(April 12, 2018 at 2:25 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: The Soviet Union: Persecuted and killed religious folks under atheistic government
The USSR did not perpetrate these attrocities due to atheism. They did so because they were a totalitarian government.
The first thing dictators do when they take power, is kill off or persecute members of groups they think may be threats to their power.
The USSR replaced the bad dogma of an infallible god with the bad dogma of an infallible State.
Their murderous regime was fueled by bad dogma, not atheism.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.