He said atheism didn’t, not that atheists didn’t.
Sure, but why they’re an enemy in the first place, and what makes them common to the people you seek to unite (and uncommon to those you seek to unite against) changes quite a bit.
I disagree. There’s obviously the difference that we have to guess how those groups who haven’t had power at different times would act. And, certainly, when it comes to an empire or the like, chances are that even the most theocratic example could be found to do some things because of secular reasons. But I don’t think it’s necessarily unreasonable to draw parallels of thought, should there be any, even between groups which in historical terms had quite different roles. If we’re comparing in terms of some things, sure, it doesn’t really follow through to say they’re similar, but in terms of idealogy, I don’t think the differing practical use put to that idealogy in one situation and the use put to another idealogy in a different situation necessarily means they are what is different. They may well be, but I don’t think that alone is reason enough to say comparions make little sense.
Yes, I would.
Or he wanted everyone to be successful so that they are in a position to give. Plenty of interpretations on that one! 
This is, essentially, my point. If some Christians, following the latter interpretation of the Bible, perform some horrible act, it would be unreasonable for me to say “Aha, their act was motivated by their Christianity” - it was motivated by their particular form of Christianity, and more to the point, by one specific viewpoint as a part of that form. Because of that, it wouldn’t be fair for me to generalise that act to all theists, all Christians, even all Christians at those people’s church; the only group to which I can generalise the act is those who hold the same viewpoints up to and including the motivating point. Their basic Christianity, shared with however many millions of people, is certainly essential to their overall beliefs; but I would be incorrect if I said that those overall beliefs are to blame, are the cause, of the act; it’s the specific interpretation that is. By the same logic, it doesn’t seem reasonable to me to lay at the feet of all atheists the crimes of the communistic atheist powers of the 20th century, and declare that these were actions were caused by atheism, that atheism is to blame, that it is the motivating factor, however necessary that atheism may be to the overall viewpoint of those people.
Well, on the level of monarchs, perhaps. But I doubt the common soldiery going off to war gave much of a fig for trade routes, at least.
And i’m agreeing. But to me it’s like saying that if you came across a battle, and removed half the fighters, there would still be fighting. Of course there would. But there would be less of it.
I mean no offense, but this really isn’t a point on which Christianity is unique or of particular interest. A lot of religions or philosophies claim something along these lines.
As to the rest of your post… I think we may be getting a bit out of this debate and into another one. 
That’s a fair point. But it’s no excuse to do the same the other way around, and lump the many flavours of atheism together (and I don’t think i’d consider Communism an inherently atheistic viewpoint). It’s actually my mistake; you held up people claiming atheism in general shouldn’t be blamed for the actions of a particular strain of atheism, and I assumed your complaint was that they were wrong, and that atheism could be blamed for them - when instead what you were pointing out as wrong was the inconsistency, the holding of atheism to one standard and theism to another. Which is a perfectly reasonable complaint.
Comparing atheism to religion is a bogus comparison. The fair comparison is atheism {a lack of belief in God} to theism {belief in God} Neither is a motivator or ideology in and of itself. People require more, some sort of belief system of which theism or atheism can be one component. There’s no way of knowing from only atheism or theism what that belief system may be and what moral choices that individual will make.
I snipped the rest because we are in agreement as far as I can tell, but this gives me something to disagree with.
Why wouldn’t the common soldiery give much of a fig for trade routes? You don’t think they cared about material prosperity and the glory it brought to them and their people? Do you think that the glory of bringing wealth back to their lands in Europe was irrelevant to them? Maybe they didn’t think of it as trade routes, but in more base and vulgar terms as the material goods that are brought by right of the conquest of wealthy trade routes.
Or there would be the same amount of fighting only it would be pointed in different directions. Gauls vs Picts instead of Christians vs Muslims. We’d be arguing about some other overarching ideology that united whatever Empire, and maybe we would’ve colonized different parts of the world, or whatever.
What is unique about Christianity is how uniquely its detractors ignore this factor. Buddhism may say something similar but no one is blaming Buddhism for being the greatest scourage mankind has ever known.
Yea. I think we agree on the main point.
I’d take the atheist argument a bit farther and say you can’t even hold every Communist responsible for the atrocities committed in the name of Communism.
As FinnAgain points out, I said that atheism, not atheists is amoral. And that does make it morally superior to religion in my eyes, since I regard religion as evil not amoral. Saying nothing on the subject of morality is better than excusing and speaking for evil as religion does.
As for the claim that “If there is no God then all things are permissable”; I think the exact opposite. In order to create a morality not based on sand, one must first throw out God. Otherwise your moral code goes out the window the moment someone decides God wants him to do something.
But belief systems like Communism and Christianity that are based on the idea that “we and we alone have the One True Way and everyone who disagrees is part of the conspiracy against the One True Way” DO tend to kill their opponents. A “theistic belief with a high value on the individual” wouldn’t help because such a belief would value individuals in terms of souls or the afterlife or karma as religion always does; thereby rendering the actual human being in question expendable.
Because they are famous? You are making a false comparison. Would you prefer I speak of the religious push against gays, or against condoms, or religious oppression of women? The campaign against evolution, against stem cells?
Unlike the religious I don’t need to pick a single target like Communism as my example of the evil of my opponent’s beliefs; the evil of religion is everywhere. Eliminate all mention of the Crusades and Inquisition and you barely make a dent in the list of the evils and stupidity committed in the name of religion. Eliminate mention of the Communists and your examples of the evils of atheism grow sparse indeed.
But then if atheism makes no claims of morality, on what basis can the self described atheist make moral judgements?
Calculon.
What if they can’t? What difference would it make?
The general welfare of humanity? It’s not like religion is the only source of morality, or even a good one.
Gravity is also amoral; does believing in gravity mean I can’t have a moral opinion?
Probable beneficial outcomes based on a rational review of empirical evidence?
Maybe that’s just me though
I think the whole theists believe that “morality is just the whim of God” argument is false. Christian theology emphasises that it is God’s unchangable nature moreso than his will that defines goodness.
But anyway how does one construct a morality that is not “based on sand” as you put it. That is the meaning of the quote, that without God there is no way to define an objective moral system. And certainly many philosphers, like Sartre and Camus agree with him. Even Nietzsche, who hated Xianity, thought that good and evil were meaningless in the absense of God. So what is your great moral insight that allows you to define objective morality without reference to God, and also give you a basis for declaring religion evil?
False. Not all beliefs are based on an “you are either with us or against us” mentality. I think if anything it is more the attitude of the neo-atheists (not all atheists, just the Dawkins style ones) that you are reading into different religious groups. Not everyone believes that the correct response to those that oppose you is to kill them or otherwise persecute them. If the communists adopted one of these types of beliefs against their more collectivist centered beliefs they may have acted differently.
Communism keeps coming up because atheism is such a marginal belief in the history of human thought that there are very few examples of where it has dominated as a worldview. Noting that there are few examples of the bad effects of atheism is not much of an argument when atheism has had such a small impact on human history generally.
Calculon.
Conscience? Upbringing? Role Models? any one of several things that affect us and help form our belief system.
Just as a theist can believe love your enemy or slay the infidel.
Why would anyone purport that atheism is comparable to Communism; that it is somehow an ideology? Even within communism atheism doesn’t dominate anything, the state’s will dominates.
However, communism and religion are both ideologies with dogmatic assertions, that might be a better comparison…
Though I agree (and stated so earlier) that theism in itself is not necessarily a motivator, how many believers are merely “theists”? Most at least attempt to follow a set of rules/claims/punishments/rewards that they believe were created by a specific god(s) and this is a very powerful motivator. Further, these rules are commonly public knowledge, either by being written down or otherwise communicated, so outsiders can have an idea of what to expect.
Atheists have nothing to compare to this:
No rules, no claims, no standardization whatsoever. It’s one reason we have a hard time creating groups; no one starts a group for those who “Don’t collect stamps”.
Because fighting against bourgeois false consciousness was integral, and part of that was resisting religion as an irrational superstition that held up the elite power structure.
People make that comparison all the time.
In the same way as theism is not a belief in of itself, I think that atheism is not a belief in of itself. The label “atheism” covers a wide range of various philosophies. In most cases those that claim to be “atheists” are probably better described as naturalistic materialists. Thus Communism, because it has as one of its foundational statements that there is no God, it qualifies as a form of atheism. Obviously communism is much more than that, as other contradictory forms of atheism are as well. But I am not comparing atheism and communism. What I am saying is that communism is a form of atheism, in the same way that Islam is a form of theism.
Calculon.
The problem with both of these definitions of morality is that it requires that you know what “good” is to begin with. It is as though you are saying that morality is merely doing good. That is obvious. What you need to define is what good is in the first place. From that then morality then is doing that.
Calculon.
I think I need to make my question a little clearer. What I am asking is a question of moral epistimology, or how we know what morals are. What you have answered is the question of moral history, or how we have tended to define our morals in the past.
Just to be clear I don’t think that atheists have no moral code that they try and live by. I think everyone has that. Nor am I saying that atheists codes of morality are necessarily wrong. That is not the issue. The issue is how can we know that our moral sense is objectively true. In other words how do we know that we think to be good is actually good, and what we believe to be evil is evil.
It is important because if we are going to make moral judgments (that is to say that one is more or less moral than another) then for that judgment to have any objective meaning we have to be sure our basis of morality is in fact objective. Otherwise all we have is differing opinions, none of which is any more valid than the other.
So in the context of the thread, if we want to claim that a worldview is evil, we need an objective basis for morality to make that statement. Without that basis then any moral judgment between beliefs is ultimately meaningless.
Calculon.
Leaving aside the actual difficulties of formulating an objective morality (it’s doable but the devil is in the details), there’s absolutely no reason to think that religious edicts make a system of morality any more “objective” than any other. An atheist might decide what is good, what’s best for society, what the optimal balance between self and other is, etc, etc, etc… A religious person might make up their own mind too, or they might listen to someone else’s opinions on the subject.
In none of those cases is the process itself any more ‘objective’.
In fact, if we look at the history of self-contradictory dogmatic claims (not to mention the true horrors) that have been advocated by some but not all organized religions, it’s quite clear that “my religion says so” is not, in any way shape or form, a shorthand for “this is not only moral, but objectively so.”
I’m not sure if you are making the claim… but if so, the claim that religious beliefs = objective morality because someone claims a deity said it, is just silly.
The first Christians were communists and they were not atheists so to link Atheists with communisim is not factual.