100s of millions slaughtered in the last century by the atheist-Marxist ideologues Pol Pot, Stalin, Mayo
Wow, you must be unsufferable at parties.
We're getting off topic here... but I'll dance for a moment.
I must be? Why categorize in terns of comfort as if suffering is a vice? I don't particularly seek to conform myself to other's mandates nor to over-confident oracles (but will take a lucky hash guess in a millisecond). Only those who's narrow world view precludes them seeing the value of suffering as a virtuous means to gain a-greater-good for themselves and their fellows (even as they reflexively suffer the boorish hum-drum venality of each other's ill humor to no profit) would find me unsufferable. I'd just depart a party if everyone appeared too comfortable - that's not my idea of a party - that's a assembly of social drones that's dressed in the same straight-jack uniform of conformity. Party's should be fun.
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None of the totalitarian characters trotted out in the "atheists have killed more people" fallacy, whether they were atheist or not, killed in the name of a lack of belief in a god. Some of them suppressed religion as a tool to further the goal of totalitarian control.
"State-imposed atheism" is a misnomer; there can be no such thing. Imposed irreligion is not atheism. Atheism is only the lack of belief in a god; one can't force people to not believe in a god.
The actions of Mao, Pol and Joe (who attended seminary) were totalitarian opportunists. They sought total authority and banned religion which would compete with that authority. The pursuit of control over a people was the cause for the bloodshed.
Although Stalin initially sought to rid Russia of religion, once firmly in office he re-instîtuted the Russian Orthodox Church and re-opened theological schools. Suppression of religion was a tool not a reason.
Pol Pot is said to have practiced some Theravada Buddhism (and his Khmer Rouge were radical Buddhists). He studied at a Catholic school in Phnom Pen for 8 years. This mad man targeted not only religion but science, medicine and education. Political dissent was not permitted, with torture a common sentence.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=20th_century_atrocities
"State-imposed atheism" is a misnomer; there can be no such thing. Imposed irreligion is not atheism. Atheism is only the lack of belief in a god; one can't force people to not believe in a god.
The actions of Mao, Pol and Joe (who attended seminary) were totalitarian opportunists. They sought total authority and banned religion which would compete with that authority. The pursuit of control over a people was the cause for the bloodshed.
Although Stalin initially sought to rid Russia of religion, once firmly in office he re-instîtuted the Russian Orthodox Church and re-opened theological schools. Suppression of religion was a tool not a reason.
Pol Pot is said to have practiced some Theravada Buddhism (and his Khmer Rouge were radical Buddhists). He studied at a Catholic school in Phnom Pen for 8 years. This mad man targeted not only religion but science, medicine and education. Political dissent was not permitted, with torture a common sentence.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=20th_century_atrocities
But this is just "the other" fallacy or more precisely the atheistic apologist strawman. The State imposing a philosophy of skepticism is not any different to some religions - except most of the latter are voluntary subscriptions and the prior inflict a sacrifice of life or time for not going with the intellectual-light (so to speak). Our very identity is based on what we believe not on what we don't believe. Making oneself the object of one's own contemplation that there can be no greater is to enter into the realm of vanity, cast off the benefit of the doubt and embrace the pallium of infallibility to make oneself God. I always wondered how atheists who find themselves in court feel about submitting their future oblivion to a trial of one's own infallible peers when their only hope for an acquittal rests in the notion of a reasonable doubt they don't extend to the possibility of God?
The original common motive in these monstrous men's regimes (but terrible by what moral standard if there is none?) was really academic altruism more so than it was an organic desire for totalitarianism or fascism. These desired THEIR particular vision for UTOPIA - at any price of blood and cleansing of wrong thoughts/beliefs necessary to gain it. I don't believe that any of these men started off with any maniacal desire to make themselves a supreme ruler or despotic monarch. Men want to be esteemed and loved and revered. That is an aspect of common human nature - from wherever it springs from. What good is esteem if there's no one left alive to hold that esteem or to impress - not even God? As GK Chesterton said "if there were no God there would be no atheists" - and I doubt that any believer or unbeliever would disagree with that.
You are being somewhat sly here by trying to blame the atrocities of Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin on the taints of some religious influence in their lives. Shame on you. I suppose you are intimating that these infamous men were not quite pure enough atheists in their orthodoxy of supreme skepticism (a philosophy of negativism that is not unlike religion in a strange counter-faith aspect). The truth is they were men who caved into malefic actions (evil) and let it consume them -- and everyone around them. If there were no concept of evil there would be no outrage or concern over anything - not even a motive to hate God or religion or even for believers to scorn the warp-speed reach of the FlyingHawkinSpaghettiWheelchair (Stephen Hawking, that warp-speed traveling tower-of-genus who boldly-goes-to-where-no-man-cared-to-go-before to insist that the laws-of-nature existed without a law giver before time and space even existed).
Opportunity can be good or bad - the devil of course is in the details, the motives and the ability of takers to wield power to productive and good ends. But if it's all for naught beyond the here-and-now then as the scarecrow of Oz said "Of course, some people do go both ways" and as someone else most recently said "what difference does it really make at this point?". Choices mean nothing in that case and there's not even a principal of causality that would make "yes" and "no" or "right" and "wrong" mean the same thing from one day to the next.
Thanks for suffering the read. Hopefully fun...
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