Racist quote from a Ron Paul supporter

[Robert]

Really? What about the whole Hitler and the Occult thing?

 

[cecilia]

all cults are wacko

 

[metalman]

Here's but a few positive atheists - Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawkings, Thomas Edison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frank Zappa, Douglas Adams, Penn & Teller.

a few negative:

Jim Jones, Alfred Kinsey, Than Shwe, Kim Jong Il, Jeffrey Dahmer, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler

“if a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?” -- Jeffrey Dahmer

 

[the_leander]

<Proving the existence of Poe's Law once more.>

You're just boring now.

 

[faethor]

a few negative:

Jim Jones, Alfred Kinsey, Than Shwe, Kim Jong Il, Jeffrey Dahmer, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler

Let's be fair sir!

Your claim is religion provides morals, atheism does not. Yet strangely we have some very moral individuals who are atheists in society. And we have some very religious people who are negative. The result here is religion doesn't do any better of a job.

Your argument boils down to the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. We demonstrate the evil religion has done and the only claim you can make is that's 'No True Religion' would do such a thing.

In related news Religion kills 7 year old girl to offer liver to gods to improve crops.
http://news.yahoo.com/child-sacrificed-liver-offered-gods-indian-police-074513654.html
If they had volcanoes they would have tossed her in.

 

[cecilia]

how is Alfred Kinsey placed in the negative group???
he made a huge contribution to society, even if some uptight wackos don't appreciate the effort

 

[cecilia]

here's a nice big list of atheists:
http://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/Category:Atheist

Mussolini isn't listed

 

[metalman]

Your argument boils down to the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. We demonstrate the evil religion has done and the only claim you can make is that's 'No True Religion' would do such a thing.

Perhaps but what you seem to be implying is that all atheists are sociopathic.

that would depend on whether they're "true scotsmen"

Only religion has a moral reference for defining which acts are "evil"

atheism is amoral, therefore nothing can be "evil"

 

[faethor]

Only religion has a moral reference for defining which acts are "evil"

atheism is amoral, therefore nothing can be "evil"

Atheism is the acceptance there is no gods. Just as which car you drive has no impact on your morals neither does atheism. Your VW is amoral too. The problem is you're looking for atheism to derive morals. Do you realize religion can be amoral too? Deism is the religion that some supernatural being(s) made the world and then shoved off not giving one iota of care to us. While a limited set of beliefs it is shared with it's followers and thus a religion. While not providing any sort of moral code. Others amoral religions.. Pantheism is the universe and supernatural(s) are the same and again provide no sort of moral code. Pandism is the religion similar to Pantheism but the supernatural(s) in becoming the universe lost all states of knowledge and consciousness, comes Deism.

So besides amoral religions we also have immoral religions. Clearly an immoral act that the religion taught was 'moral' was driving planes into buildings, for example. Infant sacrifice, recently in India, very immoral. Molestation of youth is generally immoral. But, clearly not important enough to be in the 10 Commandments. Rome has one of the youngest 'age of constents' in the First world. And the Catholic Church clearly failed morality by failing to research behavior reported to be immoral and instead rewarded the immoral with a fresh set of victims. Religion itself clearly has no guarantees that it's 'morality' is a postive force. Instead it's often immoral, a negative force. The difference here is the belief in God gives defense to the immoral. Something amorality cannot do.

"The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true by the philosopher, as equally false and by the magistrate, as equally useful." - Edward Gibbon.

 

[metalman]

Atheism is the acceptance there is no gods.

There is no god
Therefore, there is no reward for living a virtuous life or eternal punishment for living a sinful one
Therefore, do anything that causes you pleasure
As long as you can avoid punishment in this world

Do you realize religion can be amoral too? Deism is the religion that some supernatural being(s) made the world and then shoved off not giving one iota of care to us. While a limited set of beliefs it is shared with it's followers and thus a religion. While not providing any sort of moral code. Others amoral religions.. Pantheism is the universe and supernatural(s) are the same and again provide no sort of moral code. Pandism is the religion similar to Pantheism but the supernatural(s) in becoming the universe lost all states of knowledge and consciousness, comes Deism.

So besides amoral religions we also have immoral religions. Clearly an immoral act that the religion taught was 'moral' was driving planes into buildings, for example. Infant sacrifice, recently in India, very immoral. Molestation of youth is generally immoral. But, clearly not important enough to be in the 10 Commandments.

Religion itself clearly has no guarantees that it's 'morality' is a postive force. Instead it's often immoral, a negative force. The difference here is the belief in God gives defense to the immoral. Something amorality cannot do.

All religions are not equal, their rules may or may not be necessarily beneficial to development of a social conscience.

Acceptance of a religion comes with acceptance of the specific "morality rules" that come with each specific religion. Muslims make this very clear, they "submit" to the morality rules of God, as stated in their rule book, the Quran.

Christian Religion is in psychological terms submitting your ego to a higher judgment. A Christian culture is a guilt culture. Guilt is an emotion that rises after a transgression of cultural values. Guilt is about actions or behavior; while shame is about the self. There is an important psychological difference in saying to someone that their behavior is bad; as contrasted with saying that they are bad. The former leads to guilt; the latter to shame. The purpose of guilt is to stop behavior that violates a societal standard. Guilt keeps score on behavior deemed undesirable and is expressed as regret and remorse. To avoid shame, reality itself must be distorted in order to protect the ego from poor self-esteem. Blaming other individuals or groups for one's own behavior and transferring of blame to someone else is an indicator of internal shame advoidance. Most psychological theorists (Erikson, Freud, Kohut) see shame as a more “primitive” emotion (since it impacts one’s basic sense of self) compared to guilt, which is developed later in the maturation of the self. Without the development of guilt there is no development of a social conscience.

A guilt culture is typically and primarily concerned with truth, justice, and the preservation of individual rights

In a shame culture what other people believe has a far more powerful impact on behavior than even what the individual believes. The desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else is one of the primary foundations of the shame culture. This desire has the side-effect of giving the individual carte blanche to engage in any wrong-doing as long as no-one knows about it, or knows he is involved.

Atheism is only about the narcissistic self, it does nothing to aid the psychological process of maturation

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

But Hitler is also quoted as privately saying he intended "to stamp out Christianity root and branch."and " We [Germans] have no use for a fairy story invented by the Jews."

One should be wary of things people have been quoted as saying in private. At least we can be fairly sure of things that people have written down themselves - quotations of "private" conversations may be misremembered, misinterpreted, embellished or simply made up (like Darwin's death bed conversion, just for e.g)

"Only the [Catholic] Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth.

This Einstein quote, for another example.

For a start, the word Catholic in square braces is not a condensation of any phrase but an unfounded editorial insertion by which I infer that either you are Catholic or you merely acquired this quote from a Catholic source.

It seems that the rest of the quote may also be a stretching of the truth.

Interestingly enough there seem to be many comments referring to a letter from Einstein to someone who asked about the quote and Einstein broadly confirmed it - and this, the commenters argue, confirm the veracity of the quote. From this letter, Einstein said:

“It’s true that I made a statement which corresponds approximately with the text you quoted. I made this statement during the first years of the Nazi regime– much earlier than 1940– and my expressions were a little more moderate.”

which doesn't actually confirm the provenance of the quote but corroberates the contention of the author of the article I linked that Einstein said something that was later embellished into the quote you gave.

 

[the_leander]

Only religion has a moral reference for defining which acts are "evil"

atheism is amoral, therefore nothing can be "evil"

Perhaps it would be useful if you actually compared like for like. Athiesm in of itself makes no moral judgements it is true. You would be better off comparing theism with secular humanism rather than Atheism on it's own.

It should be noted that for many Atheists, secular humanism is more or less interchangable with the term Atheism day to day.

 

[faethor]

There is no god
Therefore, there is no reward for living a virtuous life or eternal punishment for living a sinful one
Therefore, do anything that causes you pleasure
As long as you can avoid punishment in this world

Again we have atheists who clearly do not live this way. Therefore all your therefores are flawed and this isn't a truism. Additionally, we have Christian Hedonists which do the same sort of thing. Therefore your concept that religion doesn't do this is also flawed.

All religions are not equal, their rules may or may not be necessarily beneficial to development of a social conscience.

While they aren't equal, if you accept morals only come from God, you can't determine which is better without knowing the mind of God itself. So, it's fairly impossible to choose which of the hundreds of religions is more moral.

Acceptance of a religion comes with acceptance of the specific "morality rules" that come with each specific religion. Muslims make this very clear, they "submit" to the morality rules of God, as stated in their rule book, the Quran.

Not all religion comes with morality rules. I gave examples before.

Christian Religion is in psychological terms submitting your ego to a higher judgment.

Predestitarian Christians believe God decided who gets into heaven before the person is placed on the earth. In that Christian faith you can only do what God allows because God is everything. And if you're morally wrong it's because God choose you to be morally wrong. Again, not a universal statement. Sects select their own imporance applied here.

A Christian culture is a guilt culture. ...
A guilt culture is typically and primarily concerned with truth, justice, and the preservation of individual rights

A guilt cuture is not primarily conccerned with truth, justice, or preseveration of individiual rights. They are most concerns at ensuring the churches power structure is in place and has command authority over you life. Guilt and shame is the way the church manipulates the masses to fall in lock step with what the church does. I'd think most ofus think killing is wrong, but the church has not established that as a universal. Again Crusades is an easy example and Africa in the early 21st century. Clearly not truth, nor justice nor respectful of individual rights.

Atheism is only about the narcissistic self, it does nothing to aid the psychological process of maturation

Atheism does nothing to hinder the process of maturation either.

OTOH Religion is optimal for hindering the process of psychological maturation. For it's from religion that morals are defined by the Church body for the benefit of the church. The followers are forever stuck in the Parental relationship doing something only to gain favor or avoid punishment from Sky Daddy and Mommie. And when that SkyDaddy has them do something wrong - kill other people for example - their response is the infantile "we were just following what Daddy says". Simply look at centuries of Christians vs Jews vs Islam to understand the whole my Daddy can beat up your Daddy gradeschool immaturity of believers.

 

[Robert]

a few negative:..... Adolph Hitler

When I said "tell a lie often enough..." did you think it was a serious suggestion or something?

Just keep repeating an obvious falsehood until we accept it?

Do you *really* think that type of, erm.... let's call it a "debating tactic," will convince the rest of Whyzzat to agree that Hitler was atheist?

Not that it's really surprising; the ability to insist on the absolute truth of something that you cannot demonstrate is a prerequisite for the religious.

 

[Robert]

While they aren't equal, if you accept morals only come from God, you can't determine which is better without knowing the mind of God itself.

Anyone who claims to only behave because of some "God" is not someone I'd be too comfortable spending a lot of time with. People like that are a little creepy.

At some point, they might realise it's just a story.

And when that happens, who knows what they'll do?

 

[cecilia]

A guilt culture is not primarily concerned with truth, justice, or preservation of individual rights.

a good example is nuns in Grammar School. No one is better at trying to guilt children (although they failed with me). and YET......I saw these same nuns abuse these children day in and day out. I saw a nun hit a boy in 8th grade and chip his tooth. Is THAT just, ethical, moral?
I think not.
those frigid nuns just hated boys because They grow up to be men.
And in the Catholic Church women are 2nd class. It's the men/priests who get all the good stuff while the nuns have to put up with being unpaid slaves. So they take it out on those who are socially lower - children.

I saw exactly how UN-ethical these so called religious people act and I am not impressed. They sure didn't act like they were afraid of being caught doing wrong

 

[cecilia]

There is no god
Therefore, there is no reward for living a virtuous life or eternal punishment for living a sinful one

bullshit.
the reward for being a good person is that often people respond in kind and are also good to you. To be sure it doesn't Always happen, but as one gets older and more savvy at judging the character of people, one can 'predict' who will return your kindness and who will not.
So, being a nice person is basically it's OWN reward and needs no fairy tale.

Therefore, do anything that causes you pleasure

sure, in my life what causes ME pleasure is being creative and productive. The fact that it also has been good for society is sort of a nice extra.
Using "pleasure" as the measure in this ethical game is kind of silly.

As long as you can avoid punishment in this world

well, as being unpleasant is it's own detriment, once again we don't need to evoke a make-believe dude to get the point.
If I was criminal or just obnoxious when looking for employment I would have gotten no jobs and certainly NO call-backs.
It was to MY benefit to at least know how to act professionally and pleasant in order to a) continue to pay my rent and b) keep moving my career upward.

At no time did I ever need a make believe dude to get ahead in life and live well / successfully.
All I ever needed was my self-respect and self-awareness.

 

[Glaucus]

atheists don't have a imposed religious moral code, they can "do whatever" think is right, an atheist makes their own moral rules.

And yet it seems they imposed some rules in this case. You're correct that atheists don't believe in a universal moral code, but that's not to say that they don't operate under a moral code. All social creatures understand a moral code even if they are not capable of defining them. The moral code for wolves is to allow the alpha male to eat first. I don't think wolves need a religion to impose their moral codes. For us humans, religion is a convenience to impose such rules. Unfortunately a little too convenient as it's often abused.

Sociopathic personalities are drawn to atheism because it has no doctrine or creed to interfere with their own ego.

Sociopaths might be drawn to atheism for the same reason many of them start their own religions: they have a god complex. Sociopaths find their place in society in many different ways, to say they're all advocates of atheism is a gross misclassification.

 

[Glaucus]

Shit. Didn't realize I was replying to a page 1 comment on a 4 page thread.

 

[cecilia]

Shit. Didn't realize I was replying to a page 1 comment on a 4 page thread.

how DARE you miss my brilliant comments