Ex-theists are often like ex-smokers, sanctimonious and insufferable.

[Pyrrho]

Of course the good deeds done due to religion count.  Now, tell me, how many good deeds does it take to balance against a beheading?  If you need more examples of the deeds caused by religion, you don't have to look very hard for them.  All you need to do is keep looking at Minimalist's threads in which he keeps adding atrocity after atrocity to the lists.  Or, if you want, you can search on your own.

Indeed, how many? is this about quantity or quality, after all? BTW, why should people who do nothing wrong be taken into account by what others decide to do? ...

That has already been addressed in a later post:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-34874-po...pid1001060

Edited to add:

When smokers and drinkers start beheading others due to their smoking and drinking, then we can start to talk about how such things compare with religion.  But otherwise, it is a bullshit analogy.

Pyrrho, you're too smart for this - Are you seriously arguing that because one side does it worse, the other is ignorable? isn't that what anti-feminists do about women's issues in the west (that they even claim don't exist)? Tell me why I shouldn't feel bad about smokers being marginalized, just because some people have it worse?

That is not why the analogy fails.  If a smoker keeps his or her smoke to himself or herself, then that is just the person hurting himself or herself.  But with religion, it seems that no one keeps it to themselves, but seek to spread it, causing other people suffer the same illness.  If religious people only hurt themselves, I would not have a problem with it.

Of course, if we are discussing a rude smoker, who imposes his or her smoke on others, then those others have a right to complain about it and stop it.

How many people do behead? Are they a majority of theists? Again I ask, are communists responsible because one day some older communists decided that everyone who was a "traitor" should be executed and sent to gulags? Why should a Christian living in France even care or feel bad about what a retarded pastor in America says about gays? Why should a successful middle class Muslim living in Europe feel bad about what ISIS is doing? Why is religion special when it comes to harm, when it is merely one of the things that causes it?

In the case of religion, religious people are encouraging poor thinking in others.  And in the case of the typical Christian, they are encouraging other people to take the Bible seriously.  They can properly be blamed for their affects on others regarding such things.

As for things other than religion, obviously, religion is not the only source of evil (i.e., bad things happening, not some supernatural force).  But religion is a very significant source of evil, with its affects having a great preponderance of evil over good.


None of this is to suggest that religion should be outlawed or that religious people should be rounded up into concentration camps or any other such ridiculous and vile idea.  I mention this because you seem to be getting the wrong idea of what I am saying.