God is not dead....

If you are going to abandon points and if the only point you are making is that Marxist countries were violent, then yeah, no need to continue.

 

You mean like Russia? Alright then... Was Russia peaceful before the collapse of the Soviet Union? Just name one atheistic country, tribe or race of people that were peaceful. That's all I ask.

 

That's such a broad question. What constitutes a tribe? What constitutes a race? What constitutes an atheistic country? A country that ONLY has atheists?

 

Just name one violent atheist country, tribe or race that wasn't Marxist. That's all I ask. Assuming that Marxism is representative of atheism is like assuming that Jihadism is representative of theism.

 

Certain pygmy tribes have been observed to have no Gods they worship, no totems, nothing indicating a supreme deity, not even specific Gods like the Greeks had to bless hunts or farming or whatever. They also have no ceremony to bury the dead and they do not even appear to have any superstitions.

 

Were those particular Pygmy tribes peaceful?

Who said anything about marxism representing atheism? Russia was an atheistic country that was heavily marxist before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Who cares that they were marxist, the fact is that they were atheists. So, what I want to know is, were they peaceful before the collapse of the Soviet Union? Yes or No?

 

You got me there, I didn't research it far enough to find out if they were peaceful or not.

 

nothing can be "dead" that was never alive and never existed, so you're right, but the entire concept of a 'god" is anti-mind

 

Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Canada. Very warlike, aren't they. Slaughtering people every chance they get.

Incidentally, Russians are up there with some of the most religious people on earth. You guys fail very hard every time you invoke North Korea/Russia etc. You use insanely religious 'tribes' to demonstrate the awfulness of atheism

 

once again, Russians were never atheists. they are, and always have been, DEEPLY religious people.

what you don't understand, or are pretending not to understand, is that only a deeply religious tribe will tolerate a despot (especially a despot who outlaws the worship of other gods, in favour of himself). so in pointing to places like Russia or North Korea, you condemn religiosity.

 

You are using only Marxist countries to represent “atheist societies”. You are even structuring your definition to only include Marxist countries, refusing to acknowledge any other atheist social groups.

First of all, we have no idea what the religious demographics of the country were at the time . . . unless you are saying we can trust the numbers the Marxist government came up with. Even if it is true that he majority of the country was atheistic, one could just as easily say “Russia was a Marxist country that was heavily atheistic before the collapse of the Soviet Union.” The difference between what you are saying and what I’m saying is that you are only focusing on what these people didn’t believe while I am focusing on what they did believe. If you know anything about the Soviet Union, you’ll know that they committed violence based on what they believed, not based on what they didn’t believe.

People who actually care about what their motivations were, rather than using the opportunity to put on historical blinders in order to force a political point.

The fact is also that they were Marxist. Whether or not the majority was atheistic we just don't know. And again, I could just as easily say, “Who cares that they were atheists, the fact is that they were Marxist,” the main difference being that mine would actual start addressing the issues behind their violence rather than using arbitrary definitions in order to limit the discussion to Marxists while at the same time using Marxists to make generalizations about atheists.

As I’ve eluded to several times now, no. Of course they weren’t. If you read up on their history and their philosophy, you’ll see why.

By the way, if your definition of “gods” is so broad that it would include buddhas (which most Buddhists outside of tantra would deny), then Stalin would have easily qualified as a “god” to the Stalinists as well, making the Stalinists theists. If the issue is atheism rather than Marxist Stalinism, then I’d like to hear you explain why Russian Christians have idolized Stalin. You can still find icons dedicated to him in Russian Orthodox churches, and there are RO Christians who are trying to get him canonized as a saint.

 

I've only named one country.

Thank you. Now, you're free to find other countries, tribes or races of atheistic people who were peaceful. Truth is, you won't find any, which proves my point that there weren't any to begin with.

 

The vast majority of atheistic people are peaceful. Hell, we are even massively underrepresented in prisons. I've given you several examples of peaceful atheist population, but you choose to only focus on countries because that means you can focus on the Soviet Union, though you haven't commented yet on countries like Norway, where the majority does not believe in a theistic God. Your point is a duplicitous one. Come to think of it, can you think of a peaceful Christian country? Before the secular influence of the Enlightenment, of course.

 

Good post!

Our hero is studiously avoiding Scandinavia and the other peaceful atheist-heavy nations. Most who rely on demonisation of atheism usually do.

 

When people say god is dead I think they are referring to their own personal belief. Maybe at one time the believed in god and now they don't.

 

The argument here isn't finding non-theistic countries. The argument is finding atheistic countries, which you fail to do. You cannot identify one atheistic country, tribe or race of people who were peaceful. Not one. I suppose my ultimate point is that, atheists are not peaceful people. Most of them are very out-spoken and many of them are very militant. The atheistic groups in America today are very militant and are almost to the point of just plain hateful.

 

then perhaps they should say "God is dead to me"..

 

Care to give examples or just using your opinion.
Just how many atheist people are there in the world, or just the USA, that one would have no clue if they are or are not?
What is the basis you have for this weird opinion?
Are there atheists going around the country blowing up things?
Are there atheists taking away people's rights?
Are atheists going around and shooting people?
Please give us examples that show atheists are no peaceful people.

Was it atheists blowing up abortion clinics, killing doctors, beating up people who tried to get to the clinic?
Was it atheists who would drag people behind their vehicles, or beat someone to death because they were found out to be gay?
Is it atheists cutting off heads in the middle east?

What purpose is there for an atheist to not be peaceful?

 

`
The way I see it, if God is dead, he must have gone to heaven.

 

”Atheist” literally and etymologically means “non-theist”. The prefix “a” and the prefix “non” both mean “not”. I use the term non-theist out of respect for those people who are not theists, but who do not like the label of “atheist”, largely because of misconceptions like the one you are spreading around now.

Except that isn’t your actual argument (we’ll get to that next). And you are creating arbitrary distinctions to tilt the landscape in your favor. I’ve spoken of peaceful atheist social groups, but you want to limit the discussion to countries. You haven’t provided any rational reason for doing so, and the real reason is obvious: you want to keep the sample size down and just focus on the Soviet Union. And again, both atheists and theists were complicit in the horrors of the Soviet Union, and we don’t know what the majority religious view was.

And now we get to your actual argument – one that everyone knew was coming but that we were waiting for you to finally spell out.

Not long ago you were shocked that I would accuse you of using Marxist as representative of all atheists, but now you are admitting to doing just that. You are using “atheist countries” (i.e., the Soviet Union) to make a judgment about all atheists.

Of course, it is completely ridiculous. If you honestly wanted to prove anything about atheists, you would look at a broad sampling of atheists, not just one set of countries at one period in time. But you don’t actually care about that. You only care about reaching your faulty conclusion, so you pick the sample that you want and then throw up arbitrary conditions so that you only have to talk about that sample set. This would get you flunked from any statistics class.

This is no different from me only focusing on the Nazis or Jihadists in order to argue that theists are not peaceful people.

But more than being ridiculous, it is morally reprehensible. You are trying to leverage the deaths of millions of innocents in a duplicitous way in order to paint an ugly picture of your debate opponents. This is disgusting.

Seriously? Prove it. Most of the atheists I know are in the closet, and so are most of the ones you probably know.
This is one of those standard anti-atheist self-defeating arguments: “Most atheists are outspoken – by which I mean most atheists that I’ve heard speak out are outspoken.”

You must have an extremely loose definition of the word “militant”.

That’s because theists like to interpret debate as "hate" and public debate as "militantism". There is nothing that these groups have to say that can ever amount to the hate spouted by your fellow Christians who preach the doctrine of Hell for non-believers. I know you don’t believe in Hell, but since you refuse to treat atheists as individuals and instead lump them into a single group represented by the worst of them, and since you believe in the Golden Rule, then this must be the way that you want to be treated as a Christian.

And keep in mind that you, as an individual, have advocated far more violence on this forum than any of the atheists here. You are the one defending slavery, infanticide and genocide, not us. So which is it? Are we too violent (which you argue here) or not violent enough (as you have implied elsewhere)?

By the way, I noticed you avoided my question about Christian countries like the plague.

 

You are dead wrong on every point and if you want to talk about hateful, then listen to these loving christians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plmqMMWIPjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdnWwlZCsSw

 

Qchan, why must you use such crap arguments? Atheists are not peaceful people because there has not been a peaceful atheist "tribe" or "race" (What does this even mean?) or "country"? That makes no more sense than saying that Christians are not peaceful people because Christian countries are not peaceful. Wow, look at that, your idiotic logic has been turned on its head. According to you, we're all not peaceful.

Also, what atheist groups in America are violent? There are literally thousands and thousands of atheist groups in the United States that have never done a violent thing. But that probably doesn't count, for whatever reason you could possibly pull out of the pile of your crap arguments, does it?

Of course you'll probably just ignore this reply like you did the last one where I pointed out that your question makes no sense.

 

So you are saying the statement should be personal. Then maybe the title of this thread should read God is not dead to me.

 

Well, your friends, the Neo-Atheists, aren't helping your case. Richard Dawkins, the face of atheists in this country, said this:

[video=youtube;uPqqp8KVuQU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPqqp8KVuQU[/video]

If that's peaceful to you, then I'm not interested.

 

Actually no because saying God is dead is a statement of universality. If you read the thread you will see my point is that as long as someone believes in a God then that God is not dead. So no my point is that God is not dead.