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RE: The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians
September 22, 2015 at 4:47 pm (This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 4:47 pm by TheRocketSurgeon.)
Especially since the guy I was previously discussing this with (who pushes the same idea that Stalin was a mass-murdering atheist that Randy here pushes) has already cited to credible sources that show the numbers aren't what the DailyMail is pushing.
(September 22, 2015 at 4:46 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:
Quote:Okay, who let Huggy out of the fucking attic?
I was in Cancun, now I'm back to being the brotha y'all luv to h8..
That's a good picture, dude. You should make that your new avatar pic. For real.
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.
RE: The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians
September 22, 2015 at 4:50 pm
(September 22, 2015 at 4:40 pm)Jenny A Wrote:
(September 22, 2015 at 4:26 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Not even close. The estimates are more like:
1 MAO ZEDONG
China (1949-76) Regime Communist Victims 60 million
China’s so-called ‘Great Helmsman’ was in fact the greatest mass murderer in history. Most of his victims were his fellow Chinese, murdered as ‘landlords’ after the communist takeover, starved in his misnamed ‘Great Leap Forward’ of 1958-61, or killed and tortured in labour camps in the Cultural Revolution of the Sixties. Mao’s rule, with its economic mismanagement and continual political upheavals, also spelled poverty for most of China’s untold millions. The country embraced capitalism long after his death.
2 JOSEPH STALIN
Soviet Union (1929-53) Regime Communist Victims 40 million
Lenin’s paranoid successor was the runner-up to Mao in the mass-murder stakes. Stalin imposed a deliberate famine on Ukraine, killed millions of the wealthier peasants – or ‘kulaks’ – as he forced them off their land, and purged his own party, shooting thousands and sending millions more to work as slaves and perish in the Gulag.
3 ADOLF HITLER
Germany (1933-45) Regime Nazi dictatorship Victims 30 million
The horror of Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship lies in the uniqueness of his most notorious crime, the Holocaust, which stands alone in the annals of inhuman cruelty. It was carried out under the cover of World War II, a conflict Hitler pursued with the goal of obtaining ‘Lebensraum’. The war ended up costing millions of lives, leaving Europe devastated and his Third Reich in ruins.
Hitler was raised Catholic and may or may not have believed in some higher power. But he killed because he was racist and to gain power, not as a crusading atheist. And he didn't give a damn about whether Jews believed in god, only that they had Jewish ancestry. And those who carried out his orders were almost invariably Christian. And he appealed to Christians for why Jews should be killed. It's a wash. Catholics were implicit partly out of fear and partly out of racism. Ditto Christians in general. Both Catholics and Lutherans participated. So victims 30 million a wash.
Ha! Many of YOU were "raised Catholics" but you're atheists now for all that, aren't you? So, that's not much of a mark against the Church, is it?
Was Hitler acting specifically as a Catholic or on behalf of the Catholic Church? Or is it more likely that having been influenced by Nietzsche, Hitler had no qualms about murdering anyone who stood in his way? Natural selection and all that.
Quote:Mao may have believed in a higher power or not. Who cares?. He killed people because of their political beliefs, or more accurately for their failure to comply, not over religion or lack there of.
Ditto Stalin.
Neither Stalin nor Mao would have hesitated to kill an atheist. They both killed for power and out of paranoia.
And as atheists, they were FAR more murderous than any Christian in history.
Quote:But the inquisition and the burning of heretics elsewhere and the holy wars. Those were because of religion. And people were killed because of their religion not because of race or politics.
Inquisition - British propaganda against Catholic Spain.
Burning of Heretics - Occurred a handful of times at most including among Protestants, so don't take this too far with regard to Catholicism.
The Crusades - Originally intended as defensive wars against the Muslims who were aggressive in the Holy Lands.
And by the way, if it were not for the Battle of Lepanto, all of Europe may well be Muslim today.
RE: The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians
September 22, 2015 at 4:51 pm
(September 22, 2015 at 4:46 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:
Quote:Okay, who let Huggy out of the fucking attic?
I was in Cancun, now I'm back to being the brotha y'all luv to h8..
Nice pic, Huggie!
Lookin Gangsta!!
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
RE: The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians
September 22, 2015 at 4:54 pm (This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 4:55 pm by Randy Carson.)
(September 22, 2015 at 4:40 pm)Bad Wolf Wrote:
(September 22, 2015 at 4:37 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Only because I liked the way they formatted the information...which is available from any number of sites.
Take your pick.
How about you link to a site owned by the people who gathered the data in the first place?
Here's a link quoting researchers in the former Soviet Union. The numbers are still very, very large.
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.[107] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available, containing official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[108] 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.[109]
The official Soviet archival records do not contain comprehensive figures for some categories of victims, such as those of ethnic deportations or of German population transfers in the aftermath of World War II.[110] Eric D. Weitz wrote, "By 1948, according to Nicolas Werth, the mortality rate of the 600,000 people deported from the Caucasus between 1943 and 1944 had reached 25%."[111][112] Other notable exclusions from NKVD data on repression deaths include the Katyn massacre, other killings in the newly occupied areas, and the mass shootings of Red Army personnel (deserters and so-called deserters) in 1941. The Soviets executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during the war,[113] and the "blocking detachments" of the NKVD shot thousands more.[114] Also, the official statistics on Gulag mortality exclude deaths of prisoners taking place shortly after their release but which resulted from the harsh treatment in the camps.[115] Some historians also believe that the official archival figures of the categories that were recorded by Soviet authorities are unreliable and incomplete.[116][117] In addition to failures regarding comprehensive recordings, as one additional example, Robert Gellately and Simon Sebag Montefiore argue that the many suspects beaten and tortured to death while in "investigative custody" were likely not to have been counted amongst the executed.[31][118]
Historians working after the Soviet Union's dissolution have estimated victim totals ranging from approximately 4 million to nearly 10 million, not including those who died in famines.[119][120][121] Russian writer Vadim Erlikman, for example, makes the following estimates: executions, 1.5 million; gulags, 5 million; deportations, 1.7 million out of 7.5 million deported; and POWs and German civilians, 1 million – a total of about 9 million victims of repression.[122]
Some have also included the deaths of 6 to 8 million people in the 1932–1933 famine among the victims of Stalin's repression. This categorization is controversial however, as historians differ as to whether the famine was a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks and others,[64][123][124][125][126] or simply an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization.[80][127][128]
Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths—6 million from famine and 4 million from other causes—are attributable to the regime,[129] with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, Gulag camps, deportations and other causes.[130][131][132][133][134][135][136] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[137] In his most recent edition of The Great Terror (2007), Conquest states that while exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, the at least 15 million people were either executed or worked to death in the camps.[138] RJ Rummel maintains that the earlier higher victim total estimates are correct, although he includes those killed by the Soviet government in other Eastern European countries as well.[139][140]
And Stalin was just ONE of this century's notable atheist leaders. There are a lot more who could add to this body count.
RE: The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians
September 22, 2015 at 4:55 pm (This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 4:59 pm by TheRocketSurgeon.)
Everyone looks cooler in shades.
(September 22, 2015 at 4:54 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:
(September 22, 2015 at 4:40 pm)Bad Wolf Wrote: How about you link to a site owned by the people who gathered the data in the first place?
Here's a link quoting researchers in the former Soviet Union. The numbers are still very, very large.
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.[107] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available, containing official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[108] 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.[109]
The official Soviet archival records do not contain comprehensive figures for some categories of victims, such as those of ethnic deportations or of German population transfers in the aftermath of World War II.[110] Eric D. Weitz wrote, "By 1948, according to Nicolas Werth, the mortality rate of the 600,000 people deported from the Caucasus between 1943 and 1944 had reached 25%."[111][112] Other notable exclusions from NKVD data on repression deaths include the Katyn massacre, other killings in the newly occupied areas, and the mass shootings of Red Army personnel (deserters and so-called deserters) in 1941. The Soviets executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during the war,[113] and the "blocking detachments" of the NKVD shot thousands more.[114] Also, the official statistics on Gulag mortality exclude deaths of prisoners taking place shortly after their release but which resulted from the harsh treatment in the camps.[115] Some historians also believe that the official archival figures of the categories that were recorded by Soviet authorities are unreliable and incomplete.[116][117] In addition to failures regarding comprehensive recordings, as one additional example, Robert Gellately and Simon Sebag Montefiore argue that the many suspects beaten and tortured to death while in "investigative custody" were likely not to have been counted amongst the executed.[31][118]
Historians working after the Soviet Union's dissolution have estimated victim totals ranging from approximately 4 million to nearly 10 million, not including those who died in famines.[119][120][121] Russian writer Vadim Erlikman, for example, makes the following estimates: executions, 1.5 million; gulags, 5 million; deportations, 1.7 million out of 7.5 million deported; and POWs and German civilians, 1 million – a total of about 9 million victims of repression.[122]
Some have also included the deaths of 6 to 8 million people in the 1932–1933 famine among the victims of Stalin's repression. This categorization is controversial however, as historians differ as to whether the famine was a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks and others,[64][123][124][125][126] or simply an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization.[80][127][128]
Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths—6 million from famine and 4 million from other causes—are attributable to the regime,[129] with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, Gulag camps, deportations and other causes.[130][131][132][133][134][135][136] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[137] In his most recent edition of The Great Terror (2007), Conquest states that while exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, the at least 15 million people were either executed or worked to death in the camps.[138] RJ Rummel maintains that the earlier higher victim total estimates are correct, although he includes those killed by the Soviet government in other Eastern European countries as well.[139][140]
And Stalin was just ONE of this century's notable atheist leaders. There are a lot more who could add to this body count.
Yes, that's a more accurate picture. But if you'll look at the details in there, most of those died from famine and forced labor and/or relocation. The question here is, "did Stalin kill people because he was an atheist", or were the deaths a result of him being a maniacal tyrant seeking to establish an empire, like thousands of (mostly religious) tyrannical maniacs throughout history?
Even his actual murders of clergy and religious leaders was not because he was an atheist and just wanted to kill religious people, but because those people spoke out against the rise of the Communist Party, and Stalin killed anyone who did that, even if they were atheists too.
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.
RE: The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians
September 22, 2015 at 4:59 pm
(September 22, 2015 at 4:54 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:
(September 22, 2015 at 4:40 pm)Bad Wolf Wrote: How about you link to a site owned by the people who gathered the data in the first place?
Here's a link quoting researchers in the former Soviet Union. The numbers are still very, very large.
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.[107] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available, containing official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[108] 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.[109]
The official Soviet archival records do not contain comprehensive figures for some categories of victims, such as those of ethnic deportations or of German population transfers in the aftermath of World War II.[110] Eric D. Weitz wrote, "By 1948, according to Nicolas Werth, the mortality rate of the 600,000 people deported from the Caucasus between 1943 and 1944 had reached 25%."[111][112] Other notable exclusions from NKVD data on repression deaths include the Katyn massacre, other killings in the newly occupied areas, and the mass shootings of Red Army personnel (deserters and so-called deserters) in 1941. The Soviets executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during the war,[113] and the "blocking detachments" of the NKVD shot thousands more.[114] Also, the official statistics on Gulag mortality exclude deaths of prisoners taking place shortly after their release but which resulted from the harsh treatment in the camps.[115] Some historians also believe that the official archival figures of the categories that were recorded by Soviet authorities are unreliable and incomplete.[116][117] In addition to failures regarding comprehensive recordings, as one additional example, Robert Gellately and Simon Sebag Montefiore argue that the many suspects beaten and tortured to death while in "investigative custody" were likely not to have been counted amongst the executed.[31][118]
Historians working after the Soviet Union's dissolution have estimated victim totals ranging from approximately 4 million to nearly 10 million, not including those who died in famines.[119][120][121] Russian writer Vadim Erlikman, for example, makes the following estimates: executions, 1.5 million; gulags, 5 million; deportations, 1.7 million out of 7.5 million deported; and POWs and German civilians, 1 million – a total of about 9 million victims of repression.[122]
Some have also included the deaths of 6 to 8 million people in the 1932–1933 famine among the victims of Stalin's repression. This categorization is controversial however, as historians differ as to whether the famine was a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks and others,[64][123][124][125][126] or simply an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization.[80][127][128]
Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths—6 million from famine and 4 million from other causes—are attributable to the regime,[129] with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, Gulag camps, deportations and other causes.[130][131][132][133][134][135][136] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[137] In his most recent edition of The Great Terror (2007), Conquest states that while exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, the at least 15 million people were either executed or worked to death in the camps.[138] RJ Rummel maintains that the earlier higher victim total estimates are correct, although he includes those killed by the Soviet government in other Eastern European countries as well.[139][140]
That's not a link, that is a block of text that you have copied and pasted without even saying where you got it from.
'The more I learn about people the more I like my dog'- Mark Twain
'You can have all the faith you want in spirits, and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes time to cross the road, I know you look both ways.' - Dr House
“Young earth creationism is essentially the position that all of modern science, 90% of living scientists and 98% of living biologists, all major university biology departments, every major science journal, the American Academy of Sciences, and every major science organization in the world, are all wrong regarding the origins and development of life….but one particular tribe of uneducated, bronze aged, goat herders got it exactly right.” - Chuck Easttom
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