Religious Beliefs

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by ekim008

Remove thine head from thy rectum ....

Ekim the Inbred, the ignorant pretentious, hypocritical atheist who tries to claim the moral high-ground: ponder on "atheist hate", Ekim the Inbred.

Soviet Union: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:
■Russian Civil War (1917-22)
■War: 1,410,000 (includes 500,000 civilian)
■Famine: 5,000,000 (50% democidal)
■Other democide: 784,000
■Epidemics: 2,300,000
■Total: 9,494,000
■1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
■1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
■1939-45: 18,157,000
■1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
■TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine

WWII European War (military) Dead (1939-45): 28,736,000
■War-related (additional) Democides
■Hitler: 20,946,000 (including Jews: 5,291,000)
■Stalin: 13,053,000

Chinese Civil War (1945-49) Estimate:
■War Dead: 1,201,000
■Democide by Guomindang: 2,645,000
■Democide by Communists: 2,323,000
■Famine: 25,000
■TOTAL: 6,194,000

People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong’s regime (1949-1975) Estimate:
■Democide: 34,361,000 (1949-75)
■The principle episodes being…
■All movements (1949-58): 11,813,000
■incl. Land Reform (1949-53): 4,500,000
■Cult. Rev. (1964-75): 1,613,000
■Forced Labor (1949-75): 15,000,000
■Great Leap Forward (1959-63): 5,680,000 democides
■War: 3,399,000
■Famine: 34,500,000
■Great Leap Forward: 27M famine deaths
■TOTAL: 72,260,000


North Korea (1948-now) 4,600,000 (not including the Korean War)

Under Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society — a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population (almost 2 million killed out of an estimated 7.1 million people), it was the most lethal regime of the 20th century. (Plus an estimated, additional 35,000 foreign democides)

•Estimates based on books by Rummel, Rudolph J.:
■China's Bloody Century : Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (1991), Calculates the lives lost in 20th Century China.
■Lethal Politics : Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917 (1990), Does the same for the Soviet Union.
■Democide : Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder (1992), The German rampage across Europe.
■Death By Government (1994), The full treatment for atrocities committed worldwide during the 20th Century.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

http://www.scottmanning.com/content/...st-body-count/


Nicolae Ceaușescu atheistleaderof Romania from 1967 to 1989. Unknown thousands died each year during his reign.

Faced with a declining Romanian population in 1966, Ceaușescu issued Decree No. 770 prohibiting abortion, and contraceptives were not allowed and were not readily available. Celibacy was not an option for many Romanians, as anyone still childless over the age of 25 was required to pay a ‘celibacy tax’, a heavy burden for a population living in poverty.

He designated the title "Heroine Mother" for any woman who bore and brought up ten or more children. For seven to nine children a woman won the order of "Maternal Glory." For five or six children she was given the "Maternity Medal." He was not motivated by concern for families or unborn children; he wanted a larger labor force.
http://caraobrien.tumblr.com/post/35...munist-romania

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/ceausescu.html

[AdventureAdams]

Nope I know what it means, I just put it in a simpler context for you. Nice try though.

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by SkylarCruzWantsYou

Nope I know what it means, I just put it in a simpler context for you. Nice try though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izpa9D7c77U

[CuteOldGuy]

It's just amazing when I think about all the hate spread by:

Mother Teresa
Desmond Tutu
Mahatma Gandhi
Martin Luther King, Jr.
CS Lewis
JRR Tolkien

And countless other lesser known and unknown people who staff soup kitchens, homeless shelters, food banks, free medical clinics and other types of activities, all in gratitude to their God.

You don't see much atheist outreach, except to get government to pay for those very things, and keep god out of it, lest the hungry hear "religion" as they are being fed.

Certainly there are many who use their religion as a hammer to beat down others, but there are also many who use that same hammer to build others up. Let's not paint with such a broad brush.

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by ekim008

When people lock into a faith or belief..... they have no tolerance for other ideas or belief .

It is "people" ... just as you said.

Years ago I dated a lady who was just about the most dedicated and obsessed Christian I had ever met and spent time around ... attended all services ... that's all ... took the Bible literally. She told me .. that Jesus and God only forbid her from having intercourse, because that is what the Bible said ....

.. so BBBJCIMs were fine, because they were not prohibited by the Bible.

Point: People interpret the Bible or their "book" .. and people act upon that interpretation ... and as the saying goes ...

,.... sometimes it's the noose and sometimes it is the BBBJCIM!

Note: I have always been a believer in people excercising their particular take on their religious beliefs, so long as it does not harm others, and a good healthy sloppy BBBJCIM only hurts if it has been awhile ... and that's a good hurt.

[AdventureAdams]

I don't think Religion is the reason for the hate in the world, we just have some people who like to exploit the word of their faith for their own gains.

[LordBeaverbrook]

Skylar, I have to disagree with you a bit on that. Though I would say Religion and religious followers are far from all bad, it is a reflection of the human mind and kind. Hate (as well as love) is from humans as is religion thus religion isn't the reason for hate (man is) but it is one way hate is propagated throughout the world. There is something in the human psyche that responds to messages of they/he/she is different, we are better than them (so hate them/kill them) used by leaders of many types of groups to retain control of their followers. Religion and religious leaders have a tendency to exploit that and magnify it often with disastrous results.

Take a look at the links that Sensia and I posted early in this thread and check out the violent and hateful passages scattered throughout the old and new Testaments and the Koran (as well as other 'holy' texts). If that isn't hate, then I don't know what is.

And yes, there are many good people in various religions and people (not so good) who do lots of good things, but overall my personal opinion is that the record tips against religion for the balance of good or evil it has brought into this world (or facilitated man to bring into this world).

IBH (or is that IBS?), it isn't strictly fair to bring in "Communism" against religion in how many deaths it has propagated for a couple of reasons.
1. Stalin in the USSR and Mao in China were not really "real" communists, they were more dictators or oligarchs with a smattering of communist ideology over the top.
2. Stalin and Mao and several others lived in the time of genocide where not only did they have the technological tools to kill many more people much faster, while religion has existed for 5000 to 10000 years and there is almost no way to count all the people killed over that time in response to some sort of religious fanaticism.
3. You forgot to include the slaughter of up to 50 or 7million native americans much of it done with religious justification and perhaps a majority of 50 to 80 million African slaves again with the strongest of religious justifications. 90% of the slaves brought to the new world were to the Caribbean and Latin America where their life expectancy was 6 to 7 years at hard labor on sugar plantations. The slavers didn't bring over women or allow their slave to have families because they couldn't wait for the kids to grow up and didn't want the expense of feeding, clothing and sheltering the women and kids.

That should bring religion's totals up to somewhere around 150 Million I should think.

[Fast Gunn]

As I see it, the purpose of religion is to provide people here on earth a better perspective and guide them through the traps and temptations of life.

Christianity has pretty much done that, but they too have gone overboard many times trying to dictate science where they had no business and of course, the Crusades were an abomination. Buddhism and Hinduism have also made valuable contributions to the human condition.

Islam on the other hand, does not seem to offer people much hope or guidelines in this world so much as imprisoning converts with ridiculously strict dogma and offering paradise, but only after you have died!

Who in their right mind would buy into such an asinine proposition?

Maybe that's why these militant Islam people act so violently irrational. They don't have anything to live for here, but hey, you can get 72 virgins if you die a martyr!

. . . It's really just a con game, but why haven't these people caught on yet? They're like robots just flying on autopilot!

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by austxjr

Skylar, I have to disagree with you a bit on that. Though I would say Religion and religious followers are far from all bad, it is a reflection of the human mind and kind. Hate (as well as love) is from humans as is religion thus religion isn't the reason for hate (man is) but it is one way hate is propagated throughout the world. There is something in the human psyche that responds to messages of they/he/she is different, we are better than them (so hate them/kill them) used by leaders of many types of groups to retain control of their followers. Religion and religious leaders have a tendency to exploit that and magnify it often with disastrous results.

Take a look at the links that Sensia and I posted early in this thread and check out the violent and hateful passages scattered throughout the old and new Testaments and the Koran (as well as other 'holy' texts). If that isn't hate, then I don't know what is.

And yes, there are many good people in various religions and people (not so good) who do lots of good things, but overall my personal opinion is that the record tips against religion for the balance of good or evil it has brought into this world (or facilitated man to bring into this world).

IBH (or is that IBS?), it isn't strictly fair to bring in "Communism" against religion in how many deaths it has propagated for a couple of reasons.
1. Stalin in the USSR and Mao in China were not really "real" communists, they were more dictators or oligarchs with a smattering of communist ideology over the top.
2. Stalin and Mao and several others lived in the time of genocide where not only did they have the technological tools to kill many more people much faster, while religion has existed for 5000 to 10000 years and there is almost no way to count all the people killed over that time in response to some sort of religious fanaticism.
3. You forgot to include the slaughter of up to 50 or 7million native americans much of it done with religious justification and perhaps a majority of 50 to 80 million African slaves again with the strongest of religious justifications. 90% of the slaves brought to the new world were to the Caribbean and Latin America where their life expectancy was 6 to 7 years at hard labor on sugar plantations. The slavers didn't bring over women or allow their slave to have families because they couldn't wait for the kids to grow up and didn't want the expense of feeding, clothing and sheltering the women and kids.

That should bring religion's totals up to somewhere around 150 Million I should think.

As far as I know, all communist countries end up as dictatorships. Can you name some communist countries that kept their freedom?

By your reasoning, there has never been a "real" communist country.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by austxjr

IBH (or is that IBS?), it isn't strictly fair to bring in "Communism" against religion in how many deaths it has propagated for a couple of reasons. Oh, it's quite fair. You and others would seek to blame all evil on those who hold religious beliefs. The statistics from the 20th century demonstrate those who claim to be "unbelievers" can also spread hate, death and destruction.
1. Stalin in the USSR and Mao in China were not really "real" communists, they were more dictators or oligarchs with a smattering of communist ideology over the top. Stalin and Mao were atheists.
2. Stalin and Mao and several others lived in the time of genocide where not only did they have the technological tools to kill many more people much faster, while religion has existed for 5000 to 10000 years and there is almost no way to count all the people killed over that time in response to some sort of religious fanaticism.Equivocation! Stalin and Mao were atheists who killed millions of people: they persecuted those who held religious beliefs. That is a fact.
3. You forgot to include the slaughter of up to 50 or 7million native americans much of it done with religious justification and perhaps a majority of 50 to 80 million African slaves again with the strongest of religious justifications. 90% of the slaves brought to the new world were to the Caribbean and Latin America where their life expectancy was 6 to 7 years at hard labor on sugar plantations. The slavers didn't bring over women or allow their slave to have families because they couldn't wait for the kids to grow up and didn't want the expense of feeding, clothing and sheltering the women and kids. As usual, you your ilk overplay the tangential religious connection to slavery and completely ignore the commercial aspect of slavery. Notice also how you ignore the East Africa slave trade which greatly surpassed the West Africa slave trade in numbers and deaths.

Further, are you going to blame Christianity for the Roman slave trade conducted during Julius Caesar 's reign? . . . what about during Alexander the Great's time? . . . or Cyrus, etc.?

You are wrong, the slavers did bring women to the New World.

That should bring religion's totals up to somewhere around 150 Million I should think. Stalin -- an atheist -- was responsible for killing approximately 52 million of people. Mao -- an atheist -- was responsible for killing approximately 72 million of people. Toss in the Chinese Civil War, Lenin, Pol Pot, Ceaușescu, Ho Chi Minh, and the Kim dynasty in North Korea and you'll find that in the matter of six or seven decades, your atheists have killed 150+ million human beings.

.

[i'va biggen]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Ekim the Inbred, the ignorant pretentious, hypocritical atheist who tries to claim the moral high-ground: ponder on "atheist hate", Ekim the Inbred.

Soviet Union: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:
■Russian Civil War (1917-22)
■War: 1,410,000 (includes 500,000 civilian)
■Famine: 5,000,000 (50% democidal)
■Other democide: 784,000
■Epidemics: 2,300,000
■Total: 9,494,000
■1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
■1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
■1939-45: 18,157,000
■1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
■TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine

WWII European War (military) Dead (1939-45): 28,736,000
■War-related (additional) Democides
■Hitler: 20,946,000 (including Jews: 5,291,000)
■Stalin: 13,053,000

Chinese Civil War (1945-49) Estimate:
■War Dead: 1,201,000
■Democide by Guomindang: 2,645,000
■Democide by Communists: 2,323,000
■Famine: 25,000
■TOTAL: 6,194,000

People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong’s regime (1949-1975) Estimate:
■Democide: 34,361,000 (1949-75)
■The principle episodes being…
■All movements (1949-58): 11,813,000
■incl. Land Reform (1949-53): 4,500,000
■Cult. Rev. (1964-75): 1,613,000
■Forced Labor (1949-75): 15,000,000
■Great Leap Forward (1959-63): 5,680,000 democides
■War: 3,399,000
■Famine: 34,500,000
■Great Leap Forward: 27M famine deaths
■TOTAL: 72,260,000


North Korea (1948-now) 4,600,000 (not including the Korean War)

Under Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society — a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population (almost 2 million killed out of an estimated 7.1 million people), it was the most lethal regime of the 20th century. (Plus an estimated, additional 35,000 foreign democides)

•Estimates based on books by Rummel, Rudolph J.:
■China's Bloody Century : Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (1991), Calculates the lives lost in 20th Century China.
■Lethal Politics : Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917 (1990), Does the same for the Soviet Union.
■Democide : Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder (1992), The German rampage across Europe.
■Death By Government (1994), The full treatment for atrocities committed worldwide during the 20th Century.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

http://www.scottmanning.com/content/...st-body-count/


Nicolae Ceaușescu atheistleaderof Romania from 1967 to 1989. Unknown thousands died each year during his reign.

Faced with a declining Romanian population in 1966, Ceaușescu issued Decree No. 770 prohibiting abortion, and contraceptives were not allowed and were not readily available. Celibacy was not an option for many Romanians, as anyone still childless over the age of 25 was required to pay a ‘celibacy tax’, a heavy burden for a population living in poverty.

He designated the title "Heroine Mother" for any woman who bore and brought up ten or more children. For seven to nine children a woman won the order of "Maternal Glory." For five or six children she was given the "Maternity Medal." He was not motivated by concern for families or unborn children; he wanted a larger labor force.
http://caraobrien.tumblr.com/post/35...munist-romania

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/ceausescu.html

You should get a clown for a avatar it would reflect your personality When I make a statement it apparently baffles you.Christians persecute Jews Catholics and Christians fight in Ireland muzzies hate everyone ,and you bring up atheists....

[joe bloe]

If Romney can't beat Obama then they should shut down the republican party...Laura Ingraham


If Romney can't beat Obama we might as well shut down the country.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by ekim008

You should get a clown for a avatar it would reflect your personality When I make a statement it apparently baffles you.Christians persecute Jews Catholics and Christians fight in Ireland muzzies hate everyone ,and you bring up atheists....

Pardon, but your hypocrisy was showing, Ekim the Inbred. You "non-believers" are also pretty good at spreading hate, misery and death.

[Fast Gunn]

President Obama is going to whip Mitt like he was mongrel dog in November.

. . . The US will remain open for business as usual.

Originally Posted by joe bloe

If Romney can't beat Obama then they should shut down the republican party...Laura Ingraham


If Romney can't beat Obama we might as well shut down the country.

[Randy4Candy]

I swore on a stack of (insert religious literature of your choosing here) that I wouldn't get sucked into this thread. Hmmm, so much for that - well here goes...

1. Who said, "The LOVE of money is the root of ALL evil?" I guess all of the "happy churches" who preach that financial "blessings" will come to all who truly "believe" must have missed that one. Not to mention that a hard look at how those who are truly "in love" behave toward the object of their affection.

2. I have a few "good" Christian names for you, COsFb:
Pat Robertson
Jerry Falwell
Ralph Reed
Pope Pius XII (look up his sorry history with Hitler)
Aimee Semple McPherson
Billy Sunday
and, of course, what list would be complete without Jimmy Swaggart

3. Glenna, my ol' precious little grandma used to say, "I'd rather see a sermon than hear one." Once you get your arm out of the sling from patting yourself on the back, you might want to take note of that.

4. You brainthrobs could probably figure out that ANY tract can give "creedence" to xenophobes' and other socially pathological types' actions on whatever scale they can pull it off. Conversely, the same can be said for those who do "good."

5. Something about the widow's mite fits nicely in here.

Pardon me, but I'm going over to the corner and have a Lewis Black moment.....