Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

Cosmo wrote:

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What you are witnessing are individuals. There is no Atheist Doctrine that comes from an Atheist religion. Simply, individuals that do not believe in God, religion or church and do not not want any of those influences in their lives.
For me... that's their gig. Their disbelief is not going to alter my belief and I am not going to try to convince them that my belief is the way. I believe that my faith is personal and I relate to in on a personal level. I also believe that the God I believe in isn't so petty as to shun those that do not believe in Him. My God is all loving and all forgiving... quite unlike the picture the Holy Scriptures depict Him as. He will not forsake someone simply for questioning Him... including the existance of Him.
Religions are the ones that sell God as vengeful and judgemental... which leads to the term, 'God Fearing'. I ain't buying it. God doesn't scare me... God loves me. And His love is unconditional. All that other crap is Man, placing human faults upon God... blaming Him for their shortcomings. I'm not treating my God in that manner... I have more faith in Him than that.

catefrances wrote:

so your belief in God is not sustained by the holy scriptures?

Byrnzie wrote:

Thanks for these quotes. It's sometimes hard for people to grasp that the Nazis didn't see themselves as evil. They actually saw themselves as moral crusaders with God on their side whose job it was to rid the world of Judaism and Bolshevism. Their mind set was not a million miles away from the current gang of self-important chest beaters in London and Washington who believe that they are on a quest to rid the world of evil and to spread freedom and democracy in the world. In fact, if you look back through history then you will be hard pressed to find any so called tyrant or dictator who differs from this pattern.

Cosmo wrote:

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No... not really.
I mean, the Bible is the only place I can find stuff out about Jesus... and i like His teachings. Was He the Son of God? I don't know... but, i'm not taking the Bible as the truth... more like the truth the church wants me to believe.
As for God... I need something. Something greater than I can imagine. The creator and guide of the Universe... call Him Nature or Natural Order or whatever. I see His creations in our Earth and our surroundings. The mountains... the surf... the stars... much more inspiring to me than hymns from the inside of a church. Nothing against churches, here... Nortre Dame is fucking awesome... but it pales in comparison to the Grand Canyon at sunrise.
That God in the Bible that did that shit to Job... well, He was kind of an asshole. I just don't think God is that vain. I'm guessing it was more of a Bible Story created in the mind of Man to make us believe.
So... nope. I don't place my faith in the Bible or the religions that are out there. I placing my faith in God, Himself.
And who knows... I'm probably wrong. But, just because i'm wrong doesn't automatically make religion right.

Kenny Olav wrote:

I appreciate many of those sentiments. However, I can't find any reason to postulate, nevermind believe that a "God" of any sort exists. I accept it's possible there is a God, only because there is so much we don't know about the universe and the meaning of existance. However, based on what we do know (or what I know about what we all know) it doesn't seem reasonable to me to think that a God exists. However, when I witness many of the amazing aspects of nature, it does make me want to capitalize Nature, and revere it as a "God".

LikeAnOcean wrote:

People the real force behind the mass murders of history.. and we like to have scapegoats.

Cosmo wrote:

"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work".
[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people".
[Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933]

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed".
[Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922]
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Hitler really believed his actions were justified by his religious faith. Like it or not, Hitler was a Christian (Catholic). Pretending he is not, for the sake of solidifying your point in a debate, negates your arguement altogether.
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Chalk up 6 million on the 'Religion is Responsible' side.