(September 22, 2015 at 3:42 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote:(September 22, 2015 at 11:53 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: Before the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, researchers who attempted to count the number of people killed under Stalin's regime produced estimates ranging from 3 to 60 million. After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available, containing official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953), around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag and some 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement – with a total of about 2.9 million officially recorded victims in these categories.
Official records from the USSR aren't necessarily very reliable. The advent of extrajudicial punishment meant that many deaths were never recorded.
Granted, there were likely quite a few extrajudicial killings, but nothing on the order of massacres that would change the results by a huge margin. But the Soviets actually tended to keep pretty good records, most of the time, and they weren't exactly ashamed of anything they were doing, such that they'd try to hide it. If there's one thing socialist republics do well, it's bureaucracy!
However, it's why I was easily willing to concede the higher number of 20 million as the "concensus" estimate, while noting that the number of actual executions in the name of the state (the ones that would have been done publicly, "to make a point for effect"), which is the only category that actually bears on the original topic of "killing in the name of atheism", was far, far lower.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
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I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.