The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians

[Mystic]

You guys are hilarious.

[Esquilax]

Most Theists don't give a crap about philosophical arguments for God and are not interested in them. They are still strong in faith in God and don't care for a single argument.  They believe they are connected to God and they know by the power of faith. 

And please don't simply call "faith" "blind belief", because, that's not what Theists believe it is. They believe it's a seeing power, it's a connection. 

Oh, I wouldn't call that blind belief: "circular reasoning" works much better. You believe you're connected to god through your faith, and you know you're correct in doing so because you believe in the thing you have faith in super strongly.

But say there's some magic revelation you get when you have faith (I'd call that a presupposition) and that if only you have faith, you'll get it: I'm still not rationally justified in taking that leap of faith without evidence first, nor am I able to take your personal experiences as evidence for me. Revelation is necessarily first-person, it's not something you can demonstrate.

If most Theists were relying on arguments like first cause, design etc, then you may have a point.  But from my experience, there is very few Theists who actually have faith in God from philosophical reasons, and even those, probably have faith from other then that, but just seek to strengthen their case against Atheists.

Well, okay, but my point still stands: "You just gotta have faith," is not a compelling piece of evidence, and without that, I cannot rationally begin to believe in a thing. Doesn't matter if you're ultimately correct; I can only evaluate the things it is possible to evaluate, and the claim "I know god exists through faith," is not something I can do that for.

[Cyberman]

You guys are hilarious.

So where's our kudos? Eh?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Whether or not he exists, you and many like you base your entire lives around him.  Which kind of IS the point.....especially since the dude makes Stalin look like a rank amateur in terms of mass genocide and general, all around cuntishness.

No, the point is YOU providing an example of any religious figure with a body count bigger than Stalin. Obviously you don't believe God exist so using him as an example is just asinine, since when did what others believe become factor instead of evidence? Or do you abandon the idea of having to provide evidence when it's convenient?

BUT If you want to insist that God has a bigger body count than Stalin you're going to have to provide the evidence, according to your own criteria.

His "body count" is not what you've been told it is. I am not justifying even one of those murders in the name of state power, but the meme of "Joseph Stalin is the worst killer in history" largely comes from wild guesses made during the Cold War.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Sta...of_victims

Secondly, you've still not demonstrated that their murders were done in the name of atheism. Simply saying that churches were outright suppressed and that priests were killed does not mean it was done because of atheism; if a priest spoke out against the Leninist powers-that-be, they were killed to shut them up. This was true for non-priests, as well. If an atheist spoke out against the Leninists, they too would be killed. But not because of their atheism.

By using Lenin and Stalin's psychopathic purges of anyone who stood in the way of their control and unification of the Soviet Empire as a bludgeon with which to hit atheism, you are ignoring the real reasons it was done.

No one is arguing that the Soviet Communists were anti-religion, that they closed down churches and killed anyone who spoke out or otherwise stood in their way (and that a lot of Christians/Clergy stood in their way based on their faith, thus making them targets). But that still does not mean atheism was why those people were murdered.

TL;dr version: The body count isn't as bad as you're claiming, and they weren't killed because of Stalin's atheism but because he killed anyone he felt challenged his empire-building efforts to gain unchecked power.

[Esquilax]

Secondly, you've still not demonstrated that their murders were done in the name of atheism. Simply saying that churches were outright suppressed and that priests were killed does not mean it was done because of atheism; if a priest spoke out against the Leninist powers-that-be, they were killed to shut them up. This was true for non-priests, as well. If an atheist spoke out against the Leninists, they too would be killed. But not because of their atheism.

"B-b-but! No True Atheist fallacy!"

[Mystic]

Oh, I wouldn't call that blind belief: "circular reasoning" works much better. You believe you're connected to god through your faith, and you know you're correct in doing so because you believe in the thing you have faith in super strongly.

But say there's some magic revelation you get when you have faith (I'd call that a presupposition) and that if only you have faith, you'll get it: I'm still not rationally justified in taking that leap of faith without evidence first, nor am I able to take your personal experiences as evidence for me. Revelation is necessarily first-person, it's not something you can demonstrate.

You are right that we cannot demonstrate simply through this approach. Which is why I try to present arguments (that I don't rely on for faith but I do believe they prove God).  However, as I said, you cannot simply show they don't have knowledge of God through simply saying their experience is personal either.

[downbeatplumb]

That link was about state sponsored atheism not communism, there are religious groups that are communist. In fact, if one were to define biblical Christianity it could be defined as socialism, as they have much in common.

Marx, Lenin and Stalin however were all atheists. Are you so naive to Think that their atheism had no bearing on their political ideology? Stalin is attributed with a estimated body count of between 20-60 million, I defy you to find one religious figure who tops that....

I'm gonna go with popes,they instigated the crusades, various genocides, the invasion of south america, the murder of women accused of witchcraft and protestants etc etc, how many would they have killed? billions maybe.

[downbeatplumb]

Secondly, you've still not demonstrated that their murders were done in the name of atheism. Simply saying that churches were outright suppressed and that priests were killed does not mean it was done because of atheism; if a priest spoke out against the Leninist powers-that-be, they were killed to shut them up. This was true for non-priests, as well. If an atheist spoke out against the Leninists, they too would be killed. But not because of their atheism.

"B-b-but! No True Atheist fallacy!"

The church was a rival power in the land, that is why they were removed not for the beliefs, for the influence.

[Huggy Bear]

Look genius, YOU'RE the one who brought up God, not me. If you seriously are trying to insist that God has a bigger body count than Stalin, then provide the evidence according to you're own criteria as an atheist.

Got it?

Thank you, you're quite right, I am a genius.

Now, look back to your original question......your question asked "Any religious figure."  I used God, you now ask me, an atheist, to prove he exists.

I mean, holy Mary mother of fuck..........how do you survive??

I did not ask you to prove God exists, I asked you to provide evidence that his body count is bigger than Stalin's.

Since you lack any sort of reading comprehension I'll repeat myself.

Look genius, YOU'RE the one who brought up God, not me. If you seriously are trying to insist that God has a bigger body count than Stalin, then provide the evidence according to you're own criteria as an atheist.

Got it?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

That link was about state sponsored atheism not communism, there are religious groups that are communist. In fact, if one were to define biblical Christianity it could be defined as socialism, as they have much in common.

Marx, Lenin and Stalin however were all atheists. Are you so naive to Think that their atheism had no bearing on their political ideology? Stalin is attributed with a estimated body count of between 20-60 million, I defy you to find one religious figure who tops that....

I'm gonna go with popes,they instigated the crusades, various genocides, the invasion of south america, the murder of women accused of witchcraft and protestants etc etc, how many would they have killed? billions maybe.

It's hard to go with the total body count, simply because the population in the 20th century so totally dwarfed populations in the previous centuries. You can kill 5% of people on the earth in the 15th-16th centuries and still not reach the numbers you'd get by killing 2% of people, in Stalin/Hitler's day. There were only ~500 million people on earth in the years 1500-1600, whereas by 1940 there were 2.3 billion.  (Source.)

Even so, as bad as what the Crusaders did, the total numbers they managed to generate was about 1.7 million deaths, but in terms of percentage of total world population, that's about 34 million, today. (Source.)

It's also not completely fair to blame most of the ~20 million deaths in South America, in the years following the arrival of the Conquistadors, on their genocidal tendencies... they were carrying smallpox, and this resulted in the majority of those deaths.

I'm all for talking about this issue, but I think it's incumbent on us to talk based on actual figures, and to compares apples and apples, so to speak. I'm not criticizing anyone. I just minored in history, particular medieval military history, and happen to enjoy this topic so it's easier for me to look around with Google Fu.