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[Glitch]

This is a discussion on Facebook and honestly don't know how to reply to the latest comment in a conversation with a respected Christian Friend. I need a bit of advice at this point.

You're an atheist who chose a path of knowledge and logic. Very admirable man, most atheist i know only chose the way of thinking in order to deal with inner guilt at the physiological level and open up the amount of sexual and explicit behavior they can perform. But i don't see how dictators and monarchs can be compared to "current" religion. You have the freedom to be an atheist, and so does everyone else. Not much of a dictatorship there, and as for the manipulation of children... It's a parents job to manipulate children, you have to manipulate them to be good, have manners, shower, etc... Religion simply provides a backbone for good social behavior. I just don't see atheism working out in the long run for our society. Just in the last century alone over 100 million people died under the direct control of an atheist leader... Mao "purged" 20-40 million human beings, most of them for being Buddhist and Taoist(in estimation). And another 100-200 million would die from famine, and war. Now let's move along to Stalin was estimated to have "purged" 20 or so million people. Stalin was a proud, young and early atheist. Religion isn't perfect, but neither is a belief that there are no true punishments for behavior. You could argue that religion has done the same, but in a major form of organized religion something as violent and as terrible as the atrocities of those men has not been committed in a long time( specifically Christianity)

"I get my limits from a rational consideration of the consequences of my actions. That's how I determine what's moral. I get it from a foundation that says, my actions have an effect on those people around me and theirs have an effect on me and if we are going to live cooperatively and share space we have to recognize that impact. My freedom to swing my arm ends at their nose and that I have no right to impose my will over somebody else's will in a given scenario. I get them from an understanding of reality, not an assertion of authority." - Matt Dillahunty

Critical thought is more important to human progress than metaphysical speculation. Our ancestors relied on these deities when they knew very little about the world, fearing the unknown and if a belief in a deity comforted them; so be it, but these religions continue to have far too much influence in our country and they aren't even necessary, bringing more harm than good to our education and the formation of social patterns. Religion dogma and myths divide people and it clouds their judgment.

“Only 30% of the Ten Commandments coincide with American law. More notably, the three moral instructions are found in every law code in the world, including Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Secular governments.” http://www.examiner.com/article/atheist-...mmandments

We don’t need religion to be moral, loving people. It’s within our means to create progressive, just peaceful societies, guided by reason and free of superstition.

Well, do you have an argument for the actions of previous atheist governments? You only answered my first statements. Again, in the last century alone over 50-100 million deaths are tied with major atheist governments, from Atheist Joseph Stalin, Too Mao. And i never said religion was necessary for morals, I stated that it provides a major backbone for the foundation of morality. Yes you might be able to decide morals by logic, but it would be a grand over estimation to assume that an properly and uneducated child's mind could do that same. Now education is much more important than religion, their is simply no argument to that. But I have never stated otherwise. Back to the point though, atheism at major scales has killed many human beings, and it wasn't in ancient times either. It was recent, as in 60 years ago recent. Now i am not saying atheism is bad, but i have a feeling you seek to rid religion of the world. It is my opinion and educated guess that this would not be good for society, based of course... The actions of 3 Atheist leaders. Other than the Purges of Mao and Stalin, you should look into the Reign of Terror event which took place in France. Last major atrocity caused by Christianity(again the religion i am specifically talking about) that i can think of was the Spanish inquisition. But That is Medieval Christianity, Modern Christianity hasn't done anything close to the scale of those Atheist leaders. Those Atheist leaders where modern atheist, just you are. Via the logic of atheism, and the power of a leader. Crimes against humanity seem inevitable. Now yes, morals exist without religion, but can they provided at the major scale of an entire society?

[Minimalist]

The "atheist" leaders killing people argument gets tiresome in a hurry....although I note that this guy is smart enough to leave a fine xtian like Hitler out of the mix. Got to give him that point.

Blackbeard killed people too but not because they were religious. He killed them because they weren't pirates. Similarly, Stalin and Mao (he forgot Pol Pot, too) killed people because they were not COMMUNISTS not because they were some variant of religious nuttery.

Only religion - I repeat - ONLY RELIGION deliberately kills people because they believe in a different invisible sky daddy and thinks themselves very fucking holy for doing so.

[Glitch]

Interesting thoughts, but i see two very false statements. Blackbeard never killed anyone, perhaps his crew... The misconception of his violence was created by a biased 18th century author who portrayed his antagonist as much worse people as they truly where, in order to sell more obviously. Coincidentally I watched a few great documentaries on his life style roughly a week ago on the history channel and other information hubs.

Those communist saw religion as a threat to the state. You are correct, although you are dealing with such an absolute. Stalin was an honest atheist, he truly did not like religion, So in his case I believe you are incorrect, unless you can provide solid evidence.

Persistent isn't he? Haha.

[Cato]

This was my reply to a very similar challenge earlier today:

"I don't know what you look like, so let's assume your skin is blue. Do you consume food because your skin is blue? Or is there a more rational explanation?

My point is that isolating one trait of an individual and then assigning that trait as the motivation/reason for a particular behavior is unreasonable unless you can demonstrate how that trait results in the behavior described."

[Glitch]

Thank you cato123. He's very persistent, I wrote a response after reading that and he replied...

If you speak of the absolute trait i pointed out? I meant in the way you said that they simply did it for the power. You say that is the only reason. My point is that no evidence was provided and opinion is otherwise with the case of Stalin. My evidence is brought upon many of the anti-religious speeches he gave. http://hollowverse.com/joseph-stalin/ is my provided source.

I think I lost this one.

[Faith No More]

Perhaps you should remind your friend that atheism is just the lack of belief in god, and atheists derive their morals and worldviews from a variety of different influences and sources. There is no cohesive atheist worldview, and it is therefore illogical to use an example of three atheist leaders to criticize all political systems that atheists and their varied influences are capable of putting together.

[Esquilax]

Perhaps you should remind your friend that atheism is just the lack of belief in god, and atheists derive their morals and worldviews from a variety of different influences and sources. There is no cohesive atheist worldview, and it is therefore illogical to use an example of three atheist leaders to criticize all political systems that atheists and their varied influences are capable of putting together.

This. Trying to compare atheism to theism of any stripe misses one very important point; the former addresses only a single issue, the latter evokes a worldview.

To be an atheist, you need only disbelieve god claims; anything else you believe is based on a number of other things, not necessarily atheism. To be a christian, one must necessarily adopt certain other things as true that do inform beliefs; there's an omnipotent god, he has a set of rules and sins, heaven and a hell, dislike for nonbelievers... these are all contingent propositions that one accepts when one becomes a christian.

Not so with atheism.

Now, as to your christian friend's claim that religion enforces moral rules to such a degree that removing them would be harmful... maybe ask him just how many of the biblical rules have actually been translated across to societal ones. Sure, we've got laws against murder, but our laws are much more strict than the bible's; there's no exemption for executing nonbelievers or gays, after all. We've got laws against rape that are much, much more strict than the bible's. And many things that are in the bible, we just don't care about anymore; we have no laws restricting worship, nor adultery, nor examples too numerous to list.

See, that's the thing; these people are all too quick to point out their particular religious texts as being the source of all moral laws, but we as a society have trimmed a lot of the fat and malignant vestigial bits from religion in order to arrive at the moral state that the religion is taking credit for. There's clearly something else at play here beyond just religion; to claim the bible is a useful source of moral law is to ignore all the parts of the bible that are simply too immoral for us to stomach in a practical sense.

And this idea that religion hasn't committed a large scale atrocity in a long time... actually think about that for a bit. What's changed between the inquisition and now? What's the variable? Whatever it is, it surely is not the religion, since it has the same holy book as it did back then. Their laws haven't changed and yet, somehow, their operating behavior has; what's changed?

Well, the societal pressure has. Religion doesn't sculpt society; society sculpts religion, which then proceeds to turn around and claim credit for those very changes.

[Drich]

sounds like your friend knows what he is talking about. why would you want a refute somethiing that makes sense?

[Minimalist]

Persistent isn't he? Haha.

No. Just typically dense. Blackbeard was the captain. He ordered the cannon fired....not the ship's cook.

As far as Stalin goes, there would have been any number of people killed in his purges. Russian orthodox, muslim, jewish, atheists, he did not care.
He had a goal to spread communism and this bullshit about religion being a threat to the state is the standard cop out answer. It was not a concern. Lenin had done a fine job of suppressing the church long before Stalin came to power. This was mainly because of their propping up the Tzarist regime which was standard of most churches...as Jefferson noted long before the Russian Revolution.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.