religion

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

members of these gangs*

[Patriam1066]

80% of christians are pieces of trash... Wow. Holy shit you're bigoted.

Those countries were founded by people fleeing famine and economic insecurity. Also, the puritans were actually more religious than the average Englishman.

Protestant culture has as foundational values three things:
1. Literacy
2. Tolerance
3. Critical thinking

The western world is successful almost assuredly because of the developments that are a direct result of the cultures created by the Reformation. The only commonality of those countries is their Protestant heritage. It isn't an accident, it isn't a mistake. The success of the western world is built upon a religious ethos.

Also, I mentioned Buddhists are a close second. What portion of them are immoral oh enlightened one. Please tell us all your valuable estimation of other people's worth.

How can you not see how common you are to a religious extremist. 80% of christians suck says the atheist. 80% of Yazidis suck said the muslim

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Originally Posted by Patriam1066 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

80% of christians are pieces of trash... Wow. Holy shit you're bigoted.

Well let's do some math. The Catholic church, widely held as the single most corrupt and fraudulent organization on the planet, just got a new pope. Pope Francis is a rational, thought provoking individual that nobody in their right mind would ever try to downplay as being just another of the figureheads that popes in the past have been. Yet after he has said some fairly radical things (by christian standards) such as creationistic evolution being in line with the words of the bible, or according to the bible atheists need not necessarily burn in hell for eternity if they are honestly good people, or my favorite one, his preaching live and let live. Heck, he's even recently stated that parents should *gasp* discuss sex with their children! Oh the humanity!
Yet the bishops and cardinals are now doing what they can to keep him from speaking because guess what. Pope Francis is but one good man, in a cesspool of corrupt individuals (aka trash).

Now let's take a look at a few of those christian charity organizations that you seem to covet so much.

Father Bruce Ritter: Fitting that back in the day they compared him to Mother Theresa (We'll talk more about her later). Let's just say he's one of many 'good christians' who ran homeless shelters and extorted sexual activity from the residents.

John Bennet Jr. who ran the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy which was a ponzi scheme and he paid himself over 23,000 a week in 'consulting fees'. He used his reputation as a leading Christian figure to disarm donor suspicions of which he managed to get investments from major nonprofits like American Red Cross, World Vision, and Nature Conservancy.

Look at the Salvation Army with it's hiring practices and the people they outright refuse to help based on their sexual preference.

Then there's Mother Theresa... oh boy. So many books written on that despicable woman and her sadistic torture operation.

These are just a few of many examples around. Does this mean that there aren't any good christian charity organizations? Of course not. That said, a few good apples doesn't suddenly un-spoil the bunch.

Now let's look at a group like Susan G. Komen, which isn't a christian charity, yet they are funded primarily by right-winged groups, groups which via their money have pushed the organization to do some really stupid things. First by campaigning against planned parenthood, and then against embryonic stem-cell research. Now they are promoting fucking fracking, which uses assloads of carcinogenic chemicals.
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
A group that is supposed to be fighting cancer, working happily with one of the causes of it... Think before you pink.

Originally Posted by Patriam1066 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Those countries were founded by people fleeing famine and economic insecurity. Also, the puritans were actually more religious than the average Englishman.

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
This is such a distortion of the truth, I don't even want to give you the credit of evoking me to form a concise answer.

Originally Posted by Patriam1066 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Protestant culture has as foundational values three things:
1. Literacy
2. Tolerance
3. Critical thinking

In theory. Communism is also a model form of government... in theory.

Originally Posted by Patriam1066 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The western world is successful almost assuredly because of the developments that are a direct result of the cultures created by the Reformation. The only commonality of those countries is their Protestant heritage. It isn't an accident, it isn't a mistake. The success of the western world is built upon a religious ethos.

This is more cherry picking. Firstly, the success of the western world had come despite the actions of Christianity.
Look at Issac Newton. Everyone always totes about how he was superbly religious, yet while he identified as Christian, he didn't believe in the holy trinity and his experiments/discoveries had him that close to being tried as a heretic, which would likely have happened had he not suddenly began to claim that God was directly involved in his discovery of gravity.

Just mentioning the names Copernicus and Galileo speaks for themselves.

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake when the church didn't even have an official stance on Heliocentric models.
There's a laundry list of people who were killed specifically because the both the Catholic church as well as the pre and post Protestant church of England were afraid of progress.

Originally Posted by Patriam1066 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Also, I mentioned Buddhists are a close second. What portion of them are immoral oh enlightened one. Please tell us all your valuable estimation of other people's worth.

Your reading comprehension must be pretty poor if you gathered from my response that I actually agree with your stance that Buddhists are somehow less moral than people who hail from an Abrahamic faith.
It's simply yet another flaw in your 'opinion'.

Originally Posted by Patriam1066 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How can you not see how common you are to a religious extremist. 80% of christians suck says the atheist. 80% of Yazidis suck said the muslim

uh.. that's a tough one! (also follow your questions with question marks next time)
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[RobotElvis]

Originally Posted by KagatobLuvsAnimu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well let's do some math. The Catholic church, widely held as the single most corrupt and fraudulent organization on the planet, just got a new pope. Pope Francis is a rational, thought provoking individual that nobody in their right mind would ever try to downplay as being just another of the figureheads that popes in the past have been. Yet after he has said some fairly radical things (by christian standards) such as creationistic evolution being in line with the words of the bible, or according to the bible atheists need not necessarily burn in hell for eternity if they are honestly good people, or my favorite one, his preaching live and let live. Heck, he's even recently stated that parents should *gasp* discuss sex with their children! Oh the humanity!
Yet the bishops and cardinals are now doing what they can to keep him from speaking because guess what. Pope Francis is but one good man, in a cesspool of corrupt individuals (aka trash).

Now let's take a look at a few of those christian charity organizations that you seem to covet so much.

Father Bruce Ritter: Fitting that back in the day they compared him to Mother Theresa (We'll talk more about her later). Let's just say he's one of many 'good christians' who ran homeless shelters and extorted sexual activity from the residents.

John Bennet Jr. who ran the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy which was a ponzi scheme and he paid himself over 23,000 a week in 'consulting fees'. He used his reputation as a leading Christian figure to disarm donor suspicions of which he managed to get investments from major nonprofits like American Red Cross, World Vision, and Nature Conservancy.

Look at the Salvation Army with it's hiring practices and the people they outright refuse to help based on their sexual preference.

Then there's Mother Theresa... oh boy. So many books written on that despicable woman and her sadistic torture operation.

These are just a few of many examples around. Does this mean that there aren't any good christian charity organizations? Of course not. That said, a few good apples doesn't suddenly un-spoil the bunch.

Now let's look at a group like Susan G. Komen, which isn't a christian charity, yet they are funded primarily by right-winged groups, groups which via their money have pushed the organization to do some really stupid things. First by campaigning against planned parenthood, and then against embryonic stem-cell research. Now they are promoting fucking fracking, which uses assloads of carcinogenic chemicals.
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
A group that is supposed to be fighting cancer, working happily with one of the causes of it... Think before you pink.


[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
This is such a distortion of the truth, I don't even want to give you the credit of evoking me to form a concise answer.

In theory. Communism is also a model form of government... in theory.

This is more cherry picking. Firstly, the success of the western world had come despite the actions of Christianity.
Look at Issac Newton. Everyone always totes about how he was superbly religious, yet while he identified as Christian, he didn't believe in the holy trinity and his experiments/discoveries had him that close to being tried as a heretic, which would likely have happened had he not suddenly began to claim that God was directly involved in his discovery of gravity.

Just mentioning the names Copernicus and Galileo speaks for themselves.

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake when the church didn't even have an official stance on Heliocentric models.
There's a laundry list of people who were killed specifically because the both the Catholic church as well as the pre and post Protestant church of England were afraid of progress.


Your reading comprehension must be pretty poor if you gathered from my response that I actually agree with your stance that Buddhists are somehow less moral than people who hail from an Abrahamic faith.
It's simply yet another flaw in your 'opinion'.

uh.. that's a tough one! (also follow your questions with question marks next time)
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The League of Militant Atheists aided the Soviet government in killing clergy and committed believers.[48] The League also made it a priority to remove religious icons from the homes of believers.[49] Under the slogan, "the Storming of Heaven," the League of Militant Atheists pressed for "resolute action against religious peasants" leading to the mass arrest and exile of many believers, especially village priests. By 1940, "over 100 bishops, tens of thousands of Orthodox clergy, and thousands of monks and lay believers had been killed or had died in Soviet prisons and the Gulag.

The League purged its rightist members in 1932–1934. In addition, the League of Militant Atheists sometimes took a violent approach to those who would not accept the League's message. For example, "bishops, priests, and lay believers" were "arrested, shot, and sent to labour camps."[25]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leagu...itant_Atheists

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Originally Posted by RobotElvis [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The League of Militant Atheists aided the Soviet government in killing clergy and committed believers.[48] The League also made it a priority to remove religious icons from the homes of believers.[49] Under the slogan, "the Storming of Heaven," the League of Militant Atheists pressed for "resolute action against religious peasants" leading to the mass arrest and exile of many believers, especially village priests. By 1940, "over 100 bishops, tens of thousands of Orthodox clergy, and thousands of monks and lay believers had been killed or had died in Soviet prisons and the Gulag.

The League purged its rightist members in 1932–1934. In addition, the League of Militant Atheists sometimes took a violent approach to those who would not accept the League's message. For example, "bishops, priests, and lay believers" were "arrested, shot, and sent to labour camps."[25]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leagu...itant_Atheists

And... they disbanded in 1947. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Sidelle]

Omg. Shut up, Kagatob. Your posts make me tired.

Lol. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Glenzig]

Originally Posted by KagatobLuvsAnimu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And... they disbanded in 1947. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ah. So that means none of it actually happened. I like how that works.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Originally Posted by Glenzig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ah. So that means none of it actually happened.

No, it did, and it was a legitimately horrible movement run by legitimately horrible people. The key is to recognize a few things.

First and foremost, they didn't even last twenty-five years, which is part of why I'm dismissing the movement as something significant since it doesn't exist today every single group I posted about above still does exist with the sole exception being the literal stake burning inquisitorial branch of the mentioned religions. Even then, today you have the suppression of knowledge and the bastardization of education (Kentucky/Tennessee).

Secondly, and this is obviously more important in a general sense but second in the context of your response. You need to look at the movement's roots. It's a movement that rose out of an intellectual class that was involved neck deep in a regime that has committed arguably more heinous acts than even Nazi Germany, a regime who's motives were 100% based on the accumulation of power, a regime who's stance on religion was literally beside the point.
In short, regardless of what they claimed or espoused to officially, they were still a morally bankrupt group born from a morally bankrupt group using a twisted ideological system in an attempt to rationalize their own actions. If you must insist on comparing Atheism a religion, I'd argue that you should compare LoMA to a cult.

Originally Posted by Glenzig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I like how that works.

Context is king after all. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It would be nice if the ones here who are vocally pro-religion would understand that the majority of anti-theists don't believe that non-religion by itself is inherently good, it is in fact neutral. The intellectual view of religion overall in today's society is a clear net negative. Removing the negative always results in a closer to positive number, even zero is an improvement over a negative in this case.

Can I "prove" to you that religion is a net negative in society today? No. At least no more than I can "prove" to you that gravity exists. All I need to do though, is drop an object to show you the overwhelming evidence that gravity is there. All I need to do though is point you towards the middle east, the Catholic Church, Ken Ham, or any other religious affiliation with significant influence/resources.

[Archalen]

Originally Posted by RobotElvis [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The League of Militant Atheists aided the Soviet government in killing clergy and committed believers.[48] The League also made it a priority to remove religious icons from the homes of believers.[49] Under the slogan, "the Storming of Heaven," the League of Militant Atheists pressed for "resolute action against religious peasants" leading to the mass arrest and exile of many believers, especially village priests. By 1940, "over 100 bishops, tens of thousands of Orthodox clergy, and thousands of monks and lay believers had been killed or had died in Soviet prisons and the Gulag.

The League purged its rightist members in 1932–1934. In addition, the League of Militant Atheists sometimes took a violent approach to those who would not accept the League's message. For example, "bishops, priests, and lay believers" were "arrested, shot, and sent to labour camps."[25]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leagu...itant_Atheists

You could go back and forth on the "this atheist did this, this religious person did that" debate for a long time and get nowhere.

There is nothing inherently good about atheism, but there is nothing inherently bad either. If you suspend logic to become religious, you are in danger of believing other myths also not founded on reason. You can, at your own discretion, run errands for your god that are good for society only if your particular religious worldview happens to be true.

To clarify, I've seen atheists who are uber-rational when it comes to religion, but then suspend logic to believe in the religion of self-correcting free markets. Or believe in the religion of the state (stupidly defend everything their political party does). So my argument is not for atheism, it is for rationality in general.