Don't even get me started.

The_Piper wrote:How about the war on Christmas? Checkmate atheists.

Tis a righteous war of reclamation of a noble and ancient Pagan traditional festival.

BlackBart wrote:

The_Piper wrote:How about the war on Christmas? Checkmate atheists.

Bumhug! I mean Humbug!

I wassail at you.

I wasabi at uni.

Spearthrower wrote:Its inevitably the case, and played out in microcosm here.

Carl, the original poster of this thread, who is hostile to atheists (and no doubt every other religious adherent than his own brethren) and science that isn't amenable to theistic distortion, makes a fact-free assertion designed to paint his ideological enemies in a bad light. Others, like Trev here, motivated by the same bad faith hostility, simply assume it to be true (or just don't give a fuck about truth and honesty) and uncritically regurgitate it without even a passing attempt at verifying it. No doubt, some day some other ideologically angsty person will - via Google - find Trev's assertion above, and copy and paste it without a care for accuracy or reality - all in service to ideologically motivated hatred. The bullshit mill keeps spinning, confirmation bias keeps confirming the bias, and comforting ignorance is retained to keep those ideological blinkers firmly attached.

Well, there is a remarkable similarity between the opening post of this thread and that one, created five years later. It may have been created by Carl under a different alias, or, as you say, a copypasta job via Google (in this instance with minor alterations). Neither should come as a surprise. The propagation of information is after all the raison d'être of the internet, but the internet does not allow for quality control.

List of atheists in politics and law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There have been many atheists who have participated in politics or law. This is a list of atheists in politics and law. Living persons in this list are people whose atheism is relevant to their notable activities or public life, and who have publicly identified themselves as atheists.


Cambodia
Pol Pot (1925–1998): Communist politician and dictator of Cambodia, which became an atheist state under his rule.

China
Xi Jinping (1953–): Chinese politician currently serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President of the People's Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Hu Jintao (1942–): Chinese politician who was the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 2002 to 2012. He held the offices of General Secretary of the Communist Party from 2002 to 2012, President of the People's Republic of China from 2003 to 2012 and Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 2004 to 2012. He was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, China's de facto top decision-making body, from 1992 to 2012.

Jiang Zemin (1926–): Chinese communist politician, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China 1989–2002 and President of the People's Republic of China 1993–2003. In June 1999, Jiang established an extralegal department, the 6-10 Office, to expel Falun Gong from mainland China. On 20 July, security forces abducted and detained thousands of Falun Gong organizers they identified as leaders. The persecution of Falun Gong that followed was characterized a nationwide campaign of propaganda, as well as the large-scale arbitrary imprisonment and coercive reeducation of Falun Gong organizers, sometimes resulting in death.

Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997): Chinese politician. He was the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989.

Mao Zedong(1893–1976): Chinese military and political leader, Chairman of the Communist Party of China, who led the Communist Party of China to victory in the Chinese Civil War, and was the leader of the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Under his leadership, China officially became an atheist state.
Hua Guofeng (1921–2008): Chinese politician and paramount leader of China until 1978.
(end of Wikipedia quote)

Did it say above that this list are those who PUBLICLY IDENTIFIED THEMSELVES AS ATHEISTS? Is that what it says?

Oh, did I include Cambodia's Pol Pot as an atheist? Is that where the Killing Fields are located?

On the Atheist Chinese Communist Party list above, you will notice Mao, "Under his leadership, China OFFICIALLY became an atheist state".

Why would Mao declare China officially atheist? And why would his regime massacre millions in his own country, simply for disagreeing with him?

Uh, maybe because that is the pattern and outcome of most atheist regimes as recorded in history?

"...Mao was an atheist..." Death Ritual as Political Trickster in the People's Republic of China, by A. P. Cheater, Source: The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 26 (Jul., 1991), pp. 67-97 (p. 92), published by Contemporary China Center, Australian National University

"With revolution came a new, atheist regime – one that frowned on all religious belief." China's Catholics: Far from Rome, by Holly Williams, BBC News, December 24, 2003, (Accessed April 14, 2008)




Now is not the time or place to be a historical revisionist or denier of historical FACTS. Now is the time for change, IMHO.

Wanting to follow and acknowledge historical FACTS, I've already made my change. I jettisoned atheism a long time ago and don't want to have any connection with it.

Not to mention the total denial of BASIC ELEMENTARY SCIENTIFIC FACTS - that life has NEVER been DEMONSTRATED to come from non-living material (atheistic Abiogenesis) and the collective matter the size of a universe has NEVER been DEMONSTRATED to materialize out of nothing (atheistic Cosmology). Both stupid concepts are the darlings of atheist circles and communities, for what reason? Simply to avoid the implication of God? Avoiding the implication of God is one thing but to attach oneself to stupid concepts is another.

But, to each their own.

God wiped out almost the entire biological population of the planet, according to your Hokey Blurble. Was he an atheist?

Meanwhile, why do you continue to compile lists of a class of people that YOU insist doesn't exist? Also, why no mention of people like Moses, and Joshua, who committed acts of blatant genocide and kidnapped little girls as sex slaves?

There have been many atheists who have participated in politics or law.

Shocking.

In other news from the Department of Trivia: water remains wet.

Uh, maybe because that is the pattern and outcome of most atheist regimes as recorded in history?

Toot that bigot horn.

Not to mention the total denial of BASIC ELEMENTARY SCIENTIFIC FACTS - that life has NEVER been DEMONSTRATED to come from non-living material

Not science: vapid bollocks desperate for the veneer of scientific legitimacy.

As I've already schooled you - literally every single instance of life we know is wholly comprised of 'non-living material' - so you're not just wrong (again), you're talking abject horsetitties.

You can tell that Trev has no interest other than rehearsing vapid bigotry because he doesn't ask atheists to explain their position, but keeps declaring what atheists believe.

I've already explained to him that atheism isn't abiogenesis or cosmology - one can be an atheist without knowing or caring the first thing at all about any scientific topic - atheism is just the disbelief in gods.

Trev disbelieves in plenty of gods. Why does he disbelieve in those gods? Because he sees no reason to lend them his belief. Atheists feel exactly the same way, but just include his god too. For Trev, that's unacceptable - all must conform, all must genuflect, all must submit their individual reason and rationality just to make Trev feel comfortable with his otherwise impoverished faith.

truelgbt wrote:I jettisoned atheism a long time ago and don't want to have any connection with it.

Very good. It is doubtful that any atheists would like to see you among them.

By the way, truelgbt, care to comment on my destruction of your garbage "citation"? Are you still willing to defend this drivel?

truelgbt wrote:- 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."

Having destroyed the veracity of where you claim to have the information from I challenge you once more to cite primary sources proving that
a) Darwin was Mao Zedong's favourite author.
b) Mao Zedong stated "Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution."

The fact that evolution is real isn't a good, bad, evil, or kind concept. It's just reality. Reality is neutral. It's also endlessly interesting.

truelgbt wrote:
But, to each their own.

Yet, here you are preaching. It seems like you threw away atheism because there was little to preach about.

I always find it so weird that the people who I know who cling daily to their religious faith are troubled by my atheism. Out of nowhere, they will bring up their god and faith and tell me why it works for them. God this, god that, the bible says, etc... I don't see it as a sign of strength but weakness. I feel sorry for them that simply thinking that I'm an atheist causes them emotional trauma and that they can't just let me be. I have no trouble letting them be and not pushing my ideas on them.

ElDiablo wrote:

truelgbt wrote:
But, to each their own.

Yet, here you are preaching. It seems like you threw away atheism because there was little to preach about.

I always find it so weird that the people who I know who cling daily to their religious faith are troubled by my atheism. Out of nowhere, they will bring up their god and faith and tell me why it works for them. God this, god that, the bible says, etc... I don't see it as a sign of strength but weakness. I feel sorry for them that simply thinking that I'm an atheist causes them emotional trauma and that they can't just let me be. I have no trouble letting them be and not pushing my ideas on them.

Indeed.
It seems to be the default setting that an expression of faith apropos nothing is not considered problematic, but an expression of atheism in response to the initial religious statement is considered bad manners at best and a kind of fighting talk at worst.

It's time for this again ...

Oh look, he's wheeled out the "atheist genocide" bullshit that's been destroyed over and over again ...

Let's take a look at this shall we?

It's such fun when assorted Internet mouth-on-a-stick supernaturalists step up to the plate, peddling yet another variation on the tiresome "Stalin/Hilter/Mao were atheists" well poisoning bullshit.

There are several issues to address with respect to this bullshit, and so I'll deal with them in sequence.

One. Atheism, in its rigorous formulation, is nothing more than suspicion of unsupported supernaturalist assertions. That is IT. And as such, provides no motivation to do anything other than question those assertions.

On the other hand, we have a wealth of observational data informing us how religions are cited by their adherents as strong motivation to kill those who do not conform. Inquisition and the Crusades, anyone?

For those who need explicit pointers to the supernaturalist origin of that venomous contribution to human affairs, known as "ruthless enforcement of conformity to doctrine", see Exodus 23:24, Deuteronomy 7:5, Deuteronomy 13: 6-10, Deuteronomy 13: 12-15,Deuteronomy 17:2-5, 2 Chronicles 15:13 and Jeremiah 12: 1-3. These are the passages which provided us with the dictum "kill all who do not conform".

Two. The individuals frequently cited as purportedly "killing in the name of atheism" by pedlars of this bullshit well-poisoning meme, perpetrated their horrors for two reasons - first, pursuit of the objectives of a well-defined political ideology, and second, consolidation of personal power. Atheism had nothing to do with this.

Three. Those same individuals, when their backgrounds are properly researched, are found to have connections with supernaturalist belief. Pol Pot was raised in a Theravada Buddhist household, and spent part of his education in a Catholic high school. Mao had a Confucian education and Buddhist parents, only encountering Marxist theory at the relatively late age of 24. Stalin was educated in an Orthodox seminary. Hitler was a Catholic, who never renounced his Catholicism, and indeed, devoted space in "Mein Kampf" to praising the Catholic Church and its modus operandi.

For that matter, Mein Kampf is positively *littered* with references to "the Creator", "the Almighty" and the rest of it. Interestingly, for the diligent student of such polemics, this work also contains within its pages a view of biology that, far from having any connection with evolution, is in fact an almost perfect rendering of the creationist "kinds" nonsense. See pages 245-246 of the Unexpurgated Version, translated by James Murphy.

Four. As for the question of the body counts, an inconvenient fact that supernaturalists frequently (and deliberately) overlook, is that modern perpetrators of atrocities had access to modern weapons for the task. Anyone who thinks, for example, that the Crusaders or Inquisitors such as Tomas de Torquemada, would not have racked up a far bigger body count if they had been given access to 20th century weapons, needs to re-take their basic history classes.

If we look at the body counts they racked up with nothing more sophisticated than swords or bows and arrows to hand, then imagine how more horrific those body counts would have been, if they had been given access to modern artillery or helicopter gunships.

For that matter, if the Crusaders has been given access to nuclear weapons, they would have turned the entire Middle East into radioactive lava in the name of their god without even drawing breath. Tomas de Torquemada would have been creaming himself in ecstasy at the though of committing the "heretics" to modern concentration camps, and would have embraced Zyklon B in a flash.

Five. One embarrassing aspect of the use of this well-poisoning bullshit by smug, self-satisfied supernaturalists, is that none of them are aware of the fact that whilst these individuals were responsible for nameless horrors, one atrocity they did NOT commit was systematic child rape - unlike a good few Catholic priests and "megachurch pastors" we've learned about of late.

So next time you want to come here peddling the "atheist atrocities" bullshit, it's been destroyed over and over again.

In keeping with the cherry picking and intellectual dishonesty that lies behind the premise of this thread, I've prepared my own list.
(It was going to be in table format, but it didn't translate well to the forum format, so I've put it in list format.)

1)
WORLD VIEW: Chinese Communism
LEADER: Mao
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT(S): Little Red Book, Das Kapital, Associated local Apocrypha & Commentaries
YOUTH WING: Young Pioneers
IDENTIFIABLE ENEMY: Capitalists, Revanchists, Lickspittles, Running dogs, Landowners Disloyalists, Imperialists, Religion as rival power stricture.
WAY OF DEALING WITH ENEMY: Murder, torture, imprisonment, exile, terror.
NOTABLE INSTANCES: Great leap forward, Cultural revolution, Tiananmen square, Xinjiang crackdown.

2)
WORLD VIEW: Nazism
LEADER: Hitler
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT(S): Mein Kampf
YOUTH WING: Hitler youth
IDENTIFIABLE ENEMY: Jews, Bolshevists, Asiatics, Blacks, Homosexuals, Mischlings, Disloyalists, Religion as rival power stricture
WAY OF DEALING WITH ENEMY: Murder, torture, imprisonment, exile, terror.
NOTABLE INSTANCES: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Babi Yar, Warsaw Ghetto, Euthanasia program

3)
WORLD VIEW: Soviet Communism
LEADER: Stalin
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT(S): Das Kapital, works of Lenin, Associated local Apocrypha
YOUTH WING: Young Pioneers
IDENTIFIABLE ENEMY: Capitalists, Revanchists, Kulaks Interventionists, Whites, Fascists, Imperialists, Disloyalists, Religion as rival power stricture
WAY OF DEALING WITH ENEMY: Murder, torture, imprisonment, exile, terror.
NOTABLE INSTANCES: Holomodor, Great purge, Katyn, Gulags

4)
WORLD VIEW: Cambodian Communism
LEADER: Pol Pot
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT(S): Das Kapital, Associated local Apocrypha
YOUTH WING: Young Pioneers
IDENTIFIABLE ENEMY: Intellectuals, Foreigners, Disloyalists, Capitalists, Imperialists, Religion as rival power stricture
WAY OF DEALING WITH ENEMY: Murder, torture, imprisonment, exile, terror.
NOTABLE INSTANCES: Killing fields, Tuol Sleng

5)
WORLD VIEW: Atheism
LEADER: X
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT(S): X
YOUTH WING: X
IDENTIFIABLE ENEMY: Irrationalists of any stripe.
WAY OF DEALING WITH ENEMY: Liberal & Humanist education, debate, discussion, power-sharing, accommodation.
NOTABLE INSTANCES: Scientific, humanist, secular, enlightenment society which has directly or indirectly improved the quality of life for billions

6)
WORLD VIEW: Christianity
LEADER: God (CEO Jesus)
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT(S): New Testament
YOUTH WING: Christian Schools &Youth programs, Family indoctrination with social sanction for non-compliance.
IDENTIFIABLE ENEMY: Heathens, Pagans, Schismatics, Atheists, Apostates, Unrepentants, Sinners, Satan himself
WAY OF DEALING WITH ENEMY: 1) Post death- Hell. 2) Lifetime- Murder, Massacres, Crusades, Pogroms, Inquisitions, Family separation, terror.
NOTABLE INSTANCES: Holy land Crusades, Albigensian genocide, Spanish Inquisition, St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, French wars of Religion, Persecution of Jews.

7)
WORLD VIEW: Islam
LEADER: God (CEO Muhammad)
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT(S): Koran & Hadiths
YOUTH WING: Islamic Schools, Madrasas, &Youth programs. Family indoctrination with social sanction for non-compliance.
IDENTIFIABLE ENEMY: Infidels, Apostates, Atheists, Schismatics, Sinners, Satan himself
WAY OF DEALING WITH ENEMY: 1) Post death- Hell 2) Lifetime- Murder, torture, massacres, Jihads, wars of conquest, terror.
NOTABLE INSTANCES: Arab wars of conquest, Timurid conquests, Fulani jihads, Armenian Genocide, ISIS terror.

Communism, as it has been practiced by revolutionaries and despots (rather than as Mr Marx envisaged), IS religion. It may not include gods or supernatural beliefs but it has just about everything else that religions have, including narrow mindedness and self righteousness and raising their priesthood above the independent rule of law.