As Christianity wanes, immoral behavior increases

Yeah, that's another interesting thing to note. You draw that line anywhere later than 1975, and BAM - straight line, trending downwards. This is another one of those quick checks to make sure what you're saying isn't full of (*)(*)(*)(*).

 

Hm. I'm sure the Protestants are saying the same thing about the Catlick church. How to proceed? Is there an objective measure for what constitutes a "tool of Satan"?

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Agreed. People can look at the long and bloody history of religious warfare and see the truth quite plainly. Look at how violent the extremely religious Muslim world is these days, for crying out loud. Religion fuels all manner of hatred and violence. It is anti-reason..

 

violent crime may be on a down trend now, but as it goes down the religious fanatics will start to go crazy and start burning witches and stuff

 

There are reasons crime has dipped recently, atheism not being a reason listed: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0524/US-crime-rate-is-down-six-key-reasons

To try to correlate a dip in crime with the rise in atheism is asinine. And why isn't the crime rate lower than it was in 1960, except for one category? You are also misrepresenting the OP, which is about immorality in general, not just crime. And you continue to dodge questions about changed lives.

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You really want to compare the 20 victims of the Salem Witch Trials with 100,000,000 victims of atheistic communism?

 

Do you even understand what 'correlate' means? My favorite example is that increased ice cream sales do, in fact, correlate with shark attacks. They DO correlate. Nobody has to 'try' to correlate them, the facts are in black and white. What would be asinine is to try to use that correlation as if there were any kind of causal link.

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Fixed that for you. Now, go find a thread about communism where it stands at least a tiny chance of accidentally being relevant.

 

Christianity has WAY more then 20 victims in their history... but I think we both know that

does it really help your cause claiming that Christians are bad, but not as bad as communists?

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Oh, I'm well aware of that. That's why I made no such claim. I don't think crime correlates with religion or lack thereof at all. And the data supports no such correlation. And until you recognize this and stop trying to use that non-existent correlation as an argument, I reiterate what I said previously: you need a remedial statistics class, not a debate partner.

 

I don't like these comparisons, they are silly, but if you're going to bring it up as an atheist you're going to hear about your toll. What teaching of Jesus were Christian wrongdoers following? Jesus harmed nobody, and once when His followers wanted revenge on those who had rejected them, He rebuked them. The USSR bloody experiment itself is validation of the OP. From Wikipedia:

"Raised in the Georgian Orthodox faith, Stalin became an atheist. He followed the position that religion was an opiate that needed to be removed in order to construct the ideal communist society. His government promoted atheism through special atheistic education in schools, anti-religious propaganda, the antireligious work of public institutions (Society of the Godless), discriminatory laws, and a terror campaign against religious believers. By the late 1930s it had become dangerous to be publicly associated with religion.[108]
Stalin's role in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church is complex. Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction as a public institution: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917), many churches had been leveled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were persecuted and killed. Over 100,000 were shot during the purges of 1937–1938.[109][110] During World War II, the Church was allowed a revival as a patriotic organization, and thousands of parishes were reactivated until a further round of suppression during Khrushchev's rule. The Russian Orthodox Church Synod's recognition of the Soviet government and of Stalin personally led to a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.
Just days before Stalin's death, certain religious sects were outlawed and persecuted. Many religions popular in ethnic regions of the Soviet Union, including the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, Baptists, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism underwent ordeals similar to that which the Orthodox churches in other parts of the country suffered: thousands of monks were persecuted, and hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, sacred monuments, monasteries and other religious buildings were razed."

 

first of all, I am not an atheist or a Christian, though I do believe in a higher power, just not an old jealous guy in the sky...

but by your logic all theists are responsible for all theists history and all atheists are responsible for all atheist history, does that mean 911 can be blamed on Christians too?

actually if Jesus = God, and God killed everyone on the planet once in a giant bath tub, then would not of Jesus also have to take credit for that and any other killings his multiple personality other self known as God ordered

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What teaching of ATHEISM (not communism, ATHEISM) were any wrongdoers following?

 

"If God does not exist, everything is permitted." Dostoevsky

Atheism created the climate where Stalin could arise, that isn't to say all atheists are killers. By climate I mean the ideas that there is no God and moral standards, no eternal rewards and punishment, man is the highest power, and since a man has no more intrinsic value than a dog, why not eliminate inconvenient people? Ideas have consequences. Mother Theresa, for example, saw Jesus in the face of dying Indian lepers, and believed we are made in His image with an eternal destiny. There was a very different outcome with that mindset.

And BTW, atheism is intrinsic to communism. Was there ever a communist nation that had freedom of religion as we do in the US?

 

No, that can be blamed on Islam. There is very little the jihadists do that wasn't done in word or deed by the 'prophet'.

 

Actually, crime began it's precipitous drop 18 years after Roe v Wade, earlier in those states that legalized abortion before Roe.

The communism that killed 100,000,000 people was a dogmatic religion, anyone who believes they are right, with no possibility that they are wrong, can murder people by the millions, because it's what they are supposed to do.

 

Which is bull(*)(*)(*)(*). This kind of argument not only fails at a very basic level (there are numerous other sources of natural morality one could appeal to), but reveals a lot about those who would further it. I mean, if you had a crisis of faith and stopped believing in god, would you really suddenly start to seriously consider raping and murdering people? If not, then this argument is bull(*)(*)(*)(*). If so, then you need mental help.

Except that that's not an intrinsic idea of atheism. There is no god, sure. But there are no moral standards? No. That is not an intrinsic proponent of atheism. That man has no more intrinsic value than a dog? No. That is not an intrinsic property of atheism. What you're trying to do is conflate a certain breed of atheistic nihilism with atheism as a whole. And that's bull(*)(*)(*)(*). Not believing in a god is utterly unrelated with the belief that there are no moral standards. Hell, Buddhists don't believe in any god, yet they believe in eternal rewards and punishments (in a way).

It's not intrinsic so much as that communists base their worldview largely on Marx, and Marx was not kind to religion - the "opiate of the masses", as you well know. I certainly think it's entirely reasonable to have a socialistic country with total freedom of religion. It's just that anyone dumb enough to give socialism another go is probably dumb enough to ignore any good advice that runs contrary to Marx.

 

you're calling someone obtuse??? Now that's funny! LOL!!

 

glad that little analogy helped you see the light...

cause that is my point, you can no more blame all theists for something then you can all atheists


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Dostoevsky is not atheism. Feel free to try again. And again.

Water is intrinsic to nuclear bombs, that doesnt mean water is bad.

 

Be careful, socialism and communism are not the same thing. In fact, even 'communism' and 'Marxism' have subtle differences. There are ALREADY and have been socialist countries with total freedom of religion.

 

I think it was getting arrested that put a major dent in his plans.

 

I'm talking about the change in his heart, not his address.

 

Agreed, some of these socialistic countries have state religions.

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If I had claimed that you might have a point.

No, but it does mean water is intrinsic to nuclear bombs.

 

Killing 40,000,000 unborn children IS a crime.

LOL, if you can't even admit to the official atheism of Stalinism, lets just stop right here, OK? Maybe black is really white too.

 

Only in countries which prohibit abortion

Stalin does not have an ófficial 'position on religion

 

I asked about the teachings of atheism. You replied with something Dostoevsky said. If, as you claim, you weren't trying to conflate the two, then you were instead being irrelevant, and should realise that I was quite reasonable in coming to the conclusion that you were.

But, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take you at your word. In which case, you didn't answer my point at all, so I'll repeat it: What teaching of ATHEISM were any wrongdoers following?