Atheism death toll vs all religions

Originally posted by boony
Its funny how religion is blamed for all the violence and wars and deaths, though lets look at atheism's list of horrors;

People who were killed in religions wars were killed BECAUSE of religious beliefs. Religion was the motivator.

-- The First Crusade was launched in 1095 with the battle cry "Deus Vult" (God wills it), a mandate to destroy infidels in the Holy Land. Gathering crusaders in Germany first fell upon "the infidel among us,"
...
Human sacrifice blossomed in the Mayan theocracy of Central America between the 11th and 16th centuries. To appease a feathered-serpent god, maidens were drowned in sacred wells and other victims either had their hearts cut out, were shot with arrows, or were beheaded.
...
As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second Crusade: "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."

Source

These people were killed because they didn't believe in the right God. It was all about the religion. They were killed in the name of religion.

Stalins purges kill 61 million conservative figures
...
Mao Tse Tung Mao's 70 million dead: conservative figures
...
Pol Pot Roughly 1.5 million again conservative numbers again

These people were killed for POLITICAL reasons, not religious ones.

People were killed in communist nations for a lot of different reasons. Some were communists who disagreed with those in power and were killed because of that. Some were anti-communists opposed the government and were killed for that. Some were simply in the way or inconvenient and were killed for that. These are political disagreements that people were being killed over, not murder in the name of atheism.

Source

This thread isnt about how good we are and how bad they are. Its not an Us verses Them thing.

Sorry, I don't believe you. You're coming out in defense of YOUR form of Christianity and blaming atheists for deaths that had NOTHING to do with atheism.

Humanity is evil and will corrupt any ideology to drive power and greed.

Speak for yourself.

Stop blaming religion,

Stop defending it.

Look, just because someone was killed by an atheist, that doesn't mean they were killed in the name of atheism. That's like suggesting that a man who kills someone did so "in the name of" manhood.

I could link a few sites to deaths caused by religions but I wont, go research it for yourself and see the numbers prove my point.

The numbers DISPROVE your point.

I am just trying to show that mankind is evil.

Speak for yourself. Man has the capacity for evil or good. The choice is in each of us.

reply to post by boony

Evolution is a atheist religion that has caused millions of deaths, we can throw them in under religion as well ... I will stand corrected if you prove me wrong.

Easily done -- Stalin rejected evolution in favor of Lysenkoism, and Lysenko was a Lamarckist. So Stalin, while he may have been an atheist, didn't accept evolution. Your argument that evolution has caused millions of death based on Stalin is demonstrably wrong.

That's the detail-oriented explanation for why you're wrong. Here's the big picture explanation -- can you show, explicitly and objectively, that the remaining figures you name (Pol Pot, Mao, etc.) did these things because of their purported acceptance of evolution? Hint: your first step is to prove that they accepted evolution.

I'll be waiting for your proof.

I would like to see a reasoned argument that atheism contributed to the murders in these communist regimes as opposed to dictatorship. Stalin's personality may have been harmed more by his mother's desire to make him a priest. Had he been free to express his atheism earlier he might have been a very nice person.

reply to post by boony


You say "it is not an us vs them thing" yet you also say, "atheism has a much larger death toll", do you see any irony in that? Please read with common sense:

Atheism is responsible: Myth.

In order to take blame there must be pure links:
Atheism does not make any demands for people to do something.
Atheists are individually accountable for their moral beliefs (convictions).
When an atheist, like Stalin, Mao, Pot, ..., does something, they are to blame and not atheism.
Their moral convictions do not agree with the convictions of all atheists (there is no connection between atheism and mass murder). Don't believe me? Why do not all atheists kill people? Because atheism is not to blame.
Considering all I have said, atheism is independent from moral convictions thus cannot take blame for moral convictions.

You also blamed atheism for communism and evolution.
Atheism isn't evolution, science doesn't tell people to kill, people pervert evolution, evolution is not a religion.
Communism is not atheism or a result of atheism.

Atheism has as much to do with any action as does the color of one's skin.
If you looked at prison statistics and saw that black americans make up the highest percentage among the prison population, is being black to blame?

Is atheism morally better? As it may not harm society as much as religion, it cannot be considered morally better by standards of truth, but rather through moral convictions. Just as some believe slavery is good and others believe it to be wrong, there is no truth; furthermore, you believe that your god is right without there being a moral truth, satan could be morally right.

Blaming religion:
Religion contains a set of morals people believe, thus IS accountable for influencing moral beliefs.
Christianity must account for all harm it directly influences, not just mass murders:
Violence, bullying, faith healing (belief that medicine is the devil, deny children medial care so they die), child abuse, justifying slavery (most suggest it does), anti-liberty, anti-sex education, indoctrination, and all that other not so great stuff. I'm not sure specific scripture or interpretations, but seems to have happened because of Christianity.
"and God said onto them, "Be fruitful... and have DOMINION over (EVERYTHING)" Genesis 1:28
That is the source of which Christians have wanted to rule and oppress everyone else on this planet with their beliefs, Christian love isn't that great of a thing.

Truth has been seen.

-Neverseenit