RE: Who killed more people Atheists or Christians?
April 8, 2014 at 5:05 pm
(This post was last modified: April 8, 2014 at 5:11 pm by Tartarus Sauce.)
Seems like a question designed to encourage people to jump to faulty conclusions.
People have a tendency of killing others with motives completely absent of religious reasons, regardless of the religious affiliation of the killers/killed. Both religious and non-religious individuals and groups have committed murders and massacres against others, so neither side can claim that the presence of their viewpoint is an absolute safeguard from committing acts of violence.
Therefore, the only relevant angle left to analyze is in a situation where belief or lack of belief was a significant motivating factor in the killings. People from pretty much all religions have killed in the name of their theology, it's a well documented and depressingly common occurrence both historically and in contemporary times. Such, however, is rare with atheists, whom seldom ever go around killing in the name of atheism. This, of course, does not inherently mean that all atheists are more moral than all theists, but it does demonstrate that religions tend to be one of the most commonly and easily exploited systems of justifying horrendous actions. Atheism lacks such rationalization processes for acts of violence.
People have a tendency of killing others with motives completely absent of religious reasons, regardless of the religious affiliation of the killers/killed. Both religious and non-religious individuals and groups have committed murders and massacres against others, so neither side can claim that the presence of their viewpoint is an absolute safeguard from committing acts of violence.
Therefore, the only relevant angle left to analyze is in a situation where belief or lack of belief was a significant motivating factor in the killings. People from pretty much all religions have killed in the name of their theology, it's a well documented and depressingly common occurrence both historically and in contemporary times. Such, however, is rare with atheists, whom seldom ever go around killing in the name of atheism. This, of course, does not inherently mean that all atheists are more moral than all theists, but it does demonstrate that religions tend to be one of the most commonly and easily exploited systems of justifying horrendous actions. Atheism lacks such rationalization processes for acts of violence.
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