The atheist double-standard

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=begbert2]
When, during a discussion about how religion has inspired and promotes evil, theists bring up noted historical evil people who happen to have been atheistic, it just demonstrates that they don’t understand what’s under discussion (and possibly that they don’t understand what atheism is.)

There are few or no cases of heinous evil (beyond being rude) being inspired by or promoted by atheism. The best you can do is find a case where atheism was pushed as a result of something that was tainted with heinous evil, which is not the same thing. Communism might be an argument if athests were asserting that atheism made people better, but that doesn’t happen, so such arguments are irrelevent to any actual topic.

The problem isn’t that the playing field isn’t level. It’s that the parking lot is on a different level than the playing field, and some people can’t tell the difference between one and the other.
[/QUOTE]

The point is, you have two sides making arguments attacking points the other side didn’t make. An atheist sees an attrocity made by someone of faith and concludes (rightly or wrongly) that it was ispired by his religious belief. The theist, knowing HIS beliefs don’t lead to that, find a counter example of a non-religious people commiting similar atrocities. The real crux of the issue is that people are commiting attrocities, to commit these acts people need justification, and for those who don’t commit them, they need something to blame.

I think religion is a simple and obvious solution for either perspective simply because it permeates virtually every culture, and so it’s simple to leverage it or find some aspect of it to justify your actions. It’s this very same aspect that makes it easy for those outside of the religion to blame it for being violent or non-tolerent or whatever.

Simply put, evil acts are committed for a variety of reasons, and to simply blame religion or atheism ignores the simple fact that it occurs on both sides of the argument. Evil acts are commited by evil people, and there are evil theists just like there are evil atheists, but in either case they’re both heavily outweighted by good people of the same belief system. Why do we have to say Hitler, Mao, and Stalin did these things in the name of religion or atheism, when they really did it just because they’re evil people?

62

[QUOTE=Bosstone]
In the same vein, I don’t know that I’ve ever run across a criminal whose stated reason for committing his crimes were “There is no god, so morality is a lie and we can do what we want.” I suppose there must be some, but I’ve never heard about them. “I am carrying out God’s most holy mission” tends to be the more common theme.
[/QUOTE]

I’d like to see

There is no God, and Mohammed is his profit.

or

There is no God, and Jesus is his Son.

63

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
The point is, you have two sides making arguments attacking points the other side didn’t make. An atheist sees an attrocity made by someone of faith and concludes (rightly or wrongly) that it was ispired by his religious belief. The theist, knowing HIS beliefs don’t lead to that, find a counter example of a non-religious people commiting similar atrocities. The real crux of the issue is that people are commiting attrocities, to commit these acts people need justification, and for those who don’t commit them, they need something to blame.

[/QUOTE]

Only if the people committing the atrocities say religion drove them to it. Mafioso tend to be Catholics, but I’ve never heard anyone blame the Catholic Church for the Mafia. The church can be blamed for the Inquisition and the Crusades, however.

64

[QUOTE=begbert2]
When, during a discussion about how religion has inspired and promotes evil, theists bring up noted historical evil people who happen to have been atheistic, it just demonstrates that they don’t understand what’s under discussion (and possibly that they don’t understand what atheism is.)

[/QUOTE]

And on a similar note, even the threads of surveys showing that the better educated tend to be more atheistic are taken to mean that people already well educated tend to be atheists, never that atheism somehow makes you better educated or smarter.

65

[QUOTE=Voyager]
There is no God, and Mohammed is his profit.
[/QUOTE]

Profit’s okay, as long as you don’t charge interest.

66

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
Why do we have to say Hitler, Mao, and Stalin did these things in the name of religion or atheism
[/QUOTE]
Godwin’s Law?

67

[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
Profit’s okay, as long as you don’t charge interest.
[/QUOTE]

Well that was a Freudian slip. :smack: It must be from participating in the oil thread.

68

[QUOTE=Bosstone]
In the same vein, I don’t know that I’ve ever run across a criminal whose stated reason for committing his crimes were “There is no god, so morality is a lie and we can do what we want.”
[/QUOTE]

Do we judge anything by the number of criminals who explicity list that thing has a cause? Only a few criminals ever said, “I committed that murder in the name of crack cocaine”, yet who would deny that crack cocaine is key in the chain of causes for a lot of murders?

69

[QUOTE=Voyager]
Are you saying that Communists don’t believe that there are individuals?
[/QUOTE]

It certainly wasn’t a captialist sociology professors who told me, “The first fallacy you must get over is the belief that there are individuals.” (He wasn’t a Christian either.)

But more generally speaking, some communists may have believed in the existence of individuals while other did not, but they all put much less stock in the power and worth of individuals than others did.

70

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
Do we judge anything by the number of criminals who explicity list that thing has a cause? Only a few criminals ever said, “I committed that murder in the name of crack cocaine”, yet who would deny that crack cocaine is key in the chain of causes for a lot of murders?
[/QUOTE]

Well, o.k. then. Tell us about a lot of murders where atheism was the key cause. Not Communism, which merely uses atheism as one of its tools of suppression, but atheism itself.

71

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
Do we judge anything by the number of criminals who explicity list that thing has a cause? Only a few criminals ever said, “I committed that murder in the name of crack cocaine”, yet who would deny that crack cocaine is key in the chain of causes for a lot of murders?
[/QUOTE]
Ah, so we should just assume they’re amoral atheists. Got it. :wink:

72

[QUOTE=Voyager]
Why would we consider Communism to be religious in nature (even without the god?) Consider this:

Communism has a holy Bible - Das Kapital
Communism has a prophet and a saint - Marx and Lenin
Communism has icons - all those pictures of Marx and Lenin up everywhere.
(Chinese Communism had an NT - the little red book, and a new prophet/saint.)
[/quote]

The music or art communities have certain works that they view as flawless, certain dead individuals who they view as near-perfect, and certain signs and images that they lavish with respect. Does this mean that they’re “religious in nature”? If not (or even if so) could you nail down a specific definition of what you mean by “religious in nature”?

See post 67 of this thread for a claim that atheists in the future will make up for any atheist failures in the past.

73

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Well, o.k. then. Tell us about a lot of murders where atheism was the key cause. Not Communism, which merely uses atheism as one of its tools of suppression, but atheism itself.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve already explained why I don’t accept that dismissal of the crimes committed by atheists under communism–see post 44–and will not bother repeating myself again. If you’d like to answer my argument rather than repeating the claim that I’ve already answered, that would be fine with me.

74

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
See post 67 of this thread for a claim that atheists in the future will make up for any atheist failures in the past.
[/QUOTE]

You are really reaching with your interpretation of that post. But even if it says what you think it says, can I use “godhatesfags” as a cite for all of Christianity?

75

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
See post 67 of this thread for a claim that atheists in the future will make up for any atheist failures in the past.
[/QUOTE]

That’s not what Revenant Threshold was saying at all. All he said was the fact that event A has not happened in the past does not mean it will not happen in the future.

76

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Well, o.k. then. Tell us about a lot of murders where atheism was the key cause. Not Communism, which merely uses atheism as one of its tools of suppression, but atheism itself.
[/QUOTE]

In turn, tell us of murders where theism was the key cause–not Christianity or Islam which are merely bodies of doctrine which include theism among other doctrines, but theism itself.

77

[QUOTE=D_Odds]
You are really reaching with your interpretation of that post. But even if it says what you think it says, can I use “godhatesfags” as a cite for all of Christianity?
[/QUOTE]

If you’d like to nitpick my interpretation, go right ahead. As for the question in your second sentence, it has no relevance to my post. (But the answer is no. (Or precisely, yes you could but it would just make you look stupid.))

78

[QUOTE=Pochacco]
My personal favorite argument against God is this: There are hundreds of religions and they contradict either other all over the place. Clearly most religions are wrong about most of the things they teach. Therefore religious teachings are a very poor way to understand the truth about the universe. Barring some sort of empirical evidence to sort the wheat from the chaff, you’re better off just assuming that ALL religious teachings are wrong.
[/QUOTE]

Even as a theist, I’ve always agreed with you on the strength of this argument. Of course, I also draw a strong distinction between hierarchal bureacratic religious institutions and actual theism- which I very frustratingly find many theists and many atheists sloppily ignore.

79

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
In turn, tell us of murders where theism was the key cause–not Christianity or Islam which are merely bodies of doctrine which include theism among other doctrines, but theism itself.
[/QUOTE]
May I use the Bible?

80

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
It certainly wasn’t a captialist sociology professors who told me, “The first fallacy you must get over is the belief that there are individuals.” (He wasn’t a Christian either.)

But more generally speaking, some communists may have believed in the existence of individuals while other did not, but they all put much less stock in the power and worth of individuals than others did.
[/QUOTE]

So, was his picture on the platform during the May Day parade?

I think we need a cite that’s a tad better than that.