trouble. The regime quickly launched a propaganda campaign against the faithful, describing Catholics as “social scum.” By the late 1960s, Christmas was banned on the island. Churches were shut down. Priests and their parishioners were silenced, arrested or placed under tight surveillance, with every word of every service or homily monitored by government church-watchers infiltrating the pews. Any criticism, especially of the Marxist regime, was very dangerous. One could not be a member of the Communist Party in Cuba (the only party legally permitted, including for any government jobs) without professing a belief in atheism."


Helios, will respond to you subsequently. You haven't shown me either (1) Atheists who took a leading part in Abolitionism, proportional to their influence (2) or explained why Lincoln and Wilberforce, and not say, Darwin or Marx (to take two random examples of contemporaneous Influential Agnostics/Atheists) played a large part in Abolition? What was holding back the Militant Atheists, who were attacking Religion and everthing else, but not Slavery, and even promoted Racism?

Regards,
Xavier.

[Fake Messiah]

Gentle Reminder: "According to some sources, [b]the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million.

There were even more victims under the Catholic Church regime. That is why we must never let either one come back.

Atheists and Agnostics, undermining the Christian contribution to Pro-Life Efforts, start claiming the Pro-Life Movement was entirely Atheistic!

By pro-life he means torturing women. Here is one of many examples of a pregnant woman who was tortured in a Catholic hospital because they did not want to provide her with a routine procedure, and an ob-gyn doctor who said that she will NEVER work in a Catholic hospital again.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Gentle Reminder: "According to some sources, the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million. At least 106,300 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941."
The Soviet regime had an ostensible commitment to the complete annihilation of religious institutions and ideas. Communist ideology could not coexist with the continued influence of religion even as an independent institutional entity, so "Lenin demanded that communist propaganda must employ militancy and irreconcilability towards all forms of idealism and religion", and that was called "militant atheism". "Militant" meant an uncompromising attitude toward religion and the effort of winning the hearts and minds of believers from a false philosophy. Militant atheism became central to the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a high priority policy of all Soviet leaders. Convinced atheists were considered to be more politically astute and virtuous individuals."

Irrelevant as Atheism is not a philosophy or idealogy it can't be blamed for the actions of the Soviets. There is nothing atheism that condones the actions of the Soviets. or any other evil regime 

Where has Militant Atheism ever been tried before, beside Revolutionary France, and Communist Countries?

Again neither of those states can be blamed for Atheism 

NCRegister: "Being a devoted communist, Fidel Castro was possessed with a hatred of religion. In Cuba, like everywhere else, communists launched their standard war on faith. From country to country, no ideology has so consistently and viciously attacked Christianity like communism — starting with the Bolsheviks in 1917 and resounding throughout the century ahead. As Mikhail Gorbachev put it, communists launched a systematic “war on religion.”

Again can't be blamed on atheism  There is nothing atheism that condones the actions of any other evil regime 

Cuba was no exception. From the moment that Castro took hold in January 1959, churches were in trouble. The regime quickly launched a propaganda campaign against the faithful, describing Catholics as “social scum.” By the late 1960s, Christmas was banned on the island. Churches were shut down. Priests and their parishioners were silenced, arrested or placed under tight surveillance, with every word of every service or homily monitored by government church-watchers infiltrating the pews. Any criticism, especially of the Marxist regime, was very dangerous. One could not be a member of the Communist Party in Cuba (the only party legally permitted, including for any government jobs) without professing a belief in atheism."

Again can't be blamed on atheism  There is nothing atheism that condones the actions of any other evil regime 

Helios, will respond to you subsequently. You haven't shown me either (1) Atheists who took a leading part in Abolitionism, proportional to their influence (2) or explained why Lincoln and Wilberforce, and not say, Darwin or Marx (to take two random examples of contemporaneous Influential Agnostics/Atheists) played a large part in Abolition? What was holding back the Militant Atheists, who were attacking Religion and everthing else, but not Slavery, and even promoted Racism?

Regards,
Xavier.

Actually, I showed just that. You by contrast have simply made excuses and deflections.

[The Grand Nudger]

Saw something a couple of posts back and figured it was worth exploring. Deists are not, in fact, theists. Whereas theism is the belief in a personal and intervening god - deism is the belief in an impersonal non intervening god.

[Astreja]

I think Mr. Xavier has confused "atheism" with "totalitarianism." A rather hypocritical stance, considering the utterly appalling totalitarian behaviour of the RCC over the centuries.

[The Architect Of Fate]

 Antony Flew recently gave up Atheism, and became a Deist

Flew was a tired mentally unwell old man. The fact apologist trot him out as evidence of anything is just sad.

[Anomalocaris]

Gentle Reminder: "According to some sources, the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million. At least 106,300 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941."

So if the person was a victim, he/she must be a christian?