(September 6, 2014 at 3:39 am)Michael Wrote: Sure, Stalin and his minions used guns and starvation. And Mao Zedong treated all people of religion with respect, did he? The great atheist experiments. Yeah, right. Wonderful. No thank you. It truly beggars belief that people fall for that sort of T-shirt, not recognising the blatant twisting of a dreadful and shameful period in the history of atheist thought and rule.
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That T-shirt is a huge and embarrassing own goal for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of atheist thought and power. I think people must either be either incredibly ignorant, or have absolutely no regard for the facts of history, to wear it.
You know, I have been reading your posts for a while and I thought you were a pretty cool guy, surely more rational than the average theist on this board.
But alas, this time you have demonstrated to be on par with the fundies. Stalin and Mao did not kill people in the name of atheism. They might have been atheists as a side effect of their ideology, but the atrocities they committed were not in the name of a lack of belief in god(s).
They killed that many people because of their own dogmatic and totalitarian ideology, communism, and also because they were extremely paranoid in their quest to eradicate any form of opposition. I personally think that communists, while rejecting the old religions, made their own ideology a religion by another name (and look at North Korea, where they worship Kim Il Sung almost as a god).
The point of Min's T-shirt was not that "Atheists have never killed anybody"; it was that "Atheists have never killed anybody in the name of atheism itself". Whilst religious people kill in the name of their own religion all the time.
"Every luxury has a deep price. Every indulgence, a cosmic cost. Each fiber of pleasure you experience causes equivalent pain somewhere else. This is the first law of emodynamics [sic]. Joy can be neither created nor destroyed. The balance of happiness is constant.
Fact: Every time you eat a bite of cake, someone gets horsewhipped.
Facter: Every time two people kiss, an orphanage collapses.
Factest: Every time a baby is born, an innocent animal is severely mocked for its physical appearance. Don't be a pleasure hog. Your every smile is a dagger. Happiness is murder.
Vote "yes" on Proposition 1321. Think of some kids. Some kids."
Fact: Every time you eat a bite of cake, someone gets horsewhipped.
Facter: Every time two people kiss, an orphanage collapses.
Factest: Every time a baby is born, an innocent animal is severely mocked for its physical appearance. Don't be a pleasure hog. Your every smile is a dagger. Happiness is murder.
Vote "yes" on Proposition 1321. Think of some kids. Some kids."