I have also done some research on these and certainly the figure for Stalin is wrong. As the total death rate in Russia from all causes during the years Stalin was in power was less than 40 million. This sheds some doubt on the validity of your figures for the others. However, like I said I shall ignore the actual numbers, they are not important here.
Perhaps the Stalin number is in doubt, but Mao and Hitler aren't. And of course the numbers matter, as my claim is that Atheism has killed more people than religion. It appears these numbers may have caught you off guard and you're trying to downplay their importance.
You are confusing Atheism with Darwinism and the two are totally seperate things. An Atheist need not agree with Darwinism and a Darwinist may not be an Atheist. I agree the two are often stances taken in combination, but to use the term Atheist to cover people to whom Darwin's theories are important is grossly over generalising. Atheism, as I originally stated, is a lack of belief and as such does not preclude the holding other beliefs, unless those beliefs are in direct conflict with the nature of Atheism. So being an Atheist does not stop me from being a Darwinist, this is true, but it also does not stop me from disagreeing with Darwin. All Atheism says is there is no god. It does not claim to say how life came into being.
I'm not confusing anything. I'm telling you why they said they became atheists. They studied Darwin and determined a god was not necessary. The rest of your statement is unnecessary by proxy.
I agree that these people had very definite beliefs on religion, but it was not their supposed Atheism that was the problem. They were corrupt, possibly psychologically imbalanced, power hungry men. Whether they were Atheists or not has no baring on the attrocities they carried out. It may have been claimed that Atheism was the reason, but this claim is pure nonsense. Atheism is a denial of god, not a reason for killing.
I wonder why you say "supposed", as if I would lie, or as if it wasn't historically accurate. These men were bold and proud atheists. I have no doubt they were corrupt or power hungry, but psychologically imbalanced? Now you're introducing outside variables to make atheism less of a culprit, which is quite unprofessional. So even though they claim atheism was what drove them to do what they did, we should ignore them? Why is it we cannot do the same for the "Christians" who killed people? Your double standard is rather disturbing. No, I will have to take these men at their word, and they said that atheism allowed room for murder if it served a greater purpose. It was directly the cause for millions of people's horrible deaths.
In fact, after reviewing this information in detail, I've come to the conclusion that atheists pose a serious threat to the stability of mankind. Their morals change as it suits them, and people who have a set moral code are in danger, frankly. Oh, I do not think you are a threat, Starrman, because you seem to be disillusioned enough to believe that your morals ARE set. That gives me a measure of comfort, but as we can plainly see, these men did not agree, and since there is no higher authority to set you all straight, it seems there are factions of atheists who disdain murder and those who embrace it. There really is no way to get around this fact.
This I cannot agree with on any level, you have yet to offer any evidence for the lack of divine judgement nullifying the moral codes of humans. I read with interest the website link you offered here and the writer has a great deal to learn about both politics and atheism. They constantly throw definition out of the window, replacing the word Darwinism for Atheism, and then use that change to back up further speculative arguements on unrelated actions. It is a badly reasoned piece of writing that offers no demonstrative evidence for what it is claiming and attempts to encourage emotional thinking over reason from the first few paragraphs:
What a person believes to be true about the Origins of all that is (mankind included), absolutely and without a doubt colors that individual’s philosophy of life in all its aspects. Very little thought on the part of anyone able to think at all will confirm that statement.
In fact, so patently obvious is the truth of that statement, that one must marvel that any understanding of any individual in any walk of life would be attempted without letting it be plainly known what their beliefs were (and are) about the origins of man and all else.
These are strong emotive statements that do not set out any premise on the actual subject, but rather encourage emotion to rise. It then goes on to grossly simplify the divisions in belief, adding an extra part to the definition of Atheism, which is plainly unrelated. As well as ridiculing the beliefs of others without offering anything other than specualtive opinion to back up its statements.
Narrowing down those beliefs about origins, we can conclude that they are basically three in number: 1) Atheism. No God. Energy and Matter created all that exists over billions of years. 2) Theistic Evolutionism. There is a god, but he created everything thru evolutionary processes. (These folks fall into two broad categories: a) Some walk hand in hand with the atheist back to the alleged appearance of the first germ, which they then allow god to have created some three billion years ago to kick-start the evolution process. These discount the Bible and its miracles.) b) Others hang on to some of the Bible but believe “science” has proven Darwinism (and Copernicanism, of course, you idiot!), but hopefully a resurrection and heaven of some sort is in the cards...or at least some kind of reincarnation where one can keep on going as a bug or a rock or something). 3) Creationism. God (Allah to many) created everything in six days about 6000 years ago and has an eternal, blissful creation in store on a New Earth for a multitude without number who meet His rather modest criteria.
As such I think it is a poor addition to your arguement. Darwinism may have been a factor in the creation of these killer's psychology, but in its true form, Darwinism does not encourage killing, or give a follower of Darwinian principle the right to abandon a moral code. These leaders abandoned their moral standards for reasons which are not set out in either the study of Darwinism, or Atheism. They were wrong. The fact that they may have claimed to be following either of these theories is nonsense, what they were following was a twisted amoral delusion of self justification using these theories.
I'm sorry, but I'm afraid all I've seen so far is your opinion. These men embraced atheism and publically stated that their atrocities were a result of atheism, and that they served a greater good. Why should I take your opinion over theirs? I believe it is up to you to give me a reason NOT to believe their atheism was the cause of their crimes. Perhaps you could point me to a single religious figure who has murdered en masse in such a way and who blamed it on his religion. Then your claim would make sense, but until then, I shall blame atheism, and rightly so, since it was the thread that held these three together.
I as an Atheist do not condone killing or the abandonment of a moral code, Atheism does not demand that people must follow either Darwin, or be amoral, or even be angry against religion. All these things are seperate beliefs which must be justified in other ways.
Atheism is simply denying god exists, it is not justification for anything else.
Again, your opinion matters very little in a debate. And I'm afraid these are not seperate things. Atheism is a rejection of a higher authority, and a rejection of a higher authority is an admission that you are your own judge and jury. Such a belief is dangerous, as we clearly see, and your argument that society judges you clearly is not a good enough deterrent when you have a large enough army and high enough ambitions.
Debate with Darfius 2
11 Mar '05 16:58
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