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name for me the atrocity that could only be committed by a secularist. Now, name an atrocity that could only be committed by a religious fervor. Religion, all of it, is a cancer on humanity.

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I'm a little confused by this statement. How do you define an atrocity as a secularist or atheist?
I would think any atrocity could be committed by a secularist. They just have to do it. Bad day? Didn't get what you wanted? Commit a heinous act. Easy.

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Without religion, there would obviously still be plenty of horrific killing justified in the minds of the killers based on however they and the group they identify with have been wronged. However, there is zero doubt that religion provides the strongest of all motivations for killing as well as acts of charity. Extreme good, but extreme bad.

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Maybe. But Lenin, Stalin, Rouge and Zedong mustered the motivation to kill hundreds of millions without religion. I don't know how one would measure which is the "strongest", but results alone has Marxism eliminating your "zero doubt".

I don't think you can claim that Hitler's motives were religious.


And suicide bombers aren't only atheists either, kamikaze bombers did so for honor and duty, not out of religious motivation.

I don't know how it can be argued that religion doesn't provide the greatest possible motivation. It literally promises you an eternity of awesomeness as a reward if your interpretation of it has convinced you that's the case. If aliens showed up one day and deleted the religion file from all our brains you'd certainly still have atrocities, you just wouldn't have the ones that are motivated by promises of eternal rewards.

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Without religion, there would obviously still be plenty of horrific killing justified in the minds of the killers based on however they and the group they identify with have been wronged. However, there is zero doubt that religion provides the strongest of all motivations for killing as well as acts of charity. Extreme good, but extreme bad.

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Maybe. But Lenin, Stalin, Rouge and Zedong mustered the motivation to kill hundreds of millions without religion. I don't know how would measure which is the "strongest", but results alone has Marxism eliminating your "zero doubt".

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But Rogue was redeemed once Dr. Xavier taught her to control her powers. Hard to put her in the same category.

Is your religion the only thing keeping you from murdering millions of people? If that's the case on any kind of scale maybe religion is providing us with a net good.

I couldn't remember if Belguim was where NATO HQ was (I aware of (NATO/Warsaw Pact)

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Sharia is a law, not a type of Muslim. So before you call anyone ignorant, you might want to know what you are talking about

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Spoken like a true Enchilada Mexican.

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Shows what you know. Enchiladas are Spanish

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Weird how they don't eat those over there then. Never saw them anywhere when I studied abroad there.

Oh look at me, I'm well traveled.

I wouldn't call going to spain for a month well travelled

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I wouldn't call going to spain for a month well travelled

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I was gonna say "look at me, I'm not afraid of Spanish people" but I didn't want to hurt his feelings

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I don't know how it can be argued that religion doesn't provide the greatest possible motivation. It literally promises you an eternity of awesomeness as a reward if your interpretation of it has convinced you that's the case. If aliens showed up one day and deleted the religion file from all our brains you'd certainly still have atrocities, you just wouldn't have the ones that are motivated by promises of eternal rewards.

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Sure, if you're convinced. Everyone I listed wasn't. It may be the greatest possible motivation. I don't know how that can be definitive with the only measurable data being results - people killed. Political regimes in the 20th century killed hundreds of millions. They were motivated by greed, fear, power, control, security, economics, ethnics tribalism, etc... In a vacuum, I don't know if those influences are greater than a reward of eternal life. It's unique to each individual - the strongest motivator is the one that results in action.

Two awesome quotes from my pastor:

"Church would be a good place to visit, if it weren't for the people"

" ' Religion' is a dirty word around here, don't use it"

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Sure, if you're convinced. Everyone I listed wasn't. It may be the greatest possible motivation. I don't know how that can be definitive with the only measurable data being results - people killed. Political regimes in the 20th century killed hundreds of millions. They were motivated by greed, fear, power, control, security, economics, ethnics tribalism, etc... In a vacuum, I don't know if those influences are greater than a reward of eternal life. It's unique to each individual - the strongest motivator is the one that results in action.

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Agree to disagree. Even if you achieve every single one of your goals all of those motivations can only get you a finite amount of reward. Religion is the only thing that convinces people they have an eternity of rewards headed their way. Seems to me that inherently makes it a more powerful motivator.

You also have to look at the specific action each motivator can produce. You don't see people blowing themselves up for the reasons you listed, but they'll gladly do it if their deity of choice wants them to.

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Is your religion the only thing keeping you from murdering millions of people? If that's the case on any kind of scale maybe religion is providing us with a net good.

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This is why blanket statements saying that religion is a cancer are false. Most Christians(I would argue true Christians) would be opposed to heinous acts of violence. In this case, religion is a plus. I believe Buddhists would also be opposed to most forms of violence. An atheist can justify violence merely because he felt like it. The argument for and against it would be " So what?'

This guy worshipped Satan if my memory serves me correctly. Are we lumping that practice into relgions? Definitely not Christian or Muslim

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An atheist can justify violence merely because he felt like it. The argument for and against it would be " So what?'

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What a load of horse sheet. Your statement that most Christians are opposed to heinous acts of violence applies just as much to non-believers as it does to believers. You don't have to believe in a mystical being to not want to be a jerk to people. Even if we accept for the sake of argument that atheists are 100% selfishly motivated and lack all sense of empathy, going around being a violent **** to people isn't a good way to make living life easy on themselves. If what you said were true we'd basically have The Purge, 24/7. Somehow that's not the case, even in countries with plenty of non-believers.

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An atheist can justify violence merely because he felt like it. The argument for and against it would be " So what?'

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What a load of horse sheet. Your statement that most Christians are opposed to heinous acts of violence applies just as much to non-believers as it does to believers. You don't have to believe in a mystical being to not want to be a jerk to people. Even if we accept for the sake of argument that atheists are 100% selfishly motivated and lack all sense of empathy, going around being a violent **** to people isn't a good way to make living life easy on themselves. If what you said were true we'd basically have The Purge, 24/7. Somehow that's not the case, even in countries with plenty of non-believers.

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You went way overboard and I can see that you are taking it personally now. I did not blanket statement atheists, I was just pointing out that for those who commit heinous acts, they can justify it by saying "So what? What does it matter?" Sure, logically it makes life easier to not be a ****, but at the same time, what is "not being a ****"?

Yeah, that kind of thinking is horrifying to me; that there are apparently so many people out there who would go around being awful if it weren't for religion to tell them not to.

As one of the great thinkers of our time, Steve Harvey, loves to say, "I just don't understand, if you don't believe in God, what is your MORAL BAROMETER??!"

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I would think any atrocity could be committed by a secularist. They just have to do it. Bad day? Didn't get what you wanted? Commit a heinous act. Easy.

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These are the words you typed. This is pretty clearly the classic "if God's not stopping you, what is?" argument.

I'm glad a terrorist attack that left at least 31 dead and 260 injured has given GB posters an opportunity to be offended by one another. Really puts things into perspective.

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I'm glad a terrorist attack that left at least 31 dead and 260 injured has given GB posters an opportunity to be offended by one another. Really puts things into perspective.

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You act like you're new here

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I'm glad a terrorist attack that left at least 31 dead and 260 injured has given GB posters an opportunity to be offended by one another. Really puts things into perspective.

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You're right. Carry on.

Here's a list of Atheist to make all non believers proud.
1. Napoleon Bonaparte (6 million killed)
2. Kim Jong II (4 million killed)
3. Jeffrey Dahmer (dahmernose pizza anyone?)
4. Jim Jones (orchestrated 909 suicides)
5. Mussolini (genocide)
6. Mao Zedong (up to 64 million killed)
7. Pol Pot (murdered 1/3 of Cambodia population)
8. Joseph Stalin (genocide)
9. Than Shwe (his military has the largest number of children/soldiers)

66 of 123 relgions involve Islam.
Muslims sided with Hilter.


Hitler though raised Catholic strayed away from his beliefs. He never renounced his Catholicism.

"He called Christianity one of the great "scourges" of history, and said of the Germans, "Let's be the only people who are immunized against this disease." He promised that "through the peasantry we shall be able to destroy Christianity." In fact, he blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity. He also condemned Christianity for its opposition to evolution."

"Hitler's leading advisers like Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich and Bormann were atheists who hated religion and sought to eradicate its influence in Germany."

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I would think any atrocity could be committed by a secularist. They just have to do it. Bad day? Didn't get what you wanted? Commit a heinous act. Easy.

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These are the words you typed. This is pretty clearly the classic "if God's not stopping you, what is?" argument.

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Your logic doesn't compute. You are starting to get into the free will aspect of religion and that's not where this was going. I didn't say "God stops people from committing heinous acts" I was arguing the previous post that said all religion is a cancer and that secularists don't have the same violence problems (my paraphrase) My point is that there is a moral relativism inherent in atheism. Even many atheists acknowledge that. I acknowledge that overall most atheists don't commit heinous crimes, but when they do, the only remorse the are obligated to feel under a relative moral code is "I wish I hadn't been caught", whereas a truly religious person, depending on the belief would feel either justified or condemned by the religion.

K.

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Without religion, there would obviously still be plenty of horrific killing justified in the minds of the killers based on however they and the group they identify with have been wronged. However, there is zero doubt that religion provides the strongest of all motivations for killing as well as acts of charity. Extreme good, but extreme bad.

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Maybe. But Lenin, Stalin, Rouge and Zedong mustered the motivation to kill hundreds of millions without religion. I don't know how one would measure which is the "strongest", but results alone has Marxism eliminating your "zero doubt".

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That's a fair point, but I'm referring to the current world situation, not dictators who, by the way, managed to set themselves up within their own societies as deities worshipped by their people.