Atheism is losing popularity because it won’t own it’s own sins

[Anonymous]

In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."

In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people – the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped – have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted."

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

It's time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

[Anonymous]

https://www.phillyburbs.com/story/opinion/columns/more-voices/2015/03/17/religious-wars-many-more-have/18069632007/

Whereas progressives and atheists must go back 800-1,000 years to chronicle significant “Christian” violence, atheist communist despots of the 20th century collectively killed an estimated 100 million human beings, according to “The Black Book of Communism,” “The Naked Communist,” and articles in Le Monde magazine. Professor Dr. R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii estimates the loss of human life from atheistic communism to range from 40 million to 259 million with a median estimate of 110 million.

In short, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and a myriad of atheistic eastern European communist dictators produced the kind of mass slaughter centuries of Inquisitions and Crusades could not possibly match.

Atheists often respond that correlation of atheism and anti-religiosity and links between atheism and communism are unfounded. Do they forget Marx declaring religion was the “opiate of the people” and “beyond redemption?”


The Soviets established an Anti Religion Commission in 1922, which consistently advocated and enforced the suppression and elimination of religious beliefs, reducing the number of Russian churches from 50,000 to 500, arrested and imprisoned clergy in gulags and consistently persecuted Christians. During their first years the Bolsheviks executed 1,300 Russian Orthodoxy priests while the total number of Soviet Christian victims is estimated at 12-20 million. Wikipedia chronicles Soviet persecution of religion at great length.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New recap:

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for state-mandated atheism or killing people

- zero (or close to it) atheists in the US are responsible for the communist states or have any connection to them

- life with deep beliefs in supernatural forces has resulted in the deaths of many more people than life without those beliefs

- OP cares more about what “new atheists” say than actual atheists

Another intellectually dishonest post from an atheist who won’t even acknowledge atheists in communist countries killed 100 million of their own people.

You are not inspiring people to like or trust atheists or atheism because everyone can look at the history books and see what atheists in communist countries have done .

You don’t even say, yeah, that was a bad, bad thing, You don’t even acknowledge it, but blame current Christians for the flood that happened during Noah’s time (even though you don’t believe in God or the Bible.)

Real atheists in communist countries that mandated atheism killed 100 million people in the 20th century.

- I have already acknowledged that atheists in communist countries killed 94 million people in the 20th century a few times now.

- I also acknowledged that religious people in other countries killed 350+ million people in the 20th century.

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for state-mandated atheism or killing people

- zero (or close to it) atheists in the US are responsible for the communist states or have any connection to them

- life with deep beliefs in supernatural forces has resulted in the deaths of many more people than life without those beliefs

According to modern estimates, approximately 1.7 million people died as a result of the Crusades, which took place in nine separate campaigns from 1095-1291 CE.

According to modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, approximately 2.7 percent of all cases.

Estimates for the total number of people killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion.

Massive wars: There have been four wars since the birth of Christ that exceeded 30 million deaths:

Three Kingdoms (220–280 AD, China, no Christians);
Mongol Conquests (1220–1240 in Eastern Europe, Christians were motivated to defend their land);
Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864, China, few to no Christians); and
World War 2 (1939–1945, global, ideological motives).

Causes of wars: In an in-depth study of the 1,763 wars spanning all of recorded warfare, only 123 were found to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare.

Summary: If you take the very worst case of all these facts, you get:

1 billion people killed in all wars;
2% of these, or 20 million, killed in religious wars; and
perhaps half of these killed in Christian wars, or 10 million victims.

The vast majority of those billion deaths were caused by people who were religious.

[Anonymous]

It is estimated that in the past 100 years, governments under the banner of atheistic communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 and 259,432,000 human lives. Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.


Multiple references:
The Black Book of Communism The Human cost of Communism - 100 Million, IndyMedia, April 4. 2004, Retrieved 5/23/2015
"The Black Book of Communism". Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences website: Cold War Studies. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). "How many did communist regimes murder?" University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
White, Matthew (February 2011). "Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century". Necrometrics. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Higgins, David (June 22, 2007). "Memory and ideology: Washington's newest statue is the Victims Of Communism Memorial". Sarasota Magazine website. Retrieved from October 8, 2007 archive at Internet Archive on May 22, 2015.
Radosh, Ronald (February 2000). "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression". First Things [journal] website. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). "How many did communist regimes murder?" University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War. Retrieved July 19, 2014

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."

In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people – the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped – have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted."

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

It's time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

More people have been killed by religious people than killed by atheists.

In the 20th century, 350+ million people were killed by religious people.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is estimated that in the past 100 years, governments under the banner of atheistic communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 and 259,432,000 human lives. Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.


Multiple references:
The Black Book of Communism The Human cost of Communism - 100 Million, IndyMedia, April 4. 2004, Retrieved 5/23/2015
"The Black Book of Communism". Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences website: Cold War Studies. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). "How many did communist regimes murder?" University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
White, Matthew (February 2011). "Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century". Necrometrics. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Higgins, David (June 22, 2007). "Memory and ideology: Washington's newest statue is the Victims Of Communism Memorial". Sarasota Magazine website. Retrieved from October 8, 2007 archive at Internet Archive on May 22, 2015.
Radosh, Ronald (February 2000). "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression". First Things [journal] website. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). "How many did communist regimes murder?" University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War. Retrieved July 19, 2014

More people have been killed by religious people than killed by atheists.

In the 20th century, 350+ million people were killed by religious people.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/

Not counting the estimated billion or so deaths in the preceding millennia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."

In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people – the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped – have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted."

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

It's time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

More people have been killed by religious people than killed by atheists.

In the 20th century, 350+ million people were killed by religious people.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/

Show the details and numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is estimated that in the past 100 years, governments under the banner of atheistic communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 and 259,432,000 human lives. Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.


Multiple references:
The Black Book of Communism The Human cost of Communism - 100 Million, IndyMedia, April 4. 2004, Retrieved 5/23/2015
"The Black Book of Communism". Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences website: Cold War Studies. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). "How many did communist regimes murder?" University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
White, Matthew (February 2011). "Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century". Necrometrics. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Higgins, David (June 22, 2007). "Memory and ideology: Washington's newest statue is the Victims Of Communism Memorial". Sarasota Magazine website. Retrieved from October 8, 2007 archive at Internet Archive on May 22, 2015.
Radosh, Ronald (February 2000). "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression". First Things [journal] website. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). "How many did communist regimes murder?" University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War. Retrieved July 19, 2014

More people have been killed by religious people than killed by atheists.

In the 20th century, 350+ million people were killed by religious people.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/

Not counting the estimated billion or so deaths in the preceding millennia.

And show citations and sources for the billion or so deaths caused by religious people in the preceding millennia.

[Anonymous]

- atheists in communist countries killed 94 million people in the 20th century - that was bad

- religious people in other countries killed 350+ million people in the 20th century (plus ~1 billion in preceding millennia) - that was also bad

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for state-mandated atheism

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for killing people

- zero (or close to it) atheists in the US are responsible for the communist states or have any connection to them

- life with deep beliefs in supernatural forces has resulted in the deaths of many more people than life without those beliefs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New recap:

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for state-mandated atheism or killing people

- zero (or close to it) atheists in the US are responsible for the communist states or have any connection to them

- life with deep beliefs in supernatural forces has resulted in the deaths of many more people than life without those beliefs

- OP cares more about what “new atheists” say than actual atheists

Another intellectually dishonest post from an atheist who won’t even acknowledge atheists in communist countries killed 100 million of their own people.

You are not inspiring people to like or trust atheists or atheism because everyone can look at the history books and see what atheists in communist countries have done .

You don’t even say, yeah, that was a bad, bad thing, You don’t even acknowledge it, but blame current Christians for the flood that happened during Noah’s time (even though you don’t believe in God or the Bible.)

Real atheists in communist countries that mandated atheism killed 100 million people in the 20th century.

- I have already acknowledged that atheists in communist countries killed 94 million people in the 20th century a few times now.

- I also acknowledged that religious people in other countries killed 350+ million people in the 20th century.

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for state-mandated atheism or killing people

- zero (or close to it) atheists in the US are responsible for the communist states or have any connection to them

- life with deep beliefs in supernatural forces has resulted in the deaths of many more people than life without those beliefs

According to modern estimates, approximately 1.7 million people died as a result of the Crusades, which took place in nine separate campaigns from 1095-1291 CE.

According to modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, approximately 2.7 percent of all cases.

Estimates for the total number of people killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion.

Massive wars: There have been four wars since the birth of Christ that exceeded 30 million deaths:

Three Kingdoms (220–280 AD, China, no Christians);
Mongol Conquests (1220–1240 in Eastern Europe, Christians were motivated to defend their land);
Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864, China, few to no Christians); and
World War 2 (1939–1945, global, ideological motives).

Causes of wars: In an in-depth study of the 1,763 wars spanning all of recorded warfare, only 123 were found to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare.

Summary: If you take the very worst case of all these facts, you get:

1 billion people killed in all wars;
2% of these, or 20 million, killed in religious wars; and
perhaps half of these killed in Christian wars, or 10 million victims.

The vast majority of people who started these wars killing billions were religious.

Since the PPs didn't ask for sources for this post, I'm assuming they are OK with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."

In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people – the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped – have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted."

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

It's time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

More people have been killed by religious people than killed by atheists.

In the 20th century, 350+ million people were killed by religious people.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/

Show the details and numbers.

Ideology - communism + murder - overlap with ww2 + wars

We could potentially also take out suicide - do we think that it's "bad" to take a life if it's your own?

[Anonymous]

" border="0" class="embeddedImage" />

You have nothing explaining your claim how “deep religious beliefs” resulted in millions of murders. You have zero facts or figures to support your claim, how did deep religious beliefs cause 350 million murders? You have no sources, no citations, no number data.

The people who complied the infographic explained their data and their numbers.

They put deaths from religious beliefs under ideology. They have the data and the information to make this infographic.

You are making claims and hijacking the work of many other people, including data scientists, and making up numbers without showing any evidence, statistics, or data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
- atheists in communist countries killed 94 million people in the 20th century - that was bad

- religious people in other countries killed 350+ million people in the 20th century (plus ~1 billion in preceding millennia) - that was also bad

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for state-mandated atheism

- no DCUM atheists or "new atheists" are pushing for killing people

- zero (or close to it) atheists in the US are responsible for the communist states or have any connection to them

- life with deep beliefs in supernatural forces has resulted in the deaths of many more people than life without those beliefs

Show us on the infographic where the deaths of people who had deep religious beliefs in the supernatural are categorized.

[Anonymous]

According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1,763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 121, or 6.87%, had religion as their primary cause.

Matthew White's The Great Big Book of Horrible Things gives religion as the primary cause of 11 of the world's 100 deadliest atrocities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:" border="0" class="embeddedImage" />

You have nothing explaining your claim how “deep religious beliefs” resulted in millions of murders. You have zero facts or figures to support your claim, how did deep religious beliefs cause 350 million murders? You have no sources, no citations, no number data.

The people who complied the infographic explained their data and their numbers.

They put deaths from religious beliefs under ideology. They have the data and the information to make this infographic.

You are making claims and hijacking the work of many other people, including data scientists, and making up numbers without showing any evidence, statistics, or data.

The people who were responsible for 94 million deaths in communist countries were atheist.

The people who were responsible for the vast majority of deaths in the 20th century everywhere else were religious.