Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler*, Mao....

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

Morality is not "a fact like an atom" ... it is opinion.

That is your opinion. natural law would suggest that child abuse is always wrong. You opinion that "nothing is always wrong it is just opinion" would claim chaild abuse is NOT always wrong.

I can't accept your justification of child abuse no matter what the circumstances.

Yes, it is my opinion that it is always wrong.

How can something be "always wrong" for everyone if you claim "wrong" is only an opinion and not universally true?

It is not a universal fact, a property of the universe like Pi, because morality is opinion.

So therefore for some people child abuse may be right and acceptable?

It is, in my opinion, always wrong. I can't think of an situation that could be presented to me where I could be of the opinion that it is morally right given that I don't know of any situation where sexual intercourse with a child doesn't risk physical and mental harm to the child's development

But because this is just an opinion and only applied to you you cant claim it is true for everyone nor should be true for everyone? Unless it comes to when it suits you to say you are going to force your opinion on others because you know better?

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

ISAW

I am not sure what your obsession with Protestants are…

Your obsession with a fringe element of YEC fundamentalists. Just like The US Fox News obsession with "islamofascists" Protestants tend to be more Biblical but even they fdont in the main subscribe to YEC. But the mainstream is Catholic. You have been shown the poklity involved!

All my point was is that of all the people who call themselves Christian,

WRONG! mainstream Christian Catholic . You claimed it and you used the words. You later tried to drop "Catholic" when it was drilled into you what "Mainstream Christian" means.

a huge proportion of them have beliefs that you do not share AND in some cases are mutually incompatible with what you do believe.

What I believe is nothing to do with it! And a huge proportion DO NOT subscribe to YEC!
You have posted ONE source on this which says 45 per cent (not even a majority) on a question not about the EARTH Hint: the E in YEC stands for EARTH!

[quote
I have shown you a minimum of 64millions examples of that. People who claim to be Christian who have beliefs you do not share and are in fact not compatible with what you do believe.
[/quote]

Wrong!
You have not. You have shown 64 million people in the US claim to support the idea that the God of the Bible created the human race and gave us a conscience. The EARTH is not mentioned in that!

I fail to see how my point is not made despite your love of the word "wrong" which you appear to use in such a way that suggests you believe if you call something wrong often enough, it will suddenly become so.

I have shown it to be so. and you still refuse to withdraw!

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

there is a difference between "God/nature/reason says child abuise is ALWAYS wrong FACT"

God is not nature or reason.

God either creates nature (and thus how nature is depends on God's opinion) or is confined by nature (and thus has to follow nature which just is as it is for no particular reason)

ISAW wrote: »

And "Child abuse isn't right or wrong it is just an opinion depending on the time and the person doing it"

Neither you nor me believe child abuse is wrong is anything other than opinion. You just think it is God's opinion and put ultimate authority in him to tell you what you should believe.

ISAW wrote: »

WRONG! REpublics are majority rule reguated by law! we can't pass unjust laws.

Why can't a democracy pass, in mine or your opinion, an unjust law?

What happens if you do?

ISAW wrote: »

that call themselves Christian democrats! Their belief is that you should tolerate what you don't like.

Christian democrats tolerate child abuse, murder and rape? They wouldn't vote for laws to make those things illegal and then expect the police to uphold those laws?

I think you need to think that one through again ...

ISAW wrote: »

Obviously you don't believe in free speech and would gag anyone opposing you if you could.

I also eat babies and occasionally set fire to orphanages :rolleyes:

ISAW wrote: »

I can imagine such a person. His name was Jesus.

Didn't Jesus teach that killing was wrong? If you teach a moral concept that you agree with to the public trying to get them to follow it you are obviously trying to change society.

ISAW wrote: »

It is quite apparent you preach despotism and not tolerance.

And eating babies, don't forget the eating of babies

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

That is your opinion. natural law would suggest that child abuse is always wrong.

What is "natural law"?

If you can tell me how I can get an accurate reading from this "natural law" (like i can for say the speed of light or the gravitational constant) you might have a point.

At the moment you seem to be simply attributing universality to opinion because it sounds nicer.

ISAW wrote: »

I can't accept your justification of child abuse no matter what the circumstances.

When did I justify child abuse?

ISAW wrote: »

So therefore for some people child abuse may be right and acceptable?

Some people think child abuse is right and acceptable (NAMBLA for example).

I don't really care. Their arguments don't convince me of their position, and as such I don't hold it.

I'm really not following your trouble with this. God declaring child abuse is immoral doesn't stop NAMBLA from thinking it is, so why would you expect me declaring child abuse is immoral to do this?

ISAW wrote: »

But because this is just an opinion and only applied to you you cant claim it is true for everyone nor should be true for everyone?

Why not?

I think no one should molest children. I don't care if the child molesters disagree. I can't make him agree but I can physically stop him from molesting children

You seem to think that is wrong because it is imposing my will on the child molester.

ISAW wrote: »

Unless it comes to when it suits you to say you are going to force your opinion on others because you know better?

I do force my opinion on others, such as child molesters. I vote for laws out lawing it and vote to give the police powers to stop it.

Do you seriously think that if a child molester thinks molesting children is ok but the rest of us disagree we should just let him?

Do you feel you cannot tell someone not to do something if it is "just" your opinion that they shouldn't do it? You need the authority of God in order to tell someone stop raping children?

That seems to be your problem more than mine.

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Only in that PEOPLE can be predisposed to amoral behaviour in a dictatorial regime that can lead to extreme violence.

My point is that there is no reason to think that Atheists or Theists will necessarily be any more or less predisposed towards violence than each other.

and you statistical support for this is?

Mine is that if you just take christianity (that being the forum) count in the Crusades
amndthe five centuries of the Inquisition and some really bloody Protestant vs. Catholic wars you come up with million just about - about two or three million at most.

atheistic regimes like Stalin's or Mao's got through such numbers somewhere between breakfast and lunch.

Russia an china lost tens of millions in wars but even leaving the war battle deaths out
they slaughtered tens of millions of their own people!

Clearly the vast vast majority of us want to avoid violence and avoid committing it. We do not need to presuppose anything on insufficient (or in this case no) evidence in order to all come together and say “look guys, this is how we want to live, lets get on with it”.

But another atheist here advancing moral relativism suggested that one should impose their moral view on others which is exactly what atheistic regimes did!

Christians however believe in tolerance unlike atheistic despotism.

nozzferrahhtoo

ISAW,

Glad to see you are going back on topic. I wonder if you would do be a further favour and review your last… tenish posts…. And learn how to use the quote function properly? Half your posts are unreadable due to the mass of broken quote links you include in your posts.

Suffice to say on my previous point however, that just calling someone a “Christian” in no way guarantees you therefore know what that person believes or how that person thinks.

I do not understand your last question however. Statistical support for what? All I said was there is no reason to think (that I am aware of) that thesits or atheists would be more or less predisposed to violence than each other. I am commenting therefore on the LACK of statistical data on this. How can I show statistical data supporting the lack of statistical data?

If you however are aware of statistical data to support the claim that one is more predisposed to violence than the other, or any arguments for why there is a logical pathway between one and violence, I would be agog to hear it.

Again however you are playing name bingo. You are attempting to say “Because this atheist killed X number of people, this shows that atheists in general are more predisposed to violence”.

Yet again I have to highlight your failure to show ANY causal link between the two. It would be just as useful to say “This person had a moustache and he killed X number of people, this shows that moustache wearers are more predisposed to violence”.

As soon as you understand why that is meaningless, you will understand why your “I can find an atheist who was violent” claim is also meaningless.

Find a causal link between the two, THEN you will be on to something.

I notice however to achieve your meaningless statement you ALWAYS but ALWAYS have to slip in an extra word. Atheistic _regime_ or Atheistic _despotism_.

Has it once occurred to you that the problem is containing in the latter word in each case, not the former and that is why you need to append them in order to slip in your “guilt by association” fallacy?

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

But another atheist here advancing moral relativism suggested that one should impose their moral view on others which is exactly what atheistic regimes did!

It is what everyone does. What do you think the police are for?

ISAW wrote: »

Christians however believe in tolerance unlike atheistic despotism.

Christians don't believe in law and order?

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

God is not nature or reason.

As already stated the "natural law" position does not require a God. Secular people also make the same argument. In other words even atheists may accept natural law.

Neither you nor me believe child abuse is wrong is anything other than opinion. You just think it is God's opinion and put ultimate authority in him to tell you what you should believe.

AS i have just stated a natural law position does not require God to exist.

Why can't a democracy pass, in mine or your opinion, an unjust law?

A democracy can if it is just majority rule. a Republic as I have defined it is a democracy regulated by law. they cant pass laws allowing slavery or child abuse for example just because the majority want that! Read this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville
or this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau
and when you understand what they mean by "tyranny of the majority" and "civil disobedience" come back and ask about the jurisprudence of a democracy regulated by law.

I also eat babies and occasionally set fire to orphanages :rolleyes:

If you say that "child abuse is always wrong " or "gassing the jews was wrong" is just an opinion then you have already put yourself in probalm. There is no need to fuel the fire or to try to dismiss the eitire WWII Holocaust as not being wrong and being only an opinion by flippantly admitting eating children as if the holocaust or child abuse was a joke.
Particularly when you already admitted that if you could you would ram you opinion down others peoples' throats.

Didn't Jesus teach that killing was wrong?

I don't know did he? What has it got to do with "I think killing people is wrong but I don't want that reflected in society and given the opportunity I'm not going to stop someone killing people, or enact laws that make it illegal"? apparently Jesus allowed people to thwart the law and force their opinions onto him (just like you would) even to the extent that they crucified him! You asked for an example of such a person and you were given one!

If you teach a moral concept that you agree with to the public trying to get them to follow it you are obviously trying to change society.

Asking people to change by their own free will as Jesus did and forcing your will on them as you have suggested doing are different things!

And eating babies, don't forget the eating of babies

I never said anything about eating babies but you certainly did say you would force you will onto others if given the chance. That is how all the atheistic regimes began.

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

ISAW,

Glad to see you are going back on topic. I wonder if you would do be a further favour and review your last… tenish posts…. And learn how to use the quote function properly? Half your posts are unreadable due to the mass of broken quote links you include in your posts.

I wonder if you would list all the "broken links" you claim so I can go and show were you ae contradicting yourself again and where you are clearly WRONG in claims about YSE and mainstream Christianity? I'm quite happy to fix any links (none of which you have shown) but it seems you are not happy at all to admit when you are wrong!

Suffice to say on my previous point however, that just calling someone a “Christian” in no way guarantees you therefore know what that person believes or how that person thinks.

Suffice it to say you seem to have completely ignored the definition given of "mainstream Christianity" and in spite of your attempts to furiously back-peddle you yet again try to re enter the claim that YSE is a mainstream christian belief. You are WRONG! it isn't! Wise up, admit you are wrong and move on. And please don't try to reclaim something which has been demolished!

Christianity: 2.1 billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members
a.. 2.1 Catholicism - 1.2 billion
a.. 2.2 Protestantism - 670 million
a.. 2.3 Eastern Orthodoxy - 210 million
a.. 2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy - 75 million
a.. 2.5 Anglicanism - 82 million

I do not understand your last question however. Statistical support for what?

You have been given the stats and the definition of "mainstream Christian". STOP trying to re enter the claim that YEC represents anything but a fringe fundamentalist view entertained by a tiny per centage of people calling themselves christian (whom many Christians would not call christian) and claim they are "Catholic" by their own definition when they do NOT call themselves Catholic.

All I said was there is no reason to think (that I am aware of) that thesits or atheists would be more or less predisposed to violence than each other. I am commenting therefore on the LACK of statistical data on this. How can I show statistical data supporting the lack of statistical data?

Statistics show that Mao Pol Pot Stalin etc caused the death of 70,000,000 to 100,000,000 people and christianity caused ( almost all in wars ) the deaths of 2- 3 million
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstats.htm
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.CHAP3.HTM

If you however are aware of statistical data to support the claim that one is more predisposed to violence than the other, or any arguments for why there is a logical pathway between one and violence, I would be agog to hear it.

REad the above sources. Particularly Rummel.

Again however you are playing name bingo. You are attempting to say “Because this atheist killed X number of people, this shows that atheists in general are more predisposed to violence”.

No if you add up the numbers above you will see from the whole of history atheistic regimes killed way way more.

I notice however to achieve your meaningless statement you ALWAYS but ALWAYS have to slip in an extra word. Atheistic _regime_ or Atheistic _despotism_.

Yes because when you compare it to non atheistic ones the atheistic ones killed much more people.

Has it once occurred to you that the problem is containing in the latter word in each case, not the former and that is why you need to append them in order to slip in your “guilt by association” fallacy?

Has it occurred to you that statistics show atheistic regimes killed more people in history?

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

It is what everyone does. What do you think the police are for?

Apparently you think they are for using their jack boots to enforce the will of those in charge.

Christians don't believe in law and order?

some might not. Christian anarchists for example. Temporal government isn't always their preoccupation.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

What is "natural law"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
read the first sentence for a definition

If you can tell me how I can get an accurate reading from this "natural law" (like i can for say the speed of light or the gravitational constant) you might have a point.

But I can't tell you how you can for positive law either! You are treading into marshy ground . One one hand you adopt moral relativism but you abandon relativism when it comes to scientific "laws" or principles. As it happens this opposing position may also be demolished by me pointing out relativist scientific philosophy. Since logical positivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism itself cant stand up to its own tenet in that "all statements are logically verifiable" isn't logically verifiable.

At the moment you seem to be simply attributing universality to opinion because it sounds nicer.

http://www.yuksel.org/e/philosophy/statements.htm
Not only metaphysical explanations but all scientific explanations are ultimately based on "self-contradictory" propositions.

When did I justify child abuse?

If you don't condemn it as always wrong you justify it in certain circumstances. If you say " it is wrong but that is only my opinion" then you suggest someone else who says it is acceptable might be right.

Some people think child abuse is right and acceptable (NAMBLA for example).

so what?

I'm really not following your trouble with this. God declaring child abuse is immoral doesn't stop NAMBLA from thinking it is, so why would you expect me declaring child abuse is immoral to do this?

If god or some source of overarching morality declares something then it becomes an objective truth just like the speed of light and not something relative (pardon the pun) to the person.

Why not?

It is a logical contradiction a fallacy specious reasoning! You cant claim relative morality and also claim absolute wrong.

I think no one should molest children. I don't care if the child molesters disagree. I can't make him agree but I can physically stop him from molesting children

But y already stated your opinion is just that and no better then another opinion. But now you have added that you would use brute force to enforce your subjective opinions. so what is to stop them following your principle and doing the same?

You seem to think that is wrong because it is imposing my will on the child molester.

Two wrongs do not make a right!

I do force my opinion on others, such as child molesters. I vote for laws out lawing it and vote to give the police powers to stop it.

Indirectly through a regulated system based on natural and constitutional justice and not on any individual imposing their personal whims!

Do you seriously think that if a child molester thinks molesting children is ok but the rest of us disagree we should just let him?

Oh it is WE now is it? Before it was that YOUR opinion was just that. Now you are saying that "morality" is what most people want or what you want and can impose. Do you seriously think that if a most people think molesting children is ok then it is ok?

Do you feel you cannot tell someone not to do something if it is "just" your opinion that they shouldn't do it? You need the authority of God in order to tell someone stop raping children?

You need an informed conscience whether from God or not. If you adopt the relativist position and make it up for yourself then you fall into the pit I have shown you. Look out for that trap.

ISAW

more Fasagnadh.
Disclaimer: excuse where I left in any ad hominem I cut out a lot of it. i don't view atheists as thick and stupid. the logical and statistical arguments I agree with. Indeed I may have posted the same sources at an earlier date.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.christian/msg/c1e002ff4e489532?

[fasgnadh]
And as China has abandoned it's hardline atheist tyrants,
and allowed religion to flourish, it has prospered!

Freedom of belief and thought are essential to material progress!

It's an undeniable connection.. EVERY ATHEIST state has been an
economic basket case and a bloody tyranny.. those countries where
atheism is almost non existent, such as the USA (0.7% atheist) are free,
open, democratic PREDOMINATELY RELIGIOUS societies! EVEn THE ATHEISTS
CHOOSE To LIVE THERE!
"With the gradual liberalisation that developed with
# Deng Xiaoping's open door reforms, religion was no
# longer proscribed. In 1982, the constitution was
# amended to allow Chinese people considerable freedom
# of religion."
#
# http://cbbc.org/china_guide/religion.html
#
#
# "At the first world Buddhism forum in East China's Zhejiang
# Province last year, the Chinese government acknowledged
# the active role religion plays in building a harmonious society."
#
# "For example, religious beliefs have helped cut down crime
# to a large extent,"
#
# http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-02/07/content_802994.htm
#
#
#
# "religion has been enjoying a resurgence in China over the
# past 20 years, as Communist Party disapproval has eased"
#
# http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6337627.stm
#
#
# "Religious believers thrice the estimate
# By Wu Jiao (China Daily)
#
# "A survey has found that the number of religious believers
# is three times bigger than the official estimate.
#
# The poll of about 4,500 people, conducted by professors Tong
# Shijun and Liu Zhongyu of Shanghai-based East China Normal
# University from 2005 till recently, found that 31.4 percent
# of Chinese aged 16 and above or about 300 million are religious."
#
# http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-02/07/content_802994.htm
#
# Incredible! in just a few short years the new converts from
# atheism In JUST ONE COUNTRY, far outnumber the slow increase
# in tiny atheist numbers in the rest of the WORLD! B^D

That's right, you were challenged to show that a predominately
religious society (the most prosperous and free in the world,
something NO ATHEIST STATE HAS EVER BEEN) has ever been as backward,
tyrannical and hopeless as EVERY atheist state has been!

We are not talking ISOLATED examples here.. but EVERY atheist
state a TYRANNY!!!

85% Believers, the president and 98% of their Congressional
representatives are believers.. they PRINT "IN GOD WE TRUST"
on their money..

Why don't you go stand with that other dimwitted atheist STOOGE, Virgil
who also tries to tell rational adults that the USA is not religious,
but the atheistic communist regimes WERE 'religious'!!!

The POINT.. which would need to be HAMMERED through your thick empty
skull for you to get it is simple.. THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN ANY
OPEN FREE DEMOCRATIC ATHEIST STATES!!! Nada Zip Zero..
they are 100% TYRANNIES.. atheist in power make piles of dead bodies.

They HAVE been free open democratic societies such as the USA,
Australia, France, Indonesia, India, all of Europe, and they are
MAJORITY RELIGIOUS!!!

MOST OF THE PLANET are believers.. so, sure, there will be some
bad eggs.. but not like atheist regimes.. where there is NOTHING BUT
HORRENDOUS TYRANNIES and CATASTROPHIC FAILURE.

>>>>>> "Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested.
>>>>>> In 1918, the Cheka under Felix Dzerzhinsky executed over
>>>>>> 3000 Orthodox clergymen of all ranks.
>>>>>> Some were drowned in ice-holes or poured over with cold water
>>>>>> in winter until they turned to ice-pillars.
>>>>>> - John Shelton Curtis, The Russian Church and the Soviet State
>>>>>> (Boston: Little Brown, 1953)

But Australian communists didn't murder tens of thousands of priests,
or ACTUALLY CRUCIFY CHRISTIANS.. only the atheistic communists did that:

http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/communism_photos2/44camboy...

And atheists still openly advocate doing it today;

http://www.atheistnexus.org/photo/2182797:Photo:17475?context=latest


Lenin's Red Terror, Atheism in praxis;

>>>>>> # Russian Civil War (1917-22): 9 000 000
>>>>>> * Eckhardt: 500,000 civ. + 300,000 mil. = 800,000
>>>>>> * Readers Companion to Military History, Cowley and Parker,
>>>>>> eds. (1996)
>>>>>> [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/mil/html/mh_045400_russia...]:

>>>>>> o Combat deaths: 825,000
>>>>>> o Ancillary deaths: 2,000,000
>>>>>> o TOTAL: 2,825,000
>>>>>> * Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998)
>>>>>> o Civil War and Volga Famine (1918-22): 3,000,000 to
>>>>>> 5,000,000
>>>>>> * Brzezinski, Z:
>>>>>> o 6 to 8 million people died under Lenin from war,
>>>>>> famine etc.
>>>>>> * Mastering Twentieth Century Russian History by Norman Lowe
>>>>>> (2002)
>>>>>> o TOTAL: 7,000,000 to 10,000,000
>>>>>> * Dyadkin, I.G. (cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror,
>>>>>> 1993)
>>>>>> o 9 million unnatural deaths from terror, famine and
>>>>>> disease, 1918-23
>> ...
>>>>>> o Civil War (1917-22)
>>>>>> + War: 1,410,000 (includes 500,000 civilian)
>>>>>> + Famine: 5,000,000 (50% democidal)
>>>>>> + Other democide: 784,000
>>>>>> + Epidemics: 2,300,000
>>>>>> + Total: 9,494,000
>>>>>> * Figes, Orlando (A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian
>>>>>> Revolution, 1997)
>>>>>> o 10 million deaths from war, terror, famine and disease.
>>>>>> o Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: a History of the Russian
>>>>>> Civil War 1918-1921
>>>>>> + Death sentences by the Cheka: ca. 100,000
>>>>>> + Pogroms: as many as one in 13 Jews k. out of
>>>>>> 1.5M in Ukraine [i.e. ca. 115,000] (citing Heifetz)

>>>>>> # Soviet Union, Stalin's regime (1924-53): 20 000 000 + Dyadkin,
>>>>>> I.G. (Demograficheskaya statistika neyestestvennoy smertnosti v
>>>>>> SSSR 1918-1956 ): 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" for the USSR
>>>>>> overall, with 34 to 49 million under Stalin.
>>>>>> + Gold, John.: 50-60 million.
>>>>>> o Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998): c. 50 million
>>>>>> killed 1924-53, excluding WW2 war losses. This would divide (more
>>>>>> or less) into 33M pre-war and 17M after 1939.
>>>>>> o Rummel, 1990: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR
>>>>>> 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years.
>>>>>> ######################################################################

>>>>>> # Next, just to show it's a CONSISTENT PATTERN in EVERY ATHEIST
>>>>>> REGIME,
>>>>>> #
>>>>>> # Mao's Cultural Devolution and Great Leap Backward!
>>>>>> #
>>>>>> ######################################################################

>>>>>> # People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong's regime (1949-1975):

>>>>>> 40 000 000

>>>>>> * Agence France Press (25 Sept. 1999) citing at length from
>>>>>> Courtois, Stephane, Le Livre Noir du Communism:
>>>>>> o Rural purges, 1946-49: 2-5M deaths
>>>>>> o Urban purges, 1950-57: 1M
>>>>>> o Great Leap Forward: 20-43M
>>>>>> o Cultural Revolution: 2-7M
>>>>>> o Labor Camps: 20M
>>>>>> o Tibet: 0.6-1.2M
>>>>>> o TOTAL: 44.5 to 72M
>>>>>> + Jin Hui (1993): 40M population loss due to "abnormal
>>>>>> deaths and reduced births"

>>>>>> + Chen Yizi of the System Reform Inst.: 43-46M deaths
>>>>>> * Jung Chang, Mao: the Unknown Story (2005)
>>>>>> o Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries, 1950-51:
>>>>>> 3M by execution, mob or suicide
>>>>>> o Three-Anti Campaign, 1952-53: 200,000-300,000 suicides
>>>>>> o Great Leap Forward, 1958-61: 38M of starvation and
>>>>>> overwork
>>>>>> o Cultural Revolution, 1966-76: > 3M died violent deaths
>>>>>> o Laogai camp deaths, 1949-76: 27M
>>>>>> o TOTAL under Mao: 70M

>> As you can see, my claims for the atheist death toll is very
>> conservative at 70,000,000

>> No wonder Seon and every apologist for the atheist holocaust
>> always snip the evidence.



# "Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
# -Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)
#
# http://www.atheistnexus.org/photo/2182797:Photo:8295?context=latest
#
# http://www.atheistnexus.org/photo/2182797:Photo:8290?context=latest
#
#
# "Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
# - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

I have demonstrated your fallacy and category error, the Nazi's did not
run Auschwitrz 'in the name of anti-semitism' but that's what it was.

Like you, and the neo-Nazis and the atheist apologists for atheist
crimes in history, they hid their crimes, behind other WORDS, but the
deeds were THEIRS, as you have admitted... Lenin Mao Stalin.. ALL
ATHEISTS[/fasgnadh]

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

One one hand you adopt moral relativism but you abandon relativism when it comes to scientific "laws" or principles.

That is because scientific principles are not opinions. Morality is (that is my position until you demonstrate otherwise). The heat output of the sun is different to whether the sun is beautiful. One is a fact of nature the other the opinion of the observer.

Morality is opinion. You have yet to explain why that is "a problem"

ISAW wrote: »

Not only metaphysical explanations but all scientific explanations are ultimately based on "self-contradictory" propositions.

If you say so, but that is probably a topic for another thread.

How about you explain to me why morality being opinion is a "problem" that you solve it morality is objective yet unmeasurable.

ISAW wrote: »

If you don't condemn it as always wrong you justify it in certain circumstances.

Which is why I condemn it always wrong. But again that is my opinion. Others disagree, but then I don't care. I don't need to make a call to authority to do this, or a call to a universal morality I don't think exists and that no one can show does.

ISAW wrote: »

If you say " it is wrong but that is only my opinion" then you suggest someone else who says it is acceptable might be right.

Might be right according to what? The universal moral standard that doesn't exist? Why are you introducing universal morality when we have already established I'm talking about subjective morality?

You seem to be saying I can't tell if I'm "right" or he is "right". But that is nonsensical since there is no standard to compare ourselves to. There is just opinion.

ISAW wrote: »

so what?

So me not thinking it is acceptable has no sway over them. Neither does God thinking it is not acceptable. So what solution do you think universal morality brings your so called "problem" of relative morality? In neither case do NAMBLA stop thinking it is acceptable and stop molesting children. In both cases we have to force them, through laws and police, to stop doing this.

ISAW wrote: »

If god or some source of overarching morality declares something then it becomes an objective truth just like the speed of light and not something relative (pardon the pun) to the person.

And then what happens?

Everyone agrees with God? That clearly doesn't happen.

You feel better about imposing your opinion on child molesters because it is God's opinion also? I don't know why you need that call to authority, I'm perfectly happy imposing my opinion on child molesters all on my own.

ISAW wrote: »

But y already stated your opinion is just that and no better then another opinion.

LOL. :rolleyes: When did I state that it was "no better" than another opinion?

I think my opinion that you shouldn't molest children is "better" than the opinion you should, and I will force that opinion on those who don't agree with me.

On the one hand you seem to be saying I'm so wishy wash that I respect the opinion of a child molester to molest children and then you give out to me because I want to force my opinion on others and you salute Christian "tolerance"

ISAW wrote: »

But now you have added that you would use brute force to enforce your subjective opinions. so what is to stop them following your principle and doing the same?

Than people who disagree with them. You can't stop them from holding that opinion and from trying to impose it, but you can resist them physically when they do.

What is to stop them in your world with God declaring objective morality? I don't see God popping down here every few days to correct someone who holds the "wrong" moral opinion.

ISAW wrote: »

Two wrongs do not make a right!

How would you deal with child molesters then if not imposing your moral view that they shouldn't molest children?

ISAW wrote: »

Indirectly through a regulated system based on natural and constitutional justice and not on any individual imposing their personal whims!

That is individuals imposing their "personal whims"

Everyone votes. How you vote reflects your moral position. If your moral position ends up being the majority it is imposed on those who don't agree with it through the legal system and the police.

In our current society the opinion of child molesters is oppressed. The only reason you don't object to that isn't because their opinion is being oppressed, it is because you agree with that it should.

ISAW wrote: »

Oh it is WE now is it? Before it was that YOUR opinion was just that.

Yes, and? Lots of people agree with me and I agree with them.

But if everyone else in the world thought that child abuse was fine I would still think it wasn't.

A social contract is not group think. It is agreement between people of the same moral opinion. Hence the "contract" bit

ISAW wrote: »

Do you seriously think that if a most people think molesting children is ok then it is ok?

No I don't think that, nor have I ever said that, nor have I ever said anything along the lines of that or anything that would give you that impression.

There is no "then it is ok". You seem to think that relative morality is when everyone votes what the universal morality will be. That is nonsense.

ISAW wrote: »

You need an informed conscience whether from God or not. If you adopt the relativist position and make it up for yourself then you fall into the pit I have shown you.

What is the difference between an "informed conscience" and "making it up for yourself"

What do you do differently that me other than adding "..because God says so" after every moral proclamation?

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

That is because scientific principles are not opinions. Morality is (that is my position until you demonstrate otherwise). The heat output of the sun is different to whether the sun is beautiful. One is a fact of nature the other the opinion of the observer.

that is the marsh i warned you about!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions#Influence_of_SSR
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/objectivity/tradition.htm
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/objectivity/index.htm

http://vargen.cc/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/SOT_HermesJPappas.pdf

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

.

Morality is opinion. You have yet to explain why that is "a problem"
...

How about you explain to me why morality being opinion is a "problem" that you solve it morality is objective yet unmeasurable.
...

Everyone agrees with God? That clearly doesn't happen.


LOL. :rolleyes: When did I state that it was "no better" than another opinion?

One problem is this . You begin from a relativist perspective i.e. that morality has no absolute scale or yardstick to measure it by and is relative to the individual opinion.

But then you suggest your opinion should be enforced or sholud be treated as better than another.
I point out that means compared to a child molester who justifies their actions your opinion is just and opinion and no better or worse then that person.
You quip that your opinion is better in suggesting that you never stated it was not better.
But if you have no absolute scale with which to judge how do you know?
And what gives you the right to say you have a better or superiour opinion than a child molester?
Either it IS actually better in which case you are comparing the two on a scale or they are both just opinions and neither is better in which case you can't claim say your opinion is better and also make the contradictory claim that neither is better.

If you claim it IS actually better you have abandoned the relativist perspective from which you began which is also a contradiction.

that is a probem.

Now if there is an absolute scale against which we can judge eg. God/Nature/Natural and constitutional Law it matters not that people ignore it or don't agree with it it still exists!

thais may be in different forms. for example God is kind of self defining but say " natural and constitutional Justice" This may may be secular, cover Natural Law but also extend into the constitution and Court system. The letter of the law may not be the whole thing itself but the system may be thought of as embodying it. Natural Law may subsist in such a system just as the church may subsist in the Catholic Church of Rome for example.

A similar case applies for "laws" or models of science. The Universe exists. Maybe it has no absolute laws maybe it has - both interpretations are consistent with science. Let us assume it has. We may not know or understand the actual Universe but a model of it it subsists in the science we have. That does not mean we have everything correct but we change the science "laws" as our understanding of the nature of the Universe changes. The Universe however was still behaving according to Catholic principles whether or not we agreed with them or understood them. We may even have had incorrect or misunderstood scientific "principles" - which of course were not principles because they didn't really reflect how the universe actually was we just thought they did.

I think my opinion that you shouldn't molest children is "better" than the opinion you should, and I will force that opinion on those who don't agree with me.

Two points
1. If you begin with relativism which says no opinion can be shown as better how can you
claim your opinion IS better?
2. What gives you the right to enforce your personal opinion on others?

On the one hand you seem to be saying I'm so wishy wash that I respect the opinion of a child molester to molest children

Quite the opposite you say you don't respect their opinion. But you began by saying morals are only opinions. If you think they are wrong according to you what is the source of your disrespect? And how can you say they are actually wrong if you think it is just an opinion?

and then you give out to me because I want to force my opinion on others and you salute Christian "tolerance"

Ever heard "Love the sinner hate the sin"?
But relativist morality and the right to enforce a personal opinion on others are two differnt things. I was just applying the second thing "( the right to enforce an opinion) and self referring it to the first ( that is it only an opinion) ans asking "If it is only an opinion from whence does the right to enforce this opinion derive?" It there is no moral "right" the right to enforce it is based on opinion and not an absolute right.

What is to stop them in your world with God declaring objective morality? I don't see God popping down here every few days to correct someone who holds the "wrong" moral opinion.

Again the system of enforcement is a different issue to whether something is actually wrong. Also, I don't see the Universe correcting any "laws" about how the universe works but it does happen.

How would you deal with child molesters then if not imposing your moral view that they shouldn't molest children?

How I would deal with it isn't at issue. Whether it is wrong according some universal law is! If it is wrong according to some universal morality then it is always wrong. If you adopt a moral relativist position they you have to say it can sometimes be right.

How society should deal with it is also maybe at issue. It should begin by saying it is always wrong. But you can't accept that because you don't believe it!

Everyone votes. How you vote reflects your moral position. If your moral position ends up being the majority it is imposed on those who don't agree with it through the legal system and the police.

so if most people accept something immoral then that should be enforced?

In our current society the opinion of child molesters is oppressed.

That's my WHOLE POINT! In our current society means you accept that in some other society it might not be! It might be accepted. You just can't get yourself to say it is always wrong because it runs counter to your atheistic relativism. Your "there is no God"
means "There is no absolute right or absolute moral authority". When confronted with something that is always wrong you just cant admit it! You would rather accept child abuse in society than admit that there is absolute morality or God. Your denial of god is such a strong impulse that you even assert that police should jackboot those that the relativist godless society oppressess - your word not mine.

And that folks is how Mao Stalin Pol Pot etc. began. they replaces God and morality with "enforcement" and "oppression" based on Godless relativism ruled over by the opinion of those in charge.

The only reason you don't object to that isn't because their opinion is being oppressed, it is because you agree with that it should.

I don't think anyone's opinion should be oppressed.
I don't think Holocaust denial should be a crime
Even Christ apparently allowed himself to be persecuted rather then enforce his opinion on others.

In such a context does Matthew 10:34-39 exist: I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

But if everyone else in the world thought that child abuse was fine I would still think it wasn't.

And if everyone thought it wasn't and you thought it was where does that leave you?
You see if you think it is right when it is really wrong that means "wrong" is an absolute. But you still will hop back to your cosy "well it is just my opinion" won't you?

A social contract is not group think. It is agreement between people of the same moral opinion. Hence the "contract" bit

so if enought people of the same opinion get together that makes them "right"?
You do realise that justifies the Nazis?

There is no "then it is ok". You seem to think that relative morality is when everyone votes what the universal morality will be. That is nonsense.

What is? - Agreement between people of the same moral opinion?

What is the difference between an "informed conscience" and "making it up for yourself"

What do you do differently that me other than adding "..because God says so" after every moral proclamation?

What would make an non relativist different is accepting that there can be an absolute e.g. things like gassing Jews and gypsies and molesting children are always wrong.

StealthRolex

Wicknight wrote: »

What is the difference between an "informed conscience" and "making it up for yourself"

If one is omniscient one can make it up for oneself.

If one is not then one has to use the best available information from as many sources as possible to guide their conscience. For a Christian they must use the Bible as a guide and for a Catholic there are also the teachings of the Church.

IMO I guess that means that as atheists are few and far between and cannot agree on anything then their opinions are dismissable.

Zombrex

StealthRolex wrote: »

If one is omniscient one can make it up for oneself.

If one is not then one has to use the best available information from as many sources as possible to guide their conscience. For a Christian they must use the Bible as a guide and for a Catholic there are also the teachings of the Church.

IMO I guess that means that as atheists are few and far between and cannot agree on anything then their opinions are dismissable.

But you have to figure out that Christianity is the correct "best available information" against all other religions or philosophies proclaiming ethical standards.

What is the difference between that and simply figuring it out yourself?

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

But you have to figure out that Christianity is the correct "best available information" against all other religions or philosophies proclaiming ethical standards.

No actually the point was that religious philosophies produced lasting societies that contributed to civilisation whereas atheistic regimes produced death and destructiona and ther are no lasting atheistic civilizations!

What is the difference between that and simply figuring it out yourself?

Is wasn't "which religion is better"? the point was whether religion is better than despotic atheism. But if you don't know the difference between millennia of learning and history and want to be a cynic then you are welcome to figure it all out for yourself and reinvent the wheel and theories of gravity,evolution etc. every time you get out of bed.

nozzferrahhtoo

I do not have the time to list every formatting error you have made. I just asked if you would consider fixing your posts as a point of politeness. If you do not wish to then so be it. However to help you along I will give you one example. Look at the use of [qupte] in post #249. There are other example, but I will leave them to you.

However no I have not ignored definitions of “mainstream”. I have just ignored YOUR ones because honestly I do not see you as an authority on the matter. If I hear the word “Christian” I honestly have no idea what that person believes, except maybe that they think there is a god and they think Jesus was something special. After that there simply is very little that all Christians agree on that I can be presumptions enough to presume is true of anyone who calls themselves “Christian”. Some Christians do not even see Jesus as god, but as just God’s main prophet. Even in Ireland alone some think he manifests himself in the form of special bread, while others do not.

However all you have done above is tell me how many people Mao and Stalin killed. Fair enough, I knew this already. What you have not done however is shown any causal link between atheism and these killings. How do you know the deaths were not causes by, say, both of them having moustaches?

Your entire problem is with regimes and despots. I have a problem with them too so we are in fact wholly agreed. What you have not shown however is that atheism has anything to do with it except by playing name bingo by showing “This person did bad things, this person was also an atheist, that’s all I need to know.”

As I said we could do this with anything. I could find awful people who were all vegetarians. This would not for one moment indict vegetarianism of anything. So why you think it does with atheism, I still do not know.

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I do not have the time to list every formatting error you have made. I just asked if you would consider fixing your posts as a point of politeness. If you do not wish to then so be it. However to help you along I will give you one example. Look at the use of [qupte] in post #249.

It is quote clear I was quoting but thank you i have fixed it. Ther is nothing incorrect about the point I made!

There are other example, but I will leave them to you.

If you don't show them I wont fix them! But I have not made any errors of reasoning and you can't show any of them can you? Are you going to start a spelling flame instead of addressing the issue?

However no I have not ignored definitions of “mainstream”. I have just ignored YOUR ones because honestly I do not see you as an authority on the matter.

It is clearly defined. By those denominations themselfes. You know ones you claimed that themselves claimed to be Catholic? But you prodeced no evidence of your changed definition of "Catholic" did you? When people here have referred to Catholic or "mainstream" it is in that light. But when you are losing the argument you try to change the claim you made!

If I hear the word “Christian” I honestly have no idea what that person believes, except maybe that they think there is a god and they think Jesus was something special.

LOL! there you go again! You know EXACTLY what I meant because you were supplied with a definition. But you tried to claim that other denominations call themselves "Catholic" They DON'T! you were WRONG! But rather than admit you were wrong you try to change the definition or claim it does not matter when you already stated that is does matter since fringe Christians according to you claim to be "Catholic". you are WRONG! they don't!

After that there simply is very little that all Christians agree on that I can be presumptions enough to presume is true of anyone who calls themselves “Christian”. Some Christians do not even see Jesus as god, but as just God’s main prophet. Even in Ireland alone some think he manifests himself in the form of special bread, while others do not.

Waffle waffle waffle! You have been shown! Most - as in 90 to 95 per cent of Christians worldwide have a set of core beliefs! You want to take the minoroty of the other five per cent and reclassify them to represent most Christians! they DON'T! In fact if you leave out many of the larger quasi fringe which the mainstrteam would not regard even as heretical but apostate such as JWs and the like you are left with a tiny tiny tiny amount! they certainly don't call themselves "Catholic" as you claimed!

However all you have done above is tell me how many people Mao and Stalin killed.

That isn't all I have supplied. I believe you have been shown the populations and core beliefs of mainstream Christians for starters. the thread is about Mao Stalin etc. isnt it?

Fair enough, I knew this already. What you have not done however is shown any causal link between atheism and these killings. How do you know the deaths were not causes by, say, both of them having moustaches?

LOL! the old atheist cop out.

to quote Fasgnadh
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:05:31 GMT
Local: Wed, Apr 14 2010 2:05 pm
Subject: Re: The Bloody History of Atheism

[fasgnadh]
Now, all you have to do is show similar EVIDENCE.. not your
OPINIONS, or those of some other atheist that countries like
the USA, which Prints "In God We Trust" on it's money, is in any way
such a murderous tyranny, torturing terrorising and murdering over
20,000,000 of it's citizens!
"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

"How can you make a revolution without firing squads?"
- Lenin

"You know, they are fooling us, there is no God...
all this talk about God is sheer nonsense"
- Stalin
E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1940

But it was not just the Atheism of the leadership,
but of the entire State apparatus;

The Atheist leadership's policies were implemented under
the Red Terror, via gulags and executions, the use of
every arm of the state for anti-religious propaganda
and the forced indoctrination of CHILDREN! B^[

"the state established atheism as the only scientific truth."
- Daniel Peris,
"Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless"
Cornell University Press 1998 ISBN 9780801434853

"Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden"

"Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested.
In 1918, the Cheka under Felix Dzerzhinsky executed over
3000 Orthodox clergymen of all ranks.
Some were drowned in ice-holes or poured over with cold water
in winter until they turned to ice-pillars.
- John Shelton Curtis, The Russian Church and the Soviet State
(Boston: Little Brown, 1953)
[/Fasgnadh]

Your entire problem is with regimes and despots. I have a problem with them too so we are in fact wholly agreed. What you have not shown however is that atheism has anything to do with it except by playing name bingo by showing “This person did bad things, this person was also an atheist, that’s all I need to know.”

except the ones which were Christian killed maybe 2 million over 700 years and left buildings bodies of knowledge arts etc. after them and the ones with atheism at their core in 50 years killed 70,000,000 people and left nothing of note.

As I said we could do this with anything. I could find awful people who were all vegetarians.

Really? Who stated "Vegitarianism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
Who exstablished State vegitarianism and wiped out anyone who didn't subscribe to vegitarianism?

This would not for one moment indict vegetarianism of anything. So why you think it does with atheism, I still do not know.

Hint : "Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism." -Lenin

ISAW

strobe wrote: »

First you make a point of mentioning in several posts your idea that Stealth was fine in saying he could speak for the majority of Christians because "mainstream" Christians share a huge range of fundamental tenants.

I think you mean "tenets" but yes I did fairly much state that.

I have no problem with that, but the same simply can not be said of atheism. Atheists share one fundamental tenant: a lack of belief in a god. That's it. Full stop.

And I specifically pointed to this as a side step. I accept it is a tenet but if presented as the only tenet then it does not stand up just as "believers believe obnly in God thats it full stop" But thsat isnt iit! religion has developed! Certain religions believe in ressurection Trinity etc. And their belief pushed them into saying how society shoudl behave or be organised. Similarly certain atheists say religion is a bane on socisty and that atheism is better for society and that religion should be abolished.

The sidestep is this - one can say "but that is only their interpretion of atheism"
But you can't accept the double standard. If a christian was to say "Belief is only belief in god" and you say "but how about what the Pope said on AIDS?" or "how about what the Deli Lama said on...?" or "what about the bible and creation" or whatever. the specific cadre involved do have a list of tenets in addition to just believing in God. just as the is a scientism cadre of atheists and ther were Godless regimes in history who slaughtered tens of millions and which had atheism central to their society.

I can speak for every single atheist that lives or has ever lived, when I say they do not believe in a god.

And you can also speak for ever single believer when you say they did believe in God!

Beyond that I have no possible way of knowing how they feel or what they believe about anything, at all. Side stepping has nothing to do with it.

Beyone that you cvan look at published material by the Vatican Deli Lama etc. just as you can look at published material by Dawkins where he attacks religion or supports Godless scientism and views a belief in God as a sickness or a mental delusion.

I don't care that some random internet posters in some dark corner of the web posted

As I have stated your caring or not caring wont make the fact posted right or wrong. Fasgnadh has supplied statistics and arguments which run central to the fundamentalist smug atheist position. And he didnt begin doint it to attack atheism but because he was savaged by fundamentalist atheists when he posted a fairly soft comment. He is also not a believer which is why I referred to him.

something or even that "they admit to being atheists" :eek:. Unless what they said was, "atheists don't believe in a god", it is irrelevant to anyone but themselves.

In my recollection all of them have reverted to this sidestep at one time or another. I wont go off into the long diatribe about it. The point is you cant say "atheists dont believe in god " and then add "and nothing else" because apparently SOME atheists see attacking religion and promoting scientism or communism as a particular expression of atheism. for exampole one poster here is claiming that as sociwety developes and people get more educatied that atheism will grow. That is basically saying "religion is for the ignorant" and the corollary is that "atheism is for the enlightened" . so it isnt just about not believing in god . It is additionally about a belief that a belief in God hampers enlightenment

If you ask nicely I will go find a few posts that Christians have posted, "admitted Christians" no less, and more than that one's that specifically state that they speak for all Christians, posts stating that children should be murdered for not going to mass, posts stating that muslims should be deported from any "Christian" countries, posts stating that Roman Catholics are all going to hell, posts stating that anyone that doesn't belong to their particular mini church will be destroyed during the rapture......

that don't speak for 99 percent of christians and I would claim they aren't Christian at all.
I would oppose such fundamentalists just as i oppose fundamentalist atheists. if atheism is just about not believing in God then that is fair enough. when you caome to the internet or start attacking believers then you are doing more than that. when you propose atheism as a better way and when atheistic regimes kill a hundred million people then it is more than a personal disbelief in God.
I dont have a problem with all atheists or non believers. Indeed Fasgnadh is one of them. I have a problem with the smug elitist comrades who propose scientism and atheism as a better way. Mao Stalin and Pol Pot didnt do all that killing on their own.

But I'm not going to do that, because despite you arguing that sometimes Christians are well within their rights to speak for fellow Christians, it would be a fallacious strawmanning display of other idiocy. A pathetic attempt to pick and choose random stuff posted by random people and then apply it to other unasocciated individuals. Please extend the same courtesy.....

Nonsence the mainstream Christian belief have been set for over 1800 years and havent changed! the idea of any individual saying "it is just my opinion because as a believer i obnly believe in God full stop" is nonsense! Just as an anti religion scientism supporting fundamentalist athesist can't claim "Oh it is just that I don't believe in God and nothing more" If it is nothing more why dont they shut up already and stop spouting their comrades newspeak?

Do you really not understand this? You have posted on the A&A forum many times.

AS I have posted alt.atheism many times.

Apparently you have been reading many other atheist inspired forums/groups.

i have been posting the largest of them for years

Really now, be honest, do you still not get it? Please man, just get it! It's not that hard to grasp. Just get it!

Get what? That when faced with the regimes who obliterated millions and with the logically inwardly collapsing dogma of memetics and scientism fundemantal prostyelyzing atheists
claim "but that isnt about us we only lack a belief in god and nothing else?" And then re emerge to ironically attack a minority of believers like Creationists in spome attempt to make belif look irrational or to attack the ten or so Bishops of 10,000 Bishops who were involved in covering up the one per cent of child abusers who were clergy?
Don't you get it? Why are people only interested in clerical abuse and in the few Bishops who made mistakes and did wrong? why aren't they interestee in the other 99,990 Bishops or in the other 99 per cent oif abusers. Even only yesterday a child abuse group came out saying there is to mush focus on clericas and we have to deal with the broader issue.
It seems clear to me that anticlericism is apparent. don't you get it?

I'm not even going to respond to the atheism ><= racism rubbish.

No apparently because you don't get it.

Exon

I can't be arsed to go trough Wikipedia to find a source for you, i've other things to do.

I know everything about Hitler and the party, his father Alois christened him Catholic and said several times at Nurermburg that Communism must be destroyed because of it's Atheism amongst other things.

ISAW

Exon wrote: »

I can't be arsed to go trough Wikipedia to find a source for you, i've other things to do.

Then why post unsupported opinions here and pretend they are facts?

I know everything about Hitler and the party, his father Alois christened him Catholic and said several times at Nurermburg that Communism must be destroyed because of it's Atheism amongst other things.

Yep. So what?
Stalin was brought up orthodox christian I think. Just you can't be bothered to read the thread will not turn atheistic regimes into religious ones!

nozzferrahhtoo

ISAW,

Please do not try and make it look like my request that you format your posts correctly is some tactic on my part. I want to read your posts and it is nigh impossible to do so at times when they are in a mess. I intend no more than to request you make them readable.

You seem to wish to stick at this target of making me assume that when I hear the word “Catholic” or “Christian” that I can safely assume to know what the person going by that label believes. You can continue in this vein if you wish but I am not likely to change as I have been burned too often that I now know that the variety in the beliefs of people claiming that label are so wide that it just is not a safe assumption for me to make, no matter what YOU want to think “Mainstream” belief is.

I have met Catholics who I assumed were therefore old earthers too, and I was wrong. I have then met Catholics who I assumed were YEC and I was wrong. There just is no way to look at someone who says they are catholic or Christian and then assume to know what that person does or does not believe. These labels are useless, and their only purpose seems to be to serve the lazy.

However, on the topic of the thread, I am afraid using phrases like “waffle”, “wrong” and “cop out” over and over does not change the fact you have shown NO causal link between people being atheist and people being moved to violence. The closest you have come is by appending additional words with additional meanings AFTER the word “atheist” in an attempt to make it true by proxy. Words such as despotism and regimes for example.

Attempt please, if only just once on this thread, to adumbrate the logical pathway from start to finish from the sentence “I do not think there is a non-human creative intelligence” to “I must kill lots of people”. Your inability to do this speaks volumes.

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

ISAW,

Please do not try and make it look like my request that you format your posts correctly is some tactic on my part. I want to read your posts and it is nigh impossible to do so at times when they are in a mess. I intend no more than to request you make them readable.

I had my suspicions but Ill take you at your word and i am sorry if I caused any personal offence. I am used to people who when they are losing the debate they criticise my writing style or make some other personal attack. I accept you were referring to clarity.

You seem to wish to stick at this target of making me assume that when I hear the word “Catholic” or “Christian” that I can safely assume to know what the person going by that label believes.

EXACTLY! got it in one! Mainstream christian, the Catholic church as defined by me in this thread and as accepted by the vast majority of christians is encompassd by the Roman Ortodox and Anglican Christians. Lutheran and Methodists might after that be very close but they are Protestant. Anglicans might view themselves for example as the Catholic church of england rather then the Catholic Church of Rome. The point is that the core beliefs structure tradition etc. is the same. Now of 2 billion or so Christians the Big THree cover about 1.5 billion plus and all agree on the same principles.

You can continue in this vein if you wish but I am not likely to change as I have been burned too often that I now know that the variety in the beliefs of people claiming that label are so wide that it just is not a safe assumption for me to make, no matter what YOU want to think “Mainstream” belief is.

It isn't an assumption. that ALL believe in the same creed! The fact that you are ignorant of this will not change the fact that the core beliefs are identical! they havent changed since they were written down 1800 years or so ago.
The Nicene Creed has been normative to the Anglican, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic Eucharistic rite as well as Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgies.It is given high importance in the Anglican Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Oriental Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church including the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Old Catholic Church, and most Protestant denominations

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

I have met Catholics who I assumed were therefore old earthers too, and I was wrong. I have then met Catholics who I assumed were YEC and I was wrong. There just is no way to look at someone who says they are catholic or Christian and then assume to know what that person does or does not believe.

Wrong! you probably have met Catholics who liked baseball and catholics who have never seen it played. so what? Baseball isn't part of the core belief of Catholics and nor is YEC!

These labels are useless, and their only purpose seems to be to serve the lazy.

You are in denial and I do not refer to the river! It is quite clear. the CORE BELIEFS are defined in the creed. and i have also pointed to structures and traditions. and from the get go I was quite clear about what "mainsttream" and "Catholic" meant.

However, on the topic of the thread, I am afraid using phrases like “waffle”, “wrong” and “cop out” over and over does not change the fact you have shown NO causal link between people being atheist and people being moved to violence. The closest you have come is by appending additional words with additional meanings AFTER the word “atheist” in an attempt to make it true by proxy. Words such as despotism and regimes for example.

So religious regimes can be accused of doing terrible things in the name of god or religion but atheistic ones CAN'T be accused to promote atheism?

Attempt please, if only just once on this thread, to adumbrate the logical pathway from start to finish from the sentence “I do not think there is a non-human creative intelligence” to “I must kill lots of people”. Your inability to do this speaks volumes.

"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)


"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)


"How can you make a revolution without firing squads?"
- Lenin

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)


"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)


"How can you make a revolution without firing squads?"
- Lenin

Great, you have successfully argued that Leninite Communists must be atheists.

But you will notice what you were actually asked is to justify the idea that atheists must be Leniniate Communists. :rolleyes:

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

But if you have no absolute scale with which to judge how do you know?

I know because it is my opinion that it is better. Again there is no point appealing to a universal scale that I don't believe exists.

You might as well ask how do I know "Citizen Kane" is a better movie than "White Chicks". I know that this is my opinion. It may mean nothing to a fan of the Wayne Brothers, but I don't care.

There is no problem here, there is just your inability to imagine what a world without transcribed universal morality is like.

ISAW wrote: »

Natural Law may subsist in such a system

When you have a convincing argument it does get back to me. At the moment I just have you telling me your notions of morality are objective based on a subjective determination by yourself. It really shouldn't be necessary to point out the flaw in that one.

ISAW wrote: »

how can you claim your opinion IS better?

Pretty easily. My opinion is better. There, I just did it.

ISAW wrote: »

Quite the opposite you say you don't respect their opinion. But you began by saying morals are only opinions. If you think they are wrong according to you what is the source of your disrespect? And how can you say they are actually wrong if you think it is just an opinion?

Groan.

You seem incapable if imagining what a relative system is like, you keep appealing to universal scale which I don't think exists.

Answer me this, what is, in your opinion, the best movie ever made.

Now, answer me this how can you think that is the best movie ever made if that is just your opinion and you cannot compare that judgement on your part to the Universal Scale of What is or Isn't a Good Movie (TM)

Now, answer me this. Are you going to abandon all notions that you think one movie, or song, or book, or piece of art is better than another piece of art because you can't know where it falls on this non-existent scale of quality?

I imagine not. So how is there a problem here?

ISAW wrote: »

Ever heard "Love the sinner hate the sin"?

Ever heard of statutory rape? Or do you not believe in oppressing pedophiles that try to rape children.

Is that the standard Christian position?

ISAW wrote: »

It there is no moral "right" the right to enforce it is based on opinion and not an absolute right.

Yes? And?

You think you have been given a moral right to oppress the opinions of the immoral? By who? God?

That to me is far more scary than anything I've said. At least with relativistic morality you have to justify, even if it is just to yourself, your own moral opinion. There is none of this We're just following orders lark you get with religion or any other form of surrender to authority.

How many times have we heard a Christian on this forum say they have absolutely no issue with homosexuals at all, see no reason why it is immoral, but it is because the Bible says so, even if they don't understand why it says so.

I would much prefer if people made their own moral choices and were able to justify them when asked.

ISAW wrote: »

Again the system of enforcement is a different issue to whether something is actually wrong.

But that difference is academical. There being a universal morality as a fact of nature that is unknown and there being no universal morality equate to the same thing.

ISAW wrote: »

How I would deal with it isn't at issue.

It is if you want to start giving out about how I would deal with them. :rolleyes:

You have been shouting from the roof tops about how terrible it is that I would enforce my moral opinion on others, yet you remain silent about what you would do with rapists and child abusers and murders.

ISAW wrote: »

Whether it is wrong according some universal law is! If it is wrong according to some universal morality then it is always wrong. If you adopt a moral relativist position they you have to say it can sometimes be right.

Sometimes right according to who exactly?

You are confusing relative morality with some kind of universal morality that flip flops all over the place.

ISAW wrote: »

How society should deal with it is also maybe at issue. It should begin by saying it is always wrong. But you can't accept that because you don't believe it!

I've no problem with that. Society often says something is always wrong. That is their opinion, and if I agree with it then "society" includes me.

ISAW wrote: »

so if most people accept something immoral then that should be enforced?

Should be is irrelevant, I don't allow or disallow things to be enforced. It will be enforced.

If I disagree with the moral opinion of the majority I can attempt to change people's minds, or if I disagree with it strongly enough I can attempt to physically stop it.

ISAW wrote: »

In our current society means you accept that in some other society it might not be! It might be accepted.

What is to not accept? The Greeks and Romans often abused young boys and girls and this was generally accepted by their society.

ISAW wrote: »

You just can't get yourself to say it is always wrong because it runs counter to your atheistic relativism.

Given that I've said it is always wrong, in my opinion, a good number of times you just most not be listening.

You will notice that the Roman and Greeks didn't change their opinion simply because you and I disagree with them.

ISAW wrote: »

You would rather accept child abuse in society than admit that there is absolute morality or God. Your denial of god is such a strong impulse that you even assert that police should jackboot those that the relativist godless society oppressess - your word not mine.

That was my word, though "jackboot" was a nice little touch :rolleyes:

You still haven't explained what your perfect Christian society does with people who want to rape children, given that you seem so opposed to the idea that society through the police oppress them from doing so.

ISAW wrote: »

And that folks is how Mao Stalin Pol Pot etc. began. they replaces God and morality with "enforcement" and "oppression" based on Godless relativism ruled over by the opinion of those in charge.

Do you actually know anything about the history of Mao, Stalin or Pot?

ISAW wrote: »

I don't think anyone's opinion should be oppressed.

Of course you do, you don't think adults should be able to rape child (at least I hope not)

There moral opinion is that it is ok. My moral opinion is that it isn't. Lucky fo the children the rest of society is on my side, so their side is oppressed. They can't abuse children, at least not without legal consequences.

You have yet to explain how you would deal with this if you don't think raping children should be oppressed.

ISAW wrote: »

You see if you think it is right when it is really wrong that means "wrong" is an absolute.

But there is no "really wrong" There is is I think it is wrong and they think it is ok.

Again you seem utterly incapable of actually understanding this concept.

ISAW wrote: »

so if enought people of the same opinion get together that makes them "right"?

Makes them right according to who?

ISAW wrote: »

What is? - Agreement between people of the same moral opinion?

Agreement of people of the same moral opinion does not magically make universal morality out of thin are. Asking if enough people get together does that make something universal "right" is a very silly question.

ISAW wrote: »

What would make an non relativist different is accepting that there can be an absolute e.g. things like gassing Jews and gypsies and molesting children are always wrong.

That is your opinion. But you have no idea if that is actually the FACT of the universe or not.

What if your opinion was that gassing Jews was wrong and then some how we discovered that no actually the universe says that gassing Jews is in fact perfectly fine.

Would you go "Ah well, that is a fact of the universe so obviously my opinion was wrong" Or would you not care what the universe says because you think gassing people is wrong.

nozzferrahhtoo

ISAW,

Do not worry about causing me offence. You couldn’t if you tried. This is not a comment about you, but about me. I know what is required for me to be offended and it is not present in this conversation.

Suffice to say however our tangent conversation is dead. You think if you hear “Catholic” or “Christian” that you can make safe assumptions about what the person believes, or what their core beliefs are and I do not. Especially as I can think of no one core belief held be all people using those labels due to the variety of differences between believers. We are both in danger of soap boxing now, so I’m dropping it. You know my position and I know yours.

The rest of your post is not discussing anything with me, but past me I am afraid. I never claimed that “religious regimes can be accused of doing terrible things in the name of god or religion but atheistic ones CAN'T be accused to promote atheism?“ once. My whole point has been entirely different to this.

Maybe you are so used to arguing against people who DO think that way, that you are responding to what you are used to hearing without actually reading what I am writing.

My entire point from the start has been the polar opposite of that. We can not play name bingo with atrocities and say “Here is a list of atrocities committed by religious people, therefore religion is bad” and more than we can say “Here is a list committed by atheists, therefore atheism is bad”.

What we have to do is step back from that thinking and view what these people did believe and find which beliefs had a logical pathway STARTING from what they believed and ENDING in the actions the perpetrated.

And again you have failed to adumbrate the logical pathway from start to finish from the sentence “I do not think there is a non-human creative intelligence” to “I must kill lots of people” and again your inability to do this speaks volumes. All you did was quote Lenin. Quoting one person’s opinion is not showing a logical pathway between the two.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

Great, you have successfully argued that Leninite Communists must be atheists.

But you will notice what you were actually asked is to justify the idea that atheists must be Leniniate Communists. :rolleyes:

Question asked :

Attempt please, if only just once on this thread, to adumbrate the logical pathway from start to finish from the sentence “I do not think there is a non-human creative intelligence” to “I must kill lots of people”. Your inability to do this speaks volumes.

All atheists don't have to be communists no more than all people with beards must have to be Marxist.

The question was how to get from "I don't believe" to " kill lots of people"


"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)


"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)


"How can you make a revolution without firing squads?"
- Lenin

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

ISAW,

Do not worry about causing me offence. You couldn’t if you tried.

That is your opinion. I'm sure if I burned down your house or cleared out your accounts you would be offended. Lots of people could offend you. I certainly would not intend to.

This is not a comment about you, but about me. I know what is required for me to be offended and it is not present in this conversation.

Oh so you mean words can't offend you. I don't believe that either.

Suffice to say however our tangent conversation is dead. You think if you hear “Catholic” or “Christian” that you can make safe assumptions about what the person believes, or what their core beliefs are and I do not.

Look! It is very simple. you can say Pi=3 all you want but the definition is given and it is accepted by people whether they are Catholic or not. you are in denial.

Especially as I can think of no one core belief held be all people using those labels due to the variety of differences between believers.

Please pay attention. Creeds were written 1800 years ago . Not MY creed and not yours! the Christian creed agreed to by almost all christians. You are denying that most christians ( and by most I mean 80 to 95 per cent and the other five might well be discarded as not real Christians) believe in the same mainstream things.

We are both in danger of soap boxing now, so I’m dropping it. You know my position and I know yours.

Nonsense! it isnt MY position ! it is the position of almost all christians and all mainstrean christians.

My entire point from the start has been the polar opposite of that. We can not play name bingo with atrocities and say “Here is a list of atrocities committed by religious people, therefore religion is bad” and more than we can say “Here is a list committed by atheists, therefore atheism is bad”.

Well people CAN! If something is bad it is bad whomsoever does it! If it is done to promote atheism or to promote a religion then that atheistic or religious regime is at fault.

And again you have failed to adumbrate the logical pathway from start to finish from the sentence “I do not think there is a non-human creative intelligence” to “I must kill lots of people” and again your inability to do this speaks volumes. All you did was quote Lenin. Quoting one person’s opinion is not showing a logical pathway between the two.

Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

i.e. Atheism = “I do not think there is a non-human creative intelligence"
It is part of communism

"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)
i.e. Atheism must be spread by our movement

"How can you make a revolution without firing squads?"
- Lenin

i.e. in the natural takeover by our movement we will shoot lots of people

nozzferrahhtoo

ISAW wrote: »

Oh so you mean words can't offend you. I don't believe that either.

Where did I say that? Is there any chance in continuing conversation with you if over 75% of your tactic is to reply to things I never said as often as you can while avoiding actually answering the question I have asked over 10 times.

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

The question was how to get from "I don't believe" to " kill lots of people"

I know what the question was, you haven't answered it. You have explained why Leninist would be atheists. You still have to be a Leninist though, which you will notice most of us aren't

You might as well say how do you get from Christian to killing people, well first you become a Communist :rolleyes:

Face it there is nothing about being an atheist that promotes what you claim it does. The reason the atrocities took place in the USSR was because of the doctrines of Leninist and Stalinist Communism.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

I know because it is my opinion that it is better.

well there you have it folks! Opinion becoming fact!
Of course this tenet would be abandoned if it came to arguing against the world being 6,000 years old! when it comes to those sort of opinions you would say "but look at the facts people have measured the Earth"

Well I say to you look at the facts! About 100,000,000 people dead in the 20th Century due to atheistic regimes which put atheism at the center of their philosophy!

Again there is no point appealing to a universal scale that I don't believe exists.

Just because you don't believe it does not mean it does not exist! The epistemological and ontological point is if you abandon God you have to come up with something else. Logical positivism and scientism tried to replace it all with knowledge and science alone. But positivism is eats its own tail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism which ironically is totally opposed to relativism which in itself is a cognitive conflict since you express to empirical logical positivism and science to explain the world and yet you claim to be "relativist" .

Now the only way out of this contradiction is to claim that scientific knowledge is a different kind of knowledge. But if that is true then you can't apply scientific rules for evidence to "prove God" or morality or values or any non scientific thing.

Anyway remaining just withing the logical scientific sphere
One cant have a tenet that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
"All statements are logically provable based on evidence " since you get into problems with applying the tenet to itself. I suggest you look into a more realist interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_realism

If on the other hand you claim an underdetermined position http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdetermination you have a problem with maintaining any arguments in other discussions without relying on contradictory philosophical bases.

You might as well ask how do I know "Citizen Kane" is a better movie than "White Chicks". I know that this is my opinion. It may mean nothing to a fan of the Wayne Brothers, but I don't care.

"I don't care" is an expression of an opinion again. Whether you care or not there is a real world out there which we can measure and observe.
We have observed 100,000,000 deaths by regimes promoting State atheism. FACT! Just because you don't care about that does not make it untrue.

If you allow people to just do as they like you get hedonism and anarchy. This is aside from the fact of God existing or not and is argued by secular humanists who accept natural law.

There is no problem here, there is just your inability to imagine what a world without transcribed universal morality is like.

I can imagine such a world. Indeed movies like "Event Horizon" depict it quite well. But this isn't about imaganing something. you are claiming we live in such a world. Based on that you can claim that child abuse or a holocaust or Stalinisation is sometimes acceptable since it is not absolutely wrong on all occasions according to your rejection of universal morality!

When you have a convincing argument it does get back to me. At the moment I just have you telling me your notions of morality are objective based on a subjective determination by yourself.

the deaths of 100,000,000 people are not a "subjective determination" they are measurable and confirm-able! Regimes promoting atheism killed them. What they did was wrong! It will always be wrong! It isn't just my opinion.

Pretty easily. My opinion is better. There, I just did it.

I meant YOU CAN'T SUPPORT YOUR CLAIM! My evidence is that atheistic regimes killed 100,000,000 people. You really think you can say that the Holocaust or child abuse is acceptable and it is just a matter of opinion because there is nothing which is always wrong?

You seem incapable if imagining what a relative system is like, you keep appealing to universal scale which I don't think exists.

You really think you can say that the Holocaust or child abuse is acceptable and it is just a matter of relative opinion because there is nothing which is always wrong?

Answer me this, what is, in your opinion, the best movie ever made.

Depends on what you mean by "best". If you define "best" and supply the measurable criteria to go along with that I will answer it. Of course it would only be my opinion but it would be based on universal criteria such as "number of oscars" "most popular" "lowest budget to boxoffice ratio" "had greatest influence on social change" etc.

Now, answer me this how can you think that is the best movie ever made if that is just your opinion and you cannot compare that judgement on your part to the Universal Scale of What is or Isn't a Good Movie (TM)

But one can! I just show you some criteria!

Now, answer me this. Are you going to abandon all notions that you think one movie, or song, or book, or piece of art is better than another piece of art because you can't know where it falls on this non-existent scale of quality?

You could create such a scale. whether such a scale approaches an idealised representation of a "best" movie is a question for scientific realism and not exclusively a relativist proposition.

I imagine not. So how is there a problem here?

The problem is in you imagining there isn't such a scale when one could create one.
You are basing your premise on the conclusion.
It is called a "circular argument" . Look it up under "logical fallacy"

Ever heard of statutory rape? Or do you not believe in oppressing pedophiles that try to rape children.

Yes i have heard of it but you claim things are not always wrong. Before that law existed was it wrong to rape a minor? You could not have said "I accuse you of statutory rape" then so was it right then? Or was it wrong then?

Is that the standard Christian position?

Yes it would be. According to Christianity oppression even of pedophiles is wrong.

You think you have been given a moral right to oppress the opinions of the immoral? By who? God?

Please leave ME out of it! Quite the opposite christians believe oppression is always wrong . even of people who do wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. You cant do evil in order to prevent it.

There is none of this We're just following orders lark you get with religion or any other form of surrender to authority.

As I stated it doesn't have to involve god or religion. It could be "nature". One can argue that natural law encompasses the law that an apple should fall down as well as the law that people should not hurt one another. It does not have to require a God or a religion to believe this. You however reject it.

the thing is atheistic regimes did the same. They argued that the "no God" belief brought them to this position where they had to promote atheism and purge others. they are a particular type of relativist fundamentalist atheism.

How many times have we heard a Christian on this forum say they have absolutely no issue with homosexuals at all, see no reason why it is immoral, but it is because the Bible says so, even if they don't understand why it says so.

I don't know but such people would be fundamentalist Christians and are dangerous just as fundamentalist left wing authoritative atheists or Islamists are!

I would much prefer if people made their own moral choices and were able to justify them when asked.

As would all Christians! It is the "justify" and "informed conscience" but were the fundamentalists fall down.

But that difference is academical. There being a universal morality as a fact of nature that is unknown and there being no universal morality equate to the same thing.

Actually it doesn't. to an empirical instrumentalist it might. To a scientific realist it does not have to. One can have a good map and make better ones but not ever know the whole territory.

You have been shouting from the roof tops about how terrible it is that I would enforce my moral opinion on others, yet you remain silent about what you would do with rapists and child abusers and murders.

Unlike the atheistic regimes I don't like to dictate. It isn't for me to provide MY solution. You are the one claiming child abuse isn't always wrong for all people.

You are confusing relative morality with some kind of universal morality that flip flops all over the place.

A universal morality would say "Child abuse is always wrong for all people everywhere " . clearly if you don't agree with universal statements about morality you can't say "child abuse is always wrong for all people"

I've no problem with that. Society often says something is always wrong. That is their opinion, and if I agree with it then "society" includes me.

so "chjild abuse is always wrong" or statutory rape is an opinion which can change and if the law was removed and society encouraged it than that would be acceptable to you
and you think that soicieties like this wouldf be acceptable? Just as if they brought in state atheism and rounded up all the believers in camps you think that would be acceptable?

Should be is irrelevant, I don't allow or disallow things to be enforced. It will be enforced.

so you accept the authority jackboot enforcers when it suits your personal whims but criticise "religious fundamentalists" when it doesn't?

If I disagree with the moral opinion of the majority I can attempt to change people's minds, or if I disagree with it strongly enough I can attempt to physically stop it.

Just like any fundamentalist can plant a bomb because everyone else is wrong and their relativist position is right?

What is to not accept? The Greeks and Romans often abused young boys and girls and this was generally accepted by their society.

And you think that was right? so if sometime in the future another society promotes child abuse you think it is acceptable for that society to bring it in?!

Given that I've said it is always wrong, in my opinion, a good number of times you just most not be listening.

It is always wrong in your opinion but you accept that a society can bring in child abuse because "always wrong" is just a meaningless personal opinion?

You will notice that the Roman and Greeks didn't change their opinion simply because you and I disagree with them.

Exactly! Aside from anachronism there doing wrong and our personal opinion about it are two different things!

You still haven't explained what your perfect Christian society

not MY - the Christian view - as I see it anyway.

does with people who want to rape children, given that you seem so opposed to the idea that society through the police oppress them from doing so.

It isnt for me to propose an alternative to your recommendation of oppression but the christian view would be that another form of oppression isn't right either.

Do you actually know anything about the history of Mao, Stalin or Pot?

And their atheistic regimes yes? Are you disputing the figures or the atheism?

Of course you do, you don't think adults should be able to rape child (at least I hope not)

What I believe or not is beside the point! Even if I did think rape was acceptable the point is i can't just be allowed to make it all up as I go along to suit myself. the point is that there are universal laws of nature which say certain things are against nature.

There moral opinion is that it is ok. My moral opinion is that it isn't. Lucky fo the children the rest of society is on my side,

Now you are hitting a central issue. you are saying children are not abused because of "luck". What of they were unlucky and people did decide it was okay? As for as you are concerned that makes it okay for that society!

so their side is oppressed.

Not necessarily. The christian view is one of tolerance not oppression. Christ accepted even the worst sinners.

They can't abuse children, at least not without legal consequences.

for Christians it isn't always a case of "do what I say or else"
It is a bit like the smacking the child debate - it is a case of positive rather then negative solutions.

You have yet to explain how you would deal with this if you don't think raping children should be oppressed.

Actually i don't but I have. the question isn't whether anyone deals with it ( which is in itself probably more important). If you can't agree that it is always wrong for all societies in the first place you can't even get to dealing with it since you accept it might be acceptable in some society. How can you then propose in dealing with something you accept as normal for that society?

What if your opinion was that gassing Jews was wrong and then some how we discovered that no actually the universe says that gassing Jews is in fact perfectly fine.

Well nature would not have contradictory laws contrary to reason. Actually the Pope dealt with this in his Ragensburg address. the

Would you go "Ah well, that is a fact of the universe so obviously my opinion was wrong" Or would you not care what the universe says because you think gassing people is wrong.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".[4]

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.[5] The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.[6] Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.[7]

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Where did I say that? Is there any chance in continuing conversation with you if over 75% of your tactic is to reply to things I never said as often as you can while avoiding actually answering the question I have asked over 10 times.

He said ignoring and snipping out my other ten comments and especially at the end where I enumerated how one gets from "There is no God" to "we have to shoot people"

StealthRolex

I sometimes wonder why atheists insist on living in Christian countries.
Would they not be happier in a country like Russia for example where the FSB standard side arm is permanently silenced (why is that) and defenestration is a regular punishment for anyone found to be in opposition to the the regime?

Zombrex

StealthRolex wrote: »

I sometimes wonder why atheists insist on living in Christian countries.
Would they not be happier in a country like Russia for example where the FSB standard side arm is permanently silenced (why is that) and defenestration is a regular punishment for anyone found to be in opposition to the the regime?

Yeah but it is sort of hard to spark a violent revolution to over throw the oppressive Christian totalitarian state when you don't live in the country

iUseVi

Wicknight wrote: »

Yeah but it is sort of hard to spark a violent revolution to over throw the oppressive Christian totalitarian state when you don't live in the country

Our time is close, comrade.

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

Well I say to you look at the facts! About 100,000,000 people dead in the 20th Century due to atheistic regimes which put atheism at the center of their philosophy!

Yes, that is a pretty good reason not subscribe to Leninist/Stalinist Communism. Which I don't.

ISAW wrote: »

Just because you don't believe it does not mean it does not exist!

True. But for your "problems" to actually be problems for me they require me to think it does. Which I don't, so these are not problems.

It is like saying it is a problem for your marriage that your wife is so ugly. If you don't think your wife is ugly then that isn't a problem.

Also there is no point throwing a whole lot of irrelevant wikipedia links to me simply to cover up that you can't actually articulate what the problem actual is (cause it doesn't exist)

ISAW wrote: »

you can claim that child abuse or a holocaust or Stalinisation is sometimes acceptable

Sometimes acceptable to whom? Me? I never claimed such a thing.

ISAW wrote: »

What they did was wrong! It will always be wrong! It isn't just my opinion.

Of course it is "just" your opinion, they obviously felt different otherwise they wouldn't have done it. Your view it was wrong obviously didn't stop them.

ISAW wrote: »

I meant YOU CAN'T SUPPORT YOUR CLAIM!

Of course I can. My claim is that I think my opinion is better. By stating that my opinion is better I've demonstrated as such. There, supported.

ISAW wrote: »

Depends on what you mean by "best"
...
You could create such a scale. whether such a scale approaches an idealised representation of a "best" movie is a question for scientific realism and not exclusively a relativist proposition.

Better than everything else in it's category. The best movie is better than all other movies. I don't have to tell you why you think one film is best, that is up to you.

If you create such a scale then by definition it isn't the universal scale, the fact of nature. It is your relativistic scale

And since you seem to reject the idea that someone can have opinions because you reject relativism as having no meaning by your logic you cannot have the opinion any film the best film or any film better than any other film.

Correct?

ISAW wrote: »

The problem is in you imagining there isn't such a scale when one could create one.

Nonsense. I have my own scale but you reject it as meaningless because it isn't the universal scale. The scale is "just" my opinion, which I have no issue with but you seem to think makes it meaningless.

Same with morality. I'm perfectly happy with my opinion of where different things fall on my scale of morality. It is just my opinion, but that doesn't make it meaningless to me.

But you seem to think because I don't have a god given universal scale to measure my morality against this is meaningless.

Interestingly you seem not to apply such logic to anything else.

ISAW wrote: »

Yes it would be. According to Christianity oppression even of pedophiles is wrong.

Really?

Show me one Christian other than yourself who thinks that pedophiles should not be physically stopped from raping children.

You do realize that arresting a pedophile trying to rape a child is a form of oppression, correct?

ISAW wrote: »

Unlike the atheistic regimes I don't like to dictate.

Really? You seem to be doing an awful lot of that here.

So you are saying you don't know how you would deal with child rapists but you think it would be unChristian of you to oppress them from doing what they want to do (ie rape your kids).

Brilliant, lets put you in charge :rolleyes:

ISAW wrote: »

A universal morality would say "Child abuse is always wrong for all people everywhere " . clearly if you don't agree with universal statements about morality you can't say "child abuse is always wrong for all people"

Why can't I say that? It is "just" my opinion, but then the first one is "just" your opinion.

ISAW wrote: »

so you accept the authority jackboot enforcers when it suits your personal whims but criticise "religious fundamentalists" when it doesn't?

I "accept" the moral opinion of the rest of society when I agree with the moral opinion of the rest of society, as I already said.

I assume by "jackboot enforces" you mean the police?

ISAW wrote: »

Just like any fundamentalist can plant a bomb because everyone else is wrong and their relativist position is right?

You apparently don't watch the news since fundamentalists plant bombs all the time because they don't agree with the moral opinion of the rest of society.

By your logic this should never happen because universal morality exists so everyone should know it is wrong, rather than just some people such as myself thinking it is wrong.

Doesn't the fact that these things happen demonstrate then that universal morality doesn't actually exist, that there are just the different opinions of people. I think it is wrong for anyone to blow up a school bus. The terrorist thinks it is ok for him to blow up a school bus.

Where is your precious universal morality when terrorists are blowing up buses? How is it solving the problem?

ISAW wrote: »

It is always wrong in your opinion but you accept that a society can bring in child abuse because "always wrong" is just a meaningless personal opinion?

All opinions are meaningless to those who disagree with them. My opinion is that no one should ever blow up a bus. You think the terrorist cares?

Again universal morality doesn't change that. Saying "It is a universal fact of nature that blowing up buses is wrong" doesn't stop terrorism if the terrorist disagrees with you.

ISAW wrote: »

Even if I did think rape was acceptable the point is i can't just be allowed to make it all up as I go along to suit myself. the point is that there are universal laws of nature which say certain things are against nature.

Say them where? Where can I go to hear or read the universal laws of nature?

ISAW wrote: »

Well nature would not have contradictory laws contrary to reason.

LOL. :rolleyes:

Contrary to who's notions of reason? Yours? The Pope's? Societies?

This is the central point here. Your moral view is as subjective as mine, but you find that for some reason deeply uncomfortable so you project this idea that it is actually an objective universal fact of nature.

Instead of finding out what the universal morality actually says (which you can't do, or at least seem at a loss to explain how you actually would) you simply go the other way, thinking that your subjective opinion of morality, and the subjective opinion of those you agree with and align yourself to, is what the this universal morality would say if we could just discover it, and this makes you feel better about your own moral opinion because you feel it is justified by something "higher" than lowly little you.

Nature would not have universal laws that don't agree with ISAW's reason is the nonsensical outcome of all this. Says who? Why would the natural law not say that gassing Jews is ok? Because that conflicts with your opinion, and the concept of a natural law that does this has no comfort for you and is thus pointless.

I'm sure the pedophile feels the same, in his mind it is reasonable for him to rape children so nature would not have a universal law that is different to that reasonable position. He then justifies his position not as his own opinion but as a universal law external to him so he doesn't have to take responsibility for it, it is just the way things are.

Like so many things in religion all this is simply an exercise in comfort, the comfort of feeling you don't have to justify your own opinions/views/judgments, that some other authority be it God or nature or what ever is making the decision for you.

Of course we reject such an idea as soon as the possibility that said authority might decide something that we disagree with. Robin has posted about this before, people always align themselves with notions of objective morality that already fit with their own concepts of morality. We believe the universe reflects our own beliefs, and this provides us with comfort. So you reject automatically the idea that this universal morality might actually say something that you strongly disagree with.

nozzferrahhtoo

ISAW wrote: »

He said ignoring and snipping out my other ten comments and especially at the end where I enumerated how one gets from "There is no God" to "we have to shoot people"

So you cant answer the question of where I said what you just claimed I said? No surprise there. I will answer all your points when you make them directed at things I have said, not things you have invented me saying.

nozzferrahhtoo

StealthRolex wrote: »

I sometimes wonder why atheists insist on living in Christian countries.

Christianity is just an idea. We all have ideas.

Your question would be just as valid if FF got a majority in the next election and you asked “Why do Green party supporters insist on living in a FF country?”

In other words, why would they NOT live in a Christian county? We all are part of a society and we all have the right to disagree with, and work against, ideas that exist in that society. We all do it every day. It just so happens that for some, like me, the idea that there is a non-human intelligence responsible for the creation and subsequent maintenance of our universe is one of the ones we work against and will continue to do so until someone gets around to providing even a shred of a scrap of evidence to lend it any credence.

StealthRolex

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Christianity is just an idea. We all have ideas.

Your question would be just as valid if FF got a majority in the next election and you asked “Why do Green party supporters insist on living in a FF country?”

In other words, why would they NOT live in a Christian county? We all are part of a society and we all have the right to disagree with, and work against, ideas that exist in that society. We all do it every day. It just so happens that for some, like me, the idea that there is a non-human intelligence responsible for the creation and subsequent maintenance of our universe is one of the ones we work against and will continue to do so until someone gets around to providing even a shred of a scrap of evidence to lend it any credence.

So you have problems with freedom of thought as well as speech. That figures. Atheistic regimes are suspected of having thought police.

In the meantime, have you tried providing a scrap of evidence to support your lack of credence?
If you want evidence from us then you have to provide your evidence to support your contrary position otherwise you are doing no more than facing the wind while flying at half mast.

And if you do walk up dead some morning and find yourself in Hell don't come running to this forum screaming you don't believe it.

A Primal Nut

PDN wrote: »

Also, if we look at all the people in history who have professed to be atheists, probably the vast majority of them have done so because they lived under the regimes led by these nutjobs and their acolytes.

The rest of your post was good, but this isn't true at all. Most atheists I know have religious parents. I know very people who are religious but had atheist parents or even parents of a different religion.

I can certainly understand why religious people point to Stalin, Pol Pot, etc when they are challenged that religious people commit a lot of evil, as a response its a fair answer. The fact is that when evil people do eveil things they will find a way to justify it to themselves, whether they are religious or not. Religious people tend to create rediculous interpretions of their religious texts (or sometimes realistic interpretations) to justify their actions. Atheist leaders might find other justifications for their actions, perhaps "ensuring the stability of their nation" or "I'm the best leader for this country, therefore anything that helps me stay in power is a good thing.

What makes powerful people do such evil things is fascinating, but I don't think their religion or lack of it has anything to do with it. Unfortunately it is human nature that the more power you have the more you will exploit it. Religion or lack of it might provide some justification in their minds but thats it.

My main criticism of religion in this context is how it can be used to control people and get them to do your bidding; for example people seem a lot more likely to follow a leader simply because he is the same religion, regardless of what evil he commits. We see this regularly in Muslim countries; for example very few muslims outside Iraq were angry about Saddam Hussein's actions invading Iran, Kuwait, etc as they are about Israel or America, simply because he is a Muslim. I'm not just talking about Christianity, Islam, etc but also so-called Atheist states like North Korea or USSR where Kim Jung-Il and Stalin put themselves out there as people to be worshipped.

Zombrex

StealthRolex wrote: »

And if you do walk up dead some morning and find yourself in Hell don't come running to this forum screaming you don't believe it.

And if you wake up dead and find you no longer exist don't come ... oh wait .. darn :pac:

monosharp

ISAW wrote: »

Well I say to you look at the facts! About 100,000,000 people dead in the 20th Century due to atheistic regimes which put atheism at the center of their philosophy!

The number of people who have been killed in all of history because of atheism is probably 0.

Your argument is completely void of logic.

Communist/etc regimes who were secular and/or atheistic killed millions of people, so atheism is responsible for killing those millions of people.

Basically the same as saying;

Capitalist/etc regimes who were religious and/or christian killed millions of people, so christianity is responsible for killing those millions of people.

Both are complete nonsense yet you continue to try to push the idea that because communist regimes happened to be atheistic that atheism is responsible for their actions.

Atheism is not a philosophy or a belief system or an 'idea' which people kill or die for. Atheism is a lack of belief, a lack of philosophy.

If an atheist kills someone, he was not killed in the name of atheism anymore then a fat person killing someone would be in the name of being fat.

Christianity is a belief system where people have killed and died for. Christianity is a belief, it is trying to promote something.

If a christian kills someone (for non-religious reasons) Its not killing in the name of christianity.

If a christian kills someone because of a religious reason (god told me, that guys a sinner and must be killed etc) then it is killing in the name of christianity.

Killing in the name of a religion is possible because of what a religion is, it tells its followers to do something.
Killing in the name of atheism is not possible because of what it is, it doesn't tell its followers to do anything.

People were killed under communist regimes for several reasons, people who disagreed with the government, religious people were killed because religions were seen as getting in the way of the government and establishing a communist system, people were killed because they simply were religious or homosexual or of a different race or etc etc.

All of these reasons are political, they have nothing to do with atheism because atheism says nothing about them.

Its like saying that the crusaders killed people because of christianity, they didn't. They killed people because of christian doctrine and christian leadership.

Atheism has no doctrine, atheism has no leadership.

People killed under communist regimes were killed for political reasons, for religious reasons, for the hell of it.

The epistemological and ontological point is if you abandon God you have to come up with something else.

No you don't. Belief in a deity is as unnecessary as a belief in astrology.

We have observed 100,000,000 deaths by regimes promoting State atheism. FACT! Just because you don't care about that does not make it untrue.

Sure we have observed that, so what ? They were promoting atheism for political reasons, killing people had nothing to do with atheism.

If you allow people to just do as they like you get hedonism and anarchy.

I quite like Hedonism.

Regimes promoting atheism killed them. What they did was wrong! It will always be wrong! It isn't just my opinion.

Hitler promoted vegetarianism. Hitler killed millions of people, therefore vegetarianism is responsible for the deaths of millions of people. :rolleyes:

Your argument is complete nonsense.

Zombrex

Saying people were killed because of Atheism is a bit like saying people were killed because of Vegetarianism. Plenty of people have been killed by those who think eating meat should be stopped, but that isn't vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is not eating meat. It is very hard to kill someone else by not eating meat, just like it is very difficult to kill people by not believing in gods.

I've not issue with people saying people have been killed because of versions of Communism, Anti-theism, or even Humanism.

People seem to equate atheism with anti-theism. Anti-theism has killed people. I'm an anti-theist and I've no issue saying that, I think it is something anyone who is an anti-theist should recognize and ask themselves the lengths they would go to promote anti-theism.

But atheism? THat is simply a misunderstanding of what atheism is.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

Yeah but it is sort of hard to spark a violent revolution to over throw the oppressive Christian totalitarian state when you don't live in the country

This would be which oppressive christian totalitarian state? Ones responsible for a million deaths in the last five centuries? As opposed to the atheist alternative who had their violent revolutions and in one century just two atheistic regimes alone Stalin's and Mao's killed about 70,000,000 of their own people? Sorry comrade I don't want to buy into your revolution.

ISAW

Wicknight wrote: »

Saying people were killed because of Atheism is a bit like saying people were killed because of Vegetarianism.

But saying they were killed because of religion is acceptable?

By the way did Lenin say
"vegetarianism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."

OR

"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of vegetarianism ."


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65525410&postcount=47

EVERY atheist state in history has been a TOTALITARIAN state.

The modern, open, progressive, free, pluralist democracies,
in which even the ATHEISTS choose to live,
are MAJORITY RELIGIOUS societies

I've not issue with people saying people have been killed because of versions of Communism, Anti-theism, or even Humanism.

People seem to equate atheism with anti-theism. Anti-theism has killed people. I'm an anti-theist and I've no issue saying that, I think it is something anyone who is an anti-theist should recognize and ask themselves the lengths they would go to promote anti-theism.

But atheism? That is simply a misunderstanding of what atheism is.

[fasgnadh]
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.atheism,alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.agnosticism,alt.religion
Subject: Re: The Bloody History of Atheism
Message-ID: <Y5fBn.21595$pv.15364@news-server.bigpond.net.au>
n the contrary, atheists advocate the killing of christians, and
History shows that atheist states carry the threat out:

Atheists want to continue the killing:

http://www.atheistnexus.org/photo/2182797:Photo:17475?context=latest

They carry out their threats, crucifying Christians;

http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/communism_photos2/44camboyano.jpg

Atheists attempting to make the ludicrous claim that atheist states,
persecuting religions, were theist, are simply lying.

It won't work because the atheist architects made clear why the 100%
atheist leadership of the Central Committee were implementing atheist
policies;


"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

But it was not just the Atheism of the leadership,
but of the entire State apparatus;

The Atheist leadership's policies were implemented under
the Red Terror, via gulags and executions, the use of
every arm of the state for anti-religious propaganda
and the forced indoctrination of CHILDREN! B^[

“We do not fight against believers and not even clergymen.
WE FIGHT AGAINST GOD to snatch believers from Him.”
-Vechernaia Moskva, a Soviet newspaper

“Let us drive out the Capitalists from the earth,
and God from Heaven!” (early Soviet slogan)

"the state established atheism as the only scientific truth."
- Daniel Peris,
"Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless"
Cornell University Press 1998 ISBN 9780801434853

"Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden"

"Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested.
In 1918, the Cheka under Felix Dzerzhinsky executed over
3000 Orthodox clergymen of all ranks.
Some were drowned in ice-holes or poured over with cold water
in winter until they turned to ice-pillars.
- John Shelton Curtis, The Russian Church and the Soviet State
(Boston: Little Brown, 1953)
[/fasgnadh]

Zombrex

ISAW wrote: »

This would be which oppressive christian totalitarian state? Ones responsible for a million deaths in the last five centuries? As opposed to the atheist alternative who had their violent revolutions and in one century just two atheistic regimes alone Stalin's and Mao's killed about 70,000,000 of their own people? Sorry comrade I don't want to buy into your revolution.

Yeah but God wiped out the entire human race bar 6 people. So if we are doing the numbers game .... :rolleyes:

ISAW wrote: »

But saying they were killed because of religion is acceptable?

It is for religions that have doctrines of deity ordering genocide, such as the Abrahamic religions (Judaism/Christianity/Islam). The idea of a God sanctioned war is common place in Christian history.

The excuse Well we believe God doesn't tell us to kill other people anymore is unsurprisingly little comfort.

You will notice atheism doesn't have this doctrine (or any doctrine for that matter). Communism inserted atheism into its systems because Marx hated religion, so if you want to give out about that go ahead.

ISAW wrote: »

fasgnadh

Explain to me again why I care what this guys thinks?

Are you fasgnadh? Or are you just too lazy to do anything other than copy and paste his posts from alt.atheism?

monosharp

ISAW wrote: »

But saying they were killed because of religion is acceptable?

When they were indeed killed because of religion, yes.

e.g. A person who happens to be christian going on a murderous rampage with an AK47 killing loads of people. The motivation turns out to be bullying/mental problem/political etc. This is not killing because of religion.

A person who happens to be christian killing other people because they are not of the same religion (Inquisition). This is killing in the name of religion.

By the way did Lenin say
"vegetarianism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of vegetarianism ."

No one has denied that atheism is linked to communism. There are several reasons for this which make sense if you want to create a 'workers paradise' then religion only gets in the way.

But that has nothing to do with stalin etc killing people.

[fasgnadh]
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.atheism,alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,alt.agnosticism,alt.religion
Subject: Re: The Bloody History of Atheism
Message-ID: <Y5fBn.21595$pv.15364@news-server.bigpond.net.au>
n the contrary, atheists advocate the killing of christians, and
History shows that atheist states carry the threat out:
.........

Why would you possibly think that quoting someone else off the internet is a good source for your argument ?

ISAW

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

So you cant answer the question of where I said what you just claimed I said? No surprise there. I will answer all your points when you make them directed at things I have said, not things you have invented me saying.

Your question:
Attempt please, if only just once on this thread, to adumbrate the logical pathway from start to finish from the sentence “I do not think there is a non-human creative intelligence” to “I must kill lots of people”. Your inability to do this speaks volumes.

My reply:
"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

"You can't have a revolution without firing squads"

Above you have a belief in atheism ( disbelief in non human creative intelligence), a regime which has central to its motivation that spreading atheism is of supreme importance ( just like the fundamentalist aggressive atheist today) and a claim that in this revolution they will kill lots of people.

QED