I think to him ‘wiping out’ and making it even with all other ideas and beliefs is the same thing.

For him non-believers having the exact same rights over laws, institutions and privileges is exactly the same thing as us wiping out Christian, maybe because it will be wiping out Christian ‘higher’ importance - something that is fundamentally against many verses in the Bible.

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If there is a virus that would wipe out Christianity (not Christians, big difference) I certainly would release it. Why does the Cardinal complain? Does he not want to wipe out atheists?

The thing is, Christians have tried for years and failed. No one has ever killed someone in the name of atheism.  Atheists have killed but never it the name of atheism.  A great many people have been killed in the name of religion, including Christianity. 

You would think that the Cardinal would be more humble but I suppose history is not his best subject.

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The anachronistic prejudices of elderly virgins should be “wiped out.”  Can this Cardinal explain to us how disallowing gay marriage contributes to freedom?

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This is a classic abuse of the emotional context of words.  “Wipe out”, strictly speaking simply means taking action which results in something no longer being there. In that sense, the Cardinal is correct: vocal atheists wnat to take actions - using their freedom of speech to point out the dangerous absurdities of religions, with courtesy, logic and evidence- which they hope will result in religions no longer being there - because people abandon these fantasies of their own uncoerced will. But he makes sure he uses a term: “wiping out” whose emotional context is one of violence and coercion.  But what is truly dishonest is that Catholicism is a proselytising religion.  The Cardinal would openly acknowledge that he looks forward to a time were all humans recognise the “miracle of Christ, as shown by the Church”.  In other words, a world where not just atheists but muslims, Jews, Hindus and Shintos have all been “wiped out.”. The Catholic Church even has a name for their “wiping out” crew: there are called “missionaries”. It is only when the Church itself is the target of this “wiping out” that suddenly we seem to have an outrage.

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Unbelievable. Even to one who keenly follows the faith vs reason debate. This guy is the Art Tatum of hypocrisy. Don’t you just want to punch him in the throat?

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Scorpionrat - I can’t believe you can say that no one has killed anyone in the name of atheism.  I seem to remember the USSR, China, Korea, Cambodia, ....... etc.

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Wave Rider—you’ve hit one of my hot buttons, comes up so very frequently, probably not the first time on this very forum.  Please explain how the Communists killed “in the name of atheism”.  Seems abundantly evident that they killed “in the name of Communism”, which is a religion all its own (one where the state acts as the deity) full of all its own dogma.  They killed “in the name of atheism” the same way Hitler killed “in the name of Roman Catholocism”; while Hitler was in fact a Roman Catholic I do not believe that was the genesis of his murderous impulses.

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@ellenberg, there’s no point.  It’s like talking to a brick wall.

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Shorter Cardinal O’Connor:

My religion is the one true value system for our society, and anyone who does not believe as I do will rightly suffer an eternity of torture for not having the right religion.

And anyone who would like to challenge me on this is clearly a murderous bigot who clearly cannot tolerate dissent.

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Ellenberg: Sadly, Patrick is right. Cannot be helped as religion clearly addles thought processes.

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Ellenberg,

Hitler may have been born Catholic but he was more clearly and occultist. 

Most communists regimes see peoples of faith a threat to their atheistic societies.  As a result, they imprisoned, tortured or killed people of faith.  You can mince words but they did in fact kill to secure their atheist systems.  And still do.

Patrick,

What did that statement accomplish.  It was not very reasonable.

Scorpionrat,

Some of the greatest scientific discoveries were made by people of faith who were trying to discover what made the universe that their God created tick.  I don’t think they had thought processes that were addled.

Regards to you all,
Wave Rider

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On the point of whether poeple killed in the name of atheism, one needs to be careful.  Those who read my blog will know that I am a convinced and vocal atheist.  Yet, a commitment to truth and rationality requires that you accept historical truths even when they are not palatable.  Rationality and atheism are not synonimous: Stalinism was an irrational yet atheistic belief system.  When that belief system kills religious people because they are religious and refuse state imposed atheism, it is difficult to argue that atheists have not killed “for atheism”. That is why one’s real commitment must be to rationality.  Atheism just tumbles naturally from rationality.

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Wave Rider
Historically, it is very unlikely that Hitler was an occultist.  The Nazi leader who dabbled in odd forms of paganism and occultism was Himmler.  We know very little, if anything, about Hitler’s religious views.  He sometimes mentions God and speaks of doing “the Lord’s work” but, in context, it sounds formulaic. Nowhere does he articulate a religious worldview.  It is entirely possible that Hitler, who was incredibly lazy intellectually but also really quite stupid simply had no religious views.  There is, however, also no evidence that he was an atheist by conviction.

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Waverider,

You are confused.  Atheism is not a belief. It is the absence of a belief. No one does anything for something that is not.  Communism is a belief system. Christianity is a belief system. Get the point?

Sadists, murderers and such like may be religious or they may be atheists. They do not kill for atheism though they may kill for their religious belief. Again, do you get the point?

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Scorpionrat

Although I suspect I disagree with Wave Rider’s general views, I cannot agree with your description of atheism and why no-one can kill for atheism.  Atheism is not an “absence of belief” in the sense of simply not having any belief - in other words “having no views”.  Atheism (like theism) is a belief that the universe is a particular way: without a creating and controlling deity.  The reason many atheists are vocal is because they believe that there are negative moral, political and psychological consequences from holding the contrary view.  (Sam Harris’ book “the end of faith” makes precisely that point and I agree with him). If you think the universe is a particular way and bad things happen if people do not agree, it is perfectly possible for this to lead to violence.  Even if I personally abhor the thought, it is certainly not, as you seem to argue, conceptually impossible to murder “for atheism”.  It just really does not happen very often and usually requires the help of some other irrational belief system.

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@Voltaire.  I disagree with your definition of atheism.  It’s NOT a worldview.  Scientific Materialism, Secular Humanism or even Communism are worldviews that incorporate atheism, but you can’t have a worldview without other beliefs that are not incorporated in the notion that there is not enough to believe in a God.  Many forms of Eastern Religions are atheistic.  Using your definition a lack of belief in anything is a way of viewing the world, which is true but also irrelevant at it dilutes any useful meaning.

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Voltaire: When I said absence of belief, I meant in God. Atheists like everyone else has beliefs and views but they do not spring from atheism. Atheism is not a belief any more than not believing in Santa Claus.

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Voltaire: As Patrick points out, atheism does not commimit one to any particular view or belief. You cannot kill in the name of atheism simpliciter. There must be something else. Actually, no one kills in the name of Theism either. Has to be a particular god.

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I think Voltaire is right about this one, and in future I’m going to be a little more nuanced in my claims about Stalin et al.  It is certainly possible to kill in the name of atheism++, and that’s close enough to killing in the name of atheism that people will think it’s splitting hairs to call them different.  I think the point is that there are few examples of killing by atheists, and that most of Stalin’s murders were clearly in the name of Communism, although some specific persecution of religious leaders might fall into the “kill in the name of atheism” category.

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they are running scared, but not because of Atheists, It’s their own sin and non control of keeping their hand off children, that will be their ultimate demise. Why would anyone be afraid of a non-believer, but to try and throw our minds away from the pedo?

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Ellenberg: Atheism++ is not close enough.  Reminds me of the chap who got drunk 3 days running after drinking whiskey water one day, gin and water the next and scotch on the rocks the next. He concluded that water made him drunk.

The ++ can add on to anything. It is surely not the fault of atheism.

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Christianity is a belief, you can’t wipe it out by merely having a differing belief.  The violence is not coming from the Atheists, it’s from the Christians and has been for hundreds of years. 

The demands of any religion should be tempered so as to allow for the beliefs of All religions, or none at all.

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@Wave Rider…Name one Atheist who killed a single person in the name of Atheism? One?  No Atheist ever started a war or crusade with the intent of making everyone an Atheist ! Much unlike Christianity !! One?

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Now the Atheist are Occultist, reason and intelligence just went right out the window!! Wave Rider, you need to go find yourself some REAL Atheists to hang out with, only then will you get the whole picture.

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Agnostic,

Please read you history books on the Soviet Union, China, N. Korea and every other nation that has been ruled by Communist (by Communism by manifesto and practice is Atheistic) leadership.  You will find that many were/are very brutal to people who opposed them (particularly to people of faith).
I think all peoples of faith, whether theist of atheist, need to recognize that bad people will use whatever belief system they can to install and perpetuate their own power.  Theists do not have a corner on this.

I am I said,

See response above.

motherearth,

You twisted what I said.  I never said Hitler was an atheist.  I think you may just be looking for an excuse to dump on believers.  Your response was not rational and does not belong on a site dedicated to reason.
Regards,
Wave Rider

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