It has become a cliche' but Christians still love to throw the name Stalin into their arguments. Of course , this is an attempt to saddle all atheists with the responsibility for his crimes or to flaccidly argue that atheism leads to moral depravities.
If any Christians on this forum are quick to write "Stalin" in any argument I would like for those Christians to reply to this :
The Christian Identity Movement
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I agree.
They even claim Hitler as being atheist.
Other cliche`s include, They only read the bible, anything written by C.S. Lewis and Anna Karenina.
Talk about living in a bubble and revisionist history.....!
I'm always amused to hear Christians condemn atheists because of Stalin and Hitler, while glossing over genocide and war crimes committed by the Christian rulers of Spain, Portugal, England, France, against indigenous peoples in the Americas and Africa, and against the Jews in Europe. Chistians also seem to have a selective memory about all the atrocities committed by Christians against other Christians, such as the Cathars and the Huguenots.
You wrote: " I'm always amused to hear Christians condemn atheists because of Stalin and Hitler, while glossing over genocide and war crimes committed by the Christian rulers of Spain..."
I think you left out something. These actions (crimes) were committed by these Christian rulers based on and were consistent with christian religious teachings.
...and then there is the little matter of Hitler speaking fondly of Jesus, of putting God back into the schools, of reaffirming his standing as a Catholic. Anyone who tries to pass off Hitler as an atheist has definitely got their head up their ass and is suffering from a lack of oxygen!
Has anyone ever tallied the number of atheists that Stalin killed? I doubt it.
The % of atheist killed by the purge is roughly the same as the overall statistic of the % of atheists that existed at the time in the USSR. Is the best guess. Stalin purged political rivals. He killed Trotsky for crying out loud! He tried to kill Khrushchev. Stalin was a megalomaniac paranoid. He consolidated power. Religion had nothing to do with the purge.
Soviet Communism had a lot in common with the Abrahamic faiths. The individual being subservient to the will of a higher force. God or the state. That is why this heathen is sticking with the ideas proposed by the man in mykcob4's profile image.
@ chimp3
I don't understand. What do the Soviet purges have to do with Madison?
Nothing mykcob4! My point is that classic liberalism and atheism are peas in a pod. The worth of the individual being basic even above the church or state. If the tree is sick we can cut it down.
I have personally used both Hitler and Stalin as examples to counter the Inquisition and the Crusades argument. I don't use to try to saddle all atheists the moniker of genocidal maniacs but as an example of how every organization has blood on its hands.
Probably a bad idea to suggest that Hitler was an atheist:
Hitler may have been a Catholic at on point but later subscribed to Nietzsche's theories. Hitler also would surround himself with a good deal of anti-religious thinkers in his cabinet.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/wa...
Concordat?
The Concordat was a move to protect the Catholics in Germany. The agreements, loosely, were that the church would stay out government business and the Reich would not harass the Church. Honestly, it was a separation of church and state. I know that the argument would be that the Church was giving consent by being quiet, but by making this agreement facilitated the Church to provide aid to the Jews (think underground railroad). I would admit that the original reason for the signing of the Concordat would be to save the Catholics.
"facilitated the Church to provide aid to the Jews (think underground railroad)"
Really? How many were saved? I read somewhere that a small number were classified as converted Catholics so they could escape to Brazil or somewhere. While the Catholic church was shaking hands with Hitler and allowing its schools to be turned into Hitler youth academies, one Japanese diplomat, Chiune Sugihara, saved over 6,000 Jews by issuing transit visas against official orders (at the risk of his own life). What did the Church do to inform the world about the Holocaust? Given the extensive grass-roots network of priests throughout Germany, they must have known about the death camps. I'm afraid the friendship with the Nazis was one of the more sordid episodes in the dark history of the Catholic church.
About 6,000 from Bulgaria is one instance. It is very true that the Pope ( the Church as a whole) could have done much more but the same could be said for many leaders during that war.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html
The article you cited states that the Pope only began to take action after 1942, and then only for political reasons as it was becoming increasingly obvious that the Allies were going to win the war. Before that he remained largely indifferent to the plight of the Jews. I find his attitude perfectly consistent with his role as the head of the organization that wrote the book on anti-semitism.
And then you attempt to tar atheists with the Stalin/Hitler brush.
Oh BULLSHIT. The Concordat was the recognition of the church that Hitler was chosen by god to lead the people of the world. Actually is was like anointing a king.
As far as the "underground railroad" goes that was created by Black slaves in the USA and has nothing to do with the catholic church at all. The fact is that the catholic church systematically turned over jews to Hitler. Maybe a few (very few) priest actually helped the jews, but the fact is that the gestapo got most of it's information by records kept by the catholic church. The gestapo would set up an office. The first manner of business was to retrieve all records from the church, which categorized each family by religion age and nationality. Most villages at the time had no records kept at a municipal site only in church records. Million of jews. Millions of gypsies, bohemians all sent to their death by direct or indirect official actions of christians.
In cruce vincam:
Why don't you give us a comprehensive list. I suspect that the great majority of Hitler's officers had Catholic and Lutheran backgrounds.
Poor Nietzsche !
Wow!
@In cruce vincam
The fact is that both Hitler and Stalin were devout catholics. Although Stalin didn't practice openly for obvious political reasons. You being christian should never use Hitler OR Stalin as an example to support christian agendas. You'd have to miss inform and revise history to do so. Actually, Hitler used christianity as the excuse to carry out genocide. At some points, Stalin actually did the same thing when he attacked the eastern tribes of his own nation.
Christianity(religion) has always been a tool and an excuse to commit crime against humanity.
Atheism is not an organization. Stalin did not murder because he was an atheist assuming that he was an atheist. And he certainly did not kill millions based on religious teaching and dogma or silly interpretations of a book written by iron age peasants in the middle east a couple of thousand years ago
"as an example of how every organization has blood on its hands"
As far as I know, there is no atheist organization or movement.comparable to the Nazi Party, the Russian/Chinese Communist Parties, the Khmer Rouge, the Catholic Church, or the Westboro Baptist Chuirch. It's dishonest to use Hitler/Stalin to counter the Inquisition and the Crusades argument. Both were strongly influenced by religion, and both were in the same tradition of murderous abuse of power. Torquemada and Beria were two of a kind.
Sine cruce vici
What about the Slave trades and movements conducted by Europeans who were Christian, and decided that it was their duty to convert all non-Christians into believing in Christianity? They thought that other people were "primitive", "wrong", etc.
"their duty to convert all non-Christians into believing in Christianity"
I don't think they really cared about the religious beliefs of slaves. That was just an excuse to justify the cruelty and injustice of the slave trade. It's all based on a ridiculous story in the Bible called the "Curse of Ham" in Genesis 9:20–27. Ham saw his father, Noah, drunk and naked and laughed at him. Noah got angry and cursed the son of Ham, Canaan. In Medieval Europe, the rulers claimed that serfs were descended from Ham. In the 18th and 19th century, slavers said that Africans were the descendants of Ham, turned black because of the curse.
That stupid, filthy book has caused more misery than the Black Death.
Those christians were wrong... just like the bible is wrong in its approval of slavery
Hitchens makes a great point about Stalin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRhczvtmbWE
Indeed!
Damn- I miss that guy!
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