Why the hate?

[Cammmpbell]

I sure as hell like to see your references on that. So far it's just another Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly like assertion.

One thing we know for sure...."Thou Shalt Not Kill" only pertains to unborn fetuses. The Religious Right can't wait to put the unwanted children to death after they grow up and phuck up.

He's given you the fucking sources, moron. Go read them.

He can't read, he's a parrot.

I've posted at no less than 12-15 message boards or forums since 1994 when I got my first desktop. The average poster here is about one full 10% level below the average. Keep on rantin'

 

[westwall]

He's given you the fucking sources, moron. Go read them.

He can't read, he's a parrot.

I've posted at no less than 12-15 message boards or forums since 1994 when I got my first desktop. The average poster here is about one full 10% level below the average. Keep on rantin'

Sure thing Mr. Troll Tell me, do you live under a bridge too?

 

[Cammmpbell]

He can't read, he's a parrot.

I've posted at no less than 12-15 message boards or forums since 1994 when I got my first desktop. The average poster here is about one full 10% level below the average. Keep on rantin'

Sure thing Mr. Troll Tell me, do you live under a bridge too?

Began as paper boy in 1944...I was nine years old. Pay $3.60 per week

Began to mow lawns in 1946. I was eleven years old. Averaged $20 per week during summers

Continued both papers and mowing and began to buy my own clothes when I was fourteen
went in debt for my first car before I was able to legally drive it

Began working at a full service garage when I was barely sixteen

Worked 40 hrs junior and senior year HS and 60 hours during summers...$0.60 per hour

Hired at a Uranium processing plant in 1952...rotating shift...Pay $1.71 per hour

Worked five years and was drafted into the army infantry Pay...$73 per month

Returned in 1959 and continued my job as process operator pay $3.10 per hour
The company gave me seniority credit for the time I was in the army, continued in national guards

I play keyboards and piano so I was drawing checks from three places when my kids were young. My regular job, the national guards and playing when I could with small bands and combos. Discharged from guards in 1964 as a tank commander on an M-48 Medium Patton Tank

Was laid off because of seniority in February 1961 but relocated to the data processing center where they were installing a new $2.5 million main frame computer. Continued to work rotating shift work. Took a $200 a month cut...about 30%.

Worked about 18 months, learned to program in C T and Fortran 1 and made shift supervisor. With overtime about $700 a month.

In 1968 was set up to computer operations supervisor over three shifts and 40 employees. Pay...approximately $800 a month but worked straight days and no overtime

Our center had $66 million of computing and telecommunications equipment installed on 18,000 sq. ft. of floating floor. Our power bill to TVA was over half a million dollars per year and the center required over 400 tons of refrigeration. We installed Oak Ridge's first super computer...the Cray XMP 2/4. We later upgraded to a 4.

25 years later I retired after 41 years with the same company. Good pension and at age 62 began to draw social security...about $48,000 per year total. My wife has a similar career path and between the two of us and her part time job we make about $75,000 per year.

We both have a high school education but I did complete an electronics school which lasted about two and a half years in the mid 1960's.

We have a 4br brick rancher with 220ft. lake frontage. I have a dock, well pump in the lake with six outlets for irrigation. I have a pontoon boat with a 115hp Evinrude engine and we hit the lake every once in a while for a little fishing etc.

 

[Photonic]

The facts are that not for two hundred years have atheists been persecuted. That makes your statement false.

Not killing someone is not the same as not persecuting someone. Learn the difference.

Last we talked you were an engineer, now you are a scientist? Make up your mind.

Also the position known as atheistic agnosticism is something usually called "weak atheism."

Strong atheism is the claim that there is a 100% probability that there is no God, a claim I have almost never heard from anyone.

I am what is known as a weak atheistic scientific pantheist. You can ponder that out.

I have never claimed to be an engineer. You must have me confused with someone else. I am a geologist and have been for my entire professional career(40+ years) and have so stated here in this forum.

I really do know the difference between not killing and not persecuting. The French Revolution was the beginning of the massive spread of "secularism" which had been begun in a major way during the Renaissance. Religous persecution began to be curtailed in a major way with the Renaisance. It still occured but it's sadistic nature was gone for the most part.

I will certainly grant you that individuals were able to winnow there way into positions of power and wreak their terror, but the widespread persecution promulgated by the Church was gone by the 1700's.

I would completely agree with you except in the US coming out as an atheist is almost as bad as coming out as gay.

Our European brethren have thankfully grown past this.

I apologize, I must have confused you with another board members profession. I am a scientist myself and have experienced first hand christian persecution as an atheist and as a scientist. It is not fun. Being told that I should be murdered by true believers so I can "burn in a very hot place for an infinite duration" seems contrary to the entire purpose of their religion.

 

[Photonic]

Stalinism and Fascism are not a religion. They are a political system. Lenin wrote the following in 1909...

“Marx said, ‘Religion is the opium of the people’ – and this postulate is the corner stone of the whole philosophy of Marxism with regard to religion. Marxism always regarded all modern religions and churches, and every kind of religious organisation as instruments of that bourgeois reaction whose aim is to defend exploitation, stupefying the working class.” (The Attitude of the Workers’ Party towards religion, May, 1909)

He further stated....

“And when this act (the proletarian revolution) has been accomplished, when society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are at present held by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which now confront them as an irresistible extraneous force; when then man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes – only then will the last extraneous force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect.”

Hitler was a novice when it comes to wholesale murder. Stalin killed at minimum 50 million and probably closer to 80 million in his purges.


Mao is the other great killer at an estimated 150 million during the culteral revolution and a anti theist as well. Read any of his works and religion is a pestilence to be exerminated.

These were countries murdering their citizens on a mass scale, not religions.

I sure as hell like to see your references on that. So far it's just another Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly like assertion.

One thing we know for sure...."Thou Shalt Not Kill" only pertains to unborn fetuses. The Religious Right can't wait to put the unwanted children to death after they grow up and phuck up.

He's given you the fucking sources, moron. Go read them.

Well, nothing factually wrong with that (except Hitler was in no way an atheist). But we also know that atheism or religion wasn't the cause of those events. There is no atheist dogma, it's simply the state of lacking a believe in a deity. I would also like to point out that Buddhists, Confucianism, Taoism are religions that are atheistic by definition.

The atheistic state was so the government and dear leader was the object of worship. These places were just as religious, possibly more so than any of the mainstream religions.

These places almost weren't atheist, they replaced one God for Dear Leader.

 

[Photonic]

Ok, a few answers to this:
(1) America was settled, at least initially, by religious fundamentalists who wanted to set up a sort of theocratic republic (before anyone jumps down my throat and says, "The founding fathers were not Christians" - yes, I know, I'm not talking about Jefferson or Paine or Franklin, the people who signed the Declaration of Independence and wrote the US Constitution - I'm talking about the people who went to America in the 1600s. This left a DEEP cultural idea in the American people that they were a 'chosen people' living in a 'promised land' etc. God loves America; so for an American not to love God back is seen as a sort of treason.
(2) The popular religion that developed in the USA, especially along the frontier and in the South, was anti-intellectual. Unlike in Italy, where the Catholics have a hierarchy and a trained priesthood, the dominant form of Christianity in the USA comes out of evangelical traditions and 'revivalism', where anyone with a spattering of Bible knowledge and a good shouting voice could start a church. This led to a very simplistic, literalist, bible-based theology. The broader education and humanist philosophy of the priests in catholic (and anglican and lutheran) churches in Europe mitigated against this trend and produced a religion which is in some ways more 'porous'.
(3) More generally, the USA has an anti-intellectual culture. In most of continental Europe people look up to and respect 'book learning' and being a civilised, cultured human being. In the USA (in most parts) this would be looked down on - it's what you DO that matters, how much money you make. This anti-intellectualism means that those who have a rational, scientific view of existence can easily be criticised as being 'out of touch' with 'good honest god-fearing Americans'. (Read in redneck voice): 'Them danged atheists thinks they is better than us folks, just cos they done got themselves a college edjikatishion'. It's like the horrible reverse parody of the democratic ethos.
(4) Being part of a protestant church is a major commitment. It's not something you just do as a social ritual, like catholicism can be. You have to make a choice, profess Jesus, get baptised by immersion, sign the members' roll, turn up to meetings, sit on committees. This tends to harden the edges of the 'in-group' and the 'out-group'. In a catholic country, everyone (or nearly so) is culturally catholic, even if they do not believe in god or go to church; you can't be a 'cultural baptist' - you are either In or Out (and, according to the Ins, everything Out is evil).
(5) After the second world war, the USA had a massive internal propaganda system designed to attack socialism and the left. Communists were 'atheists', Communists were bad and anti-American, ergo atheists were bad and anti-American.
(6) The USA does not have a good welfare system. Indeed, the whole country is based on a sort of individualist myth, where the only reason that one guy is working 70 hours a week and struggling to get by with two minimum wage jobs and no healthcare, while someone sits by their pool and has a private jet, is that the first one is 'lazy' (i.e. unfavoured by God - remember, Protestant God Wants You to Work Hard) and the second is 'hardworking' (i.e. Blessed by God). This means that: (i) there is a lot of fear - fear of sickness, fear of unemployment, fear of annoying the boss, fear of random economic actions outside your control. Fear drives people into fearful, nasty, exclusive versions of religion - a 'hunker down' against 'the world'; (ii) people need the social network and support provided by a church, because the state provides so little - thus atheists are a threat to people because people are terrified of being convinced by them, having to leave the church, and thus losing their social network and support system.
(7) This is the crucial one - it draws on 1 and 5, but goes beyond them and is vitally relevant today: There is, in the USA, a thing called 'Christianity' that has little to do with Christianity as it is generally understood in Europe, or in the longer view of the Christian tradition. It is a heavily nationalistic, militaristic, masculine, authoritarian cult, with Jesus as the Cadillac-Driving All-American Hero who has come to save his Chosen People from Gayness, Socialised Medicine, Arabs and Long Haired Hippies. This might best be called, "Amerireligion". This was deliberately created after the 1960s by the American right, who wanted a way to stop the changes begun by the Progressive Era and the New Deal and to restore the dominance of the old ruling class. The civil rights and anti-vietnam war era brought it to a head. The right saw an opportunity to appeal to the gut-instincts of the white working class blue collar American male by playing on his prejudices - particularly on matters such as race, alternative lifestyles and the sexual revolution. So there was a deliberate demonisation and vilification of those who were seen as 'different' from that red-blooded white-skinned American male ideal - they were 'liberal hippy tree hugging dirty commie atheist bastards' - not to be trusted, because they were 'anti-American' (when 'American' is defined by the hard right). So, basically, American christians hate atheists because their religion is really a sort of tribal nationalism, and they've been played for fools by right-wing politicians.
How do you get poor and middle class people to vote for tax cuts for billionaires, constant war, erosion of civil liberties, and destruction of public services? Easy, tell them that if they don't American Jesus will cry - and then the Gays and the Foreigners and the Nasty Atheists - and all who don't Love American Jesus will continue to shaft them. Why are they unemployed? Not because NAFTA killed the jobs, but because God angry with America for teaching evolution. It's the ultimate 'bait-n-switch'. So what's the answer to the current economic crisis - the worst in American history since the Great Depression? Is it a massive public investment and job-creation programme like FDR did? No, that would be Communistic Atheism. Instead, we must appease the All-Blessing God of America - by banning pornography!
The level of cognitive dissonance must be overwhelming. Faced with that, no wonder so many American Christians act with rage and hostility to the mere presence of atheists.
It's sad.

I think it important to read this, it pretty much details all of our historic problems.

 

[FurthurBB]

Stalinism and Fascism are not a religion. They are a political system. Lenin wrote the following in 1909...

“Marx said, ‘Religion is the opium of the people’ – and this postulate is the corner stone of the whole philosophy of Marxism with regard to religion. Marxism always regarded all modern religions and churches, and every kind of religious organisation as instruments of that bourgeois reaction whose aim is to defend exploitation, stupefying the working class.” (The Attitude of the Workers’ Party towards religion, May, 1909)

He further stated....

“And when this act (the proletarian revolution) has been accomplished, when society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are at present held by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which now confront them as an irresistible extraneous force; when then man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes – only then will the last extraneous force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect.”

Hitler was a novice when it comes to wholesale murder. Stalin killed at minimum 50 million and probably closer to 80 million in his purges.


Mao is the other great killer at an estimated 150 million during the culteral revolution and a anti theist as well. Read any of his works and religion is a pestilence to be exerminated.

These were countries murdering their citizens on a mass scale, not religions.

Fallacy of false cause or non sequitur: incorrectly assumes one thing is the cause of another. Non Sequitur is Latin for "It does not follow."

Hitler also gained the backing of the people by claiming he was doing the work of God by ridding their Christian state of Jews. (See Mein Kampf)

Hitler used religion as a tool. He himself was an atheist and had plans to kill all the Roman Catholics in Germany when the time was right. He however realised that he needed the religious Germans to get into power in the first place. He used them and when he was done with them he was going to kill them....just like he did with the homosexuals who were useful tools until they were no longer useful so he had them killed during the Night of the Long Knives.

Statements of FACT are never non sequiters so long as they pertain to the original discussion. Hitler, Lenin-Stalin and Mao were atheists. Provably so. They were the leaders of their countries and they murdered millions more then religions ever did. That too is a fact. Am I saying that atheism is bad? No, I am not. I am saying that leaders who were atheists were worse then the evil religious people in the past. Who probably used the religion of the time to perpetrate their murderous behavior as well.

Do you see the connection? It is not the religion, it is not the atheism...it is the PEOPLE involved who are to blame.

Hitler was not an atheist, he believed fully in god.

 

[Steelplate]

How very dramatic.... all this 'hate' we're being accused of.

I have a question for the OP..... why all the stupidity? How about you make the effort to recognize that disagreeing with someone does not equate to 'hate'. Twit.

Really? Stupidity? OK....how insightful...

 

[Steelplate]

One thing I don't understand about the atheists on the board... Why the hate towards people of faith?

To the Christians, I ask this... why the hate towards people who aren't Christian?

We all have to find our path through this life. Those of us with faith believe there is something after our worldly life ends. Those without do not.

It's really very simple. Live and let live... that goes for all of us. If we would all abandon the "black and white/wrong and right" attitudes, our world would be a much better place.

Just the need to judge one another shows our immaturity.

I'm starting to research Gnostic Christianity. I don't think it'll change my beliefs, but so far, it seems as though Christianity before Rome took the religion over was quite different than it is now. Of course Gnostics were considered Heretics by the Orthodox Christians of Rome and were persecuted and many were killed off.

Can you give azn example of what you concider hate?

Oh heck...you peruse this forum much? You have Christians trying to prove the unprovable and Atheists calling them stupid... yeah... not much hate here... look through the thread, some even admit to it. Then you got the inevitable threads on how Muslims are the scum of the Earth, etc...

 

[Photonic]

One thing I don't understand about the atheists on the board... Why the hate towards people of faith?

To the Christians, I ask this... why the hate towards people who aren't Christian?

We all have to find our path through this life. Those of us with faith believe there is something after our worldly life ends. Those without do not.

It's really very simple. Live and let live... that goes for all of us. If we would all abandon the "black and white/wrong and right" attitudes, our world would be a much better place.

Just the need to judge one another shows our immaturity.

I'm starting to research Gnostic Christianity. I don't think it'll change my beliefs, but so far, it seems as though Christianity before Rome took the religion over was quite different than it is now. Of course Gnostics were considered Heretics by the Orthodox Christians of Rome and were persecuted and many were killed off.

Can you give azn example of what you concider hate?

Oh heck...you peruse this forum much? You have Christians trying to prove the unprovable and Atheists calling them stupid... yeah... not much hate here... look through the thread, some even admit to it. Then you got the inevitable threads on how Muslims are the scum of the Earth, etc...

I think that's just a property of this forum of people to attempt to prove the unprovable and ad hominem attacks in literally every direction.

 

[Steelplate]

Yes, as an atheist, most of my friends are atheist, I have never known one of my friends to be anything but tolerant towards benign religion. Yes, I have a few religions friends too, they are pretty cool and tolerate people as well.

I mean yea, if you force religion into the face of an atheist, they are likely to be uncomfortable about it, but aren't you uncomfortable when you get preached to by another religion?

Not even forced. I have seen an atheist walk right over to a person who has a cross on or some other little symbol of some type and read them the riot act. That is just as offensive a behaviour as a religious person knocking on your door trying to convert you. Which I have not seen in decades now though I am sure it still occurs in some places.

I've never seen anything even resembling that during my whole life.....'course I'm just 77

Face It....all or at least most of us were taught to never bring up religion or politics in polite conversation. Most of us don't. Here on an Internet discussion forum where one never meets other members face to face and can remain relatvely anonymous.....it's a different set of rules.

well, that... and it's a Religion and Ethics forum...

 

[Steelplate]

I sure as hell like to see your references on that. So far it's just another Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly like assertion.

One thing we know for sure...."Thou Shalt Not Kill" only pertains to unborn fetuses. The Religious Right can't wait to put the unwanted children to death after they grow up and phuck up.

He's given you the fucking sources, moron. Go read them.

Well, nothing factually wrong with that (except Hitler was in no way an atheist). But we also know that atheism or religion wasn't the cause of those events. There is no atheist dogma, it's simply the state of lacking a believe in a deity. I would also like to point out that Buddhists, Confucianism, Taoism are religions that are atheistic by definition.

The atheistic state was so the government and dear leader was the object of worship. These places were just as religious, possibly more so than any of the mainstream religions.

These places almost weren't atheist, they replaced one God for Dear Leader.

No... Hitler was insane and an amphetamine addict.

 

[Photonic]

He's given you the fucking sources, moron. Go read them.

Well, nothing factually wrong with that (except Hitler was in no way an atheist). But we also know that atheism or religion wasn't the cause of those events. There is no atheist dogma, it's simply the state of lacking a believe in a deity. I would also like to point out that Buddhists, Confucianism, Taoism are religions that are atheistic by definition.

The atheistic state was so the government and dear leader was the object of worship. These places were just as religious, possibly more so than any of the mainstream religions.

These places almost weren't atheist, they replaced one God for Dear Leader.

No... Hitler was insane and an amphetamine addict.

What I said is historically accurate, but so is what you have said.

 

[Steelplate]

Can you give azn example of what you concider hate?

Oh heck...you peruse this forum much? You have Christians trying to prove the unprovable and Atheists calling them stupid... yeah... not much hate here... look through the thread, some even admit to it. Then you got the inevitable threads on how Muslims are the scum of the Earth, etc...

I think that's just a property of this forum of people to attempt to prove the unprovable and ad hominem attacks in literally every direction.

Good point.

 

[hortysir]

One thing I don't understand about the atheists on the board... Why the hate towards people of faith?

To the Christians, I ask this... why the hate towards people who aren't Christian?

We all have to find our path through this life. Those of us with faith believe there is something after our worldly life ends. Those without do not.

It's really very simple. Live and let live... that goes for all of us. If we would all abandon the "black and white/wrong and right" attitudes, our world would be a much better place.

Just the need to judge one another shows our immaturity.

I'm starting to research Gnostic Christianity. I don't think it'll change my beliefs, but so far, it seems as though Christianity before Rome took the religion over was quite different than it is now. Of course Gnostics were considered Heretics by the Orthodox Christians of Rome and were persecuted and many were killed off.

I can only speak for myself by saying that I don't hate a non-Christian.

I do hate when someone starts a Troll-Thread by ridiculing what I hold most dear - my relationship with Jesus Christ and my God.
(not saying this thread fits that description)

I don't type those words lightly. I don't say it to rub anyone's nose in it or to "shove it down the throats" of non-Christians.
And I only testify to it when asked about my faith.

I may be wrong, and anyone is welcome to provide linked proof to the contrary, but I haven't seen a proclaimed Christian "hate" a non-believer on this board.
I HAVE seen Christians called "brainwashed" or "simple-minded".

While we are asked to "turn the other cheek", there are only so many cheeks before one starts to respond in kind to continuous insults hurled at them.
God also calls for warriors. He also calls for us to witness, testify, and draw others into the 'Flock'.

I know others call it bullshit. And that's fine.
To my recollection Huggy has never been venomous in his anti-religion beliefs.
There is a way to go about voicing your own beliefs without being mean to someone else for not concurring.
UScitizen is another that I know of that is atheist.
Same thing.....He doesn't go out of his way to attack believers. He respects our commitment and strength in faith.

I think that some are defining 'hate' and 'judging' inaccurately.
Everybody is guilty of doing both. But using the word 'guilty' is disingenuous as there is nothing wrong with doing either in the right case.
We all make judgements about what we like or hate.

 

[Photonic]

One thing I don't understand about the atheists on the board... Why the hate towards people of faith?

To the Christians, I ask this... why the hate towards people who aren't Christian?

We all have to find our path through this life. Those of us with faith believe there is something after our worldly life ends. Those without do not.

It's really very simple. Live and let live... that goes for all of us. If we would all abandon the "black and white/wrong and right" attitudes, our world would be a much better place.

Just the need to judge one another shows our immaturity.

I'm starting to research Gnostic Christianity. I don't think it'll change my beliefs, but so far, it seems as though Christianity before Rome took the religion over was quite different than it is now. Of course Gnostics were considered Heretics by the Orthodox Christians of Rome and were persecuted and many were killed off.

I can only speak for myself by saying that I don't hate a non-Christian.

I do hate when someone starts a Troll-Thread by ridiculing what I hold most dear - my relationship with Jesus Christ and my God.
(not saying this thread fits that description)

I don't type those words lightly. I don't say it to rub anyone's nose in it or to "shove it down the throats" of non-Christians.
And I only testify to it when asked about my faith.

I may be wrong, and anyone is welcome to provide linked proof to the contrary, but I haven't seen a proclaimed Christian "hate" a non-believer on this board.
I HAVE seen Christians called "brainwashed" or "simple-minded".

While we are asked to "turn the other cheek", there are only so many cheeks before one starts to respond in kind to continuous insults hurled at them.
God also calls for warriors. He also calls for us to witness, testify, and draw others into the 'Flock'.

I know others call it bullshit. And that's fine.
To my recollection Huggy has never been venomous in his anti-religion beliefs.
There is a way to go about voicing your own beliefs without being mean to someone else for not concurring.
UScitizen is another that I know of that is atheist.
Same thing.....He doesn't go out of his way to attack believers. He respects our commitment and strength in faith.

I think that some are defining 'hate' and 'judging' inaccurately.
Everybody is guilty of doing both. But using the word 'guilty' is disingenuous as there is nothing wrong with doing either in the right case.
We all make judgements about what we like or hate.

And you know what, if there were more Christians like you, I doubt anyone not Christian would have anything but respect for Christians as a group. I certainly respect your view on your beliefs.

 

[hortysir]

One thing I don't understand about the atheists on the board... Why the hate towards people of faith?

To the Christians, I ask this... why the hate towards people who aren't Christian?

We all have to find our path through this life. Those of us with faith believe there is something after our worldly life ends. Those without do not.

It's really very simple. Live and let live... that goes for all of us. If we would all abandon the "black and white/wrong and right" attitudes, our world would be a much better place.

Just the need to judge one another shows our immaturity.

I'm starting to research Gnostic Christianity. I don't think it'll change my beliefs, but so far, it seems as though Christianity before Rome took the religion over was quite different than it is now. Of course Gnostics were considered Heretics by the Orthodox Christians of Rome and were persecuted and many were killed off.

I can only speak for myself by saying that I don't hate a non-Christian.

I do hate when someone starts a Troll-Thread by ridiculing what I hold most dear - my relationship with Jesus Christ and my God.
(not saying this thread fits that description)

I don't type those words lightly. I don't say it to rub anyone's nose in it or to "shove it down the throats" of non-Christians.
And I only testify to it when asked about my faith.

I may be wrong, and anyone is welcome to provide linked proof to the contrary, but I haven't seen a proclaimed Christian "hate" a non-believer on this board.
I HAVE seen Christians called "brainwashed" or "simple-minded".

While we are asked to "turn the other cheek", there are only so many cheeks before one starts to respond in kind to continuous insults hurled at them.
God also calls for warriors. He also calls for us to witness, testify, and draw others into the 'Flock'.

I know others call it bullshit. And that's fine.
To my recollection Huggy has never been venomous in his anti-religion beliefs.
There is a way to go about voicing your own beliefs without being mean to someone else for not concurring.
UScitizen is another that I know of that is atheist.
Same thing.....He doesn't go out of his way to attack believers. He respects our commitment and strength in faith.

I think that some are defining 'hate' and 'judging' inaccurately.
Everybody is guilty of doing both. But using the word 'guilty' is disingenuous as there is nothing wrong with doing either in the right case.
We all make judgements about what we like or hate.

And you know what, if there were more Christians like you, I doubt anyone not Christian would have anything but respect for Christians as a group. I certainly respect your view on your beliefs.

There are more than it seems, P.
Sadly they/we find ourselves wrapped up in pissing contests with trolls.

 

[westwall]

Not killing someone is not the same as not persecuting someone. Learn the difference.

Last we talked you were an engineer, now you are a scientist? Make up your mind.

Also the position known as atheistic agnosticism is something usually called "weak atheism."

Strong atheism is the claim that there is a 100% probability that there is no God, a claim I have almost never heard from anyone.

I am what is known as a weak atheistic scientific pantheist. You can ponder that out.

I have never claimed to be an engineer. You must have me confused with someone else. I am a geologist and have been for my entire professional career(40+ years) and have so stated here in this forum.

I really do know the difference between not killing and not persecuting. The French Revolution was the beginning of the massive spread of "secularism" which had been begun in a major way during the Renaissance. Religous persecution began to be curtailed in a major way with the Renaisance. It still occured but it's sadistic nature was gone for the most part.

I will certainly grant you that individuals were able to winnow there way into positions of power and wreak their terror, but the widespread persecution promulgated by the Church was gone by the 1700's.

I would completely agree with you except in the US coming out as an atheist is almost as bad as coming out as gay.

Our European brethren have thankfully grown past this.

I apologize, I must have confused you with another board members profession. I am a scientist myself and have experienced first hand christian persecution as an atheist and as a scientist. It is not fun. Being told that I should be murdered by true believers so I can "burn in a very hot place for an infinite duration" seems contrary to the entire purpose of their religion.

I'll agree with you on that last bit. That's like the morons who were arguing over religion until one got a gun and killed the other one. They were both "Christian". As Mel Gibson said in the movie they weren't good Christians (he was a Buddhist in the movie), so I hear you. I have never personally experienced that behavior in 40+ years though. Of course I work with Earth scientists and the idea of a 6,000 year old planet is hilarious to us. Even the devout Christians who are in the field say "how long is one of Gods days? A billion years?"

They have no problem ascribing evolution to Gods work. I guess it takes all kinds.

 

[westwall]

I sure as hell like to see your references on that. So far it's just another Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly like assertion.

One thing we know for sure...."Thou Shalt Not Kill" only pertains to unborn fetuses. The Religious Right can't wait to put the unwanted children to death after they grow up and phuck up.

He's given you the fucking sources, moron. Go read them.

Well, nothing factually wrong with that (except Hitler was in no way an atheist). But we also know that atheism or religion wasn't the cause of those events. There is no atheist dogma, it's simply the state of lacking a believe in a deity. I would also like to point out that Buddhists, Confucianism, Taoism are religions that are atheistic by definition.

The atheistic state was so the government and dear leader was the object of worship. These places were just as religious, possibly more so than any of the mainstream religions.

These places almost weren't atheist, they replaced one God for Dear Leader.

Richard Dawkins looked into both Stalin and Hitler and he concluded that Stalin was definately an atheist while he thought Hitler a theist "of some sort", but was never able to pinpoint a belief system. His problem was the contradictory quotes that Hitler made, many of which supported Christianity but many which advocated the destruction of all religions.

My personal belief is Hitler was a atheist based on the pogroms he had planned for the Christians once the war was over. He had allready implemented the Jewish destruction as he felt he could get away with it.

 

[westwall]

Fallacy of false cause or non sequitur: incorrectly assumes one thing is the cause of another. Non Sequitur is Latin for "It does not follow."

Hitler also gained the backing of the people by claiming he was doing the work of God by ridding their Christian state of Jews. (See Mein Kampf)

Hitler used religion as a tool. He himself was an atheist and had plans to kill all the Roman Catholics in Germany when the time was right. He however realised that he needed the religious Germans to get into power in the first place. He used them and when he was done with them he was going to kill them....just like he did with the homosexuals who were useful tools until they were no longer useful so he had them killed during the Night of the Long Knives.

Statements of FACT are never non sequiters so long as they pertain to the original discussion. Hitler, Lenin-Stalin and Mao were atheists. Provably so. They were the leaders of their countries and they murdered millions more then religions ever did. That too is a fact. Am I saying that atheism is bad? No, I am not. I am saying that leaders who were atheists were worse then the evil religious people in the past. Who probably used the religion of the time to perpetrate their murderous behavior as well.

Do you see the connection? It is not the religion, it is not the atheism...it is the PEOPLE involved who are to blame.

Hitler was not an atheist, he believed fully in god.

Actually, no he didn't. Even Dawkins couldn't pinpoint a belief of Hitlers. He believed he was a theist, he just couldn't figure out which one. Based on Hitlers fondness for Friedrich Nietzsche I suppose it is possible Hitler felt himself a God.