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26 Feb 19
@fmf saidAnd does the number exceed 'scores of millions'?
What is the "final accounting" you envisage for them?
That last question was about sonship's "final accounting" for Jews who die "unreconciled with God".
I ask the same about the "scores of millions" of non-Christians killed by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot?
What "final accounting" and "perfect justice" did they face after their deaths, according to your beliefs, sonship?
Most of Pol Pot's victims would have been Buddhists and not Christians and therefore, according to the beliefs you have laid out here as long as I have known you, they'd have been wilful followers of "Satan's rebellion".
What "final accounting" do you believe they faced after being murdered by Pol Pot?
Same question applies to Mao's and Stalin's non-Christian [and therefore "unreconciled"] victims and survivors?
26 Feb 19
@sonship saidYour all knowing, all powerful skygod could have prevented this with scarcely a wave of his hand but deliberately chose to do nothing ( as usual ). Maybe that was exactly what your skygod wants to have happened and to continue to happen.
I would like Duchess64 and Caissad4 to explain something about the scores of millions of unborn women whose lives were terminated in the wombs of their mothers since, let us say, Row v Wade.
Which do you think provded more FUEL to this mass extermination of unborn women (and men):
1.) Biblical concepts of humans being created in the imag ...[text shortened]... ded more ideological fuel for this holocaust - Christian (or biblical) theology or Atheism ?
Maybe he is out playing golf with Santa Claus.
@sonship saidWard's statement is based on a false dichotomy. The notion that because someone thinks religion is evil means they must think that atheistic totalitarian regimes are good, or that such regimes are evil means one must necessarily think religion good."If there is a root of evil that became a terrifying force that almost brought the world to destruction in the first half of the twentieth century, it is the anti-religious ideologies of Germany and Russia, North Vietnam, and North Korea. It takes almost willful blindness to invert this historical fact, and to suppose that the religions that were persecuted and crushed by those brutal forces are the real sources of evil in the world."
- Keith Ward
I do not agree that Nazi Germany was anti-religious. I definitely do not agree that either they or the Soviets were motivated to their genocides by anti-religious zeal. That their ideologies drove them to hegemonic expansion would seem to show a similarity with religion, rather than a difference. The desire being to compel the other to follow the same ideology.
26 Feb 19
@sonship saidActually religion. Atheism has had no part in shaping a society in which a woman might not want a child. Religion has. If atheism did not exist then abortions would still proceed.
I would like Duchess64 and Caissad4 to explain something about the scores of millions of unborn women whose lives were terminated in the wombs of their mothers since, let us say, Row v Wade.
Which do you think provded more FUEL to this mass extermination of unborn women (and men):
1.) Biblical concepts of humans being created in the imag ...[text shortened]... ded more ideological fuel for this holocaust - Christian (or biblical) theology or Atheism ?
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Actually religion. Atheism has had no part in shaping a society in which a woman might not want a child. Religion has. If atheism did not exist then abortions would still proceed.
My question was - WHICH do you think more likely fuels the ideology leading to mass termination of the lives of unborn women.
It appears to me that you are avoiding an undesirable answer by means of attempting to neutralize any dichotomy about it.
If the question were put to me about Slavery as it was practiced in the US, I probably would be honest enough to admit that perverted Christian theology may have had more a fueling effect on the slave trade. (The alleged curse on Ham, other ad hoc dispensation isms, black people without souls, and some Evolution theory added in).
I expect people to be honest about it.
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Your all knowing, all powerful skygod could have prevented this with scarcely a wave of his hand but deliberately chose to do nothing ( as usual ). Maybe that was exactly what your skygod wants to have happened and to continue to happen.
Maybe he is out playing golf with Santa Claus.
You didn't answer the question.
From which worldview do you think the holocaust of terminated unborn women derived more of its fuel?
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I definitely do not agree that either they or the Soviets were motivated to their genocides by anti-religious zeal.
Stalin burned religious edifices.
Mao had gatherings of Christians policed and their leaders jailed for the rest of their lives and killed.
The North Korean dictators of last three iterations attained virtual deification status of hero worship.
The president was as much "god" as you're going to get.
Try taking a suit case of Bibles into North Korea or China. See what happens to you.
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26 Feb 19
@ghost-of-a-duke saidWas this post 'honest' sonship?
I imagine the OP is intended to readdress the balance and to highlight that war crimes still occur in an environment without religion. On this point I fully accept that terrible things have happened in history where religion was not a motivator, such as greed or lust for power.
It is not atheism or theism for that matter that with singularity precipitates war crim ...[text shortened]... direction, though balances out perhaps after the focus on Biblical war crimes in the other thread).
(It immediately preceded the one where you predicted apologists for Atheism to come along).
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@sonship saidTry taking a suitcase of atheist literature into Yemen or UAE and see what happens to you.
@DeepThought
I definitely do not agree that either they or the Soviets were motivated to their genocides by anti-religious zeal.
Stalin burned religious edifices.
Mao had gatherings of Christians policed and their leaders jailed for the rest of their lives and killed.
The North Korean dictators of last three iterations attained virtual deification ...[text shortened]... ng to get.
Try taking a suit case of Bibles into North Korea or China. See what happens to you.
26 Feb 19
@sonship saidDid the Third Reich's exploitation of "religious-sounding language" work on German Christians?
Something about god on the buckles of the NAZI soldiers may be mentioned. Because the Third Reich exploited religious sounding language some atheists like David Silverman and Christopher Hitchens try to pen his abominations on Christian theology.
@sonship saidYou mention some C20th genocides. I note that you omitted the genocide in the Congo Free State that ended at the beginning of the C20th which accounted for between 10-20 million victims and which can't be described as having been perpetrated by "Atheism". It would have muddied the picture I suppose.
"If there is a root of evil that became a terrifying force that almost brought the world to destruction in the first half of the twentieth century, it is the anti-religious ideologies of Germany and Russia, North Vietnam, and North Korea. It takes almost willful blindness to invert this historical fact, and to suppose that the religions that were persecuted and crushed by those brutal forces are the real sources of evil in the world."
I also note that you omitted the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of the north and south American continents who "...were displaced, died of disease, and were killed by Europeans through slavery, rape, and war." [Wiki] You can't chalk that up to "Atheism". In the 200 years after 1491, the indigenous population of Americans had declined by about 130 million people [90%].
You'd have to add to that what happened in the C18th and C19th in North America which accounted for between 5 and 15 million without "Atheism" being a factor. That would have muddied your picture too, I suppose. Then again, you could introduce the "No True Scotsman" thing perhaps?
Here are some C20th genocides that aren't attributable to "Atheism" that you chose not to mention: the Indonesian genocide, Bangladesh genocide, Burundian genocide, East Timorese genocide, Guatemalan genocide, Kurdish genocide, Isaaq genocide.
Prior to that, there was the Dzungar genocide, California genocide, Circassian genocide, Selk'nam genocide, Herero and Namaqua genocide, the Greek genocide, Assyrian genocide, the Armenian Genocide, and the Libyan Genocide, none of which - as far as I know - seem related to "Atheism".
You didn't mention them. Maybe doing so would have muddied the picture you are seeking to portray.
Those I've mentioned go back to about the C16th. How many genocides from, say, 2000-1500 BC through to the C15th do you believe were caused by "Atheism"?
@sonship saidExpect now apologists for Atheism to come in with the latest trend - try to explain Hitler was a Christian.But Atheism is simply a lack of belief in gods. I feel absolutely no obligation, as an atheist, to defend barbarism, simply because it was committed by other atheists. Nor do I defend their religious intolerance. On the contrary, I respect people's right to follow their own Spiritual path, as long as they aren't hurting anyone by doing so. I don't like thought-policing of any kind.
26 Feb 19
@sonship saidAre theists who have abortions in the U.S. atheists? With Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court was split 7-2. Were those seven justices part of "Atheism"?
the scores of millions of unborn women whose lives were terminated in the wombs of their mothers since, let us say, Row v Wade.