Genocidal maniacs come in many flavors, BOTH religious and not, but when the few atheists in history were bigoted and maniacal, they refused to follow the command: "Do not murder" and it resulted in genocide. Why?

- Karl Marx (died 1883): Atheist and Darwinist; Best known for his remark "Man makes religion...It is the opium of the people"; of Darwin’s book "Origin of Species", he said: "This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our views."; the most brutal regimes in history adopted his atheistic philosophies to murder millions. In Russia alone, more than 20 million Christians were killed in the 20th century as a result of his policies.

- Friedrich Nietzsche (died 1900): Atheist; Best known for his remark "God is dead"; also an evolutionist but differed with Darwin on the details; his writings are credited as the driving force behind German militarism and Nazism which murdered millions; later suffered from a complete mental collapse.

- Vladimir Lenin (died 1924): Atheist and Darwinist; Bitterly renounced his belief in God following the death of his father and beloved brother; as a Marxist himself, he said: "Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism..."; he supported Darwin's theory and said: "Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species bear no relation to one another, except by chance, and that they were created by God, and hence immutable."; his dictatorship was responsible for the deaths of 2 to 3 million people by starvation, execution, and war.

- Leon Trotsky (died 1940): Self-proclaimed "irreconcilable atheist" and Darwinist; he denied both the existence of God AND absolute morality by stating, "We call our dialectic 'materialist', since its roots are neither in heaven nor in the depths of our “free will”, but in objective reality, in nature...There is place within this system for neither God nor Devil, nor immortal soul, nor eternal norms of laws and morals."; he took intellectual pride in being a Darwinist and said, "Every educated person since Darwin has labeled themselves an “evolutionist”. But a real evolutionist must apply the idea of evolution to his own forms of thinking."; as a Bolshevik leader he masterminded the murder of hundreds of thousands of Russians through starvation and war during the Communist Russian Revolution.

- Benito Mussolini (died 1945): Atheist; known for "daring God to strike him dead" on many public occasions; also a Darwinist and extremely anti-Christian; persecuted both the Protestant and Catholic church; responsible for 400 to 500 thousand deaths; executed by a firing squad while attempting to escape from Italy.

- Joseph Stalin (died 1953): Became an atheist and Darwinist after reading Darwin's "Origin of Species", stating: "God's not unjust, he doesn't actually exist. We've been deceived."; he made atheism the official ideology of Russia and flooded the media and schools with atheistic propaganda; he crushed the Russian Orthodox Church, leveling thousands of churches and killing more than 100,000 priests, monks and nuns during the religious "purge" between 1937 and 1938 alone. Overall, his atheistic dictatorship killed 20 to 60 million people by starvation, execution, and war.

- Margaret Sanger (died 1966): Atheist and Darwinist; Known for her remark "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it"; advocate of eugenics (Darwinist-based attempts to develop a superior race through selective breeding of humans), mandatory sterilizations of the "unfit", and infanticide; founder of Planned Parenthood - America's largest abortion provider responsible for the deaths of untold millions of preborn children.

- Mao Zedong (died 1976): Atheist, with Darwin as his favorite author; he stated "Religion is poison." and "Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution."; He made atheism the official ideology of China and flooded the media and schools with atheistic propaganda; lived an opulent lifestyle while the common people starved; his regime caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people by starvation, torture, and executions.

- Jim Jones (died 1978): Atheist; responsible for the 1978 mass murder/suicide of 908 members of the People's Temple cult in Guyana, including his ordered executions of several members of the press and a visiting Congressman. He said: "Off the record, I don’t believe in any loving God. Our people, I would say, are ninety percent atheist...I felt somewhat hypocritical for the last years as I became an atheist...you feel tainted, by being in the church situation. But of course, everyone knows where I’m at. My bishop knows that I’m an atheist...He must have spent twenty thousand dollars traveling around, hoping to get my denomination to remove me, because I was so atheistic.” (The Jonestown Institute audiotape, 1976).

- Pol Pot (died 1998): As leader of the deadly Khmer Rouge, he admired and adopted Mao's atheist and Darwinist philosophies; known for his "Cambodian killing fields"; closed all religious institutions including Buddhist temples but especially persecuted Christians and Muslims; responsible for 1 to 3 million executions, mostly using axes, hammers, and sharpened bamboo sticks to save ammunition.

Note: By SEVERE contrast, the Bible says "anyone who hates his brother is a murderer". The mere THOUGHT alone makes us a murderer.

Aha! Thanks for showing your true colours, Carl. Helps to cut to the crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt ... ern_Europe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutio ... tisemitism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Re ... nt_of_1513

Why are all Christians so violent and hateful?

Oh that's right - they aren't... but cherrypicking the facts to distort history is awfully easy when you're only interested in generating hatred.

Tell us again how you're representing your God, Carl - I am pretty sure that the God you supposedly believe in no longer approves of hateful bigotry against your fellow humans. Lucky for you, Yahweh's not real, or you'd be in for a serious talking to.

The Bible also says a lot of hateful, vicious, barbaric crap including techniques on how best to murder babies.

Psalm 137:9

Happy shall he be, that takes and dashes your little ones against the stones.


Or should we inspect the notion of what exactly they'd want to do with all the pubescent virgins?

Numbers 137:9-10

Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

On and on and on. Of course, you'll whine that I cherrypick, but no more than you are doing by pretending the Bible is a font of good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_violence

Spearthrower wrote:Aha! Thanks for showing your true colours, Carl. Helps to cut to the crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt ... ern_Europe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutio ... tisemitism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Re ... nt_of_1513

Why are all Christians so violent and hateful?

Oh that's right - they aren't... but cherrypicking the facts to distort history is awfully easy when you're only interested in generating hatred.

Tell us again how you're representing your God, Carl - I am pretty sure that the God you supposedly believe in no longer approves of hateful bigotry against your fellow humans. Lucky for you, Yahweh's not real, or you'd be in for a serious talking to.

Of course, their god itself is depicted as a genocidal maniac.

My goodness, look at all the bollocks.

Given he didn't mention Hitler, I suspect seasoned trolling.

Spearthrower wrote:... but cherrypicking the facts to distort history is awfully easy when you're only interested in generating hatred.

Please SPECIFICALLY clarify:
1) Which dictator above is not an atheist?
2) What SPECIFIC information about him did I distort?

Please spell out, in detail, the specific info here so we can all take a look.

Thank you in advance for your troubles.

Fallible wrote:My goodness, look at all the bollocks.

I notice you didn't SPECIFICALLY spell out what the historical error I made is. I realize its much easier to make a quick personal comment instead.

Please provide SPECIFIC DETAILS showing my supposed historical error. This is the minimum requirement here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

Rather than blaming Nietzsche for WW2 (Oh the facepalm) why not systematically go through all the recognised cases of genocide and detail the faith (or lack thereof) of the individual who called the shots? I mean, saying Karl Marx wanted to commit genocide is just so fucking absurd as to render the whole OP detritus.

Scar wrote:Given he didn't mention Hitler, I suspect seasoned trolling.

I stand corrected for omitting the famous AntiChristian, Darwinist and Evolutionist, Adolf Hitler:

- Adolf Hitler (died 1945): Darwinist; he was so anti-Christian that Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, noted in his diary in 1939: "The Fuehrer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race." This is also why Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and right hand man, publically stated in 1941, "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable." Hitler himself said, "Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.”; “Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone...”; “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.” Nevertheless, Hitler publically and repeatedly invoked the name of God as a ruse to justify his brutal military and political actions; he applied Darwin's theory on evolution and "survival of the fittest" while attempting to develop a biologically superior race through ethnic cleansing; showed no regard for accountability to a higher power by killing 11 to 14 million people through starvation, execution, and war; committed suicide to avoid capture at the end of World War 2.

Well this certainly isn't a thought provoking post but I'll entertain it a bit (not comprehensively; others have done it better). carl has demonstrated a few bad points and some good ones.

The association of atheism to genocide has no merit because almost everything you mentioned above were political struggles. Trying to find a causal relationship between atheism and murder is silly. The one odd duck would be Margaret Sanger but it's because of how you quote-mined her. I'll also bet cash money that you didn't type this up; someone else did and you're busy copypasting it.

Jim Jones was a cult leader. He denied God but worshipped a Marxism attitude.

So overall the association between atheism and genocide has no real merit because of other more pertinent factors (political genocide being the most obvious one).

And let's get one thing straight for you carl because I want you to never make this mistake again. Being an atheist denies the commandment Thou Shall Not Murder but it does not deny the social contract not to murder. I am an atheist and I vehemently deny the 10 Commandments' authority as much as I deny the God that commanded them. To quote Penn Jilette ( I think ) "I murder and rape as much as I want to, which happens to be zero". The very idea that religion or lack thereof has any real pertinence in many of our actions is unfounded.

What I love though is your end note about what the Bible says. For one the statement is not taken seriously by anyone, Christians or otherwise and it's one I also vehemently deny. I hate plenty of my brothers; I hate you for instance. But that doesn't make me a murder by any measurable opinion other than a particularly religious one and doesn't matter.

carl wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:... but cherrypicking the facts to distort history is awfully easy when you're only interested in generating hatred.

Please SPECIFICALLY clarify:
1) Which dictator above is not an atheist?
2) What SPECIFIC information about him did I distort?

Pol Pot. Show me any evidence that he's an atheist. I've never seen a single quote from him about his religious beliefs.

carl wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:... but cherrypicking the facts to distort history is awfully easy when you're only interested in generating hatred.

Please SPECIFICALLY clarify:

I am in no way obliged to jump your pitiful hoops.

Shall I start listing the number of perpetrators of horrific abuses in the name of Christianity, Carl? There's assuredly a fuck load more of them than you'll ever find of even prominent atheists, let alone ones who have committed an atrocity.

carl wrote:1) Which dictator above is not an atheist?

A significant portion of them aren't even politicians, let alone dictators.

Further, just being an atheist is irrelevant. Which ones were doing their acts in the name of atheism or for the cause of atheism? Presumably you don't accept that the Klu Klux Klan represents Christianity, but they certainly claimed to be acting on behalf of the Christian God:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

If you're allowed to disavow them and state outright that you are Christian and don't accept any of their acts as being consistent with your position, then why shouldn't I be permitted to do precisely the same with any atheist who acts in a way I despise?

Why are your arguments tailored to generate maximal hatred with the membership here?

I can cite vast areas of Christian violence, both within a state and by states, not just in history, but happening today in the world. Why do you get to reject those as being necessarily Christian in character?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism

carl wrote:2) What SPECIFIC information about him did I distort?

Please spell out, in detail, the specific info here so we can all take a look.

No, because it would take me far too much of my precious time to go hunting down all the links to show the distortions and you'd only ignore it anyway - I've been here before with people using exactly your 'talking points' - and not one of them has ever shown an interest in facts beyond their application for distortion.

You cite your sources first, then I will put the time and effort in to match yours.

carl wrote:Thank you in advance for your troubles.

Cite away!

carl wrote:

Fallible wrote:My goodness, look at all the bollocks.

I notice you didn't SPECIFICALLY spell out what the historical error I made is. I realize its much easier to make a quick personal comment instead.

Please provide SPECIFIC DETAILS showing my supposed historical error. This is the minimum requirement here.

Please provide SPECIFIC SOURCES for your contentions. This is the minimum requirement here as it relates to the Burden of Proof.

I can just write 'wrong' otherwise and have matched the same level of authority as your claims.

carl wrote:

Fallible wrote:My goodness, look at all the bollocks.

I notice you didn't SPECIFICALLY spell out what the historical error I made is. I realize its much easier to make a quick personal comment instead.

Please provide SPECIFIC DETAILS showing my supposed personal comment.

Please provide SPECIFIC DETAILS showing my supposed historical error.

No.

This is the minimum requirement here.

No it isn't, you're just trolling.

I'm With Stupid wrote:

carl wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:... but cherrypicking the facts to distort history is awfully easy when you're only interested in generating hatred.

Please SPECIFICALLY clarify:
1) Which dictator above is not an atheist?
2) What SPECIFIC information about him did I distort?

Pol Pot. Show me any evidence that he's an atheist. I've never seen a single quote from him about his religious beliefs.

He might not have been specifically 'atheist' so I stand corrected for not stating that. However, my main point in including him was his ADHERENCE to the stand of others who were atheist. Thank you for the correction.

How about the rest on the list?

carl wrote:

Scar wrote:Given he didn't mention Hitler, I suspect seasoned trolling.

I stand corrected for omitting the famous AntiChristian, Darwinist and Evolutionist, Adolf Hitler:

- Adolf Hitler (died 1945): Darwinist; he was so anti-Christian that Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, noted in his diary in 1939: "The Fuehrer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race." This is also why Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and right hand man, publically stated in 1941, "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable." Hitler himself said, "Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.”; “Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone...”; “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.” Nevertheless, Hitler publically and repeatedly invoked the name of God as a ruse to justify his brutal military and political actions; he applied Darwin's theory on evolution and "survival of the fittest" while attempting to develop a biologically superior race through ethnic cleansing; showed no regard for accountability to a higher power by killing 11 to 14 million people through starvation, execution, and war; committed suicide to avoid capture at the end of World War 2.

Must be a different Hitler to the one who repeatedly wrote about his Christian mission from God in his personal diaries. Not the same Hitler who employed the Christian hatred of Jews to commit his atrocities. Not the same Christian Hitler who routinely referred to the Christian God when giving speeches. Not the same Christian Hitler whose armies wore the title 'God with Us'. Not the same Christian Hitler who had Darwin's books banned along with other English writers?

Not the guy who said in the first Munch speech:

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian, I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.""

No, it must be a special new Hitler I've never read about!

Oh I do wonder how there can be two! Perhaps it's just not as simple as some would have us believe!

Fallible wrote:No it isn't, you're just trolling.

The term 'trolling' is overused, especially by those who have no SPECIFIC details about there own opinion.

Once again, I invite you to find, and spell out the details on what historical error I have made.

History, no matter how unsavory, is still history.

carl wrote:

I'm With Stupid wrote:

carl wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:... but cherrypicking the facts to distort history is awfully easy when you're only interested in generating hatred.

Please SPECIFICALLY clarify:
1) Which dictator above is not an atheist?
2) What SPECIFIC information about him did I distort?

Pol Pot. Show me any evidence that he's an atheist. I've never seen a single quote from him about his religious beliefs.

He might not have been specifically 'atheist' so I stand corrected for not stating that. However, my main point in including him was his ADHERENCE to the stand of others who were atheist.

Thereby debunking any notion of there being an essential element of atheism in their connected genocides.

/thread

Lowpro wrote:I'll also bet cash money that you didn't type this up; someone else did and you're busy copypasting it.

Please give us a link to show where I copy and pasted from. Thank you very much.

carl wrote:

Fallible wrote:No it isn't, you're just trolling.

The term 'trolling' is overused, especially by those who have no SPECIFIC details about there own opinion.

Once again, I invite you to find, and spell out the details on what historical error I have made.

History, no matter how unsavory, is still history.

It sure is! Just like the bits in the Bible are unsavory, but still there! Just like Christian history is vicious and depraved, but Christians of course do not consider those details to represent Christianity.

Regardless, if we're doing sources the onus is on you to support your original post with citations to credible sources. Whenever you're ready, Carl!