completely, utterly useless to open the eyes of idiot Christians who have "Stalin Hitler Pol Pot" Tourette's Syndrome.

I am afraid to do the bad things I secretly want to do because hell.

Those people were not afraid. So they were atheists.

The explanation that those poeple thought that doing bad things was somehow good doesn't come up.

Adding 1 and 1 and getting 3 every time. Psychopaths and sociopaths have nothing to do with atheism....but we will never convince some people of that.

I am always amazed that people don't see that most atheists are decent people. And we don't even have the fear of god or hell to keep us on the straight and narrow.

It's been so nice lately, so don't go and ruin it, ok?

Al recently got sideswiped in the Great Atheism-Plus Kerfuffle (GAPK?). Among other sins, I think he was accused of wearing a "racist hat" or somesuch.



Usual ramblings:

For the Pol Pot story, I highly recommend the book Anatomy of a Nightmare by Philip Short. I think that damn book gave me a nightmare or two.

Short meticulously details how Theravada Buddhism influenced the Khmer Rouge. e.g., why were Cambodian cities emptied once the KR came to power? Because of religious teachings that cities were inherently corrupt and evil.

Rural peasants lived closer to nature and were therefore more "pure" etc. So naturally, all the people who could have actually helped build a new society - engineers, civil servants, and other city-dwelling scum - were sent out to grow rice. As always, the party elite were exempt from all the shiny new rules.

There's also a good French documentary, "S-21," about the infamous Khmer Rouge Security Prison 21, aka Tuol Sleng. The prison is now a museum. YouTube clip from a tourist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wOx0A6wGJbQ