(September 22, 2015 at 5:31 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:(September 22, 2015 at 5:19 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: The question I would seriously like to see answered is why it's so hard for people who pull the "Stalin was an atheist mass murderer!" trope out to stop, look at the responses, and go,
"Okay, I guess that's a fair point, that he wasn't killing because of his atheism but because he was silencing anyone who stood in the way of his power or who was perceived as a threat to it, like tyrants have done throughout history."
They just go right on believing that when the Conquistadors committed mass murder, it wasn't because they were Christians but because they were power- and wealth-hungry sociopaths... yet when atheist power- and wealth-hungry sociopaths do it, IT'S BECAUSE THEY WERE ATHEISTS! Aaaaaaaaah! Evil atheists!! Aaaaaaaah!
The reason the connection between atheism and Stalin or Pol Pot is so obvious is because what they did is a natural result of what they believed.
Human life is of no real value if natural selection means that only the strong survive or that less desirable elements of our society - like the Jews, the Poles, the Blacks, the mentally handicapped, etc. (cf. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood) - should be eliminated.
And despite the attempts to find a Christian parallel from some dusty period of history, there simply aren't isn't anything like the murder committed under atheist communist regimes in the supposedly enlightened modern era.
So much for mankind evolving into a better and better version of itself.
Holy shit, dude. That's not even close to a legitimate reading of what evolution teaches.
The reason there's not anything like the mass murders of the modern era is very very simple. So pay attention:
1) There are WAY more people in the 20th/21st centuries than any previous centuries.
2) Technology of moving people and killing people is WAY better than any previous centuries.
And no, they didn't kill people "because of what they believed" (at least, not in terms of atheism), they killed people who stood in the way of their empires. As empire-building tyrants have always done. They just had more people to kill and better tools for the job.
As I posted previously, if you look at the murders done during the first four Crusades alone, on a per-capita basis (as a percent of the total world population at the time), it amounts to roughly 34 million people killed, today.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
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.
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.