everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists

[Cyberman]

Aw, I saw the Freethought Society of the Midlands and thought it was a local thing - local to me anyway. Then I found it's in South Carolina. I don't think there's a bus that goes quite that far.

[Creed of Heresy]

Thanks for the opportunity to give a little testimony: In 2004 I read that atheists had shorter lifespans on average than theists. Wondering why this was, I did a little research and found this effect did not exist in Western and Northern European countries where atheists were large minorities. Suspecting social isolation might be the culprit (I was 42 and had only knowingly met two atheists besides myself my whole life), I looked into atheist social groups and found none in Columbia, SC. I did find an atheist 'Meetup in the making' with 13 people signed up but no organizer. After failing to encourage any of those people to become the organizer and naively thinking 13 people was a good start, I became the organizer and gave the group a very dry name and spent three or four months in meetings where I was the only one to show up. Now the Freethought Society of the Midlands (FSM is our third name, but I think this one will stick) has events pretty much every week: Drinking Skeptically, Sandhills Rationalists, Science and Religion, Regular Meeting, and UU Humanists; plus occasionally events like bowling or roller derby (only spectating!). Two of our events are held at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation. Atheism is a weak glue to bind a group, shared committment to reason and humanist values (even our two resident nihilists are humanist nihilists) on the other hand, seems to work fine.

I recently participated in a little atheist meeting that happened here called Reasonate. First atheist event in the city of Madison in over twenty-five years. Nothing major. Maybe 50 people. They said it'll be an annual thing. I haven't heard anything since the event itself but I'm really hoping it becomes something more consistent and constant than that...

Also yes. Atheism isn't much of a social glue unto itself. A single idea or view ["I don't believe in that which is neither provable nor disprovable in the sense of god"] isn't much. But it IS a good foundation from which a lot of other like-minded views tend to spring from, like humanism.

[Creed of Heresy]

Oh, hey, Aiza, I remember you said you never found a single atheist who was killed by the Catholic church and that therefore there was no dscrimination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_%...y%C5%84ski

Found a guy for ya.

Łyszczyński was reading a book by Henry Aldsted entitled Theologia Naturalis, which attempted to prove the existence of divinity. But the arguments were so confused that Łyszczyński was able to infer contradictions. In ridicule of Aldsted, Łyszczyński wrote in the margins of the book the words "ergo non est Deus" ("therefore God does not exist").

This was discovered by one of Łyszczyński's debtors, Jan Kazimierz Brzoska, who was the nuncio of Brest in Poland or a Stolnik of Bracławice or Łowczy of Brześć. Brest, reluctant to return a great sum of money lent by Łyszczyński, accused Łyszczyński of being an atheist and gave as evidence the aforementioned work to Witwicki, bishop of Posnania. Brzoska also stole and delivered to the court a handwritten copy of De non existentia Dei, which was the first Polish philosophical treatise presenting reality from an atheistic perspective, developed by Łyszczyński from 1674 onwards.[5] Witwicki along with Załuski, bishop of Kiev, took up this case with a zeal. The King attempted to help Łyszczyński by ordering that he should be judged at Vilna, but this could not save Łyszczyński from the clergy. Łyszczyński's first privilege of a Polish noble, that he could not be imprisoned before his condemnation, was violated. Łyszczyński's affair was brought before the diet of 1689 where he was accused of having denied the existence of God and having blasphemed against the Virgin Mary and the saints. He was condemned to death for atheism. The sentence was undertaken before noon at the Old Town Market in Warsaw, where his tongue was pulled out followed by a beheading.[3] After that, his corpse was transported beyond the city borders and cremated.

So this definitely seems a bit damning that being an atheist was a death sentence with the church, given that his atheism was pretty much the reason for his execution.

and the ever so loving catholic church really had a very humane way of killing him, too:

After recantation the culprit was conducted to the scaffold, where the executioner tore with a burning iron the tongue and the mouth, with which he had been cruel against God; after which his hands, the instruments of the abominable production, were burnt at a slow fire, the sacrilegious paper was thrown into the flames; finally himself, that monster of his century, this deicide was thrown into the expiatory flames; expiatory if such a crime may be atoned for.

So, Aiza, yes. Yes indeed. Atheism, as we know it in modern times, WAS punishable by the church with a horrible, slow, excruciating death after a "recantation" had been made, likely via other forms of torture. All your arguments about atheists not being persecuted by the catholic church and atheism in general not being considered a crime by the church are now void, invalid, and unfounded. You should've looked a little harder.

[Aiza]

No I don't remember saying that actually, and if I did (quote me?) I misspoke and I apologize. I did say that there were no atheists killed during the Inquisition and that there were never mass persecutions of atheists like what many Christians have gone through throughout history (including, in living memory, in those atheist states in which tens of thousands of Christians were killed).

But I do know of Łyszczyński, though he denied being atheist so eh. I'll admit that he's the only state-sponsored killing I know of throughout all of history, and then I know of one (maaaybe 2) more who was the victim of a hate crime.

[Annik]

What about Larry Hooper or Jose Ramirez?

[Shell B]

No, you did say that no atheists had been killed for being atheists. I recall it exactly. I'll be right on finding that for you.

Him denying being atheist, whether more of your bullshit or not, is irrelevant and I think you know it. If a person is executed for a murder that they didn't commit are they any less executed for murder?

---

HEAVILY? I mean...can you name any atheists (as we understand the term today--a lack of belief in any gods) who were killed by "the Church or its toadies" for being atheist? Ever? I looked around a long time and found maybe one.

Well, sweetheart, you can take the maybe out of that equation. Let's not pretend you were talking about the same fella, either, or you would have mentioned that in your most recent post.

Cheers

---

I'm just going to go ahead and school you on a little history, so you'll shut the fuck up. I keep hearing "in living memory, the atheists have, blah, blah, blah." Who gives a fuck about living memory, firstly? Secondly, you know absolute fuckall about genocide. Even excluding Hilter, which is asinine, because he himself said he was fucking Christian, religious folk are the most likely to perpetrate genocide, statistically. Of course, there have been fewer atheists in history, but we'll keep this simple for the sake of clarity. Now, atheists are persecuted. Does it matter if they are persecuted with hateful tactics or murder? No. Persecution. Bottom line, Aiza. Now, let's get to history, shall we?

Native Americans killed by colonial Americans and then early United States citizens. They were Puritans and Christians, if they knew what was good for them.

Conquest of the Desert perpetrated by a Catholic, though he did take a lot of control away from the church.

Herero and Namaqua Genocide perpetrated by Germany, which was then led by Wilhelm II -- a Christian.

Every fucking mass killing in Ireland that I can think of was perpetrated by Christians and Catholics.

Russian genocides, Ukrainian Genocide and mass killings perpetrated by plenty of theists and, get this, one atheist.

Armenian Genocide, Greek Genocide, Assyrian Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks. You're Catholic, you should know what they were. Catholics were pretty good at fucking them over once upon a time.

We're skipping Hilter because you won't take his fucking word for it, I bet.

Mass killings in Korea, perpetrated by people who think their leader is a god and a leader who thinks he is a god.

Oh, and Africa. Let's not forget your fascination with "living memory." Let's see, Congo, Sudan, Darfur (technically also Sudan), Rwanda, South Africa, etc. thank you very much Christianity. Let's not forget the parents who are having their children murdered for witchcraft thanks to the amalgam of Christianity and tribal religion that has been created in Africa.

Schooled. Now please, come again? For every one genocide you can think of that was perpetrated by an atheist, I can think of thirty that weren't. I don't give a shit if you believe in god or not, but do not delude yourself and outright lie to others to protect your own cognitive dissonance. This thread is a mockery of history and your own personal masturbation fest. Go become a nun. Reality would blow your fucking mind.

[Aiza]

Well, sweetheart, you can take the maybe out of that equation. Let's not pretend you were talking about the same fella, either, or you would have mentioned that in your most recent post.

No I was talking about the same guy--the fact that he denied being an atheist is where the "maybe" comes from. I'd say someone who was killed for murder was killed for murder; but if the evidence was debatable I wouldn't say he was a murderer killed for murder. There have been other people accused of being "atheists" and killed for it, including many early Christians.

I didn't mention that in my most recent post because I don't remember all the posts I made in this large semi-dead thread

Of course, there have been fewer atheists in history, but we'll keep this simple for the sake of clarity.

Thats not how statistics work.

Also living memory are the events which most directly impact our current situations+attitudes. Of course there should be a focus on those first and foremost.

I am not even sure what the point of this edit is. I was talking about mass persecutions of atheists, on par with what Christians have suffered--who were killed for being practicing Christians by a regime which hated them for being Christian. You seem to just be pulling up a bunch of historical killings without regard to actual motivations or victims, which is nice and all, but not really relevant.

If I must nitpick though, North Korea explicitly has state atheism, they do not consider their leader "a god". (Japanese emperors are sometimes considered to be gods though I don't think that is any longer a common belief).

What about Larry Hooper or Jose Ramirez?

Yep, Larry Hooper is the only for sure hate crime homicide I know of, Jose Ramirez is the "maaaybe 2", since I remembered the whole "hate crime" thing was speculation on his sister's behalf, though going back to the case \it seems her theory was corroborated by an anonymous tipster fwiw. The killer didn't straight up admit to it as he did in the Larry Hooper case though.

[Shell B]

Semi-dead? Look at the dates on the posts.

Nice dodging.

[Creed of Heresy]

No I don't remember saying that actually, and if I did (quote me?) I misspoke and I apologize. I did say that there were no atheists killed during the Inquisition and that there were never mass persecutions of atheists like what many Christians have gone through throughout history (including, in living memory, in those atheist states in which tens of thousands of Christians were killed).

But I do know of Łyszczyński, though he denied being atheist so eh. I'll admit that he's the only state-sponsored killing I know of throughout all of history, and then I know of one (maaaybe 2) more who was the victim of a hate crime.

Well of COURSE he denied it; admission to guilt never brought about any mercy from the church. People who confessed under torture still were executed in horrible, excruciating ways, and people who confessed first? Ditto. I get the impression he was lying. A circumstantial claim, mind you, but the man WAS writing a book about atheism. A priest told him to stop writing his book before he could write the part where the catholic WINS the debate?? "No, don't let the catholic win, that would make this book be found FAVORABLY by the church! I'm a priest, by the way." Hohohohoidontbuythatforasecond. Clearly, neither did the church.

Now if by state-sponsored you mean church-sponsored? And I assume you meant to add "atheist," so church-sponsored killing of an atheist. State-sponsored would mean it was the king who ordered it, and it seems that, actually, the king tried to assist him, to no avail [what? The church usurp the secular power? NEVER. Where would you get such an idea?].

The king, who was very far from countenancing such enormities, attempted to save the unfortunate Lyszczynski, by ordering that he should be judged at Vilna; but nothing could shelter the unfortunate man against the fanatical rage of the clergy represented by the two bishops; and the first privilege of a Polish noble, that he could not be imprisoned before his condemnation, and which had theretofore been sacredly observed even with the greatest criminals, was violated.

So the church judged that an atheist was worse than the greatest criminals of Poland in their pursuit of him...interesting...

I'm just largely pointing out this case because you say there was no mass-persecutions. I can imagine that that is true...but again I hold that this has nothing to do with the fact that atheists did not exist. This guy got caught because he wrote some shit about it. The literate in those times were very privileged [there was no such thing as publicly funded education in this time]. Simply being able to read and write to a minor extent usually put someone in a sort of "middle class" of the time, being someone capable of writing an entire book meant you had gold, and plenty of it. Now I insert the fact that the church pretty much could and would usurp the secular powers of the kings, such was their power. Add in that the kings of that time based their authority in Divine Right and as such had a vested interest in keeping their populations believers. And finally, there was clearly precedent to where if you were an atheist, you experienced a horrible death by having your tongue pulled out with a burning iron, your hands were burned over a slow fire, and you were finally beheaded [a death where you are still actually alive and aware for a short time after the decapitation].

All this basically explains why it seems there were no atheists as we know of them in those times: Those with the means to make their opinions known were smart enough to know that to even suggest you were an atheist was very much against your own individual well-being, and those too poor or uneducated to make such opinions known were often of no consequence and if found out probably did not even warrant a trial [there will always be more field-hands]...or were simply too ignorant to even disbelieve. After all, we see this in the modern world with the rank and file of Islamic terrorists. They're poor, illiterate sods who basically just take it from the Imams that they're supposed to blow themselves up to kill someone that apparently is really evil, they can't read so they can't really judge for themselves anyway, and hell, apparently afterwards they spend an eternity in total rapturous bliss, and the terrorists in charge are often delusional ultra-fanatics who have their own interpretation of their holy book and are clearly not alone in their beliefs, thus giving themselves reassurance and credence to their understandings, oftentimes from the appointed Imams and Ayatollahs and Mullahs.

And then we notice with the rise of the Renaissance came a sudden surge of freethinkers and the beginnings of what we would know as modern atheism. They call it the "Enlightenment" for a reason, after all; lots of people started getting an education and started thinking for themselves.

So, was there ever a mass-persecution of atheists? Maybe not, but there was a CONTINUAL persecution of them. But the worse crime was that people were never allowed to even come to the conclusion to begin with; a crime that can be laid at the feet of all religions, one that Islam is currently the biggest perpetrator of, but is by far not the only one, and certainly wasn't always the biggest.

And again, tens of thousands of christians were killed alongside quite a few atheists as well. Again, christians were never a sole target; any threat to the totalitarian governments involved were all briefly united in one singular, horrible way: Killed for their beliefs or disbeliefs, en mass, christian, atheist, jew, muslim, all sharing the same grave.

I could go into an argument about time of oppression [basically it would go from the start of the catholic church to modern times; several centuries, as compared with so-called "atheist states" whose own suppression was limited to decades, instead] but that's a murky point to make, though I WILL leave its suggestion up for consideration.

[Aiza]

Semi-dead? Look at the dates on the posts.

Nice dodging.

What exactly do you think I am "dodging" here? At the absolute worst, you caught me in...not knowing about Łyszczyński? Um?

And yeah, I think no new posts for a couple of days counts as semi-dead. Revivable to be sure, but no one is actively posting in it.

Well of COURSE he denied it; admission to guilt never brought about any mercy from the church.

Well, actually people admitted to guilt and were not killed all the time.

I get the impression he was lying. A circumstantial claim, mind you, but the man WAS writing a book about atheism.

Maybe, and I honestly agree with you that at least his beliefs might resemble modern day atheism (unlike the 2 others who were pantheist and non-Trinitarian), and that his story is rather sketchy.

By state sponsored I meant by some sort of established authority in general, as opposed to an illegal killing as in the Hooper case, say. Not sure what the correct term would be there.

I don't deny there was probably people who were atheists they just never suffered on the level that Christians were. I am not even sure how much Łyszczyński counts as that "precedence" which kept atheists in fear since he wasn't killed til the 17th century (toward the end of the Renaissance period), so for the bulk of Christian history, no atheist had ever been killed for being atheist. But yes, your own analysis of the situation seems to be pretty sensible, especially with respect to why atheism really wasn't much of an issue in the day--being unmentioned in the Roman Catechism and only mentioned very offhand in the Douay Catechism of 1649 for example.

That being said (because I always have to nitpick it is in my nature ), um, most Islamic terrorists are actually relatively well educated: engineers being one of the most overrepresented professions: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/bruce-h...rists-4080 . They are basically young male intellectuals angry at the West. Though that might be another issue for another thread.

Also the Renaissance is different from the Enlightenment, the Renaissance was a cultural blossoming from 14th-17th centuries starting in Florence, Italy with devout Catholics Dante and Petrarch; and the Enlightenment was an 18th century philosophical movement which started with Locke and Voltaire and all those other famous 18th century philosophers. (followed by the Romantic movement in backlash to that)