Attention Atheists

[benlehman]

Attention atheists who say "atheists don't do horrible things in the name of their religion."

Please go read a book about the cultural revolution.

Comments

[chris-goodwin.livejournal.com]

Ben, if you have an argument to make, then by all means make it, and cite your sources. Why should we do your homework for you?

[redcrosse.livejournal.com]

Ben, I love you. Just for being you.

[anarchangel23.livejournal.com]

Shall we call that the anti-Crusades gambit?

[ornithoptercat.livejournal.com]

My favorite is "no one who is intelligent/a scientist can believe in God". Usually coupled with a statement about how atheists base all their arguments on evidence.

You know what I have to say to that?

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Wait Ben, you're saying there isn't a simple system of thought to which if the whole world subscribed, we'd live in a perfect world free of pain and disharmony?!?

*Head Explodes*

Panaceas come in all forms, sadly, they're all placebos, too.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

Religion is a way of thinking.

[evilmagnus]

So you missed off Stalin and (Godwin!) Hitler, too. Although both of them, and Mao, were raised in religion. And all of them placed their political desires ahead of whatever religious beliefs, or lack thereof, they happened to subscribe to.

So, yeah. Did you get gang-banged by Richard Dawkins or something? :)

[wickedthought.livejournal.com]

The cultural revolution had nothing to do with atheism or Communism. It was (and is) a dictatorship. A foul, ruthless tyranny hiding behind various masks. But in the end, it is still a tyranny.

The reason the revolution attempts to destroy religion is because it wants its people to worship the state. No authority is higher than the state. If you have any religion at all in that environment, you have dissent. China doesn't want dissent, it wants pure and blind obedience.

China is not a good example to use in this context. It hasn't performed any action "in the name of atheism;" it performed actions in the name of a small number of men who wanted power at all costs. That isn't atheism, that's tyranny.

[lumpley.livejournal.com]

Your reason and your historical- and worldly perspective can't reach me. I'm angry at God.

[dj-clawson.livejournal.com]

Great post.

[funwithrage.livejournal.com]

Heh. Thank you.

Most belief systems which have been at all coherent for any length of time are responsible for the death of innocents, I think. (Neopaganism hasn't been, but that's because a) we invented it in the last fifty years, contrary to what people on the Internet who think they're dragons will tell you, and b) we're nowhere near cohesive enough. Certainly historical pagan cultures were just as kill-crazed as anyone else.)

(Also: proselytizing atheists are JUST AS FUCKING BAD as proselytizing anything-the-hell-else in modern culture. I believe in Stuff. If you want to believe that I'm stupid/wicked/going to hell because you disbelieve Stuff, or believe Other Stuff, well, fuck you, but you get to think that. Try to convince me, though, and I'll unload on you with both barrels.)

[l-the-fangirl.livejournal.com]

Ben, while we're on it.

To all the Mr. Dawkins of the world...

"Fundamentalist Atheism" exists. It's beleiving that religion itself is, how you say, heretical, anathema, when you look at the world.

Rather than mainstream athiesm, which is just the reasonable belief that the evidence points to no religion being correct, and forswearing religion.

I'm raised Jewish, and mostly Buddist. Jews and Buddhists don't scare me.

Chasids and Pure Land Buddhists, on the otherhand...