Atheism is not cause of mass murders.

[:)]

Watt,

When I say atheism, I mean atheists. You are technically write that ideas do not perform actions. People do. I was arguing that the logical of atheism if acted out by people have and will lead to mass murder, but technically you are correct. I should have said atheists not atheism, since an idea is not able to act. I was using atheism as a kind of short hand for atheism, people who are atheists and people who act according to the philosophical implications of atheism.

I do agree that the implications of atheism does lead to absurd conclusions. I think there is an undeniable link between the view of atheism and the view that morality is subjective, for example. But then, I know a few atheists personally who are generally nice people. Wether they believe in objective morality or not I do not happen to know; I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't actually thought about it seriously before or studied many implications to their belief (or lack of belief) that there is no God. They are simply good people who are atheists. Wether they have logical reasons for being good is another story.

There are plenty of people who describe themselves as devout followers of various philosophies or religious texts that often have horrendous teachings, and yet still they are nice people. Their view has no affect on whether they are a good person, because they do not follow their belief to some logical conclusions. These people are deceived or misguided, not immoral.

[idunno]

Welcome to the forum Tertullian. Most of the fighting goes on in the Choose Your Own Topic section

Go head an introduce yourself, we always like new faces 

[:)]

Watt,

There are individual atheists who can be nice and even have the appearance of morality, but the ideology itself is rotten and leaves only corpses in its wake. I think the friendly ones have borrowed from Christianity as Nietzsche claims in the aforementioned letter. 

You seem like a bright and friendly interlocutor, what subjects in philosophy or theology would you like to discuses? I will start a separate thread to do so, if you like?

I do admit to share a same sense of concern for the conclusions that I feel people can logically come to after daring to look truly into the face of cold, atheistic ideology. Saying that though I have faith that the large majority of atheists would truly reconsider their position if/when that happens.

And thank you very much for your kind comments! I must say that I'm here to learn more than anything else. There are a few issues about epistemology that I would like to discuss sometime and I will be sure to start a thread if I cant find anything in already discussed that will answer my questions.

I'll see you around the forums and look out for what you'll have to say. Thanks.

[Branden Holmes]

I think that the distinction which we really need to make is between atheism ("I disbelieve in the existence of god") and anti-theism ("religion should be physically and/or verbally opposed"). Anti-theism is the problem, not atheism (whether anti-theism is subsumed by atheism is irrelevant in this discussion).

[just one]

i see wold trade centers falling and people getting killed in syria, the spanish iquisition with torture and murder, and cults killing them selves off. why are atheists killing people?

[just one]

i'm a doubter, as i see it theists have taken over 700-1200 years away from scientific study of our world.my favorite part of the bible is where god gives everyone free will, then drowns everyone for doing what he knew would happen, cause he loves us.

[UnreasonableFaith]

It's absolutely ridiculous to blame atheism for say stallinism. It's as reasonable as saying that Stalin's moustache is somehow to blame as well.

If you claim atheism is cause of stallinism you should be able to quote a passage from holybook of atheism which commands people to commit genocide.Or maybe you should be able to quote a founder of atheistic move?  You can't do it. There ain't any holy book of atheism. You may quote some book written by atheist but it would no better than quoting Main Kampf as an evidence of painters being evil. Also there is no founder of atheism since it's default position.

Atheism is just one conviction that is there is no reason to believe god exists, or to be more correct it's implausible god exists. That's everything. It's not a packet of beliefs, it's not a whole system. It's just one single belief.

You may say "oh, it's quite convenient to not believe in god, you don;t have to worry about eternal punishment" and it's obviously dumb respond. Why? Because not only it can be easily reversed but what's more important it totally misses the point. First of all it may be indeed convenient to get rid of concerns about your eternity BUT I think it's much more convenient to believe that not only you're not going to be punished in the afterlife, but you'll be even rewarded since god must be on your side. This is why saying that atheism is convenient is shooting oneself in one's foot. But there is my second objection that is this statement is off the point. The issue is: Does atheism induces crimes? And again to me the answer is obviously not. There are no atheistic authorities, there are no atheistic rituals, there are no atheistic codes or holy books. Obviously there may be people who are atheists and who try to convey how people should live according to their worldview, but again when you're atheist you're not obliged to conform to anything other atheists think and yet still be atheist.

Obviously in case of religion it's all different. You can't call yourself christian and yet say "Well I don't really care what that Jesus guy  wanted me to do" or "I'm catholic, but who cares about pope" or "Well I'm muslim but I really don't like prophet Muhammad"

That's what theists extremaly often don't understand. They think that since their whole worldview may be basically described using just one word like christian or muslim it necessarily means that the same applies to atheism. Bullshit. You can't tell anything more about atheist that he simply doesn;t believe in god and/or think god is improbable. Whereas when you call yourself christian I can easily tell what's your standpoint on homosexuals, abortion, freedom of speech with respect to your god etc. Or at least I should be able assuming you really believe what you believe. And I can do this using the book that is the basis for your religion. You can say that since I'm atheist I'm more likely to say support abortion. Statistically it's probably true, but again it's not about statisticall truths but rather whether you can say that my standpoint on this issue is predefined by my atheism and the answer is obviously not. You can be atheist and oppose abortion. The same goes for literally everything. And that's all because atheism is just one independent belief.