Koukl : Greatest murders ? Apologetics

[Markus77x7]

Atheists murdered over 150 MILLION people in the 20th century alone. That's the world record for murder by proponents of an ideology. This isn't coincidental.

[elroy2112]

Secularist at state run schools have been trying slowly but systematically cover up the Evils of Mao, stalin and Lenin since the late 60s and come up with every excuse under the sun about why they were not as Evil as Christians make them out to be, while Paul Harrison tells us to move along there is nothing to see here, actually there is much to be seen here read the comments below , Secularists are trying to cover this History up, and there apologists are telling you it means nothing!

[PaulHarrison1976]

"Institutionalized atheism" murdering people is no different than "Institutionalized Christianity" or any other form of human power abusing people's rights. The fact is that most Christians and atheists personally abhor these institutions and both distance themselves from these examples.

The Inquisition, Crusades, and secular regimes were examples of governmental authority and "just wars" where kiling can be justified, not average citizens like you and me justifyng murder by our ideologies.

[VeryEvilPettingZoo]

When Stalin starved the Ukraine to get the peasants on to the collectivist farms, was his motivation atheism? When the Khmer Rouge slaughtered the intelligentsia (even the merely literate), was their motivation atheism? Was the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution motivated by economic ambitions and ideological purity (i.e. power), or atheism?

[grandconjunct]

Oh no not the "no true atheist" fallacy ,I thought you were smarter than that VEPZ , guess I was wrong.

[Sandolainen]

There's a difference between this and the "no true scotsman" argument. What the OP is trying to say, is not that the examples weren't atheist but that they did not do it for atheistic reasons. He also did not say that "no atheist ever does any harm", which would be a "no true scotsman" argument but that "no (sane) atheist has ever done any harm for atheistic reasons".

The "no true scotsman" is really not a very good argument, applied to either side, as it can be applied on a very specific case.

[VeryEvilPettingZoo]

Now compare: Were witch burnings motivated by religion? Were the Crusades? Was the slaughter and forced conversion in the New World? Was the Inquisition? Were the executions and slaughters for apostasy and heresy?

Notice anything?

So many Christians are so damn intellectually dishonest.

[grandconjunct]

Vepz , I encourage you to learn what Jesus actually taught He did not say to burn witches , Kill Muslims or convert by the Sword, and Jesus never said to kill heretics! wrong , wrong and wrong.

He said to love your enemies, Love those who persecute you , turn the other cheek, do not return hate for hate etc.,etc.. this is the real Jesus, not your suicide bombing Jesus who wears a Nazi uniform or carries a conversion sword, Man VEPZ i was expecting more from you, I'm honestly stunned!

[ComradeAgopian]

Who slew the first born of Egypt ? What crime had they commited ?

[jordan19862000]

Before i answer this let me ask you a question. Do you believe what the bible says?

[hitch4645]

Atheists have much lower crime, abortion, teen pregnancy and divorcce rates than Christians do. How is that not a sign of morality?

[J1Militans]

Where you getting your data from?

[hitch4645]

I personally got it from Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation. He cites all of his sources but I'm not in the mood to find exactly what source those statistic were taken from.

[J1Militans]

1... it's a full report with 149 footnotes. I didn't read it all, but you can skim through it, heritage[dot]org/Research/Reli­gion/BG1064.cfm#2

[RebelRay]

Where did you get this statistic?

[hitch4645]

I personally got it from Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation. He cites all of his sources but I'm not in the mood to find exactly what source those statistic were taken from.

[J1Militans]

I've seen statistics in other sites, including either Heritage Foundation or FRC[dot]org which show the opposite.

This one is from Heritage foundation,

"Churchgoers are more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or single, and more likely to manifest high levels of satisfaction in marriage" "Regular religious practice generally inoculates individuals against a host of social problems, including suicide, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock births, crime, and divorce." ...1

[elroy2112]

"What's to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn't right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question"

quote from

—Richard Dawkins (byFaith Magazine, Issue Number 18, December 2007)

Keep an eye on these people there wacked!

[snoberts]

I think Bronowski put it best when he said that it is dogma that allows humans to act in an inhuman way toward one another. Dogma is what binds the church with the Nazis and the regimes of the Kmer Rouge and Stalin's Communists. Whenever you have a group that says "We have all the answers, We know what's best, We are the way and we'll crush anyone who says otherwise" then we should all be afraid. All Atheism really says is that there is no God. If you fear that idea you should ask yourself why.

[grandconjunct]

Dogmatic atheism killed 100 million people last century. many were killed for simply being religious, Atheists try and give Stalin etc. a free pass or say stupid things like "communism killed them not atheism! ? "value of an object is derived from the stored human labor required to produce that object from which the surplus value is appropriated from the bourgeoisie. Let's kill loads of people." doesn't follow! but "There is no moral law giver therefore no Moral Law . follows! atheism kills!

[0Eddy]

Actually the religious people were less than 1% of those who were killed. During the height of the Stalin terror about one half of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee were eliminated. Similarly, communists were the largest proportion of those directly victimised and killed during Maos Cultural Revolution in China. The main cause for all these deaths was because of an unintentional famine by Mao(even anti-maoist books admit this), I/m sure you can see where Lysenkoism fits in all this

[0Eddy]

Atheism can't be blamed, I don't have a holy commandement telling me to kill all believers, yet you must admit that if the very first 4 of your commandements would be law then that would be a dictatorship and a theocracy and would violate the freedom of religion. We KNOW that morality doesn't come from God, read "Moral Minds" by Marc Hauser for one thing, it's much more empirical than saying that morality comes from God. Also if atheists are less than 5% then who do you think helped Mao kill?

[pankracm]

grandconjuct: How should I start this... First of all, please stop hogging morality. The belief that Christians alone can have moral values is, frankly, sickening. Atheists are every bit as moral as Christians, the only difference is, we don't have a codified set of moral commandments. Most atheists are every bit as concerned about a fellow human's life as religious persons, trust me.

2. Hitler wasn't brought up in the video? listen to 1:05.

[grandconjunct]

I meant Hitler was never brought up (not Naziism), No one claims Atheists cant be moral, or killing is done in name of atheism, etc. we claim atheism is a morality free philosophy so murdering is consistent with atheism, this is why atheists must be moraly parasitic to the culture it lives off so Yes American atheists are moral most of time.

What is really sick is athiests trying to argue Relgion causes Wars etc. and atheism is pure and innocent then brining up inqusitions crusades.

[pankracm]

I can't seem to be able to post part two of my answer, so this'll be a short test only.

Nazism = Hitler, there's no way around that. You say "atheism is not necesarily immoral" than follow that with "atheism is a social parasite, a free license to kill". You contradict yourself in the space of one sentence. Also, as I already pointed out, morality is not religion-specific, hence atheists = immoral does not work out.

[pankracm]

Funny, I could post that comment...

In very short words, part two of my upper comment:

3: atheists are the world's trird largest group of people, in view of religion or lack thereof. Not 4%, as you say, those are the numbers for the US.

4. the above mass killings were not triggered by lack of religion. If you want to stay in the 20th century, look at S. American dictators - many of them deeply religious, many of them cold-blooded murderers. Did religion make them do it? No.

[grandconjunct]

No your numbers on atheism are way out of date

the largest poll ever done on Americans religion was the feb 25, 2008 Pew poll , 30 thousand Americans were surveyed and only 1.6% Americans self Identify as Atheist, and 2.4% self Identify as Agnostic, and the 2005 Encyclopedia Brittanica lists worlds population of those who self Identify as atheist as 2.3% of worlds population.

No the lack of religion did not trigger mass killings, Lack of Ethics triggered them,and there atheism lacked ethics.

[grandconjunct]

No what I said was Atheism is a Morality free philosophy, Atheism has no ethics of its own this is why atheism looks so diffrent depending on what country you are looking at and simply takes on the Ethics of the host country it lives in at the time, this is clearly what I meant by moral parasiticism.

Relgions do have Moral Codes, atheism has no moral code at all this is why Mao, and Lennin violated nothing about atheism regardless of what they did. So no contradictions except in atheists heads

[Markus77x7]

Atheists murdered over 150 MILLION people in the 20th century alone. That's the world record for murder by proponents of an ideology. This isn't coincidental.

[elroy2112]

Secularist at state run schools have been trying slowly but systematically cover up the Evils of Mao, stalin and Lenin since the late 60s and come up with every excuse under the sun about why they were not as Evil as Christians make them out to be, while Paul Harrison tells us to move along there is nothing to see here, actually there is much to be seen here read the comments below , Secularists are trying to cover this History up, and there apologists are telling you it means nothing!

[PaulHarrison1976]

"Institutionalized atheism" murdering people is no different than "Institutionalized Christianity" or any other form of human power abusing people's rights. The fact is that most Christians and atheists personally abhor these institutions and both distance themselves from these examples.

The Inquisition, Crusades, and secular regimes were examples of governmental authority and "just wars" where kiling can be justified, not average citizens like you and me justifyng murder by our ideologies.

[VeryEvilPettingZoo]

When Stalin starved the Ukraine to get the peasants on to the collectivist farms, was his motivation atheism? When the Khmer Rouge slaughtered the intelligentsia (even the merely literate), was their motivation atheism? Was the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution motivated by economic ambitions and ideological purity (i.e. power), or atheism?

[grandconjunct]

Oh no not the "no true atheist" fallacy ,I thought you were smarter than that VEPZ , guess I was wrong.

[Sandolainen]

There's a difference between this and the "no true scotsman" argument. What the OP is trying to say, is not that the examples weren't atheist but that they did not do it for atheistic reasons. He also did not say that "no atheist ever does any harm", which would be a "no true scotsman" argument but that "no (sane) atheist has ever done any harm for atheistic reasons".

The "no true scotsman" is really not a very good argument, applied to either side, as it can be applied on a very specific case.

[VeryEvilPettingZoo]

Now compare: Were witch burnings motivated by religion? Were the Crusades? Was the slaughter and forced conversion in the New World? Was the Inquisition? Were the executions and slaughters for apostasy and heresy?

Notice anything?

So many Christians are so damn intellectually dishonest.

[grandconjunct]

Vepz , I encourage you to learn what Jesus actually taught He did not say to burn witches , Kill Muslims or convert by the Sword, and Jesus never said to kill heretics! wrong , wrong and wrong.

He said to love your enemies, Love those who persecute you , turn the other cheek, do not return hate for hate etc.,etc.. this is the real Jesus, not your suicide bombing Jesus who wears a Nazi uniform or carries a conversion sword, Man VEPZ i was expecting more from you, I'm honestly stunned!

[ComradeAgopian]

Who slew the first born of Egypt ? What crime had they commited ?

[jordan19862000]

Before i answer this let me ask you a question. Do you believe what the bible says?

[hitch4645]

Atheists have much lower crime, abortion, teen pregnancy and divorcce rates than Christians do. How is that not a sign of morality?

[J1Militans]

Where you getting your data from?

[hitch4645]

I personally got it from Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation. He cites all of his sources but I'm not in the mood to find exactly what source those statistic were taken from.

[J1Militans]

1... it's a full report with 149 footnotes. I didn't read it all, but you can skim through it, heritage[dot]org/Research/Reli­gion/BG1064.cfm#2

[RebelRay]

Where did you get this statistic?

[hitch4645]

I personally got it from Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation. He cites all of his sources but I'm not in the mood to find exactly what source those statistic were taken from.

[J1Militans]

I've seen statistics in other sites, including either Heritage Foundation or FRC[dot]org which show the opposite.

This one is from Heritage foundation,

"Churchgoers are more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or single, and more likely to manifest high levels of satisfaction in marriage" "Regular religious practice generally inoculates individuals against a host of social problems, including suicide, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock births, crime, and divorce." ...1

[elroy2112]

"What's to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn't right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question"

quote from

—Richard Dawkins (byFaith Magazine, Issue Number 18, December 2007)

Keep an eye on these people there wacked!

[snoberts]

I think Bronowski put it best when he said that it is dogma that allows humans to act in an inhuman way toward one another. Dogma is what binds the church with the Nazis and the regimes of the Kmer Rouge and Stalin's Communists. Whenever you have a group that says "We have all the answers, We know what's best, We are the way and we'll crush anyone who says otherwise" then we should all be afraid. All Atheism really says is that there is no God. If you fear that idea you should ask yourself why.

[grandconjunct]

Dogmatic atheism killed 100 million people last century. many were killed for simply being religious, Atheists try and give Stalin etc. a free pass or say stupid things like "communism killed them not atheism! ? "value of an object is derived from the stored human labor required to produce that object from which the surplus value is appropriated from the bourgeoisie. Let's kill loads of people." doesn't follow! but "There is no moral law giver therefore no Moral Law . follows! atheism kills!

[0Eddy]

Actually the religious people were less than 1% of those who were killed. During the height of the Stalin terror about one half of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee were eliminated. Similarly, communists were the largest proportion of those directly victimised and killed during Maos Cultural Revolution in China. The main cause for all these deaths was because of an unintentional famine by Mao(even anti-maoist books admit this), I/m sure you can see where Lysenkoism fits in all this

[0Eddy]

Atheism can't be blamed, I don't have a holy commandement telling me to kill all believers, yet you must admit that if the very first 4 of your commandements would be law then that would be a dictatorship and a theocracy and would violate the freedom of religion. We KNOW that morality doesn't come from God, read "Moral Minds" by Marc Hauser for one thing, it's much more empirical than saying that morality comes from God. Also if atheists are less than 5% then who do you think helped Mao kill?

[pankracm]

grandconjuct: How should I start this... First of all, please stop hogging morality. The belief that Christians alone can have moral values is, frankly, sickening. Atheists are every bit as moral as Christians, the only difference is, we don't have a codified set of moral commandments. Most atheists are every bit as concerned about a fellow human's life as religious persons, trust me.

2. Hitler wasn't brought up in the video? listen to 1:05.

[grandconjunct]

I meant Hitler was never brought up (not Naziism), No one claims Atheists cant be moral, or killing is done in name of atheism, etc. we claim atheism is a morality free philosophy so murdering is consistent with atheism, this is why atheists must be moraly parasitic to the culture it lives off so Yes American atheists are moral most of time.

What is really sick is athiests trying to argue Relgion causes Wars etc. and atheism is pure and innocent then brining up inqusitions crusades.

[pankracm]

I can't seem to be able to post part two of my answer, so this'll be a short test only.

Nazism = Hitler, there's no way around that. You say "atheism is not necesarily immoral" than follow that with "atheism is a social parasite, a free license to kill". You contradict yourself in the space of one sentence. Also, as I already pointed out, morality is not religion-specific, hence atheists = immoral does not work out.

[pankracm]

Funny, I could post that comment...

In very short words, part two of my upper comment:

3: atheists are the world's trird largest group of people, in view of religion or lack thereof. Not 4%, as you say, those are the numbers for the US.

4. the above mass killings were not triggered by lack of religion. If you want to stay in the 20th century, look at S. American dictators - many of them deeply religious, many of them cold-blooded murderers. Did religion make them do it? No.

[grandconjunct]

No your numbers on atheism are way out of date

the largest poll ever done on Americans religion was the feb 25, 2008 Pew poll , 30 thousand Americans were surveyed and only 1.6% Americans self Identify as Atheist, and 2.4% self Identify as Agnostic, and the 2005 Encyclopedia Brittanica lists worlds population of those who self Identify as atheist as 2.3% of worlds population.

No the lack of religion did not trigger mass killings, Lack of Ethics triggered them,and there atheism lacked ethics.

[grandconjunct]

No what I said was Atheism is a Morality free philosophy, Atheism has no ethics of its own this is why atheism looks so diffrent depending on what country you are looking at and simply takes on the Ethics of the host country it lives in at the time, this is clearly what I meant by moral parasiticism.

Relgions do have Moral Codes, atheism has no moral code at all this is why Mao, and Lennin violated nothing about atheism regardless of what they did. So no contradictions except in atheists heads

[cheese389]

Hitler was a believer, so I guess we should judge actions on a person's religion rather than their actual excuses for causing mass murder. I'm an atheist, but I never blamed anyone because of their beliefs for the reasons why they are insane.

[grandconjunct]

Hitler was never brought up, go re-listen to video again. If a person's religion contradicts there actions, example there religion teaches to love enemies, turn other cheek, love those who try to harm you etc.. but instead they kill anyone they don't like, we hold them accountable not religion (unless your irrational atheist then you blame Jesus) everything Hitler did contradicted Bible, but was totally consistent with atheism and its lack of Ethics.

[ethanmaas]

Hitler claimed that so the church would look the other way. If you look at his actions you will see that his actions were totally opposite of Christ's, as was his obsession with the occult.

[grandconjunct]

Hitler did not follow Christ this is obvious he only threw Christ's name around before being elected in popular speeches, but his diaries make it clear he viewed christians as the number one threat to 3rd Reich, after being elected He all but never brought up Christ again in speeches, Hilter also forced his Luftwafa to read the works of Nietzshe, and handed out signed copies of Nietzshe to his friends.Again the video never brought up Hilter, neither did I, only athiests do to change subject.

[grandconjunct]

Hitler was never brought up, go re-listen to video again. If a person's religion contradicts there actions, example there religion teaches to love enemies, turn other cheek, love those who try to harm you etc.. but instead they kill anyone they don't like, we hold them accountable not religion (unless your irrational atheist then you blame Jesus) everything Hitler did contradicted Bible, but was totally consistent with atheism and its lack of Ethics.

[ethanmaas]

Hitler claimed that so the church would look the other way. If you look at his actions you will see that his actions were totally opposite of Christ's, as was his obsession with the occult.

[grandconjunct]

Hitler did not follow Christ this is obvious he only threw Christ's name around before being elected in popular speeches, but his diaries make it clear he viewed christians as the number one threat to 3rd Reich, after being elected He all but never brought up Christ again in speeches, Hilter also forced his Luftwafa to read the works of Nietzshe, and handed out signed copies of Nietzshe to his friends.Again the video never brought up Hilter, neither did I, only athiests do to change subject.

[PaulHarrison1976]

There is nothing in the denial of God that causes people to be evil. This argument only proves that belief in God and his punishment for certain crimes helps motivate some not to commit crimes, but this says nothing of the truthfulness of belief in God.

Secular ideology did not murder people, but megalomania, facism, and totalitarianism. Allegiance to the government and dictator is modeled on sovering monarchs - like God.

People who kill for God do it in the name of God, however.

[grandconjunct]

prt 1

there is nothing in the denial of policeman that cause people to be evil, a few people have enough character to need no policeman, but I don't want to live in a world where people deny there existence.

Christians believe God does have some of the same motivational effect as a policeman, but Morality is also part of the fabric of the universe most will recognize

Good and evil and will first be motivated by love for others then if this is suppressed then the policeman effect kicks in

[grandconjunct]

prt 2

to outweigh our selfish desires which everyone has, The fact that there is this moral law that judges between all competing atheist moralities ,strongly implies a moral lawgiver for the law. This does imply God very strongly.

Secularism and its roll your own morality allow megalomaniacs to view themselves as just another brand of legitimate ethics

And if morality just comes down to biology

And not getting caught by the man and his "different morality" then why not push a little more?

[grandconjunct]

prt 3, Live life to the fullest of your genes? Religious folk have same megalomaniacs who may enjoy hurting people in an inquisition etc its funny how they seem to keep themselves in check a little more with there evil, while killing less people, while the atheists who are less than 4% of earth population did 90% of the murdering last century, I realize you think Atheists hands are 100% clean for these murders, but I believe this is why polls show atheists are near bottom of trustworthy scale

[grandconjunct]

prt 4 And most atheists seem to clearly have a deny everything mentality, but be sure to take credit for reason , science, Sweden and anything else good the public will buy !

[junk007stock]

Nazis and communists killed ANYBODY who would not convert to their values. Why do you not tell the total truth. This is a hate filled video.

[grandconjunct]

This video never mentioned Nazi's atheists are the ones to bring up Hitler and Nazis in a desperate attempt to change subject.

Communist are almost always Atheists who rationaly kill any mammals (humans) who get in there way, it just so happens Christians are the ones who got in the way of atheism and communism so the Atheist governments exterminated them, since atheism has no Ethical system, it made it every easy for atheists to break mass murdering records of all time. tell the truth junk.

[grandconjunct]

This video never mentioned Nazi's atheists are the ones to bring up Hitler and Nazis in a desperate attempt to change subject.

Communist are almost always Atheists who rationaly kill any mammals (humans) who get in there way, it just so happens Christians are the ones who got in the way of atheism and communism so the Atheist governments exterminated them, since atheism has no Ethical system, it made it every easy for atheists to break mass murdering records of all time. tell the truth junk.

[0Eddy]

3) if Koukl wants to look at the Guinness then I reccomend he'll check the Taiping Rebellion. Guinness Book of World Records calls this the bloodiest civil war in history with 20-30 million dead. This rebellion was religious and is more comparable, the witch hunts happened when the population was much lower than the USSR population and killed by primitive methods, not very comparable

4) Assume they did it in the name of atheism, does that justify religious wars like the French Wars of Religion?

[0Eddy]

1) Koukl apparently thinks that atheism somehow leaded these people to immorality. But isn't it more rational to say that Mao&pol pot based their actions on class struggle?, history seems to support it

2) I don't think anyone has been killed in the name of God, theism doesn't have a dogma to follow and it doesn't say much about God. People kill because of fanaticism and fundementalism, however a belief in God alone can't motivate one to do evil

[advancedatheist]

A certain American poltician I could name has killed heaps of Muslim creationist in a couple of countries. But the American christians who support him have given this slaughter a pass because the victims profess the "wrong" beliefs about god.

[grandconjunct]

Yes terrorism would definately qualify

as a" wrong beliefe" in our Narrow chrstian

minds , atheists are always much more open

minded twoard "alternative ethics " as history as shown . "creationism" has become a meaningless code word , Like the N word for ractists.

[grandconjunct]

and Good and intelligent people will always fear pure secular governements for the attrocities , mass murder , torture , slavery they have commited , and dishonest atheist can keep trying to blame jesus for murder and hate but he taught the opposite love neighbor and enemy alike turn the other cheek , no wonder polls show most americans distrust atheist more than any other group

[grandconjunct]

No he's just aware the Hebrew makes a distinction between Kill and murder , murder is against innocents , kill is capital punishment , I know some atheists ethics , are horrified by God putting his foot down on Evil , instead of just letting people run free over others. Or the vast numbers of people "killed" by cops , or courts , or God . some atheists are just Horrified by this, LOL Atheism is the opiate of the mass murder people , Mao , Stalin , Lenin etc.

[BayerLexan]

But apparently he forgets his bible where god killed all life on the planet in the flood, except for noah and his little boat.