Things Atheists Didn’t Do

By Dave Hitt on Oct 24, 2008 in Atheism, Featured, Religion, Things Atheists Didn't Do

Here’s a list of things atheists didn’t do over the past month or so.

An Atheist did not set fire to his 11 year old niece for wearing lipstick. She has burns over 90% of her body and is not expected to survive.

No atheist decreed it was OK to kill the owners of Satellite TV stations that broadcast “immoral” content. That was a Islamic Cleric who also said Mickey Mouse should be killed. Atheists know that Mickey Mouse isn’t real either.

Atheists did not vandalize the homes of a half dozen politicians in Minnesota. They didn’t spray paint threats and a reference to Psalms 2 on their homes.

Atheists didn’t rape a nun in India. That was Hindus, who have also killed 30 people and left thousands homeless in their attacks on Christians.

Atheists did not gun down an aid worker in Afghanistan. That was, of course, Muslims. But hell, she was a woman, so they probably only consider it half a murder (which means they’ll have to work harder to fill their monthly quota.)

No atheist announced that women should now be limited to a one-eyed veil. That as an Islamic holy man.

It wasn’t an atheist court who sentenced a man to death for asking about woman’s rights in class. That was, of course, a Muslim court. But they changed their mind, and now he’s only sentenced to twenty years in prison. Allah is merciful.

Atheists don’t punish women for being raped. But if you’re an Islamic rape victim who can’t find four men to testify they witnessed the crime, you’ll be beaten if you’re single and stoned to death if you’re married. Imagine how nasty the punishment would be if Islam wasn’t the religion of peace.

No atheist teacher burned crosses into his students arms. And I’ll bet you a fine cigar or the refreshing beverage of your choice that the students that rallied to support him weren’t atheists either.

Meanwhile, what do you get from atheists? Tasty, tasty bacon!

107 Comment(s)

Bacon’s the reason I’m not a vegetarian anymore … mmm … bacon …

Derek | Oct 25, 2008 | Reply
Atheism also gave that little girl the power to levitate, even though she has no legs.

Rumpledforeskin | Oct 26, 2008 | Reply
Hooray for atheism and it’s magical science!

Derek | Oct 26, 2008 | Reply
Yeah, it’s not like an atheist has ever done anything morally reprehensible. Only people who happen to claim a religion do anything evil.

Benguin | Oct 26, 2008 | Reply
exactly

oboe | Oct 26, 2008 | Reply
True there are reprehensible atheist, but I rarely see reprehensible actions based on the lack of belief in god. If I’m wrong (and I won’t deny it is a possibility) I would like to know.

Simon | Oct 26, 2008 | Reply
I LOL’d

Aubrey | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
Benguin, if a Baptist robs a car, or a Muslim steals a can of tuna, it won’t make this list (or subsequent lists – I’m thinking of making this a regular feature). This is only crimes and atrocities based on religous belief.

And it’s a very shortened list, culled from about 60 stories I had saved over the past month or so.

Hittman | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
You need to do this every month!

Jack | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for creating this list.

As a new unbeliever, I’m interested in donating my time/money to an atheist based community organization. Can you list some off the top of your head? I think many people look down on atheists because they don’t see atheist community organizations like ones for other religious groups.

Anonymous | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
um excuse me mister anonymous atheist, thats because you dont have a religious group…
if you make yourself a separate community you’ll be the same as these religious groups you so hate. there will be atheist extremists trying to hurt christians like these Christians youre pointing out are trying to hurt atheists

i know you dont believe in a god and all, i respect that, im not trying to convert. but dont hate the faith because some people out there are idiots. the bible, whether you view it as fact or fiction is actually a very good moral basis to live your life by. the problem is nobody reads the whole thing.

even pastors, like that crazy baptist fellow going around saying god hates fags, get it wrong.

the fact is, these people, the christians at least, are deviants from the real faith. most people are deviants from the real faith, because nobody wants to listen to the whole bible. but thats no reason to condemn us all

an atheist friend and i were talking one day, and we decided that the personification of moral standards was a good idea. with a god telling you waht to do you suddenly have incentive to not do bad things. long story short, its a good way to teach morals, whether you believe or not. i beleive that even an unbeliever should allow the bible to continue existence for solely that reason. if more of us allowed ourselves to see the big picture we would understand how to do this

meh | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
You need to do this every month!

Considering the response and traffic it generated, I think I will.

As a new unbeliever, I’m interested in donating my time/money to an atheist based community organization. Can you list some off the top of your head?

I don’t know of any. Why not start one?

On a side note, I’m laughing at the google ads being generated here – for Muslim dating sites. Nothing like a good “setting kids on fire” or “killing rape victims” story to encourage finding a Muslim mate!

Dave Hitt | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
What I don’t like about this article is that it DOES NOT point out that these were individuals, not the WHOLE organization. I really hate it when people think like this….honestly. Just because ONE person does something assinined doesn’t mean they ALL act like that. Personally, I’m Pagan, but some of the nicest people I have ever met are Christian. ONE is not representative of the whole.

Other wise, yes, those people were a number of cuss words I am not going to type out. Burn crosses into the students arms? Honestly, wth?

Zhire | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
People will kill over ideology, no matter whether that ideology is called “religion” or not, and usually, it will go against the beliefs in the mainstream of that ideology.

pubbie | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
the above “believer” who claims he and his “atheist friend” decided and agreed that having “incentive to not do bad things” in the form of the bible (as a moral compass) was a good or even necessary thing….

Either you’re a liar or your “atheist friend” is a moron. Seriously. If i needed a fiction novel to tell me how to behave, to know right from wrong, I don’t believe I could be considered a being of strong character in any way, shape, or form. I’d simply be another moron, aka sheep in the flock.

I’d rather not be another sheep in the flock. Keep your “incentive to not do bad things” the rest of us will use logic and reason. Thanks.

Hey while you’re at it, make sure when you follow your “incentive to not do bad things” you actually read it, and swallow exactly what it tells you are punishments for violating and ignoring the “incentives to not do bad things” because those incentives include all sorts of neato heinous acts like stoning and murder.

Great moral guide, really. Incentive to not do bad things…

kry | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
Funny thing is, there’s a word for these people. “Fundies”. They’re the few, extreme individuals who’ve taken their warped and corrupted views of their religion and just happen to be louder and more obnoxious then the many other religious people who are smart enough to realize that, for example, setting your child on fire for wearing lipstick is insane.

People really need to back off and stop accusing those of us who are genuinely good people of being the same as these extremists because we share a religion.

Lark | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
an atheist friend and i were talking one day, and we decided that the personification of moral standards was a good idea. with a god telling you what to do you suddenly have incentive to not do bad things

Then he’s a pretty unique atheist, quite unlike any I’ve ever met. Atheists derive their morals from reason and logic, with no need of “personification” to guide them.

What I don’t like about this article is that it DOES NOT point out that these were individuals, not the WHOLE organization.

That should be rather obvious. But the point is these people are driven to this behavior by religion. Religion inspires them to act this way. It doesn’t inspire everyone to act this way, obviously.

In the case of Christians it’s a small minority. In the case of Hindus it’s a small minority. In the case of Muslims it’s a HUGE minority. Depending on where you do the survey, anywhere between 25%-40% support violence in the service of Allah. And those were surveys in non-muslum countries.

Good people will do good things. Bad people will do bad things. But if you want good people to do bad things, nothing works quite as well as religion.

BTW, every pagan I’ve known has been very nice, very friendly, and very peaceful. Hope I don’t get taken to task for that generalization.

I don’t remember where I first found the picture of the kid, but I googled the phrase “Reject Christ, Receive Bacon” and found several variations of it. In all of them, the girl had legs. I have no idea why anyone would photopshop her legs out – I guess they liked the hovering effect.

Dave Hitt | Oct 27, 2008 | Reply
Only a complete dumb ass would argue that the actions of the individual condemns the entire group. Allow me to give you an example: A cop beats the crap out of some guy so you disband the entire force? Who are you gonna call? Ghost busters? You would be the first to call the cops as soon as someone looks sideways at you so leave out the “I’m the great individualist” and go back to your comic books. OK, so you don’t believe in the day of judgement. What, are you trying to make a career out of it? You conveniently forget about all the lives that have been saved by the charity work of religious groups. But then you are so dumb that you read a piece of journalism and accept it word for word as Truth and then pass it on as your own original thought, just like the vanishing weapons of mass-destruction. Have a good look at the society you live in and ask yourself if it could be improved. And if the answer is yes then accept that people like you will never be involved in that improvement.

Mohammad Salim | Oct 28, 2008 | Reply
@Simon

The Khmer Rouge (see: killing fields) sought and killed believers under a mistaken notion that those who believed in a god were somehow responsible for causing evil. An ironic and scary historical memory, especially in light of the accusations modern-day atheists throw at believers these days.

Totally Consumed | Oct 28, 2008 | Reply
Mohammad – rather than address the issue presented you’ve chosen to create a fictional version of me (a complete straw man) and then attacked it. How very Islamic of you.

Totally Consumed– The Khmer Rouge’s motivation was communism, not atheism. Religions were just one of their targets. They also killed intellectuals (basically anyone with an education, and if you were multi-lingual, you were doomed), business people, anyone with ties to the outside world – hell, they executed people who picked wild berries to fight off starvation (they considered that capitalism). Cool blog, BTW.

Hittman | Oct 28, 2008 | Reply
Hittman-Strawman, Looks like I hit a nerve there. Allow me to point out a couple of things to you. This is how it works: You say something with which I don’t agree. I give the reasons why I don’t agree with you. You then debunk my argument and shout YEEHAW and look for high fives. But how do you deal with the points I made? Like some kid who takes his football home. You say that I haven’t addressed the issue presented but I would guess that everyone who reads this, Athiest or otherwise would disagree with you. You can bury your head in the sand and pretend that I never challenged your beliefs but this is not a private conversation. There are people out there genuinely interested in the state of the world and in the direction it seems to be moving. We can’t build jails quickly enough. Even children have to be put behind bars. Whose fault is that? Believers or non-believers? You make the point that it’s better to be an Athiest than a believer. You think that by saying “because I’m an Athiest I have no religious affiliation”, it makes you some sort of an individualist. Like the punk rockers who hated to be stereotyped and didn’t see that they had created themselves as a new stereotype. All I’m saying is that I don’t agree with your religious beliefs Hittman-Strawman. You say that I created a fictional version of you. You think that you can have a pop at my beliefs and then whine when I come back at you with a hay-maker. And then as your get-out you hope for support by using the phrase “how very Islamic of you”. If I had used the name ‘Gabriel’ or ‘Samuel’ or ‘Moses’ or even ‘Shitforbrains’ instead of ‘Mohammad Salim’ would your response have been any different? Come on, tell your readers. Would you have described my comments as very Christian? I stand by what I said. I think you’re a bullshitter who is not content to wallow in his own dung but who advertises for others to join him. And when you’re an old man I bet you’ll sit rocking on your porch and complain about the state of the world, and you’ll offer up your suggestions about how to improve it. Maybe then you’ll remember the phrase “you’re a fucking hypocrite”.

Mohammad Salim | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
The whole world would be much better off, not having any religion, then believing is not knowing. The problem with any religion is that it claims to have the one and only truth and thus inevitably have, due to the inner doubt of self-believing, making them fanatic and fascistic to impose their believe to all others, regardless which religion it is. They can feel and know, that believing is not knowledge. This schizophrenic fact makes them even more dangerous.

We already have so much junk science infected by religious interpretations that even a severe smoking ban is spreading as the New World Religion of the New World Order (NWO) around the world.

(US-)Governmental action and judgements are infected with religion, a fact which paves the way to dictatorship and civil wars. We thus are regressing to middle age standards, where clerical power was fully mingled with political power and at some times even were war faring each other.

Carolus Magnus | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
You could go to secular.org and donate to their cause. They fund the ONLY group who lobbies for non-believer rights on the hill out in Washington D.C. to make sure that all those overly ‘god’ minded folks in politics don’t let it get out of hand.

Obviously they need help, by looking at the past 8 or so years.

Derek Colanduno | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
Mohamed – I didn’t address your fantasies point by point because you didn’t address anything in the original post, and blog comments should be short and pithy. But I’ll indulge you just this once and address a few of them.

You would be the first to call the cops as soon as someone looks sideways at you so leave out the “I’m the great individualist” and go back to your comic books.

If you click on the Police State category, in the column on your right, you’ll see just how wrong you are. Note that one of the posts is titled “Whatever You Do, Don’t Call The Cops.” The police are not your friends. They on the side of Big Brother, not the citizens.

You won’t find “I’m the great individualist” anywhere on this rather large site, which makes your claim a classic strawman argument.

Have a good look at the society you live in and ask yourself if it could be improved. And if the answer is yes then accept that people like you will never be involved in that improvement.

Many years ago I estimated the time I’ve spent personally working for charitable organizations, and it came to several thousand hours. It was mostly for performing arts organizations, including one that would not exist today if it weren’t for considerable work put in by myself and a few other people. I’m especially proud of that one.

BTW, by some people’s standards I am and old man, and I do enjoy sitting on the porch bitching while enjoying a fine cigar. But I can also look back at all the good I’ve done, and be happy. And I didn’t need a sky-daddy to do good (and occasionally great) things for my community. In fact, it wasn’t until after I abandoned religion that I really started contributing.

You conveniently forget about all the lives that have been saved by the charity work of religious groups.

I wonder if you compare “lives saved” with “lives destroyed” which would be greater? I’m guessing “destroyed.” That is, however, a project that would take more time than I have to undertake.

You make the point that it’s better to be an Atheist than a believer.

Really? Where, exactly, did I make that claim?

I’m looking forward to the day when a person’s religious belief doesn’t matter. I consider atheism rather trivial – no more important than a disbelief in Santa or the Easter Bunny. I don’t care what people believe, and don’t want to have to care. The only reason atheism is considered important is because so many religious people consider it important. I cover this rather extensively in episode # 76 of the Quick Hitts Podcast. You might want to give it a listen. (http://www.davehitt.com/podcasts/) But whatever you do, don’t listen to episode # 71 – it might make your head explode.

If I had used the name ‘Gabriel’ or ‘Samuel’ or ‘Moses’ or even ‘Shitforbrains’ instead of ‘Mohammad Salim’ would your response have been any different?

Only a little. You self-identified as a Muslim, and currently Muslims are more responsible, vastly more responsible, for religious atrocities, than other sects. You ignored this undeniable fact.

However, if you had signed the post as “Shitforbrains” I might have complemented you on your advanced self-awareness.

We can’t build jails quickly enough. Even children have to be put behind bars. Whose fault is that? Believers or non-believers?

Atheists make up 10-15% of the US population, and .02% of the prison population, which answers your question rather nicely, don’t you think?

Now, if you can offer an explanation of why Islam is so racist, homophobic, intolerant of other beliefs, tolerant of pedophilia, misogynist, and horribly, horribly violent, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it. Otherwise, I’m done with you.

Dave Hitt | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply
Hitman-Strawman,You must have overlooked the opening line in my first message to you. The line about condemning the entire group because of the actions of an individual. You think that by highlighting these individuals and publishing their actions gives you the right to take the piss out of the entire group. So if one member of that group does something which you don’t like then,according to you, all the members of that group are up for the same attack. Is that a fair analysis of the reason for your list in the first place? In other words, you didn’t publish your list so that the general public would feel some sympathy for the religious community. You did it either so that you could be identified as being removed from these groups, (individualist), or because your readers might nod in agreement and award you some kudos for compiling the list. I don’t think your list is funny. I genuinely believe that it’s dangerous. Hitler’s thugs used exactly the same propaganda methods in the 1930s. So what do you gain now by repeating this kind of stuff. I mean you personally, what’s your angle? How can you defend yourself by talking about the good you have done with your charity work, and then point the finger at people whose beliefs encourage them to do the same as you? I applaud your charity work. The performing arts are very important and are a great solace to many people and only an idiot would poke fun at those who are involved in that particular profession. But it wouldn’t be difficult. After all, the Internet is packed with performing artists getting their kit off. Look Hitman-Strawman, we live in different worlds. You sit behind locked doors with a gun-rack close to hand and tell your readers how dangerous it is out there. You don’t need the cops because your society hasn’t really advanced much since the mid 1800s. But I swear to you, whether you believe it or not, there is another world out there where life’s not like that. Here in Ireland where I live even the cops don’t have guns. My keys are in the front door lock right now and the streets belong to me. My neighbours wouldn’t think that it was hip or cool to criticise each other. Over here we’re into support, not division. We tolerate, not destroy. I’ll finish by addressing your final paragraph. If you take out the word ‘Islam’, you can insert many other words which will fill the same space quite nicely.’Society’ for example, or ‘America’ or ‘We’. Do you get my point Hitman-Strawman? Instead of educating people out of the mess we’re all in you are making the problem worse by your ignorance. Your bar-stool knowledge of Islam is so far removed from the truth that it’s beyond laughable. Let me ask you something. If you wanted to buy a new car would you ask a Ford salesman if Toyota were any good? What I’m suggesting might surprise you but I think you should seek out a Mosque near you and visit for an hour or so. Is that too much to ask? Then you can come back to us with your thoughts and instead of dismissing you for your ignorance we can judge what you say based on research. On my part if you suggest my visiting someplace that you feel might expand my knowledge I promise you that I’ll go and I’ll report back honestly. Lets see where this takes us. Assalamu Alikum and regards from Mohammad Salim.

Mohammad Salim | Oct 30, 2008 | Reply
Awesome list, somebody posted it on Craigslist Atheism forum, a bunch of us saw it. you should think about talking in the forum, its just a bunch of slighty sadistic, sex obsessed atheists passing time lol.

Oh, and the person who posted this list in the Atheism Forum made sure to put a link to your blog, so you can rest easy knowing credit was given where it was deserved.

AJ | Oct 30, 2008 | Reply
You fools In India Hindu never raped a nun. that is all Indian media bias initiated by Sonia maino the widow of the former Indian Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi… Christian terrorist killed Swami Lakshmanananda 84 year old a sage committed to non-violence. that is the truth. stop converting people you morons

Martin | Nov 3, 2008 | Reply
Well said Martin. These people don’t care what lies they publish just so long as it stirs up hatred. I remember not so long ago a children’s cartoon appeared which showed Muslim kids becoming suicide bombers. It later transpired that the funding for this cartoon came from one of these HATE groups. We all know how they operate. If you throw enough shit at the wall some of it will stick. And when anyone challenges them and exposes their aims they have the resources to just close up and move to another site. Anyone who believes any of the crap here is obviously as ignorant as the pricks who invent it so they are all in good company. Regards, Mohammad Salim.

Mohammad Salim | Nov 5, 2008 | Reply
I hadn’t heard of Swami Lakshmanananda before, so I looked him up. Turns out no one is really sure who murdered him, but people are blaming Maoists and Christians. If it turns out to be Christians, that would be a good addition to a future “things atheists didn’t do” article.

Mohammad, I’d be a little cautious when it comes to cartoons. Was it atheists whose riots resulted in over 100 deaths and millions in property damage over cartoons, or was it some other group? And just who was that group, Mohammad?

Hittman | Nov 5, 2008 | Reply
Ok, so with the rise of atheism comes the rise of rapes, murders, suicides and crime…. Research this before going on about how wonderful you are as an atheist. There are bad people everywhere. I don’t say your evil because your cousin raped someone. Just because your related doesn’t mean you believe the same things. Also your throwing in several different religions together. So that’s the equivalent of finding someone in your town that’s bad and blaming the whole town for it… But you’ve already made up your mind to what you’ll believe. A true follower of Christ wouldn’t do these things. There is evil everywhere what’s wrong with following the morals outlined in the Bible?

Don’t kill, steal, lie. Respect others and believe in God. You decided that God wasn’t real or perhaps something he said you didn’t agree with… Committing adultery? Yeah you know what people are happier with one person for their whole lives. Imagine a world where no one would be hurt and have their hearts ripped out by ruthless players and bitches. That sounds like a great world to me. Share some love, and work to get over hatred.

Evolution hasn’t been proven. There is substantial proof of a God using science that disproves the big band and evolution… It is easy for someone ignorant to mock. Read what this site has to say then come and talk to me.

http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/21/65/

I love you and wish you the best of luck.

Ross | Dec 18, 2008 | Reply
Ok, so with the rise of atheism comes the rise of rapes, murders, suicides and crime…. Research this before going on about how wonderful you are as an atheist.

Better check your stats again Ross. Violent crime has been steadily decreasing for the past two decades. Using your logic the rise of atheism is leading to a more peaceful society.

I don’t use your logic, though, and don’t attribute the dramatic drop to the rise in atheism. Unfortunately, atheism isn’t rising enough to make the difference. Atheists are just being more vocal and coming out of the closet now, which is why some people think there are suddenly a lot more of them. We were always here, you’re just noticing us more now.

Depending on how you ask survey questions, about 10% of the US population is atheist. If atheists were more violent than the general public there would be more than 10% of them in the general prison population. If they were less violent you’d see less than 10%.

Atheists make up about .2% of the prison population. A tiny fraction of a percent!

Also your throwing in several different religions together.

All religions should be thrown in together, as they are all based on unverifiable superstition. That being said, it’s obvious that some are more evil than others.

There is evil everywhere what’s wrong with following the morals outlined in the Bible?

Genocide, slavery and incest are wrong, even though the Bible approves of them. I don’t want to stone my kids for being disrespectful. I don’t want to be forced to marry my brother’s wife if he dies before they have children. I don’t hate homosexuals. I don’t want to kill unbelievers, as Deuteronomy commands. And I don’t see anything wrong with eating tasty tasty bacon. The bible, as a source of morals, really sucks.

Don’t kill, steal, lie. Respect others and believe in God.

We’re in complete agreement on four out of five. The difference is I don’t need a god to be good. I can give you perfectly logical, rational, God free reasons not to lie, steal, cheat, murder or commit adultery. I’m honest and peaceful because that’s the best way to have a happy and prosperous life. I’m good for goodness sake (even though I don’t believe in Santa either). And while I’m glad that people who need the fear of eternal torment to be good subscribe to that superstition, I would be happier (and they would be too) if they’d subscribe to the logical reasons to behave. When morals are based on the whims of an imaginary friend, the only thing needed to make good people bad is to convince them it’s what God wants.

I would suggest learning the gruesome details of the Inquisition. For five hundred years, with the blessing of God, innocent people were subjected to the most gruesome, painful tortures imaginable. And today the biggest threat to civilization is an organized group of violent, racist, misogynist barbarians whose core belief is killing everyone who doesn’t believe in their god.

You decided that God wasn’t real or perhaps something he said you didn’t agree with… Committing adultery?

I decided God wasn’t real when I earnestly sought evidence for his existence and found none. None at all.

BTW, the highest rates of divorce, adultery, and illegitimate births are in the Bible belt, which would seem to indicate that godliness causes sexual immorality.

Yeah you know what people are happier with one person for their whole lives.

Some people are. I am. I’ve been with the same woman for thirty years. But it’s not up to me to tell other people how to live. I know of some very successful open marriages. Nor will I condemn someone who loves someone of the same gender. Or someone who prefers to sleep around. It’s none of my business. It’s none of yours either. 90% of the problems in the world are caused by people minding other people’s business, usually at the behest of their religion.

Imagine a world where no one would be hurt and have their hearts ripped out by ruthless players and bitches. That sounds like a great world to me. Share some love, and work to get over hatred.

John Lennon said it more succinctly: “Imagine no religion.”

I used to be a creationist. Then I grew up and embraced reality. Evolution is a solid, established fact. I used to debate creationists, just for fun, but I’m too busy now, and consider it a waste of my time. It’s like debating the geocentric model of the universe.

Dave Hitt | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
Hi Dave,

The Shankaracharya school of thought of Hinduism(started at 5 century AD), is a dangerous offshoot of hinduism.It is as dangerous as jihadi islam and crusading christianity.The Adi Shankaracharya on the pretex of reviving hinduism made many nasty thinghs

1)The buddisth monks were called to debate and when they lost debate,they had to commit suicide in boiling oil.

2)Introduction and authorization of caste system in hinduism
Here is a clip depicting it:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXrGq_yS0B8

You should also add the above thinghs in your list.

Since Gandhi believed and encouraged the shankaracharya off shoot of hinduism,my views of Gandhi are not so positive.

What made Gandhi to overlook the heinious acts committed by Shankaracharya.

Why did Gandhi not try to remove caste system?

Instead he opposed B.R.Ambedkar who wanted to remove caste system and untouchability.

Also he allowed Nehru (Who comes from “so called higher caste” Brahmin) to be a 1st prime minister of India,at the cost of India’s partition and loss of millions of lives, and nehru’s children Indira and Rajiv Gandhi were ruling India as if its monarchy.Is this a real democracy.

There was a concept called as Sanyas (separation of Church and state) in ancient India, the kings had to bequeath his kingdom if he wanted to practice religion. And our ancient rulers strictly adhered to it. Until Emperor Ashoka practiced Buddhism while he was king. It was Gandhi advocated Ashoka’s concept of Hinduism in Governence. And many intellects even Hindu intellectuals like Aurgobindo had opposed the introduction of merger of state and church by Gandhi. But Gandhi used example of Ashoka to twart the efforts of separation of Church and state. Is this naivety or hypocrisy on part of Gandhi.

Hinduism was a word loosely coined to people who were staying on the Indian side of Hindukush mountains. The IndianNobel Prize-winnerAmartya Sen, in an interview with Pranab Bardhan for the California Magazine published in the July-August 2006 edition by the University of California, Berkeley states

“In some ways people had got used to the idea that India was spiritual and religion-oriented. That gave a leg up to the religious interpretation of India, despite the fact that Sanskrit had a larger atheistic literature than exists in any other classical language. Even within the Hindu tradition, there are many people who were atheist. Madhava Acharya, the remarkable 14th century philosopher, wrote this rather great book called Sarvadarshansamgraha, which discussed all the religious schools of thought . The first chapter is “Atheism” – a very strong presentation of the argument in favor of atheism and materialism.”

“Sanskrit has a larger atheistic literature than exists in any other classical language. Speaking of India as a Hindu civilization may be comforting to the Hindu fundamentalist, but it is an odd reading of India.”
Ancient India and also in pre independence India there were atheistic offshoots of hinduism like nastika(hedonistic atheism) by Charvaka, asthetic atheism like buddhism and jainism. Even in Islam in India there were moderate forms like Sufism, Kabir Panthis who used to pray to both hindu and muslim Gods. But the Indian government which is Gandhi Nehru family never encouraged these branches, instead they have encouraged Fundamentalistic Shankarcharyas hinduism, Jihadi Islam and crusading christianity. So that they can rule India.

I strongly disagree with Martin | Nov 3, 2008/ even though I don’t like Nehru Gandhi Hypocrisy. The comments on which I will be doing soon. Still yet to develop my writing skills

Ashish Patil | Dec 24, 2008 | Reply
hitler, joseph stalin and paul pots were atheist. its not right to blame terrible things that happen on peoples beliefs, instead just blame it on the person.

truth | Jun 29, 2009 | Reply
I’d just like to point out that all these horrible punishments listed in the Bible that you keep bringing up, are all Old Testament stuff. With Jesus, there was a new covenant made, that made all those rules obsolete. So, for Christians, those rules are a part of history and NOT practice.
I’d also like to point out that, while an athiest can certainly be a moral person, a good Christian isn’t morally good out of a fear of hell, but instead out of a love for God. There is an important difference there.
Oh, and one last thing. As decent and moral as all the athiests I have ever met have been, there does seem to be one glaring shortcoming; the virtue of humility.

Aphrodite | Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
@Aphrodite

I’m sorry if you have a tendency toward dualistic thinking, but its rather hard to understand your Christianese. You see, many of the terms you use such as “humility” have a different applicable meaning determined by what is often referred to as the “world-view” of each individual.

Humility as defined:

* a disposition to be humble; a lack of false pride;

* a humble feeling; “he was filled with humility at the sight of the Pope”

You can see how specifics may be wise when claiming such a broad generalization (that is, if accuracy and logical consistency are important to you).

A person who is both an atheist and naturalist (because you may not be able to tell the difference) would consider the significance and pertinence of “humility”, to be very different from a Christian Theist due to the definition of the word.

Although it varies depending on denomination and interpretation, it seems a fairly basic essential to Christianity that humans are innately sinful, wicked, and broken.(original sin) As such, any good that a person is capable of is due only to the goodness of their god, not themselves.

Conversely, those who have a naturalistic mindset may conclude that if no spiritual realm is to exist, then all the good that a person does is a result of their conscious decisions.

do I have to make the connection for you? probably. Who draws the line between pride and humility? Who measures the goodness of man? Who decides whether your pride is earned or false? You would argue that it is your God, and another may say society, and still another may say it varies situationally. So in order to have an effective discourse, the parties involved must first be able to understand eachother’s world-view, then understand the vast ways in which that world view contorts the “generally accepted” definitions of the words used to communicate your thoughts. This isn’t black and white, its reality. Its more fluid and complex than is convenient to believe but its still wonderful.

(these are generalized instances but they help to convey the concept, that we must be as specific as possible if we wish to communicate effectively across world-views.)

BUkow | Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
@BUkow

Thank you for proving my point. I think I’ll leave it at that.

Aphrodite | Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
This makes no sense. I am gonna quote this. “Based on religious belief.”

Atheism has no belief. You cannot compare two different things like this.

You cannot compare a belief system (or set of belief) with something that has no belief system.

Jarin | Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
I enjoyed this list. Ideology, defined as religion or not, will always generate disgusting acts of violence and irrational behavior. Fortunately, certain atheists of today have the benefits of living in a postmodernist world where believing whatever the hell you want is completely acceptable (such as in my country). If spiritual individuals could only broaden their own horizons and break the chains that religious groupthink has set upon them perhaps they can still be Christian, Muslim, etc. AND become more tolerant by assimilating the lessons and moral principles they actually agree with within their holy scriptures into their own lives instead of defending everything it states no matter how contradictory it is towards progressive thinking and damaging it may be to basic individual freedoms. The beauty of having your own individual beliefs and values is that your not sucked in to groups that blindly reinforces those beliefs and ultimately becomes dangerous to all those who are not part of that school of thought.

P.S Please continue to do this, be it on a monthly or weekly basis. It’s one small step in showing how damaging the following of mainstream ideologies that I’ve just illustrated can become.

Mitch | Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
Atheistic regimes in the former Soviet Union and China did not kill millions of their own citizens in the 20th century…Oh, wait…

JDD | Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
But the point is atheism doesn’t breed hatred. Religion does. There may be people who who shout out “Oh the compassion of Jesus” – which is merely the hook. New Testament was created after the dark ages when the brain-washers in charge realized the world was at least becoming civilized enough so blatant abuse wouldn’t be tolerated any longer. Just as the United States was founded by Atheists who in their wake created a huge movement of freedom. (of course it had it’s flaws, and also became corrupted to the point of High School History takes stating the US was founded on Christianity – which the founding fathers also predicted!)

It’s all about power. It can be used in the shape of faith to give hope and happiness – but that’s not really what Religion is for.

Atheism is simply the refusal to participate in the bloody struggle of religions fighting against each other – in government and in individual neighborhoods/families.

As the teaching of the Tao, “An empty mind holds infinite wisdom”. To accept that our place on earth is that we are not meant to comprehend the concepts of Eternity or God souls to simply live life as human beings doing the best we can with the time we have.

Another respondent on this website who was a pure atheist reminisced of a great tree in the woods that stirred up awe that reminded him of the mind-boggling wonders of this universe and his own connection of DNA.

What he referred to as ‘DNA’ is what Muslims would call “Allah”, Christian’s call “Jesus”, and Scientologist’s call “Hubbard”.

It’s compassion, faith, and respect without the mission to murder the infidels.

How about this: before Religions come to Atheists demanding their belief, how about you convince all other religions that your God is truer then theirs? Pure violence will ensue. Those books are weapons used by people in power to help their conquering of nations. No matter what denomination an individual is loyal too – at the heart of it – it has nothing to do with God or compassion, if that individual really was concerned with those topics, then they wouldn’t need the denomination to dictate their ‘faith’ at all.

Templin | Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
1.”The problem with any religion is that it claims to have the one and only truth and thus inevitably have, due to the inner doubt of self-believing, making them fanatic and fascistic to impose their believe to all others, regardless which religion it is.”

This statement is as true as the title post and my claim to be able drink a cup of fresh velociraptor milk every afternoon before I go to work on Mars moon. (for morons: it’s not true, yet, but I’m hoping …)

To prove the (obvious) point: minor religions, especially old ones don’t give a shit about other religions or even other ideologies. They just didn’t go that far. Reason is irrelevant as is subjective, facts are and you are wrong.

2.”But the point is atheism doesn’t breed hatred.”

Says you. Like someone already noticed, examples of Hitler, Stalin and Mao are proving something completely different. They didn’t kill all those people out of love, you must agree that some hatred was involved. In shear numerical comparison to them (and I won’t even to go into other aspects), minor nutcases you are using to prove your point are infinitesimal.

You are nobody (not messiah), ergo we shall believe scientific proofs and not you. If you are really atheist (and not full blow egoist me thinks) then you should believe to scientific method, since that is the fundament of your belief system or whatever you want to call it, right? (Please don’t forget in you heated reply that I did prove you wrong, I won’t bother to read it otherwise.)

So, will you ignorant (atheist in this case) fundies leave other people alone to believe their own shit whatever it is and stop nitpicking and ridiculing other ideology systems?

true_believer | Jul 1, 2009 | Reply
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were also nationalists. This is a whole different problem that has no religious complications but rather political. Nationalism, like mass organized religion, creates large groups of people and breeds any unhealthy groupthink environment. The killing caused by them were NOT a result of their atheism (ie. there is no God so let’s just kill everyone) but rather their desires to boost their countries into SUPERPOWERS (ie. scapegoat the Jews, sacrificing lives for efficiency, revolutions). If you can attribute those to atheism then I’m all ears, otherwise your “point” is completely, well, pointless.

There’s more wrong in the world than just religion. I don’t see how blaming these power monger dictators being ‘atheist’ add anything relevant to the Christian perspective here. There are clearly other variables to consider.

Mitch | Jul 1, 2009 | Reply
“If you can attribute those to atheism then I’m all ears, otherwise your “point” is completely, well, pointless.”

That’s too easy: If Hitler was (for example) a devout Jew, would he have targeted all Jews for extermination? There is your “point”.

Amusement aside, I think you did brought up a valid issue of all this actually being caused by political agenda, and I agree with that.

Religion or lack of it, in fact any ideology, can be easily abused by someone keen enough to do it, but that got nothing to do with ideas they are based on. It got to do with evil, stupidity, ignorance and manipulation of people. Big religious organisations are nothing else then political bodies and could have different goals and rules to religions they claim to represent and may even go that far to not have anything in common with them. If you go deep far enough, it’s always individuals to blame for that and it’s always responsibility of a person out of flesh and blood, not some imaginary ideas.

We decide which idea we want to follow, and we also decide how to follow it and what actions we are taking in course of our life, no one else does it for us and therefore nothing else is to blame.

In this society it’s getting ridiculously easy to “weasel” your way out of anything just by blaming it on the environment. There are plenty of ideologies in this world, so some unintelligent people will unavoidably pick to “follow” them in a way in which they disregard things they don’t like, although it might be crucial for that ideology’s spirit, and enforce sometimes even violently things that might not be important at all for that ideology, but these people may consider important because of their own reasons, like tradition, political agenda, mental illness, … and when things go south, they will of course blame it on ideology rather then accepting responsibility for their own choices.

true_believer | Jul 2, 2009 | Reply
Atheism is a state of mind only achievable through moral development. Religious moral values are ALWAYS lower than atheist moral values because a religious mind can only care about the people who follow the rules of its religion, viewing outsiders as evil and wrong, whereas atheists are capable of understanding and empathizing with differing viewpoints, not believing in a “god” that makes viewpoints opposing their own “wrong”. It is a perfectly legitimate complaint that religious people are immoral, awful people. this can be evidenced by a comparison of the crime rate and the rate of belief in a god of any particular territory. Norway, for example, has the highest percentage of atheist citizens and the lowest crime rate in the world at the same time.

Justin | Jul 14, 2009 | Reply
First of all, there is no such thing as an “Islamic” rape victim, any more than there is an “Oriental” woman or man. The proper term is MUSLIM. Second, you say things like, “that of course was an Islamic (sic) and/or Muslim court.” “Of course?” You are so bent on proving that Atheists never do anything wrong that your obvious bias against certain religions is painfully obvious. And if you don’t understand Islamic (see? Proper use of the word!) law – don’t say stupid things like, “Oh well that’s just half a murder, they will have to work harder to get their quota.” Because by showing that much bias, you’re telling ME that you have entirely too much invested in religion…so I guess you can’t be much of an Atheist, huh?

anne | Jul 15, 2009 | Reply
How could an atheist possibly do something reprehensible in the name of anything other than themselves? The simple fact of the matter is a lot of people are just flat out stupid…. wether they believe in a flying spaghetti monster, themselves, their government, or some story in a book. Stupid people do selfish things because they have zero tolerance of folks who may have different ideas in their heads. I still think George Carlin was bang on though when he said God is the leading cause of death throughout history. Makes a fella wonder

bryan | Jul 17, 2009 | Reply
I’d just like to point out that Hitler was a devout Christian, not an atheist. Common mistake. He found the swastika (and his inspiration for the ensuing genocide) in a church.

He actually preferred the Islamic doctrine because of its more authoritarian bent, but Germany was already overwhelmingly Christian, so he went with what he had.

KT | Jul 19, 2009 | Reply
yea yea yea yea bla bla bla bla

michael | Jul 19, 2009 | Reply
“I’d just like to point out that Hitler was a devout Christian, not an atheist.”

Common mistake. Just read Mein Kampf and you won’t find in there anything reasembling 10 Commendments or 5 Pilliars of Islam. Hitler used svastika and other roman symbols in a try to emulate roman empire.

It’s common misconception he favoured Islam, but that’s a lie spread by Zionism to justify their tratment of Palestinians. While you’re at Mein Kampf, you might notice full reasemblance between Zionism and Nazism though, which are both political ideologieas with exactly the same goal and got nothing with religion.

Even if Hitler was Christian, he didn’t kill nearly as much as Stallin or Mao. Were they Christians too?

“How could an atheist possibly do something reprehensible in the name of anything other than themselves?”

Exactly, they do everything only to benefit them selves, because they got only short time to live and after death there are no consequences. So why not be selfish, bend few laws, start few wars, get rich and blame “stupid religious people” that believe in afterlife and dire and everlasting consequences of their immorality?

true_believer | Jul 26, 2009 | Reply
“Atheism is a state of mind only achievable through moral development.”

Don’t embarrass your self, babies are born atheists. Indeed it’s laughable claming that as highest state of moral development.

“Norway, for example, has the highest percentage of atheist citizens and the lowest crime rate in the world at the same time.”

Their crime rate got zero to do with atheism. Norway is one of the countries with highest standard of living, so they obviously can afford things, hence low crime rate. I wonder how it is with other values in Norway aside of bare materialism.

China for example got much higher percentage of atheist citizens. What about their crime rate? Can they keep it low with executions? How about you go to there, and visit few non-tourists area at night? Lay trust into their “high moral values” of atheism to keep you safe if you dare.

true_believer | Jul 26, 2009 | Reply
So, will you ignorant (atheist in this case) fundies leave other people alone to believe their own shit whatever it is and stop nitpicking and ridiculing other ideology systems?

Referring to atheists as fundies is both ignorant and amusingly ironic. Ignorant, because all fundamentalism require belief in a set of “fundamentals.” Atheism has no belief, just one non-belief. There are no fundamentals. And it’s amusing/ironic to see fundamentalists use the term “fundamentalist” as an insult.

We decide which idea we want to follow, and we also decide how to follow it and what actions we are taking in course of our life, no one else does it for us and therefore nothing else is to blame.

So then if someone is inspired by religion to do good things, even great things, religion deserves none of the credit?

Atheism is a state of mind only achievable through moral development.

Atheism is not a state of mind, it is simply a disbelief in gods, and it is achievable through simple logic. There are no morals, good or bad, attached to atheism.

Religious moral values are ALWAYS lower than atheist moral values because a religious mind can only care about the people who follow the rules of its religion, viewing outsiders as evil and wrong, whereas atheists are capable of understanding and empathizing with differing viewpoints, not believing in a “god” that makes viewpoints opposing their own “wrong”.

I advise religious people with skewed view of atheism to meet and spend some time with atheists. They’ll discover their assumptions about them are wrong. I’d advise you meet and spend some time with religious people for the same reason. And be careful of the word “always.”

Exactly, they do everything only to benefit them selves, because they got only short time to live and after death there are no consequences. So why not be selfish, bend few laws, start few wars, get rich and blame “stupid religious people” that believe in afterlife and dire and everlasting consequences of their immorality?

You need to meet and spend some time with atheists. They’re the nicest, most moral people you’ll ever meet. When they give you something it’s because they want to, not because they’re trying to build up sky-daddy brownie points. They know there are here-and-now consequences for doing bad things, and without a devil to blame or a Christ to beg for forgiveness they tend to stick to their personal moral code more than religious people who have handy outs and excuses.

Hittman | Jul 26, 2009 | Reply
“Referring to atheists as fundies is both ignorant and amusingly ironic. Ignorant, because all fundamentalism require belief in a set of “fundamentals.” Atheism has no belief, just one non-belief. There are no fundamentals. And it’s amusing/ironic to see fundamentalists use the term “fundamentalist” as an insult.”

I fully agree about the irony part, but you may not be fully clear what atheism really involves. You are too used to link religion and fundamentalism, although atheism is also ideology and belief set as much as religion is. Atheism simply supposes that there is no god(s) or anything else worth worshiping. Something’s imperceptibility is not proof of inexistence, and nothing that anyone says can change that fundamental fact, except for incredible amount of ignorance and egocentrism. Therefore the existence of atheistic fundamentalists is possible and considering atheism’s nature, unavoidable. If you scroll up a bit, it’s confirmed even here by many statements.

“So then if someone is inspired by religion to do good things, even great things, religion deserves none of the credit?”

Religion is ideology, what would it do with a credit? Put it on the office wall or CV? Here is my question for you to try perhaps clarifying. For example, Hamilton won last Gran Prix of Hungary, so who deserves the credit: he, FIA federation, Hungary for building the track, his car, McLaren team, Messa that crashed or me for being aware that race happened?

“You need to meet and spend some time with atheists. They’re the nicest, most moral people you’ll ever meet. When they give you something it’s because they want to, not because they’re trying to build up sky-daddy brownie points. They know there are here-and-now consequences for doing bad things, and without a devil to blame or a Christ to beg for forgiveness they tend to stick to their personal moral code more than religious people who have handy outs and excuses.”

Don’t just ignore my bad examples above and only point out your frantic-optimistic view of atheism. It’s like trying to ignore the wall: it hurts on impact. You are basically stating that in your experience so far, there are some atheists that are good persons by your standards, and that you think I got same standards. That’s just way too many assumptions, won’t even go into that.

There were and are some really malicious and evil atheists. Again, nothing you said changed that fact. Difference is that idiots in original post did it because they are just plain dim-witted, not out of malice.

Besides Hittman, from what you said you seem to be unaware that only reason you and me could have consensus on good or bad deeds is literally because your “sky-daddy” said so. The whole concept of good and evil comes from religion, and religion is only reason for its continuation. Your “here-and-now consequences” are very few, and with enough criminal energy you can get away with anything. Basically, law alone won’t stop you being piece of shit, and atheism absolutely lacks moral code.

I already indirectly said that but if you missed it: atheism as ideology does not condemn anyone for being a piece of shit and by removing reasons for being better (religion) it essentially promotes immorality. So it’s hilarious to have atheists pointing out faults in moral judgement of others, always.

true_believer | Jul 28, 2009 | Reply
True Believer: You are thick as a stump and butt
ignorant. STFU!

proud kuffar | Jul 31, 2009 | Reply
Meh, you said “the bible, whether you view it as fact or fiction is actually a very good moral basis to live your life by. the problem is nobody reads the whole thing.”

A lot of religious texts talk about it being a bad thing to murder, rape, and steal. And yet you consider them ‘fiction.’ So what’s your point? And ‘nobody reads the whole thing?’ Are you sure?
Besides, after the Ten Commandments, I recall God smiting a lot of people before the start of the New Testament. For those who actually do managed to read ‘the whole thing,’ is that encouraging?

aaa | Aug 7, 2009 | Reply
True_believer, lemme examine some of what you said.

“Atheism simply supposes that there is no god(s) or anything else worth worshiping.”

It’s the lack of a God. Nothing more and nothing less. And definitely not to do with something ‘worth worshiping.’
And even if I WAS looking for something worth worshiping, I’d probably turn to something I could see and talk to, rather than blindly following people before me and a religious text that I have little or no evidence to validate. Let me ask you something. Think of the person in your place of worship that leads the service (if there is one). What gives him any power or mental ability beyond yours, other than the position your faith puts him in?

“Therefore the existence of atheistic fundamentalists is possible and considering atheism’s nature, unavoidable.”

Atheist fundamentalists never (as far as I know) burnt woman on stakes for being ‘witches’ (haha, witches, that’s a crazy idea), sent suicide bombers into crowded areas, beat people to death in ‘pride killings’, engaged in wars spanning for decades, used positions of power to kill, torture, abuse, rape children, demoralize people and spread fear and mass panic.
Most atheists don’t do that sort of shit, cos we don’t know what happens when you die and we’re not in a hurry to find out.

Which brings me to: “Something’s imperceptibility is not proof of inexistence, and nothing that anyone says can change that fundamental fact, except for incredible amount of ignorance and egocentrism.”

On the other end of the spectrum, imperceptibility is not proof of existence either. Why do you think that putting faith into something you can’t prove is good? The passages in most religious texts are outdated and in my opinion should have no application in our society at all. Should a woman be burnt alive for wearing lipstick, because a prophet that you can’t hear, see or touch says so, in a text that also encourages death to all non-Muslims?
And you talk about ignorance and ego centrism. Lets assume, for a second, there is no God. Then who’s controlling the church? My guess is, someone with a big-ass ego, someone with his own interests at heart. In fact, the Bible states that we shouldn’t worship any other Gods. Sounds egocentric to me.

“There were and are some really malicious and evil atheists.”

May I direct your attention to the blog article above?

“The whole concept of good and evil comes from religion, and religion is only reason for its continuation.”

Are you fucking serious? You’re saying, the only reason we aren’t taking electric sanders to each others faces right now is because of religion? If someone is angry enough to kill someone, and they’re atheist, what’s going to stop them? Either a religious text, or the idea that ending someones life prematurely just isn’t kind?

“Basically, law alone won’t stop you being piece of shit, and atheism absolutely lacks moral code.”

I’ll use a different example. The KKK killied Catholics, African-Americans, Jews etc. in the name of religion. But since they’re Christian, they still have moral code? Whereas the atheists who go out each day and live life just like you, me or anyone else,without kicking people to death, hanging them or setting fire to them, they have no moral code? You can’t honestly believe that. Humans have a moral code of their own, in built, it’s called a conscience. People who are going to ignore theirs are going to do so, religion or no religion.
No, law alone wont stop you being a piece of shit. Religion won’t either (from the multitude of cases in which religious people abuse power, from priests indulging in pedophilia, to George Bush being shit at everything). Guess what, only YOU can stop you from being a piece of shit, so putting it on anything else does no good. And that’s what religion is a lot of the time, putting stuff you don’t want to think about, know about or care about, in the hands of people who may not want to think, know or care about your interests.

“atheism as ideology does not condemn anyone for being a piece of shit and by removing reasons for being better (religion) it essentially promotes immorality. So it’s hilarious to have atheists pointing out faults in moral judgement of others, always.”

I said it above, I’ll say it again. People will do good or bad things no matter what law, rules or religion is put in front of them. I guarantee it. And if you think that living your life by 2000 year old rules, from the same book in which thousands of people are killed for various reasons, from sodomy, to coveting oxen (the fiends!), is going to make anyone a better person, you’re wrong.
Now I know what you may be thinking and I agree, religion helps a lot of people, it gives hope and aid. You could say religion is a crutch. So is TV, golf and heroin.

So grow up =)

aaa | Aug 7, 2009 | Reply
YES! I hate religion too!!! Especially ones I know nothing about and have never practiced! I don’t believe that a select few have radical tendencies and tend to corrupt their religion’s teachings to validate their inherent stupidity/evil, cause that is just STUPID. Fuck the crusades!!!

I have the same beliefs regarding race! Can you please write an article outlining every ridiculous crime committed by an African-American? Because I like the way you think, and I’d like to help you perpetuate stereotypes and just intolerance in general!

Virgil | Aug 7, 2009 | Reply
yes religion might have been in some odd way,a morale and social guide,and has played a major role in human history for the last 8000 years or so, starting with Egyptian mythology.but facts are facts,we are now in the 21st the world has now become a small place,it is time to abolish religion and there backward ideals and this is the same for all religions.atheism is not a religion but a practical and common sense way of thinking.for instance i believe in life and respecting my environment and the people around me.i do not need a spirit or god to forgive my sins, cause i havent committed any.i do however feel ashamed and very sadden to hear of atrocities happening around the world to my fellow man and the earth itself.now if people want to believe in fairy tales thats fine,but do not be defining our laws or the very structure of our society based on religious bullshit.because my friend when we are dead thats it no pearly gates no 99 virgins no coming back as a cow,there is no chosen race.we all just become dust,so enjoy life while your alive and appreciate it,stop the wars,help your fellow man and enjoy.after all if i told you i was that guy would you believe me.lol

oneear | Aug 7, 2009 | Reply
The only thing atheists did over the past year or so: bitch about the religious.

ROB | Aug 9, 2009 | Reply
Look at last century to see what atheists do
Mao, joe Stalin, Adolf Hitlet, Pol Pot, to mention but a few.
Thank God for those who stood up to these atheist dictators to save the world from them

AL | Aug 21, 2009 | Reply
Atheism=Bacon and good fellowship.

Xtianity=hymns about Jesus and going out to
slay the unbelievers!

Oversimplification and exaggeration? A bit.
Sad fact:targeting atheists is article of faith.
Christers go home and read your bibles with your
eyes open for once!

proud kuffar | Aug 23, 2009 | Reply
How many of us are atheists? >10%
How many atheists are in prison? <1/4%!
Yes,our moral code is strong. Very strong!
Put that in your pipe and smoke it,Christer!

proud kuffar | Aug 23, 2009 | Reply
Why do so many people think that Hitler was an atheist? Because he was EVIL? That is begging the question. Hitler embraced Christianity to justify his atrocities. His motives and level of devotion may be questionable, but there is no evidence that he was an atheist. As for the communist dictators listed, their states were officially atheist to make communism effectively the state “religion”; Stalin et. al. may have been genuine atheists themselves, but their motives were mainly to remove religion as a competing ideology to communism.

Matthew Link | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
@aaa

“It’s the lack of a God. Nothing more and nothing less. And definitely not to do with something ‘worth worshiping.’”

You said different to my statement … what exactly?

“Atheist fundamentalists never (as far as I know) burnt woman on stakes for being ‘witches’”

Obvious ignorance. Not that I justify any killings, but I’ll say again (since you are continuing to ignore it) that Stalin, who was an atheist killed millions, which is to you nothing in comparison to few witches burnt. Obvious disproportion makes me think that nothing is also “as far as you know …”.

Besides, someone’s claim to be religious doesn’t make them such. Their religiousness must be reflected in their deeds. So, if your religion’s main commandment is “DO NOT KILL”, yet you kill claiming to be in the name of that same religion, you are dishonest and a murderer.

“On the other end of the spectrum, imperceptibility is not proof of existence either.”

So, why exactly does your unprovable belief in something imperceptible inexistence bears more weight then belief in existence of imperceptible? Obviously, your opinion on that must be right to you. You are too full of it to see the irony of ignorance.

“Most atheists don’t do that sort of shit”

Oh really, and most religious people do that? Hypocrisy on top.

“… in a text that also encourages death to all non-Muslims?”

Lie. Maybe not yours, but ignorance definitely is yours. I would advise to check what you are talking about next time in advance to avoid being a victim of propaganda coming from organisations that you ponder as bad example, namely KKK and such.

“Lets assume, for a second, there is no God. Then who’s controlling the church?”

You are mixing up theocracy (political organisation) with religion (idea). I also don’t think you fully understand concept of priesthood. I see a priest as someone trying to help me with my path to God, but priests are humans, and not God nor His representatives. Someone being a priest doesn’t necessarily means that they can control their instincts any better then other humans, just means that they would really like to. They do not become “religion” and they deeds do not reflect religion of their preference, it only reflects their choices.

“May I direct your attention to the blog article above?”

Yes. I’ll still call that plain distraction and article full of ignorance and egoism.

“the idea that ending someones life prematurely just isn’t kind?”

Why is that “not kind”? Why does that matter to your victim? Once dead, your victim stops existing and therefore is futile. So why would you care about concept of “kindness”? Their death may bring you a benefit that you think outweighs your “need for kindness”. If you know you won’t get caught and punished, what would stop you from killing? That’s what Stalin was thinking, and why atheism is dangerous. How can you not see such obvious fact other then because of ignorance?

“But since they’re Christian …”

Like I said, that’s only a claim, not the fact. They don’t fill even basic criteria for followers of what Jesus was teaching to humanity.

“No, law alone wont stop you being a piece of shit. Religion won’t either”

Wrong. Religion will stop you, church won’t. Ideas will stop you, but political organisations built around them may not. You are constantly mixing up two different concepts.

“Humans have a moral code of their own, in built, it’s called a conscience.”

Well, there is no scientific proof for such thing, yet you chose to believe this ridiculous claim. You are “superman” and you “know” what’s “kind”, but all these “religious villains” are making “bad” decisions only because they are missing some imaginary “organ”(?) called “conscience”. You can’t even comprehend that “baddie” could be thinking exactly the same about your decision making, and concluding that you need to be “exterminated” since you’re missing proper “religious organ”. Mess (war) ensues.

How can you believe that your own judgement is always only right without having something to guide you?

Ultimately, you are the one making the decision to ignore facts and go by your gut. You rather refuse to accept obvious because of subconscious fear from implications.

true_believer | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
@proud kuffar

“Yes,our moral code is strong. Very strong!”

Nuh, your balls are rather small. Very small!

true_believer | Sep 4, 2009 | Reply
I fully agree about the irony part, but you may not be fully clear what atheism really involves.

I’ve been an atheist for thirty years, so I kinda sorta know what atheism really involves.

Something’s imperceptibility is not proof of inexistence, and nothing that anyone says can change that fundamental fact, except for incredible amount of ignorance and egocentrism. Therefore the existence of atheistic fundamentalists is possible and considering atheism’s nature, unavoidable. If you scroll up a bit, it’s confirmed even here by many statements.

This is a nonsensical conclusion, unless people who don’t believe in unicorns, vampires, etc. are also fundamentalists. Because no one can prove the non-existence of anything, the one making the claim something exists gets to prove it. Otherwise, the default position is that since there is no proof, no evidence at all, it’s not reasonable to believe it exists.

There were and are some really malicious and evil atheists. Again, nothing you said changed that fact. Difference is that idiots in original post did it because they are just plain dim-witted, not out of malice.

Evil comes in all flavors, but malicious and evil atheists are rare, far more rare than malicious and evil people driven by their religion. And evil atheists are not driven by religion, or by their atheism, but by other things.

The whole concept of good and evil comes from religion, and religion is only reason for its continuation.

Bullshit. Civilization is the reason for its continuation. We didn’t get civilization until we had an agreed on set of rules, and over the millennia we’ve learned what rules are and are not necessary. Most of the useless, unproductive and downright dangerous rules are perpetuated by religions.

Your “here-and-now consequences” are very few, and with enough criminal energy you can get away with anything. Basically, law alone won’t stop you being piece of shit, and atheism absolutely lacks moral code.

Again, bullshit. There are plenty of here and now consequences for all our behavior, even if we can escape the law.

You are right, though, about atheism lacking a moral code. It is, I repeat, simply not believing in a deity. Yet, atheists, on the whole, are more moral than religious people. They are provably more law-abiding. That’s because we base our morals on logic, reason, common sense and personal experience, rather than 2,000+ year old superstitions.

atheism as ideology does not condemn anyone for being a piece of shit. . .

It’s not an ideology, it’s a non-belief, and as such doesn’t condemn anyone for anything.

. . .and by removing reasons for being better (religion) it essentially promotes immorality.

Absolute nonsense.

Does a disbelief in Bigfoot promote immorality? How about a disbelief in Odin or Zeus or Moloch or Ra?

Atheist morals are completely separate from the idea of atheism. They are formed by individuals who don’t believe in a god. And based on the actions of such people, those morals are superior.

The only thing atheists did over the past year or so: bitch about the religious.

That’s pretty accurate. They didn’t kill, torture or rape anyone for being religious, they simply bitched about them and made fun of them. If bitching and making fun were the only thing religious people did, these articles wouldn’t exist.

Hitler, Stalin and Mao are always brought up in these discussions. As has been pointed out, Hitler was a Christian. Stalin and Mao, who each killed far more people than Adolph, were atheists. Their hatred of religion was driven by politics – they didn’t want anything competing with their power and the loyalty of the people.

But just for the sake of argument, let’s say it was their atheism that drove them. So, can you give me any instances of murder, torture, rape, etc, driven by atheism, that aren’t more than a half century old? I’m not going way back in history for my examples; I’m plucking them out of recent headlines.

Show me something that atheists did, because they are atheists, that compares to anything on this list.

Hittman | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
Clearly somebody didn’t read Mein Kampf very closely.

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

( Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, p. 65. )

That’s only page 65. How many pages did that guy even bother to read??

Heidi | Sep 5, 2009 | Reply
@Hitman

You got no clue. My reply was to what that other guy said, and makes sense only if you see it as whole, his and mine post. Even if you just bucher out few pieces that you don’t understand and try to turn them around, it still doesn’t cover up your ignorance for the rest of what I said.

I answered to that guy exactly same things you are raising again. Some stuff you are saying even agrees with me. It just shows you either didn’t read it or didn”t even try to understand. Makes it kinda sorta pointless. Nevermind, let’s try agin.

“Because no one can prove the non-existence of anything, the one making the claim something exists gets to prove it. Otherwise, the default position is that since there is no proof, no evidence at all, it’s not reasonable to believe it exists.”

You are basicaly ignorant enough to compare bigfoot, unicorns and God. I could be just as ignorant and say that bigfoot IS a God, and ocasionaly turns into unicorns. He is after all Almighty, right? That proves your view false.

Jokes aside, real problem with your statemant is that there is enough proof, but you are refusing to accept them. You are easily dismissing them with any possible explanation not really wanting to know the truth, but to make it easier for your Ego to thrive.

You want to force God into your understanding which is of this Universe, into laws of this world, but because that is not possible, you then conclude that no such thing exists. Well, this world existing IS a proof of something causing its existance by this worlds scientific laws. You just refuse to accept such obvious thing. That’s pure ignorance and fundamentalism right there.

true_believer | Sep 8, 2009 | Reply
Wow, that made zero sense.

Heidi | Sep 8, 2009 | Reply
@Hitman

“Their hatred of religion was driven by politics – they didn’t want anything competing with their power and the loyalty of the people.”

Oh really? And when “religious” people hate it’s driven by religion? I call tiny bit HYPOCRISY here.

“Atheist morals are completely separate from the idea of atheism. ”

You herewith agree that atheists got no morals … is what I said.

“They are formed by individuals who don’t believe in a god. And based on the actions of such people, those morals are superior.”
Wrong, those morals must have roots outside atheism, and that can only be in religion. You can’t just “form” them, because you are very likely not living alone. Your morals are product of your culture. Other ideologies got either quite questionable morality in your and my judgment, or are also based on some religion. Without religion, we would be immoral. (Don’t forget again, atheism=no morals, I hate repeating).
Without religion we lose any ground to not just serve our basic instincts. Serving your instincts will make you feel good, and since that can be your only definition of morality, you became an animal serving its instincts. This is a simple imperative of this world, reality, Universe, game, whatever you want to call it: if you degrade and deny your Maker, you end up degrading your self to lowest level of existence. But being so blinded by your Ego, you’ll call it “freedom” or “superiority”.

Just freaking use your brain for a change while skimming this, please, don’t just go defensive, try to read and understand the meaning before replying, will make it more fun for everyone.

true_believer | Sep 8, 2009 | Reply
Ok, I’ll try.

Oh really? And when “religious” people hate it’s driven by religion?

Sometimes, yes. If a religious person shoots your dog because he’s sick of hearing it bark, then he’s not religiously motivated. He’s just an asshole. If a religious person shoots a doctor in his church because he performs abortions, he’s religiously motivated.

If an atheist shoots your dog, he’s an asshole, too. But you *can’t* be motivated to do sometime “in the name of” atheism. It just doesn’t work like that. No one has ever done anything in the name of “there is no evidence that gods are real.” That’s what atheism is. I think that’s where the misunderstanding is coming in here. You can’t be an atheist fanatic, and you can’t be an atheist fundamentalist. There’s nothing to be fanatical or fundamentalist about. When you speak of fanaticism, you’re not talking about atheism. You’re talking about something else.

You herewith agree that atheists got no morals … is what I said.

That’s not what he said. This kind of fallacious reasoning is why he accused you of building strawmen.

Definition: The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.

That is what you did, and that is what you continue to do. Atheism itself does not encompass a moral structure, no. But that’s about as relevant as saying not believing in mermaids has no moral structure, so everyone who doesn’t believe in mermaids has no morality. My “moral code” aligns with that of secular humanism. When I was a kid and still believed in a god, my moral code still came from secular humanism.

Wrong, those morals must have roots outside atheism, and that can only be in religion. You can’t just “form” them, because you are very likely not living alone.

I learned secular humanism from Gene Roddenberry (an atheist) through Star Trek. So no, it doesn’t come from religion. It comes from other secular humanists. It doesn’t align with any monotheistic religious morality, and it’s largely based on the emotion of empathy.

Note, however, that not all atheists are secular humanists. Many are, but one has nothing to do with the other.

Without religion we lose any ground to not just serve our basic instincts. Serving your instincts will make you feel good, and since that can be your only definition of morality, you became an animal serving its instincts. This is a simple imperative of this world, reality, Universe, game, whatever you want to call it: if you degrade and deny your Maker, you end up degrading your self to lowest level of existence. But being so blinded by your Ego, you’ll call it “freedom” or “superiority”.

In your opinion. In my opinion, the need for an overseer is superfluous. I don’t need to be told not to harm other people, or animals, or the environment. I just don’t do it. I don’t *want* to do it. Why on earth would I want to cause someone or something pain?

Just freaking use your brain for a change while skimming this, please, don’t just go defensive,

Have you considered that perhaps if you were to use more civil language, you would get a more civil response? If you don’t attack, others won’t feel the need to defend. Note that I haven’t been mean or snarky once in this post. So please don’t turn around and start attacking me unless you want me to attack right back.

Heidi | Sep 8, 2009 | Reply
You are basically ignorant enough to compare bigfoot, unicorns and God.

It’s a fair comparison. I don’t see any credible evidence for any of them.

But to make it a more level playing field (and I hate that term) let’s compare gods. Personally, I like Odin, and his son, Thor. (You can worship Thor by getting hammered.) Prove to me that Thor isn’t a true god.

You herewith agree that atheists got no morals … is what I said.

You herewith are being an asshole. That’s not what I said.

There is no moral component to atheism. There is no moral component to Guitar Hero or Bowling. Bowlers and Guitar Hero players get their morals elsewhere, as do atheists.

And considering the incarceration rates, as well as the fact that crime, divorce and illegitimate births are substantially higher in religious states, a thinking person would conclude that the morals of atheists are superior to the morals of religious people.

Wrong, those morals must have roots outside atheism, and that can only be in religion.

Absolute nonsense. I can give you good, logical, non-religious reasons to be honest and to refuse to commit adultery, murder or theft. I don’t need the fear of a nasty sky daddy to be good.

Just freaking use your brain for a change while skimming this, please, don’t just go defensive, try to read and understand the meaning before replying, will make it more fun for everyone.

There’s no meaning to understand. You need the fear of an imaginary friend to be good. I don’t. And yes, that is a superior way to live.

BTW, I’m still waiting for a recent article or two about an atheist doing something on a par with the things on this list because of their atheism.

Dave Hitt | Sep 9, 2009 | Reply
Personally, I like Odin, and his son, Thor. (You can worship Thor by getting hammered.)

I like them, too. They’re like gods for regular people. And like most polytheistic pantheons, their stories are more interesting and internally consistent.

Heidi | Sep 9, 2009 | Reply
@Heidi
“That’s not what he said. This kind of fallacious reasoning is why he accused you of building strawmen.”

Scroll up and read what he said. It’s obvious why you are denying something that’s still standing written there. It’s a fact, but you don’t like it, so instead ignoring it like the rest of facts upstairs, and because you feel the need to respond, then why not “do a strawmen” distraction? You may have tried to sound civil, but ignoring a bunch of facts and main point of what I am trying to say, then finding most meaningless part in my post as example, may get me considering your response as not so civil.

Contrary to what you feel, I do understand what you want to say, but I think that it’s wrong. I also explained why, which you ignored. You get no morals from atheism. Atheism doesn’t define moral code. So you think it’s ok to borrow it elsewhere. I don’t disagree on that. But, what makes you think that religious people can’t cherry pick and borrow their moral code from same sources and have more moral standards then you? Wouldn’t that make them superior to you? At the same time, you are fighting to destry religion and that will also destroy any moral code that is bound to religion. You can’t even consider what consequences that would have. How is that superior?

Above all, why do you need to feel superior? Is your feeling of superiority coming from being of Midwest USA bible thumpers origin and being now “free” from “religion” (actually, your old community’s moral standards)? Do you still judge yourself through their eyes? Don’t, their view of their religion might not be the only one, and if I’m right, they are probably wrong. This is why it appears to me that you seem to look up to your peers instead of deciding on ideology for your self.

To avoid further misunderstanding, maybe I should clarify something. Being wrong doesn’t make you a bad person in my eyes, just wrong. Me pointing out that I consider your opinion wrong also doesn’t mean that I hate you or that I declare war on you or something and want you dead, just that you need to try to understand why I think that you are wrong, and to reconsider your opinion. After all, I might be right. Of course, I also could be wrong and may need to hear your argumented opinion. If you are not able to understand my point, just ask me to clarify, no problems with that. I’ll do the same.

@Dave Hitt, Hittman (same person I assume)

Responses like “Absolutely nonsense.” to statement of facts are just sad example of ignorance that led you into this state of dullness.

“You herewith are being an asshole. That’s not what I said.”

Oh really? Scroll up bitch, it’s still there, read and cry to your mum. Look for:
“Atheist morals are completely separate from the idea of atheism.”
You said that. Just freaking accept it, suck it up and come back with better argument then denying that you didn’t say that. Try instead response based on facts. If you can’t, then shut your stupid immature pie hole. Now I’m being an asshole.

“BTW, I’m still waiting for a recent article or two about an atheist doing something on a par with the things on this list because of their atheism.”

That’s because you are dumb and ignorant. You got your examples. Few times even. No one will bother again. You sound like a kid with hand on ears and eyes shut yelling “LAAAAAAALALALALALALA”. What a waste of time.

true_believer | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
“When you speak of fanaticism, you’re not talking about atheism.”

Wrong. Atheism is ideology and like any ideology, it can include fanatics. Absence of belief in God doesn’t make you any different to other humans. You just believe one thing less, but you still blindly believe. There is not proof that God doesn’t exist, and you still take that as a fact, which is fundament of a belief system or ideology. When you get aggressive or disrespectful in enforcing your belief system (atheism in this case) on others, you are no different then religious fanatics. And if that doesn’t happen in your environment or you don’t (want to) know about it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Just look up what communists did and still do to religious people during their tyranny. And communists are atheists as well, wether you like it or not.

true_believer | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
@Dave Hitt, Hittman (same person I assume)

Correct. It depends on how I happen to be logged in to the site at the moment. If I’m on as Admin it shows Dave Hitt, otherwise it’s Hittman.

I didn’t deny anything. I repeated it, and clarified it, and you, demonstrably, are incapable of understanding a very simple fact. Let me ‘splain it once more:

Many beliefs have no moral component. That doesn’t mean people who hold those beliefs are immoral, it means they derive their morals from other beliefs. In the case of atheists, most of us get our morals from logic and reason, combined with personal experience. So while we know that, say, stealing is wrong, we can’t find a reason to hate people for being gay. Or female. We’d need religion for that.

I love the way you’re dancing around your inability to find any recent examples of atheists doing horrible things because of their atheism. And you’re completely unaware of how goofy it makes you look, which makes it even more entertaining.

Atheism is ideology and like any ideology, it can include fanatics.

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that today’s most prominent spokesmen for atheism are fanatics. (I don’t believe advocating reality fanatical, but I’ll play along for a moment.) How are these fanatics spreading their ideology? Are they blowing up buses, murdering or torturing people, starting wars, etc? Or are they simply talking and ?

And communists are atheists as well, wether you like it or not.

And again you display your ignorance. Communism is a political and economic belief system, not a religious one. Communism results in widespread misery, and widespread misery leads the majority to become more religious.

You’re mistaking propaganda from the fifties (“Godless Communists”) for reality. But then, as you’ve demonstrated, you mistake a lot of fiction for reality.

Dave Hitt | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
@Hitt

“Communism is a political and economic belief system, not a religious one. Communism results in widespread misery, and widespread misery leads the majority to become more religious. ”

Yes, so what? COMMUNISTS ARE ATHEISTS, stop denying obvious. Communists killed millions of people because of their religious views. You can try to “dance around” all you like. I’ll just keep repeating it. Your argument on dating of the atrocities means jack shit because those things are happening at present, it’s not something from cold war era. If you want to convince me different, then try proving me wrong by showing that communists are not atheists. How their victims reacted to their misery is irrelevant.

You got some exaggerated idealistic, unrealistic view of elitist over-educated ignorant people as only atheists, and you are convinced that they reflect everything all atheists ever did. It’s wrong. Psychopaths frequently use atheism as their ideology of choice. Your thinking that you are good (or better or superior) also doesn’t make you so, not even that minority that you consider atheists. There are common standards on that. Those standards come from religion. Without religion, meaning and purpose of those standards seize to exist, which I already explained how and you ignored that. Destroying those standards is biggest crime of them all, because it is causing all other crimes. Therefore atheism could be by far worst ideology in existence.
But let’s keep ignoring all that for the sake of idle dialog. You are basically saying how “religious” people committed all those things you listed because of their religion. I already explained that you are wrong. Their religion did not require them to do that. It was their choice based on their distorted world view. Using your examples, Catholic Church is not a religion. Christianity is a religion. Catholic Church is political organisation that is based mainly on Christianity, but differs in many views from other Christian sects. I can assure you that your Muslim priest didn’t read about Mickey Mouse or anything like that nowhere in Koran, it’s his personal view. Even that article states that most Muslims consider him basically ridiculous. Now, his world view is like that because of his ignorance. Incidentally, that is his main characteristic, which is also on pair with you and makes him closer to you personally then to majority of other Muslims because of his moral standards, and not because of his or your religious views. What you two call your self is irrelevant. It’s usually trendiest local ideology. You are still same unintelligent, ignorant lot.

true_believer | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
@true_believer:

I see that you put my name at the beginning of that post, but are you sure you were responding to me? Because I feel like much of what you said had nothing to do with me or anything that I said.

You assume I didn’t read what he said. I did. Why do you think I didn’t read it? It’s not at all a fact that Dave said what you think he said. He told you twice that isn’t what he was saying. If anyone knows Dave’s intentions it would be Dave. You are indeed setting up a strawman by twisting what he said, and what he meant, into what you prefer to argue against. You know full well that he wasn’t saying atheists have no morals. You absolutely know that. But you want to argue from a position that says that he did. Why? What do you accomplish by putting words in his mouth?

I notice that you don’t like it when you think someone is doing that to you (which I didn’t, btw.):

You may have tried to sound civil, but ignoring a bunch of facts and main point of what I am trying to say, then finding most meaningless part in my post as example, may get me considering your response as not so civil.

Which is very much like what you are doing to Dave. And no, that’s not what I did. I responded to the parts of your post I that I had comments about. I did not respond to the parts of your post to which I had no comment. I’m relatively sure I’m not under any obligation to respond to every word you say. Particularly when the words weren’t said to me, and I was just trying to clear up a misunderstanding.

I may well do that again, and only respond to things I want to comment on, so I guess if that bothers you, you should brace yourself. :-( I will quote larger chunks of your post, though, if that will make you feel better.

But, what makes you think that religious people can’t cherry pick and borrow their moral code from same sources and have more moral standards then you? Wouldn’t that make them superior to you?

I never said anything about religious people’s morals. Dave and I are separate people. Please don’t ascribe to me what someone else said. However, if you have the ability to cherry pick, then you have the ability to judge right from wrong independently from your religious texts. That would suggest to me that you already had a moral code, and that you just prefer the expression of it that is written in certain biblical passages with which you happen to agree.

At the same time, you are fighting to destry religion and that will also destroy any moral code that is bound to religion. You can’t even consider what consequences that would have. How is that superior?

I said all of this, where?

Above all, why do you need to feel superior?

And I said this part where?

Is your feeling of superiority coming from being of Midwest USA bible thumpers origin and being now “free” from “religion” (actually, your old community’s moral standards)?

Well given that I was born in California and I grew up and still live in Massachusetts, that would be no. Most of the religious people in Massachusetts are Catholic. Catholics don’t thump. My parents’ families are SDA, but I was never baptized or indoctrinated.

Do you still judge yourself through their eyes?

The non-existent Bible thumpers from my Midwest farm town? No.

Don’t, their view of their religion might not be the only one, and if I’m right, they are probably wrong. This is why it appears to me that you seem to look up to your peers instead of deciding on ideology for your self.

Wow, you wrote me a whole back story. One that’s wrong, but still. Why do you assume I look up to my peers? Why do you assume I didn’t decide for myself that there is no evidence of the supernatural? In fact, why do you think I even know any other atheists offline? I don’t. Lapsed Catholics, pagans, and maybe a couple agnostics, but no, I don’t know anyone personally who calls him/herself an atheist. The only atheists I “know” are people I’ve met online recently in blog posts about atheism. Recently meaning in the past few months since I started reading them. But it’s been 20 years since I realized I don’t believe in gods, so they hardly influenced my decision.

I just don’t believe in supernatural agents, period. Alien abductions, voodoo, and gods all being among the group of things in which I don’t believe. I’m sorry if it offends you that I categorize gods in the same class as mermaids and little green men, but I honestly fail to see a significant difference. And unless you have more empirical evidence than the UFO conspiracists, you’re not going to convince me otherwise. I am just flat out incapable of believing something for which there is no evidence, and which doesn’t make logical sense.

Wrong. Atheism is ideology and like any ideology, it can include fanatics.

No, it is not. This is where you are mistaken. You keep calling atheism an ideology, but it’s no more an ideology than not playing cards is a game. If you can’t or won’t understand that, then I guess we have no where to go from there.

Absence of belief in God doesn’t make you any different to other humans. You just believe one thing less, but you still blindly believe. There is not proof that God doesn’t exist, and you still take that as a fact, which is fundament of a belief system or ideology.

Again, you misunderstand, and you’re arguing with things I never said. I don’t blindly believe in anything. I’m just not going to believe something exists when there is no empirical evidence. If you have some, bring it forward and I’ll take a look, possibly revising my opinion. But that’s the problem right there. You don’t have any evidence. You have a book written by barely literate goat herders and a church hierarchy with an agenda. That is just not enough for me. Hindus have a whole bunch of holy writings about elephant gods and gods with many arms. I don’t believe theirs, and neither do you. For me, it’s because they have no proof. Why don’t you believe in the Hindu gods?

When you get aggressive or disrespectful in enforcing your belief system (atheism in this case) on others, you are no different then religious fanatics. And if that doesn’t happen in your environment or you don’t (want to) know about it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Which I didn’t do, nor did I claim. Also, at the risk of repeating myself, it’s not a belief system. There is no evidence, thus I don’t think supernatural claims are valid. The end. Anything else I believe or don’t believe is unrelated to my atheism.

Just look up what communists did and still do to religious people during their tyranny. And communists are atheists as well, wether you like it or not.

Remember when you said you understood what I was saying? This quote is evidence that you don’t.

Dave already explained this, so I’m not going to go into it other than to say that Communists did what they did in the name of political ideology, not because there is no evidence of gods. IMO, they would have acted the same way whether or not they believed there was evidence of gods, because religious loyalty interferes with party loyalty.

Contrast that with Hitler, who regularly said things like:

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

(Mein Kampf p. 65)

He said he thought he was doing what his god wanted him to do, and the Catholic church backed him on it. Those actions were indeed motivated by his interpretation of religious text. Many people interpret their religious text to say what they want it to, and he wanted his to be telling him to kill Jews.

Heidi | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
Crap, I did the long post thing again. Sorry, Dave. :-(

Heidi | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
@Heidi

Wow, this is so long yet so empty. Nevermind, I’ll try to find few main points.

You basically said that I’m wrong about “you” and “you” and then you used strawman arguments. Also, you said communists did it because of politics and not ideology, and that atheism is not ideology. All in all, you continue to ignore most of the stuff I said previously using semantics as your main argument, and you keep concentrating on my few last sentences of my last post. Look at it as a whole.

“You” was appointed to “atheists” in most of what you cite, and not “Heidi” personally, but you being so egoistic of course chose what will suit you best. I’m addressing your group’s ideology. I can’t use “you atheists” in each sentence now can I? I may have not guessed your exact state of origin, but I did guess your country and I’m pretty sure about the rest. I also can’t do much if you lack a will to understand my opinion. In my opinion, your egoism is also a main cause of your atheism.

Keep using semantics as excuse to ignore actually addressing the facts. I even gave you the empirical proof of God’s existence and you chose to ignore it again, and not even dismiss it on semantics this time. I don’t mind you not answering my all points, but I do mind you raising exactly that point right after what I said.
One of my few posts before:
“You want to force God into your understanding which is of this Universe, into laws of this world, but because that is not possible, you then conclude that no such thing exists. Well, this world existing IS a proof of something causing its existence by this worlds scientific laws.”
It’s the law of cause-effect used in physics. Wasn’t that the proof you are looking for in your:
“And unless you have more empirical evidence than the UFO conspiracists, you’re not going to convince me otherwise. I am just flat out incapable of believing something for which there is no evidence, and which doesn’t make logical sense.”

Where the fuck UFO’s came from? Did I even mention them?

“(Mein Kampf p. 65)”
Stop citing “Mein Kampf”, I already knew amount of your ignorance. Hitler said lots of crap but his factual religiousness was the level of a chimpanzee. He was chiefly a politician, not religious representative of anything, yet you try to use him as your poster boy religious person. Seriously, stop offending with that. Hitler’s main ideology was national-socialism. NS ideology did not incorporate religion and was atheistic. In fact, its morality obviously went against fundaments of Christianity, same as atheism does. He did what he did not because of his religiousness, but because he loathed anything that could jeopardize his political goals. He was ignorant and egoistic, like you.

true_believer | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
You know, you seem like a very angry person. You attack and insult when someone disagrees with you. Is that part of the morality in your book? I feel sorry for you, then. If you want to play some kind of passive-aggressive game, then count me out. Once I answer you, I’m shutting off replies. You can’t bother to be civil, so I can’t bother to read anything else you write.

I am not going to answer every word you write. If you say something, and I have a comment related to it, I will respond. If not, I won’t. So yes, you said things I will be ignoring. I’m not going to sit here and type “I acknowledge that you say that” a bunch of times.

using semantics as your main argument

Which is exactly what you did to Dave.

One more time… Atheism = “I don’t think there is enough evidence to justify belief in supernatural beings.” That’s it. There is no other component to atheism. Nothing. There is no “you” as in atheists collectively. We don’t share the same beliefs on anything but the lack of evidence for gods. Some atheists do some of the things you mention, but it’s not a part of atheism. I don’t know why you refuse to understand this.

I’m also not a coffee drinker. Is that an ideology? Are not-coffee-drinkers a “you” that do certain things? Am I rejecting the Dunkin’ Donuts community? I actually quite like their donuts and bagels, so that’s probably out as a hypothesis.

I may have not guessed your exact state of origin, but I did guess your country and I’m pretty sure about the rest. I also can’t do much if you lack a will to understand my opinion. In my opinion, your egoism is also a main cause of your atheism.

Why yes, I am American. A large percentage of the people on English speaking web sites are American. And I write like an American. Am I supposed to compliment you on your amazing deductive powers for guessing I’m an American? Very well. Congratulations on correctly guessing my home state within 1000 miles, and my birthplace within 2000 miles. Go, you! Pretend I’m applauding.

But if you know anything about the US, then you know New England has very little in common with the Midwest or the bible belt. I know a grand total of one fundamentalist protestant. If you mention the word “evangelical” around here, you’re likely to get a shudder or gasp from most Christians, Catholic or Protestant. And I don’t have some church community to escape and reject, because I’ve never belonged to one. Not when I was five, not when I was twenty five, and not now. I don’t know why you’re doing it, but your insistence on fitting me into some stereotype that helps you understand why I don’t believe in gods is just embarrassing now.

I even gave you the empirical proof of God’s existence

No, you did not.

“Well, this world existing IS a proof of something causing its existence by this worlds scientific laws.”
It’s the law of cause-effect used in physics. Wasn’t that the proof you are looking for

Given that it’s not enough to convince any physicist of whom I am aware? No. You’re failing to grasp that I disagree with your premise. I do not agree that this world existing has any correlation whatsoever to a creator god. And I do not agree that this world existing necessarily indicates a beginning. Please read Hawking. He’ll clear it up for you.

Where the fuck UFO’s came from? Did I even mention them?

No, you didn’t mention them. The fuck *I* mentioned them. It’s called analogy. A lot of people believe they have been abducted by aliens. They actually gather evidence of alien spacecraft in the form of photos, video, radar anomalies, and eyewitness accounts. So they have more evidence to support their claims than any religion has. But I don’t for one second think that they’re correctly interpreting reality.

NS ideology did not incorporate religion and was atheistic.

Which is obviously why they marched into battle wearing belt buckles that said Gott mit und. With the blessing of the Catholic church. Hell, Pope Ratzinger was a Nazi. He’s not really representative of Christianity though, right? Whatever. Hide in your little cloud. Let me know if the church ever excommunicates Hitler. Or Goering. Or Goebbels. Or anybody else who was in the Nazi party.

He was ignorant and egoistic, like you.

How long have you been off your medication? Seriously? Your juvenile answers basically amount to “oh, yeah? Your mother!” It’s like talking to someone who is in middle school. You’re an asshole, but you don’t notice me bringing that up. Until now. It’s irrelevant. Rather like you.

Heidi | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
@heidi

Well done. And while this guy’s ignorance has been entertaining, it has become tiresome. We reached the “teaching a pig to sing” category dozens of comments ago.

@true_believer

Pffft. Whatever. You’ve demonstrated the ignorance that categorizes your ilk. Hey, if you need an angry sky-daddy to keep you from doing evil things, I’m glad you’ve got that fantasy to keep you in line. As these lists prove, it doesn’t work for everyone. As for me, I’m done with you.

“Say something once, why say it again?” – David Byrne

Dave Hitt | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
Well, since you got nothing to answer, you are going to keep doing LAAALLAAALLAAA thing. E.g.:

“”I even gave you the empirical proof of God’s existence

No, you did not.

“Well, this world existing IS a proof of something causing its existence by this worlds scientific laws.””

That’s just too funny. You are seriously entertaining, pity you decided to hit the hills. It’s ok. Entertaining factor was only value to me. I didn’t expect anything else from you considering your knowledge, or rather lack of it. To be honest, I thought you’re going to run much earlier. Truth is just too hurtful for you. I’ll stop this “torture” or “my book” might get even “angrier”. You can keep deceiving your self, but only for a while. When you one day finally face the truth, things will change. Then you may remember what was said here. Good day to you.

true_believer | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
true_believer.

Wow. The ultimate pinhead. I’ve got a question for you. What is the difference between faith and wishful thinking?

bobby | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
Believing in things you can’t see is for morons, btw.

bobby | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
Meh, I started reading all the comments, but gave up around the time someone reckoned that conscience isn’t an instinctive thing.

May I direct said person’s attention here? Altruism, and conscientious acts, come natural to children too young to be indoctrinated in or understand the concept of sky-daddy. Explain that one.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve had no religion most of my life. The brief time I was a Christer, though, I was also in with a group that spouted Biblical ideas, and performed random acts of vandalism, theft, and physical abuse towards shops run by Buddhists (in a primarily Asian suburb, this makes up a great percentage of them), Muslims, and other non-Christians, and their keepers. First-hand experience of the destructive power of religion, on otherwise polite and charming kids? I has it.

blufindr | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
@bobby
“I’ve got a question for you. What is the difference between faith and wishful thinking?”

About the same as difference between ignorance and stupidity.

“Believing in things you can’t see is for morons, btw.”

Oh really? So all blind people are morons?

true_believer | Sep 13, 2009 | Reply
@blufindr

“Explain that one.”

Why do you choose to believe to that particular psychologist? I mean, you “was” wrong before, so wrong. But now, you are convinced that you are perfect I presume, and it’s not possible for you to ever again be wrong, since you are not complete dickhead any more, right?

“First-hand experience of the destructive power of religion, on otherwise polite and charming kids? I has it.”

Sounds more like teenager-out-of –control rampage then religious quest for God, truth and knowledge. How much did you know then about the religion you claimed to follow? How much more or different do you know now? Do you know anything about any other major religions, “Christer”? May be none of my business, and I think I know answers anyway, but you might need to stop ignoring them.

true_believer | Sep 13, 2009 | Reply
@true_believer: I believe bobby meant things that possessed tangible evidence. Though I have to point out, as someone with paranoid schizotypal tendencies, simple ability to be visible is not necessarily proof of existence. ;)

I choose to believe that particular psychologist because there has been a lot of studies, that show a surprisingly low trend of senseless violence or inherent selfishness in young children. From the mouths of babes springs infinite wisdom, or something of the kind.

Where was I wrong before? I’m confused and perturbed. To my knowledge, I have not addressed you before. When did I ever tell you I was “perfect”, and it was “not possible for [me] to ever again be wrong”? In reality, I second-guess myself on a regular basis (albeit, not about my lack of religious faith), and am quite convinced that I am a “complete dickhead”. But thanks for making mindless presumptions.

Actually, a number of the men and women I knew in that group were past adolescence by the time I left it, disgusted by what I saw. I watched many of them grow from cheeky, but otherwise innocent kids, into foul-mouthed and bigotted adults. I’m quite sure their motivation was not the “religious quest for God, truth and knowledge”. However, that does not refute the fact that their motivations were quite purely Christian. Admittedly, these reasons were rather molested of their original form. Nevertheless, their justifications for acts of cruelty originated in the Bible — a work of, as far as can be concretely verified, complete fiction.

Notice that I didn’t bring Islam, Buddhism, or any other religion into this argument. I choose to remain within my range of knowledge, since I do not like to be made the fool. “Religion”, in context to what I was talking of, was more specifically Christianity, and more widely as the unshakeable faith in something which cannot be proven, any more than you can prove that there isn’t an invisible, intangible dragon in my room.

What do you mean by calling me “Christer”? I was rather, referring to you. I thought I’d made it plenty obvious by now that I am not Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Wiccan, pagan, Jewish, Scientologist, FSM-ist, Googlist, or any other religion you might like to slap on me.

Your last sentence confuses me. It may be because English is my second language, but I could not decipher a word of sense out of that. Please, kindly rephrase.

blufindr | Sep 13, 2009 | Reply
“Where was I wrong before?”

“I was also in with a group that spouted Biblical ideas, and performed random acts of vandalism, theft, and physical abuse towards…”

Lol, must be your other you asking.

“What do you mean by calling me “Christer”? I was rather, referring to you.”

And I’m as “Christer” as you are, genius. Let’s just keep calling eachother random names.

Look, it’s simple, Tyler: you want to believe that there is no God. That’s fine, you got right to believe that. But don’t think there’s much difference between stupid atheist and stupid religious person. Your belief is as irrational and unscientific, your acts can be as violent and malicious. Just keep feeding your egos and pretending that you are above everyone.

true_believer | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply
My name ain’t Tyler, yo.

I was wrong because I was a kid. Difference between being a kid, shunted in with things because of peer pressure, and choosing to do something now (having no belief) because I’ve been able to choose the most logical decision from the facts presented to me.

There is no difference between “stupid atheist and stupid religious” people, you are quite right. Our acts can be as detrimental. We do, however, front up to them, instead of hiding behind “God told me to”, and “the Bible/other religious text said so”.

blufindr | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply
“We do, however, front up to them, instead of hiding behind “God told me to”, and “the Bible/other religious text said so”.”

Bullshit, don’t make me cite from posts before. You also hide behind stuff like “it was politics”, “my dog did it” … Huge difference.

true_believer | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply
Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. Our excuses have little to do with religion. Which is the inherent source of our purported holier-than-thou (::rimshot::) attitude. We either front up to what we do, or blame things — that do not have anything to do with an irrational belief in sky-daddy. Do you know the difference?

blufindr | Sep 15, 2009 | Reply
The difference between irrational and ignorant in this case to me seems irrelevant. Like I said, it’s a try to find a difference between stupid and stupid. There is none.
Atheism doesn’t give any moral guidance whatsoever. Therefore, it’s immoral. Period.
It’s ridiculous to claim that you can’t believe in “something you can’t see” (God) yet claiming to have better moral code then religious people because of “conscience”. Both conscience and God are abstract concepts, and you can’t see them.

Thing is, people tend to associate them selves with different groups. You decided to be an atheist, but that alone doesn’t make other atheists any closer to what you see as “atheistic” nor does it make you any closer to that ideal.

Hitt with his “holier than thou” attitude falsely thinks that all atheists are reasoning same way he is, and that they have same moral codex like him, but in fact their morality could be based on anything really, from racism, communism, religion, anarchism, or to be completely absent. For example, they might consider pleasure killing justified, and atheism would not affect them to change their mind.

If you are really an atheist, your decision making process reflects the idea of atheism. If you are guided by some other idea while you are deciding, then your atheism is probably irrelevant. Your moral code is almost certainly based on interaction with religious people and their morals, which means that under same circumstances you would act same or similar. You can call your self whatever you like, but names mean nothing. You are your deeds.

It may seem to you strange or irrational how other people think or react, but that’s because you had different set of circumstances through your life path, and you react differently. Some events in our life can affect us deeply and influence our decision making, regardless of our ideology. If you were deaf, you wouldn’t be able to hear, wether religious or atheist.

We are all different because God wanted us to be different and to overcome those differences between us. If we were all same, it would be too easy to love everyone, because everyone would be same like us and our Ego wouldn’t be in way. How we react to those differences shows what we really are: animals afraid of everything different, or loving humans.

true_believer | Sep 17, 2009 | Reply
What makes you think that atheists don’t commit horrible crimes against religious people, being just as immoral of those radicals wrongly making generalizations of certain faiths?

Kelly | Sep 17, 2009 | Reply
@true_believer: You need some definitions, kid.

From Dictionary.com:

ir⋅ra⋅tion⋅al /ɪˈræʃənl/ [i-rash-uh-nl]
–adjective
1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.
2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.
3. not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments.

ig⋅no⋅rance /ˈɪgnərəns/ [ig-ner-uhns]
–noun
the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc.

Ignorance can be remedied. Irrationality, not so.

As for immoral:

im⋅mor⋅al /ɪˈmɔrəl, ɪˈmɒr-/ [i-mawr-uhl, i-mor-]
–adjective
1. violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics.
2. licentious or lascivious.

I think what you’re looking for is “amoral”.

a⋅mor⋅al /eɪˈmɔrəl, æˈmɔr-, eɪˈmɒr-, æˈmɒr-/ [ey-mawr-uhl, a-mawr-, ey-mor-, a-mor-]
–adjective
1. not involving questions of right or wrong; without moral quality; neither moral nor immoral.
2. having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong: a completely amoral person.

Atheism does not give any moral guidance, you are quite right. This does not mean atheists are going to go slice and dice everyone in sight. We do good, because we know it’s what’s right. Not because we’re afraid of wrath, or going to hell.

It’s equally ridiculous to believe in something you can’t see, and claim to have a better moral system than atheists (because you supposedly have all these unbreakable rules), when there are so many that use other rules cast by the same person to perform heinous deeds.

I didn’t decide to be an atheist. I didn’t wake up one day and tell myself, “Today, I will stop believing in God.” It happened, and it happened because of lack of empirical evidence.

And yo, given the above evidence, what makes you think theists don’t consider killing pleasurable? They think they’re doing the act of God, many of them (although it does say in several texts that only God reserves the right to judge…).

Indeed, “you are your deeds”. In which case, I’m still going to be an atheist. I was raised by atheists and Buddhists. Spirituality and religion are not two sides of the same coin.

Actually, if everyone was like me, I’d probably go on a killing spree. I really, do not like me very much.

I couldn’t care less, frankly, what you believe in. I start caring when you (general you, not specific you; I hate English) use these beliefs to do crazy, hurtful things — and have them defended.

I’m well aware that there are good Christians out there, I’m friends with a few of them, and am close to a rather devout Christian. Know why I don’t argue with them? Because our religions (or lack thereof) do not come into play in many of our conversations. I do not openly bash Christianity (not that I do that anyway), and they don’t openly tell me I’m immoral and I need to see God, blah blah blah. Nor do they condemn me or mine for being homosexual, having had premarital sex, eating pork, or any of the other things the Bible says they should condemn me for.

We are all different, and I’m thankful for that. I am not, however, thankful for any difference that means someone can blame what I feel is an irrational belief for inhumane behaviour.

Which leads me to my next response:

@Kelly: We do horrible things, too. We do not, ever, do so because we are atheist. Actions perpetrated by an atheist are done because of logic that has little to do with atheism itself.

blufindr | Sep 18, 2009 | Reply
I hate atheists more than I hate religion.

Blurer | Sep 18, 2009 | Reply
@blufindr

You forgot this:
stu⋅pid⋅i⋅ty
/stuˈpɪdɪti, styu-/ [stoo-pid-i-tee, styoo-]
1. the state, quality, or fact of being stupid.
2. a stupid act, notion, speech, etc.

“I think what you’re looking for is “amoral”.”

Nope, looks like you don’t understand what I’m trying to say, and you think that I should’ve used that word. I prefer what I said originally.

“It’s equally ridiculous to believe in something you can’t see, and claim to have a better moral system than atheists (because you supposedly have all these unbreakable rules), when there are so many that use other rules cast by the same person to perform heinous deeds.”

Supposedly? Only someone with same mindset as that person could say it this way. Your logic is very flawed. Are those rules there? What is the punishment for breaking those rules? … No exceptions.

You probably expect God, that to you looks (or looked) like Santa Claus, only in white to struck with lightning anyone that breaks His rules, and even then, you wouldn’t believe it unless it was right in front of you.

“I didn’t decide to be an atheist.”

So, who did? Voices in your head told you? Your peers at a time thought you would be cooler if you were atheist?

“We do not, ever, do so because we are atheist. ”

Wrong, you do, because if you were something else, you may have not done it.

“…because of lack of empirical evidence.”

Ok, try to explain to 3 year olds relativity theory. I’m pretty sure they won’t be fully capable of understanding your empirical evidence. And since they don’t understand it, the next step for humanity would be I guess to scrap the relativity theory all together, because that’s exactly your atheistic reasoning on religion.

“I really, do not like me very much.”

Bullshit, you do like your self, but you maybe don’t like the role you are playing instead of being you. Find what you don’t like about your self, and change it. Fix it, it’s never too late.

true_believer | Sep 19, 2009 | Reply
@true_believer:

Atheism isn’t “immoral”. It can’t be immoral, if it doesn’t define what is moral (which, by the way, is subjective anyway). Hence, it is “amoral”, which is characterised by the lack of morality. Your original premise, that atheism is immoral, is incorrect. Got it?

I was referring to the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, and the multiple “Suffer not a witch to live”-type decrees. Rather contradictory in my mind.

I don’t expect him to smite people in front of me, no. I do, however, expect the Christians that do stupid things to receive their just desserts, instead of being allowed to do whatever just because they’re Christian.

The fact that I don’t believe in God decided I was an atheist. Who decided you were whatever religion you are?

Er, no, no we don’t. We don’t go around doing it because we don’t believe in a God. An atheist that commits horrible acts does so because that atheist is misogynistic, a complete jerk-off, mentally unstable, or other things — that have little to do with the state of atheism.

Explain to me what empirical evidence there is for the existence of God, instead of just expecting me and every other atheist to accept it as fact.

I was unaware you lived in my head. Just so you know, I’ve been depressed for a number of years — precisely because I loathe myself, and am incapable of doing anything about it. Don’t give me that “you do like yourself” crap. I’m in my head. I can tell you straight off that if I were given carte blanche to do away with one person on the planet, I’d do away with me.

blufindr | Sep 19, 2009 | Reply
@blufindr

“Atheism does not give any moral guidance, you are quite right. This does not mean atheists are going to go slice and dice everyone in sight.”

It also doesn’t mean they wont. However, it does mean they are more likely to do it then someone in fear of eternal punishment for such deed.

Look around your self. Do you see me sitting in your place? No? Please don’t use any sharp objects to check if I’m inside your head, I’m not. I’m faaaar away. That’s why I got different point of view of things, such as immorality of atheism, comprende?.

I never said atheism is not amoral. What I said is that it’s ultimately immoral by removing a necessity for moral code. For example, if Stalin (who was atheist) obeyed commandment you mentioned (not to kill), would he have ordered millions of people to be killed?

“Just so you know, I’ve been depressed for a number of years — precisely because I loathe myself, and am incapable of doing anything about it.”

Fine, you’re an emo.

“An atheist that commits horrible acts does so because that atheist is misogynistic, a complete jerk-off, mentally unstable, or other things — that have little to do with the state of atheism.”

We are here debating a post that claims opposite, that ideology is responsible for these acts. You basically agree with me that this is wrong.

true_believer | Sep 20, 2009 | Reply
I’d like to see some of your proof that atheists are more likely to commit heinous deeds.

I don’t have a problem with your holding views different from mine. As long as they hold water. Thus far, they have not.

Check out the Salem Witch Trials. They violated that particular tenet, perhaps not with the same magnitude numerically as Stalin, but certainly so relatively-speaking. Their primary motivation was perhaps not religion, per se, but the ideas in such were almost certainly fuelled by religious texts — namely, the passage that dictates “suffer not a witch to live”.

I am not a member of a goth imitation culture. Don’t insult me by calling me thus.

Ideology, while not directly responsible, is at least partially to blame for the culmination of that hatred. Is a child, or other such pure person, likely to hate homosexuals without being taught so? Is a child going to kill his sister for bringing shame upon their family, if s/he is not taught that through religion?

blufindr | Sep 20, 2009 | Reply
@blufindr

“I’d like to see some of your proof that atheists are more likely to commit heinous deeds.”

I provided proofs to you many times here. You decided to pretend not to understand them. Once you mature enough, you may be able to try their contest in more creditable manner. Currently, it seems that only way you can cope is ignorance. Spiritual maturity can only be achieved by will and experience, not by age. So far you sound to me like you are missing all of that. But not to worry, because my goal was actually never to prove anything to you, since it’s impossible at your state. My goal was just to have fun and ridicule because your ignorance calls for it.

Your confusion about children and spirituality can only come from your background. You can’t be born into a religion or morals. It is a choice of will and understanding. Only a complete idiot can even consider that kids got higher moral standards then fully spiritually and physically developed healthy adults. Ask a two year old what they think about adultery, and see how you go. You personally believe that people are born good or bad. Don’t try to deny it, because it is foundation of theory you linked that nature and not nurture is more relevant in development of human psyche. Unless of course you got no clue what‘s it about …

I don’t agree with that. Same people do sometimes good, sometimes bad, depending on circumstances, and both nature and nurture form them. More you know about those circumstances and background, harder it gets to judge them and criticize. What helps them decide and make “better” choice are their principles and ideals. As atheist you lack most of that, because you reject religion that is foundation of the whole concept of morals the way we know it.

“Check out the Salem Witch Trials. They violated that particular tenet, perhaps not with the same magnitude numerically as Stalin, but certainly so relatively-speaking.”
Your comparison is very distressing. You people keep forcing me to repeat for each of you separate. I already said here somewhere that comparison of dozen victims to millions is not supporting your argument. Egocentric fanatics in Salem killed few unlucky women in try to keep the rest under oppression. Moreover, it was not even religious act, although perpetrators claimed it was. Religion was only justification. Main reason was politics and madness. Otherwise, witches would be still burning left and right today. Besides, it was not atheists that stoped them doing such crime. It was religious people. On the other hand, Stalin killed millions solely because of their religiousness, and yes, it was politics and mental illness again. He was able to destroy such enormous number of victims because he had millions of atheism crazed followers obeying him. How many times can you ignore this fact and start whole useless cycle of denial again without understanding the meaning and implications? Those poor religious people were persecuted and killed by atheists. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE! Not dozen! In statistics, 10 compared to 1 000 000 is trivial. That slaughter went on for almost a century. It’s still happening. Do you still want to keep ignoring it? I can rephrase this many, many times, just keep asking.

true_believer | Sep 21, 2009 | Reply
Reiterate them. Seriously, I can’t remember a single one.

“Spiritual maturity can only be achieved by will and experience, not by age.”

Yeah… The extent of my experiences chiefly concern playing pawn to agendas not my own. It’s turned me cynical. No God would allow such a travesty as for an innocent child to take on the role of an adult. That kind of experience is perhaps not the kind you were looking for, but it is one of the reasons I find it difficult to believe in a divine being. As for will, well. Choosing to ignore the blatant lack of evidence for God’s existence is mindless, at best.

I believe you missed a large segment of one of my previous posts, linking you to a page where children too young to understand morality choose to act altruistically, anyway. Anyone who’s been in the company of very young children would understand that.

“Only a complete idiot can even consider that kids got higher moral standards then fully spiritually and physically developed healthy adults.”

Many of these “spiritually and physically developed healthy adults” end up going on to commit crimes, or minor sins (lying and the like). Heck, I can’t think of a single adult that has never done something cruel for the hell of it. Children are not cruel for the sake of cruelty itself. Adults are. That makes them purer, and of higher moral standard, than adults.

Most two-year-olds I know can’t form a coherent sentence, yet. They don’t understand the concept of adultery. Your analogy is false.

I don’t reject faith, which is the chief component of religion. I do reject blind faith. Fundamentalist atheists piss me off as much as fundamentalist theists do. Except, you know, we never beat the living crap out of someone for violating what we thought was morally correct.

“Religion was only justification. Main reason was politics and madness.”
As is Stalin’s slaughter of theists. It was purely to establish Communism as the new religion of the land. He had followers — as did those who perpetrated the witch trials.

And hey, if we’re talking about crazed followers, what about Hitler? He was, for all intents and purposes, Christian enough that he had “God is on our side” inscribed in his militia’s belt buckles. He had an entire nation help his genocide.

“Otherwise, witches would be still burning left and right today.”
Seriously, you believe in witches?

“It’s still happening.”
Where?

What about the unknown amount of people, ridiculed, lambasted, and punished by the church for being gay or whatever? We just going to forget them too? I’m fairly sure that if we count up all those victims, they’ll outnumber Stalin’s by a significant amount. After all, Christianity was in vogue for such a long time, compared with atheism.

blufindr | Sep 21, 2009 | Reply
blufindr, such a wall of text and nothing in it, just pathetic. I won’t repeat my answers to your bullshit “facts” again, just scroll up and READ! You won’t make your argument stand just by repeating same refuted things, try maybe bringing in some new facts. How stupid is asking a question that’s been answered on this same site few times already? I knew that atheism requires huge amounts of ignorance but this is just absurd.

“He was, for all intents and purposes, Christian enough that he had “God is on our side” inscribed in his militia’s belt buckles.”

That was for idiots following him. He had to unite all Germans behind same goal, so he used what he needed. Nope, he was atheist. Nationalist-socialism was atheistic ideology, and not religion. Nationalism is also atheistic. Hitler did not comply with any requirement to be called Christian.

Religion=DO NOT KILL
NSDAP=Kill all non Aryans
Obviously incompatible.

“Where?”

As we all know, tovarish Stalin was Martian, so must be on Mars then, genius. Mao was from Venus. Ceausescu was from Jupiter, and Nazis are of course from Moon, they got base there called … “Omega”, which got giant “lazer”, …

“What about the unknown amount of people, ridiculed, lambasted, and punished by the church for being gay or whatever?”

We could add to that now numerous ignorant atheistic people as well, that are being ridiculed “by Church”. Still, numbers are not nearly close, let alone comparison of ridicule and death. Weak argument.

Church=not religion=political organisation=not ridiculing gays.
Ridicule=by people=me=not religion.

“Most two-year-olds I know can’t form a coherent sentence, yet. They don’t understand the concept of adultery. Your analogy is false.”

Rofl.

true_believer | Sep 22, 2009 | Reply
hahahaha that comment made my night. Great post by the way.

asdasd | Oct 8, 2009 | Reply
If I’m not mistaken, I think there are quite a few “atheists” who were responsible for killing millions – Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, just to name a few. Your theory may have a few holes in it. Please correct me if I’m wrong. By the way, can you name an atheist who has opened an orphage or hospital? What atheist group has assisted in Haiti?

ghippe | Jan 31, 2010 | Reply
Man, I’m glad the way to prove that atheism is right is by applying crimes to religious people because we know ONLY religious people are criminals. That makes the argument so well. Well known fact…atheists are NOT criminals, that’s why they are atheists. Golly…this has got to be the worst excuse for an argument I have ever heard. Hey, Jack, it’s not religion that committed the crime, it was PEOPLE. Here’s another news flash…God is not people. If the people had followed the teachings then this crap WOULDN’T have happened. Go figure. I can see how that’s difficult to work out though. Why don’t you show us how it’s done by doing nothing, as not required by religion, you won’t have to make an actual effort. Safer to stand back and gloat instead of joining the battle, huh? Don’t worry, you’re safe from making an effort now, because you’re an atheist and you job is…is…nothing, just what you believe in. Can’t fail at nothing can you?

bobby | Apr 10, 2010 | Reply
@ ghippe Non-Beleivers Giving Aid was set up to help out the folks in Haiti, and collected $11k in the first two hours. In less than half a day they passed the $50,000 mark, $100,000 in less than 24 hours, $175,000 by the next day, and a quarter of a million dollars by sunup Monday morning,

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, both atheists, have made the largest charitable individual donations in history.

Ever hear of Andrew Carnegie?

BTW, Hitler was a Cathloic. Ya might want to study a bit of history there.

@bobby Every crime on this list was inspired by religion. Every one.

Hittman | Apr 10, 2010 | Reply

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