And who has ever called Mao, Stalin or Hitler “progressive thinkers” other than their most rabid followers in their lifetime?
It’s a popular refrain among a certain class of religious folks; they think they can trot out how those groups are “atheist progressives” and then they “win” their argument.
I think this is the 10-1 “piling on of conservative posters” for “wrongthink” people are complaining about.
well to be fair, their most rabid followers counted in the millions for each of them. one could argue they weren’t true believers, but they followed the party line.
I’m having a hard time understanding what Mao, Hitler and Stalin have to do with liberals and Democrats embracing or not embracing atheism.
Let’s please try to keep at least somewhat on the rails with this discussion.
I think this is a poorly constructed OP that everyone agrees is not well thought out. Not a single person has attempted to defend the idea that liberals are atheists.
Oh, I thought I was clear. When you are talking about the mass slaughter and persecution of Gays, religious people and so on over the last century or so, you are talking about people who fully embraced the most modern scientific ideas and rejected the delusions of religion.
Of course the difference now is that modern atheists are following the most modern scientific thinking and rejecting the delusions of religion for correct reasons. Not like those old guys. See? These atheists are good and wise. Those atheists were cruel and confused.
That still doesn’t have anything to do with the responses to your reply to Miller’s post. “Other people do it too!” is in this case perfectly accurate and also entirely irrelevant to the point that people giving religious reasons for their actions might well have done much worse things to Miller than to say prayers.
I am not aware of mass genocides being carried out by religious people in the last century. The ones we have to worry about are the atheists. But, as I said modern atheists are not like those ones from long ago. Now it is completely different. No doubt about.
You really see no difference between Bertrand Russell and Stalin?
Good point. Other than a few million people over a couple of decades. Really, what did they know?
Sure I do. I also see a difference between acorns and oak trees.
Modern religious people are not like those ones from long ago. Now it is completely different.
/s.
(Do you mean the last 100 years, by the way, or the last 20?)
You think Russell was bound to grow up into Stalin if he just lived long enough?
I guess 98 years just wasn’t quite long enough for the transformation to take place.
Excellent point! Modern religious people in the last century or so are very unlike those from the Thirty Years War and so on. I am glad we are reaching agreement.
No. Thank you asking.
I think people who plant acorns may not realize how their seeds might grow.
Ok. This discussion is totally off the rails now. I’m locking the thread to discuss with other mods how best to address it. Frankly, I see little useful debate at this point.
Moderating
Another mod has already tried to gently steer the discussion away from Mao, Stalin, etc as these issues are not related to liberal progressives and atheism as put forth in the OP and we have discussed it as well. That whole sidetrack is to be dropped now.
Additionally, pretending to be unaware of violence directed toward the queer community by bigots, religious or otherwise, within recent memory smacks of bad faith posting, as does attempting to then turn that into mass genocide by long dead dictators.
I’ll reopen this, but… Don’t make me regret it, please.
As said several times in that great Film “Clue”- “Too Late!”.
But I thank you for the effort.