# Should we forgive (and forget) religions' past atrocities?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-forgive-and-forget-religions-past-atrocities/558344>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 25, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-forgive-and-forget-religions-past-atrocities/558344 "2010-10-25T22:15:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 8

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**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-forgive-and-forget-religions-past-atrocities/558344/141 "2010-11-12T17:42:08Z")

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> [@jinty](#):
>
> You brought the damned thing up, not me. Generally speaking, if someone asks you for a cite, you shouldn’t just throw an entire book at them and then complain that they haven’t read it. Why don’t **you** read the book that **you** say supports your claim and **you** tell me which pages/passages/etc provide this support?

I’m not responsible for reading books for you, but in any case, in your next couple paragraphs you seem to acknowledge the basic fact that others were denying, namely that the Soviet government did specifically target clergy for extermination. so I’ll let it rest there.

> [@](#):
>
> Did you read the descriptions of massacres I quoted from in your book? Leninists, Tartars, Cossacks, workers, peasant poets, Kozbars. Off the top of my head, the Soviets also murdered thousands of Polish officers, thousands of Red Army generals in purges in the late 30s, the millions of Ukrainians already mentioned in famines, Menshevik opponents, and political prisoners by the bucketload. I’m sure there are others.  
> Yet you claim the Christian victims, as a group, are somehow special, separate from all these other groups, targetted for the special reason of their religiosity.

i’m not aware that I ever described Christian victims of the Soviet regime as “special” or “separate”; I merely pointed out that they exist. In point of fact, I’m well aware of all the victims of that regime and of countless other tyrannical regimes in the 20th century and I think that our history books should give more recognition to them all.

> [@](#):
>
> Do you only care about victims when they’re Christian? Or do you care _more_ about them? Serious question. You certainly seem to.

I’ve never said that I care only about Christian victims. The only thing that I’m doing is refusing to engage in an endless ritual of self-flagellation over things that the Church did centuries ago. I figure we’ve got enough people on this board obsessing about that stuff. Since there are plenty who prefer to either ignore or deny some of the crimes committed by atheist leaders in the 20th century, I focus on those crimes instead. You read what I post, you read what my opponents post, then you’ve got a more complete picture of history than if you just read a one-sided diatribe.

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