Are you seriously suggesting that it is impossible to come up with horrific things acted out under a “Christian” government (whatever that is. It’s not like all Nazis were atheists.) in the 20th century?
Yeah, like all those Nazis with “God is with us” written on their official SS issue belt buckles…
-Ben
grienspace, your charge about atheist governments only reinforces what The Ryan said about deliberate ignorance.
The Nazi government was not atheist. Hitler was probably not a Christian, but that doesn’t necessarily make him an atheist – and the rest of the Nazis certainly weren’t atheists. See the Staff Report, Was Hitler a Christian? for more details.
As for Stalin – he certainly murdered a lot of people. But did he do it in the name of atheism? No. He did it in the name of power for himself. Contrast this with all the Christian leaders who have murdered in the name of their religion.
No, I never made such a strong statement. If you care to name an instance where church and state combined in a crime against humanity I’d be interested to here about it.
Thankyou for the link. An excellent article, but it certainly does not support the charge you and Ryan make.As pointed out in the article, one can easily get confused when reading all the “quotes” attributed to Hitler, but I would suggest any quotes made to support a Christian belief were no doubt politically expedient for a Christian Europe that he wished to control. Lets look at the actions for a truer understanding of where his sympathies were.**The removal of bibles from the schools, and replaced by copies of Mein Kampf.**He is also quoted as saying that Christianity was a fairy story invented by Jews. There can be no political motivation here. Such a statement would do nothing to improve or strengthen his power base. His goal was to replace Christianity with Nazism. I submit that like Buddhism, Nazism is an atheist philosophy/religion where there is no worship of God or gods.
As for Stalin, he was the leader of an empire that chose an anti-religious philosophy as its guiding principal. Christians had to meet in secret for fear of reprisal. For decades, western Christians smuggled bibles into the “Soviet Union”. The persecution of Christians continued well into the 1980’s.
Just recently, I visited a website listing the 10 most atheist countries in the world. East Germany was at the top, all by itself at 80%. Decades under two different atheist regimes might have had a lot to do with it. The other ex-communist countries had much lower rates of atheism.
Come on, what Christian leaders? Are we going to go back to the seventeenth century again?
Would this be a male atheist just prior to him having sex?
Yes, atheists do like to bring things up from Christianity’s past–little stuff like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Thirty Years’ War, witch-burnings, assorted persecutions of Protestants by Catholics, assorted persecutions of Catholics by Protestants, the deaths of Servetus and Bruno, the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and so forth. Of course, Christians have generally stopped doing things like that. If you look at history, you’ll see that concepts like freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and not massacring people for their religious beliefs began to take hold at the same time as the rise of Deism; of open criticism of the Bible, Christianity, and organized religion; and of the widespread acceptance of the idea that governments are and should be secular institutions rather than manifestations of God’s Will. It’s true that historically Christian regions of the world (Western Europe and Northern America) are among some of the world’s most tolerant and enlightened now. It’s also true that these historically Christian regions are among some of the world’s most secularized. The United States is a partial exception to that; as advanced, industrialized, historically Christian countries go, we’re strikingly more religious than our European cousins. However, we do have a completely secular Constitution, thanks to the work of the Founding Fathers, lots of whom were non-Christian Deists. And I venture to say that if our culture does become markedly less secularized, especially at the level of politics, it won’t be a good thing.
Well put.
Just checking in . . .
Bloomberg, the Ryan, and Bucky are being rational, coherent, and erudite. Check.
Ben is being constructively sarcastic. Check.
Dave’s being only a little wierd. Check.
Grienie is making statements without support. Check.
Yup, looks like everything’s normal.
Grienspace, there are three assertions there, numbered for your convenience, that I’m somewhat dubious about. Can you support them? I’d like to see citations, preferably peer-reviewed, supporting your points. Thanks!
How’s about you naming an instance where a state in the explicit name of atheism (that is, with a deliberate and expressed anti-religious intention) commited “a crime against humanity”?
Even with the definitions set at this “mega vague” level, you won’t be able to.
Oh, one thing. Religion wars in the Intifada vein don’t count. That’s just weighing one religion against the other.
No. What’s your point? I never said that bad things don’t happen. I just said that they are not the inevitable consequence of “uppity atheists”, as you seem to be implying. There are plenty of countries in which atheists achieved significant power without mass executions.
Well now, if Germany was controlled by atheists, Hitler wouldn’t have had to toady up to the Christians, now would he? I’m sure that some of the Nazis were atheists. It’s even possible that Hitler was secretly atheist. But that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of Germans were Christian, and that the supremacy of Christianity was never challenged.
Bibles have been removed from schools in the US. Does that make this a country run by atheists? If so, where are the piles of bodies that you claim that atheists always create?
And Darwin was quoted recanting the Origen of the Species. Jesus was quoted as saying that he would return during the lifetime of disciples. George Washington was quoted as saying that he cut down the cherry tree. Don’t believe everything you read.
I thought you said his party was atheist. Wouldn’t this cement his leadership of that party?
I don’t see how anyone can look at a bunch of people that believe in a supernatural force guiding history and say “Yep, they’re atheists”.
Anti-Christian and atheist are not the same thing.
Don’t suppose you have a cite?
That would, umm, mean that Russia was nowhere near that, wouldn’t it? Same for with China, Cuba, and all the Communist countries supposedly rampant with atheism?
So what about Czechoslovakia? Hungary? Yugoslavia? They went from Nazism to Communism too. I recall a lot about wars between Christians and Muslims in Yugoslavia, but nothing about atheists. Don’t you see what I’m talking about? You find one piece of evidence that supports what you’re saying, and a bunch that don’t, and you just ignore everything that doesn’t fit into your worldview. That’s the very definition of bigotry.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by andros *
Grienie is making statements without support. Check.
Yup, looks like everything’s normal. /
In the words of your one of your better Presidents, there you go again. Before I go on, I must tell you that it is incumbent upon you to at least look over the links that people provide in order to help all of us to reach a better understanding. This you clearly failed to do , and as a participant in this debate you do all of us a disservice.
David B., a moderator of the Straight Dope, and I believe held in high regard by most dopers (anyone disagree?) provided the link “Was Hitler a Christian”. Now I don’t believe that David would provide the link unless he had reviewed it, and thus I can say that the link was “peer reviewed”. In any event, the link dealt with the question of Hitler’s atheism with a ballanced and honest approach.
The fist two points were taken directly from that link as I had no previous knowledge of those two points. The third point is merely my conclusion based on the first point. Why else would bibles be replaced by mein Kampf in the schools?I certainly don’t need to look for a reference link before I draw a conclusion.
Andros, in reviewing your last several posts I notice you’ve done very little to advance the debate.What is your purpose
here?
I responded to your earlier question , but you have yet to respond to mine. Lets have it first.
Your misquotes and mischaracterizations of my statements and off the wall comments serve no purpose other than to confuse everyone.But don’t feel bad. Andros thinks your approach is scholarly.
Woo-hoo! It’s good to know that Greenie isn’t uptight, ain’t it?
Okay grienspace, here we go. You want an instance where church and state conspired in crimes against humanity?
I know you don’t expect it, but (everybody join in)…
Nooooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
(hey, somebody had to say it! 
If you read the actual statement you should have noticed that it was made in the context of the twentieth century only.Otherwise I guarantee you someone would have brought the SI up. The rest of the Straight Dope is not as dumb as you think 
I kept the quote complete to show you the context, so you can’t accuse me (like you do everyone else) that I was taking it outof context.
Stick to misinterpreting what other people say. If you misinterpret your own statements, it just makes you look foolish.
my apologies Grienspace.
Er . . . excuse me? I thought this was a thread about how I’m the antichrist. That is what you had in mind when you started it, wasn’t it, son? Act like a dick, then complain that I’m not playing nicely–nice reasoning there, Sparky.
Actually, he WROTE it. And I was mostly interested in seeing if you had actually read the article yourself or were instead skimming in order to pull out select quotations to support your faulty conclusions, as you seem to enjoy. Further, your third statement is a “conclusion” that, while certainly supportable, is clearly debatable, even solely within the context of David’s article, and his subsequent post, above:
Finally, if you want a debate, take it to the appropriate forum, greinie. You opened this thread in the BBQ Pit, idiot. If you don’t care for the level of debate here, get the fuck to Great Debates. It’s not my job to entertain you here, pally.
Well you have entertained me Android. But just because I caught you with your pants down, jerking off instead of reading David’s cite first is no reason to blow a gasket. A little sense of humour please. I called you a sour cream puff, not the Anti-Christ.