Intelligent Design? Watch it get schooled.

If you were told that Liberty University taught that San Francisco was twenty-eight feet from New York you wouldn't believe it. So when Richard learns that Liberty University teaches its students something equally absurd, that dinosaurs are a few thousand years old, he offers some sound advice.

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[James McGuire]

No reasoned atheist, not myself, not the late Hitchens, etc... EVER suggested that your churches be suppressed. We only demand you keep your bullshit religions IN YOUR OWN churches and temples, and get it out of our government, out of our science classrooms, and out of our public schools. Keep your religion in your churches and temples where it belongs, share it with those who want it, and stop trying to force our society back into the dark ages by replacing useful science with useless dogma.

[James McGuire]

No one suggests suppressing any church, that again is tyranny. The US is a secular state, founded on reason and logic; the laws of which keep religion OUT of public affairs. You are referring not to "scientific socialism" you are referring to the political cult of a catholic tyrant (Hitler), the oppression of Russia by a trained orthodox priest (Stalin) and the social censureship of china by a violent Taoist (Mao).

[Thelastminstrel]

In the 20th century, Scientific Socialism was the rage.

In the name of this one philosophy it is calculated that over 100 million souls were destroyed. No other cause of human death and misery even approaches this Historic record.

That's the track record of societies run in the name of science.

That's the actual product of the total suppression of the church by nations.

There are people living among us who suffered under these regimes.

Ask them what the benefits of 'Scientific' government were.

[James McGuire]

But I will leave you with this. Science observes natural selection (the process by which organisms with more beneficial characteristics reproduce more often and more successfully than other organisms; not an excuse for genocide) however science doesn't observe reality and then say "oh well, god made it that way so we all have to suffer"... Science says "look at that, if we apply ethics to that situation we can produce a favourable alternative to present reality".

[James McGuire]

So to reiterate, Mao, Stalin, and Hitler, all religious, and NOT atheists. Mao was the only one even close, and he actually subscribed heavily to Taoist tradition. Now to be fair. Just because these tyrants WERE religious, doesn't mean religion isn't sometimes useful for self fulfilment, and to quell the fear of death and non-existence of the masses (as the Hindu scholars might say). But it does provide insight into the utility of religion in facilitating tyrannical oppression.

[James McGuire]

Had you asked Hitler what he was doing, he would have said he was purifying the supreme race, as that is what god commanded of him (as a matter of fact, he DID say that, look it up). Stalin was not one for interviews... but he was a trained Russian orthodox priest, so he would not have suggested as you say. And Mao justified his actions by citing the need to increase social harmony. Basic history sir.

[James McGuire]

Tyranny has nothing to do with natural selection, and any actual athiest intellectual would openly suggest that our species has NO NEED for further natural selection. We are more than capable through science and reason to overcome natural selection, and make it obsolete for our species. This is what real atheistic leaders have been doing for decades, elevating women as equals, empowering minorities; or at very least not treating them like second class human beings as the religious love to do.

[James McGuire]

Stalin was a trained Russian Orthodox Priest, Hitler was a very religious man and raised catholic, Mao, while eschewing religions like Buddhism and animism was a very stringent Taoist. While each of you examples of atheistic tyrants are demonstrably false, even if we considered all of their destruction, it pales in comparison to that carried out by the Russian Orthodox church and the Russian Czars in their pocket, the Christian leaders organizing genocide in Africa, etc.

[Thelastminstrel]

Time for Vespers.

Back tomorrow.