I propose that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were not real atheists.

And the reason is simple: They set themselves up as gods. Even had "holy books" to go with it. And plenty of dogma.

And I don't know you, but I suspect those fellows did believe in their own existence.

:popcorn:

Every one of them salted their porridge.

Because they're the good guys.

The only true Christians.

:patriot:

QED.

And that's not circular reasoning so stop saying that, you mean... awful... ATHEIST!

:crazy:

At least I'm not a Stalinist.

And a Nazi, which is the same thing because Hitler was an atheist, and all those pics of him in church were photoshopped! :crazy: :crazy:

Trotskyite
Leninist
militant/fundamental atheist

Because, of course, atheists all act from the same book and set of principles and tote guns around...

"Because, of course, atheists all act from the same book and set of principles and tote guns around..."

Generalizations suck all around.

Anyone can be anything if anyone says so. Glen Beck is a perfect example. You can make these people into non-atheists because they are inconvenient but it won't change the facts that they were atheists. check out the churches that were destroyed by both and the religious people who were killed, banished or banned. People need to accept that there are assholes on their side too and set out to prove by their own example that they and their beliefs are good.

(Private joke…….crushing context irony ;-)

Liked your post.

"People need to accept that there are assholes on their side too and set out to prove by their own example that they and their beliefs are good."

+100%

Can only add that the "side" can be equally opposed to the sins of the church as the sins of gulag.

“ …evil nasty vile atheist who wants to forcibly de-convert believers at gunpoint.”
(#6 ‘Let's have a little post about respect’)

?

;-)

:shrug:

that it has often reminded me of orthodox religious followers. They're usually middle class college students or professors. For some crusading personality types, I believe dogmatic Marxism serves as a substitute for religion.

It plays a psychological role similar to The Rapture among fundies.

Of course Marx himself would have been horrified to see the bastardization of his ideas into an ideology of secular Apocalypse.

But it may apply to the phenomenon that you're describing.

They could not have done what they did without a population conditioned to believe everything they were told by authority.

Makes things so much more fun.

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Your posts are just so wordy. Could you maybe limit yourself to asinine one-liners in the subject line?

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:applause:

by people who wanted others to believe they were gods is a great illustration of how dangerous organized religion is/can be. Just because one can say oh but they didn't BElIEVE in god doesn't mean they didn't use believers own flaws to destructive ends.
I would like to see more religious people understand this point.

There were a few hundred million people there who had been conditioned for centuries to obey authority without question. During most of history, that was a divinely chosen emperor. Now the Russian church is rebounding. Apparently, the people there still long for someone to tell them what to do.

... as a cynical use of religious power. And, while Stalin certainly used the cult of personality in his rule, he was referred to as a great man, not a god. And, since this abuse was carried out by organized athiests rather than organized theists, claiming that it is a demonstration of the danger of organized religion, is a clearly wrong. As to the flaws of believers, I fear that they are the same as the flaws of non-believers, namely, the flaws of human nature.

of a good bullshit historical revisionist story.

And I thank you for it.

:-)

as Witches familiars which lead to the deaths of a 1/3 population of Europe? Want to explain how the Church/religion can't be blamed for that too? I think that even the attempts of "atheists" to copy religious structures like Kim Jong Il insisting he's a god and should be treated as such prove theat MANY MANY things can be blamed on Religion. Amazing how much the Church has taught many. Their lessons of ignorance and power and oppression have been well taken.

Then again, many things can, as has been shown in this thread.

Or we would have NEVER EVER had such things as JonesTown, or Waco Texas. I guess cult leaders setting themselves up as Gods Messengers doesn't count either, cause they don't REALLY believe in GOD. Stalin, and in particular Kim Jong Il have both copied tactics used by the Church over many thousands of years. And to fail to acknowledge these things is to be blind and willfully ignorant. Oh wait, I forgot whom I was talking to.
Religion= used as a tool of exploitation and oppression for thousands of years...

...since this can lead to the No True Scotsman problem, as others have pointed out, this is the argument I'd make:

Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. It carries no body of dogma, and it is not inherently a position on moral or ethical issues. Although most of us don't want to be associated with the likes of Stalin, finding examples of atheists doing really bad things isn't quite the same thing as pointing out the hypocrisy of Christians, for example, carrying out the Inquisition. Atheism does not purport to be a doctrine of moral guidance as Christianity is supposed to be.

While believers can point out that, at least for some perpetrators of religious wars and religious pogroms, their "true" motivations might have been political and economic, religious language, religious arguments, and religious fervor certainly have been large components of the motivation for the foot soldiers that have carried out killing and torture, intimidation and repression. I'm sure many of the powerful leaders of such movements have convinced themselves they were doing "God's work" as well.

On the other hand, I doubt you can find many examples of people fervently carrying out acts of violence driven primarily by a desire to eliminate belief in God.

I have not seen strong historical examples of atheism, in and of itself, ever being a repressive threat. Stalin did not conduct purges in the name of atheism. Atheism was just one component of his brand of communism, and the purges and repression were carried out in the name of communism, to further communism and Stalin's own power, with atheism pretty much just going along for the ride. To the extent atheism was important to this scheme, it was in eliminating competition for devotion -- Stalin wanted people devoted to communism and to Stalin himself. Any simultaneous devotion to deities would be a distraction from that.

To the point of your OP, the danger has always been in fanatical devotion to dogmatic systems and to charismatic leaders -- movements that, if they can't be called religious, are certainly quasi-religious. In North Korea today the line between religious and quasi-religious has become very thin, if it remains at all, with the worship of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, who are pretty much treated as gods and even ascribed supernatural powers.

As for the alarmism of some believers about people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris: well, wake me up when you see Dawkins whipping up crowds of fervent supporters, all waving giant portraits of Dawkins and clutching small, leather-bound pocket-sized copies of The Selfish Gene.

Love THIS: "well, wake me up when you see Dawkins whipping up crowds of fervent supporters, all waving giant portraits of Dawkins and clutching small, leather-bound pocket-sized copies of The Selfish Gene." :rofl:
Also I would like to be notified when someone rings a doorbell on Sunday, to tell you how important it is to NOT believe in god...

I think I have seen a Youtube video of someone going door-to-door promoting atheism. :)

(I tried to find the video, but couldn't come up with the right search to get a match.)

Although most of us don't want to be associated with the likes of Stalin, finding examples of atheists doing really bad things isn't quite the same thing as pointing out the hypocrisy of Christians, for example, carrying out the Inquisition. Atheism does not purport to be a doctrine of moral guidance as Christianity is supposed to be.

However, the fact that the most murderous regimes in the history of man were atheistic cannot be ignored by anyone seriously interested in the survival of humanity.

While believers can point out that, at least for some perpetrators of religious wars and religious pogroms, their "true" motivations might have been political and economic, religious language, religious arguments, and religious fervor certainly have been large components of the motivation for the foot soldiers that have carried out killing and torture, intimidation and repression. I'm sure many of the powerful leaders of such movements have convinced themselves they were doing "God's work" as well.

And what were the motivations of the most murderous regimes in history? And how does this make us feel any better about potential future atheistic regimes?

On the other hand, I doubt you can find many examples of people fervently carrying out acts of violence driven primarily by a desire to eliminate belief in God.

You can doubt all you want.Stalin, at least, killed people specifically because they were religious. History shows that powerful people tend to kill lots of other people. Without a careful study of this history, attributing this propensity to religion, or denying it to atheism, is, at best conjecture; and, for anyone who tends to be anti-religion and promotes this conjecture; their accusations are best treated as confirmation bias.

I have not seen strong historical examples of atheism, in and of itself, ever being a repressive threat. Stalin did not conduct purges in the name of atheism. Atheism was just one component of his brand of communism, and the purges and repression were carried out in the name of communism, to further communism and Stalin's own power, with atheism pretty much just going along for the ride. To the extent atheism was important to this scheme, it was in eliminating competition for devotion -- Stalin wanted people devoted to communism and to Stalin himself. Any simultaneous devotion to deities would be a distraction from that.

This, of course, is to completely ignore the lessons of history. Certain people seek power, and when they get that power, they abuse it; usually outrageously. The whole idea of labeling some human violence, committed by religious people, as religious violence, and then refusing to label violence commited by atheists as atheistic violence, is nonsense. It's choosing labels to satisfy a prejudice, not looking at history and trying to understand the true causes of human violence, particularly group violence.

...soup-eater violence?

The degree of causal connection matters, and to me there seems to be a much stronger causal link between religious beliefs and mayhem than lack of belief and mayhem.

to a group calling themselves "The League of Militant Soup Eaters", then I would have to say that th eating of soup or not might be relative to the assault.

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?

considering that the name "The League of Militant Soup Eaters" is ridiculous and should encourage you to research the motives and people behind its founding.

... violence by soup-eaters needs to be similarly noted.

The guys who flew into the WTC didn't ceremonially consume nice hot bowls of beef barley before smashing planes full of people into buildings full of people, but they did talk about God a lot and the holiness of their cause.

Why are you so eager to emphasize the role of atheism in atrocities where it was clearly more of an ancillary attribute of those committing the atrocities, and downplay the role of religion in atrocities where the participants used religious rhetoric, religious language, religious symbols, etc.? Even if you want to excuse religion itself as a cause, it's at the very least a far more easily exploitable cover for violence and repression than atheism, which just doesn't have the same mob-inciting qualities.

I posted in the thread to disagree with the OP, to the extent that I have no problem admitting that Stalin was an atheist. Exactly how "true" an atheist he was would require being privy to his thoughts, or at least more historical evidence of the inner workings of his mind than I know of at the moment. It doesn't really matter much to me, however. Unlike Christians who wish to disavow all bad Christians as "not true Christians", I'm happy to keep my definition of atheism simple: if you don't believe in God, you're an atheist. Even if you commit atrocities, vote Republican, or put sugar on your porridge.

Where I think the OP is onto something is this: if you want to stir up the masses, make them violent, and get them to do horrible things they likely wouldn't have ever done otherwise, two things seem to do that very well, and neither is atheism: Religion, and fanatical movements with characteristics very much like religion.

You say: Even if you want to excuse religion itself as a cause, it's at the very least a far more easily exploitable cover for violence and repression than atheism, which just doesn't have the same mob-inciting qualities.

Yet, compare the number killed per year in the inquisition to the number killed per year in Stalin's purges. There's really no comparison. And, neither Stalin nor the inquisition relied on mob violence.

Where I think the OP is onto something is this: if you want to stir up the masses, make them violent, and get them to do horrible things they likely wouldn't have ever done otherwise, two things seem to do that very well, and neither is atheism: Religion, and fanatical movements with characteristics very much like religion.

The use of violence by the masses appears to have existed through the parts of human history where masses existed. The use of such violence by non-religious regimes in the 20th century, certainly does not point to any great difference between religious regimes and non-religious regimes.

Were they enemies of atheism? (What *is* an enemy of atheism, anyway? Atheism defines none. Christianity has defined PLENTY of enemies, however. As did communism.)

Or were they enemies of communism, and/or Stalin himself?

...to get these massive atrocities going. The distinction between "mobs" and "soldiers" hardly matters here, it's whipping up public support for whatever violence is being done, using doctrine, dogma, and cults of personality as recruiting tools, and making it easier for those who aren't participating in the violence to look the other way -- either by making those not participating less concerned about the humanity of the victims, or fearful of the fanaticism of the followers.

The difference in numbers killed and terrorized at different points in history is largely a function of increased population and having technology to spread whatever madness you have in mind faster and further. If you think Stalin managing to kill more people than, say, the Flagellants who started killing off anyone whose religious failings they deemed responsible for the Black Plague, makes incidental attributes like atheism more important than stated motivational reasons for killing people like ending capitalist repression or cleansing the world of sin, then we're back to how seriously we have to consider Stalin's dietary habits or Pol Pot's favorite color as contributory factors in the violence and repression they inspired.

Let's say, even factoring out how modern technology makes mass violence easier, communism and Nazism are even worse for producing atrocities than religion has ever been. So what? That doesn't let religion off the hook, nor does it make atheism the equal of religion in inspiring violence and repression.

What does that mean? An emotional component? Or, some other common human component? Where is the evidence that religion is critical here rather than human nature?

And, yes, technology plays a critical role in the potential extent of violence. Humans are violent. Technology can give us the capability of blowing ourselves off the face of the earth. I don't have much confidence that we're going to change human nature any time soon. If we don't solve the problem of the advance of technological weaponry, I don't think we have much of a future.

It means blind faith in the rightness and righteousness of your cause or leaders. It means blind allegience to and defense of your core group regardless of evidence or occurrence. It means authoritarianism of the worst stripe. All of these have been codified, exacerbated, and sometimes even recreated over the millennia by theistic traditions. These are not human nature. These facets of behavior are exploitations of human nature, specifically of the human instinct to trust our elders, lest we die.

... although you don't offer one shred of evidence that these are attributes of religion rather than attributes of human nature.

And here's the real problem: If you want me to believe that something is simply "human nature", you're going to need to carefully and specifically define that term. It is far too nebulous in it's current usage, and nearly any behavior that we consider a personal failing can be chalked up to "human nature" because no one has yet provided a working definition for what it REALLY is.

Do you have one, or are you simply attributing behaviors to a cause you cannot define?

There's a lot of history where religion has been used as a reason for violence and repression.

There's a lot of history where other doctrines or orthodoxies have been used as reasons too (but atheism doesn't feature very largely among them as a rallying cry, a central organizing principle, a major goal, etc. -- it is far more ancillary than other stated religious and non-religious justifications for violence and repression).

In either case, yes, you can find other underlying causes -- economic or territorial gain, lust for power, etc. That these other motivations exist, however, hardly proves that stated rationales for carrying out campaigns of violence and repression, for committing atrocities, made by the perpetrators of those acts, can simply be discounted as mere window dressing, with utter certainty that if the stated rationales did not exist, substitute rationales would surely have been found.

If you want to claim that Stalin or Pol Pot or Mao would have done just as much damage without communism to push, perhaps reduced to promotion of atheism as a primary stated goal rather than atheism being, at most, an ancillary doctrine or tool, the burden of proof is yours.

If you want to claim that the Crusades would have happened pretty much as they did regardless of whether or not there was a Cross to rally around, the burden of proof is yours.

If you want to claim that 9/11 would have happened pretty much as they did regardless of whether the hijackers had only territorial or economic axes to grind, and without the comfort of believing their God was going to reward them after death for their acts of violence, the burden of proof is yours.

The most murders can be attributed to Mao and Stalin; yet both were anti-religious. You claim that there was a "quasi-religious" component to their actions. I see non-religious people being just as likely to commit atrocities as religious people. My evidence is that non-religious people have committed such atrocities(e.g. Mao and Stalin). These non-religious people stand as concrete evidence for my argument. Your claim about a "quasi-religious" component seems awful ethereal to me.

Are you trying to claim that religion is blameless in violence and atrocities?

Are you trying to claim that sheer numbers of killings turns atheism, a mere ancillary attribute to the doctrines of Mao and Stalin et al, people who were mainly pushing Communism, makes atheism the equal to, or worse than, religion, in inciting violence?

Are you saying that what people say about why they do what they do, that the banners and slogans and symbolism and rallying cries and organizational principles of purges and pogroms and wars can be handily dismissed as irrelevant? Only dismissed when religion is involved, and amplified when atheism is in anyway loosely associated?

Are you fighting against a straw man I don't see, as if I'm saying atheists never do bad things? My only point concerning atheism here is that I see no historical evidence that atheism, as a primary goal or focus of a movement, has come close to either religion or fanatical non-religious doctrines in killing or repression. The deadliest of those non-religious doctrines have featured qualities very much like religion -- cults of personality that turn leaders effectively into gods, and blind faith in doctrine.


Please state that argument. All I've seen from you is disagreement, not an argument for anything. If there's some more concrete statement of what you think, rather than merely what you don't think, I don't recall it.

All I can tell is, by golly, if someone posts something saying religion is responsible for bad things, you're in there quick as can be yelling "Stalin!" as if that disproves something.

Violence is a human trait, not a religious trait. The fact that non-religious people engage in the same levels of egregious violence is direct evidence for that.

...and kiwis also make you break out in a rash, it can't really be apples that cause your rash, because a non-apple food causes the rash too -- then concluding that you must simply naturally generate rashes no matter what you eat.

Rashes are, in a sense, an inherent human trait, because the rash itself is a built-in reaction to a range of allergens. That doesn't, however, mean you can dismiss causal connections between particular foods and that particular reaction. Avoid both apples and kiwis, and you may never have another rash again.

Your reasoning does not prove that religion is not a causal agent for violence, especially violence that the perpetrators of that violence will gladly and explicitly attribute to their religion as motivation. All your reasoning proves is that religion isn't unique in its ability to incite or justify violence.

To beat on my analogy a bit further, it has nothing to do with rashes being an apple or a kiwi "trait". Religion doesn't have to have violence as a "trait" to be an effective catalyst for violence.

People on this board claim that religion causes violence. Well, we have just as serious violence in the case of non-religious societies. So, if you want to compare this to rashes occuring after eating apples, it's sort of like you get a rash after you eat an apple. But, you also get a rash after you eat, even if you don't eat apples. Obviously, not eating apples is not sufficient to address the problem of your rashes. You need to address the problem at a more global level.

Chimps have "wars" very similar to more primitive human societies, e.g. the Yanomamo. Violence seems to be very deeply embedded in our nature.

And some things seem to bring out those deeply embedded things more than others. Religion is one of them. If someone is burning other people to death, and going on about the purifying effects of the flames burning away the sins that offend God while they do it, the burden of proof is on you, not me, that this particular act of violence would occur just as frequently, but with a different excuse, without the perpetrators' stated reasons for their own actions.

killed in countries that claimed "state atheism" and this violence was NOT precipitated by religion or religious beliefs. So while religion may be A cause, there are most certainly causes other than religion which have as great or greater affinity for destruction and violence.

You get a dispute every time you so frequently claim that atheism is one of those "causes other than religion." Communism is a cause, atheism not so much.

is signed by two members of the Commune who have really had opportunity enough to find out that first a vast amount of things can be ordered on paper without necessarily being carried out, and second, that persecution is the best means of promoting undesirable convictions! This much is sure: the only service that can be rendered to God today is to declare atheism a compulsory article of faith and to outdo Bismarck’s Kirchenkulturkampf laws by prohibiting religion generally....”
Frederick Engels 1874

Please do explain again how the Communists kinda picked up atheism along the way to serve their interests.

“Communism begins from the outset with atheism ” Karl Marx

It gets funnier each time with the telling.

;-)

First of all, proving how things would be if they weren't the way they are, is impossible. So, arguing about who has the burden of proof in this case is pointless.

Violence is a human trait. I find arguing about the various amounts of blame that can be attributed to different incidental causes to be quite pointless.

...isn't my problem. Your burden of proof doesn't go away just because you've made it difficult for yourself. The clear and apparent attribution of motive to religion, when religion is involved in violence, shows a strong causal connection. That it wouldn't be easy to prove that religion makes no difference isn't my problem, it's yours.


Why do you keep repeating that as if it meant much of anything? Coughing is a human trait, but you can find out what makes people cough, avoid those things, and get less coughing. Bleeding is a human trait, but if you avoid sharp objects (even though they aren't the ONLY thing that can make you bleed) you'll have fewer incidents of bleeding. Laughing is a human trait, but if you don't get much exposure to humor, you probably will get less laughing.

You can't deny a causal connection "A causes B" by simple stating "A in inherent" when A clearly varies in frequency and intensity and B is suspect in increasing A. You can certainly argue the causal connection itself, but simply repeating "A is inherent" proves absolutely NOTHING.


So, getting to the root causes of violence is pointless? Figuring out what things make people more or less violent is a waste of effort?

I can just as easily claim that the burden of proof is on you. After all, in the 20th century, murders by non-religious states far out-numbered murder by religious states.

The "argument" about where the burden of proof lies is completely uninteresting to me.

How the human race can survive with advanced technological weapons is what interests me.

of burden of proof uninteresting shouldn't be involved in debate.

.. arguing about where the "burden of proof" lies is idiotic.

When proof is impossible, and the burden of proof is on you, then you must examine the validity of your claim, and that is the point of the BOP argument.

Would you like me to rehash Silent3's point of why the burden of proof is on you in this case?

The existence of more than one cause of violence does not mitigate the degree of causality of any one particular cause. That one cause of violence is more prolific than another cause doesn't mitigate the causality of another cause.

My allergy analogy still holds. It's as if you see that more people get allergic reactions to milk than to cabbage means you're going to deny that cabbage could ever really be responsible. No matter how strong the connections particular individuals have between their consumption of cabbage and their allergic reaction, you're going to deny it simply because some other food causes bad reactions more often.

The fact that you're disinterested in the burden of proof isn't surprising, since you seem unwilling and incapable of meeting it.


What if the answer is that we'd be more likely to survive with fewer religious fanatics in the world? Seems you've already declared yourself uninterested in that as a possibility, however, and/or unwilling to accept it.

People are violent because that enables them to defend their resources. The various incidentals are not critical to the fact of human violence. The fact that advanced weaponry coupled with this violence will lead to our being blown off the earth seems to me, to be clear.

Arguing about what is more likely to cause the final conflagration is like arguing, in the middle of a fire, about who started it. First you need to put it out.

We're not arguing about who started the fire while the place is burning. A more apt analogy would be that we are arguing over fire safety in a room full of gun powder.

There is where your burden of proof lies, whether you want to accept it or not. Especially if you fix the glossing over of the DEGREE and AMOUNT of violence with the oversimplification of "the fact" of violence. That violence exists is a fact. How much and how frequently violence will break out is quite another matter, which at this point it's beginning to seem like you are willfully ignoring.

We aren't in a "final conflagration" right now. There are scattered "fires" here and there, but not everyone, certainly not me, and probably not you (unless you're posting from Iraq or Afghanistan or some such place right now) is "in the middle" of any of those "fires". We have more than enough time and more than enough people not actively engaged in "fire fighting" and not at immediate risk of being "burned" to look around and think about how each "fire" started and, maybe, figure out how have fewer and less destructive "fires" in the future.

Your "in the middle of a fire" analogy only would hold if the discussion of whether or not religion is ever to blame for an increase of violence were so very, very distracting and time consuming that it would be like personally engaging in that discussion while bullets were whizzing around your head.

If you've already given up and are just waiting for the end to come, well, at least your thinking, if not this discussion, is obviously going nowhere. If you haven't given up, then you're ignoring causes of the degree and amount of violence that could be important, for no better reason than I can see than you don't like to see religion criticized, so you're doing whatever mental gymnastics are necessarily to pretend religion is merely an incidental, partly by means of a false dichotomy of violence as a binary quality which simply either is or isn't there.

If you're thinking you can just give people more resources, and make them feel secure those resources won't be taken away, you might be right that such a plan would be likely to reduce violence. But just because one thing might help doesn't mean the causes of violence are monolithic and other factors can be ignored.

Non-religious regimes caused more violence, and completely egregious violence than anyone else in history. Then you claim the "burden of proof" is on me. As stated previously, you cannot prove what would have been had things been different. That is what you're asking for.

Meanwhile, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are spreading. They are spreading to more and more volatile areas. The US alone may well have the capacity to destroy all human life. So may Russia. Very likely, bullets are not going to be whizzing around your head.

And, no, I haven't given up at all. And, no, I'm not ignoring the degrees of violence. It is the degree of violence, in the form of advanced weaponry that can be controlled while we are still in a relatively rational situation - i.e. today. We have to do what we can now; and we have to act directly on the real priority. It doesn't mean squat whether life destroying nuclear weapons are launched by religious people or non-religious people. The only thing that matters is they not be launched. By anyone.

Please, show me that. You seem to be equating coming not to the same conclusion you do when faced with the violence of the 20th century as ignoring it. I specifically acknowledged it and made analogies to it. You could try to argue that my acknowledgment is insufficient or my analogies are inaccurate, but you can not fairly say that I ignored it.

This is beginning to look like one big blind spot for you, and you just won't acknowledge anything that doesn't let you let religion off the hook.

(Yes, yes... I'll spare you repeating that what's important is that we don't blow up the world. I don't agree that the importance of that let's religion off the hook, however, or even removes religion from being one possible contributing factors that could lead up to such a calamity, but, yes, that's important. Note to self: Do not blow up planet. Got it.)

yes, it was in the name of atheism because that term was part of their name)were formed with very specific goals of inculcating atheism at all levels of society - schools, factories, homes, villages, popular culture, etc. You can slice, dice, and analyse it anyway you see fit, but it was still done in the name of atheism.

And by the logic of that clause, every death in Nazi Germany was due to Christians, who walked around sporting "Gott Mitt Uns" on their buckles and apparel.

You really need some new tricks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless


Reading comprehension quiz: What did the "League of Militant Atheists" consider religion to be the enemy of?

A) Socialism/Communism
B) Atheism
C) Macaroni and Cheese

enemy of science, progress, and modernity. People were not forced to be communists. However, they were forced to renounce any religious adherence.

Most tellingly, you DIDN'T pick B. There may be hope for you yet.

consider to be their enemie(s)?

A.Non-Communist atheists

B.Organized religion

C.Rival atheist groups

Because the primary purpose of the group you ALWAYS reference was to fight the enemies of communism.

Militant Atheists" were formed to oppose capitalism. And According to Peris in 'Storming the Heavens' there were more atheists than communists in the League. So obviously non-Communist atheists were not a target. Also, there was never a consensus among groups concerning the level of antireligious agitation to be applied, nor how best to apply it. That is one major reasons it never totally succeeded. So there was much disagreement among atheists. Anoher point to remember is that many atheist groups still exist today, meaning that atheism and Communism were independent. Organized atheism benefited from Marxist Communism simply because it had no competition. However there are Christian Communists, which means that Communism is not necessarily opposed to Christianity. so the correct answer is 'B' and loosely 'C'.

Clearly only looking at the name of something isn't a good indicator. Any intelligent person knows that. Otherwise you go down the path of Glen Beck.

That "there were more atheists than communists in the League" similarly means nothing.

Got anything else to say, Glen?

Let's start here:
However, the fact that the most murderous regimes in the history of man were atheistic cannot be ignored by anyone seriously interested in the survival of humanity.
There are two problems here.
1) You can't prove, because no one can, that atheism was a motive for those murders. The regimes you speak of were uniformly Communist. It was only under Communist rule that people who called themselves "atheist" were responsible for mass murder. Atheists, often in large groups, existed long before Communism, and continue to exist in large groups after Communism's rise and reign, and in neither case have been responsible for anything close to mass murder. There isn't a single specifically atheist text or dogma that requires "deconversion", murder of religious adherents, or anything else for that matter. Given this fairly easy to understand evidence, it seems apparent that something more than simple atheism was required in order to drive these murders, and that Communism was the force that provided that extra drive.

2) Not to scapegoat, but the Muslims swept across Europe and northern Africa just as Alexander the Great did before them, and this centrally managed sweeping force could easily be referred to as a "regime". How many people died under their swords? How many people died when Alexander did it before them? The answer to both questions, of course, is that we don't know, and so I think it disingenuous and historically short-sighted to refer to Communist regimes as the most murderous in history.

Moving on...
Stalin, at least, killed people specifically because they were religious.
Stalin, much like Hitler, was a notorious liar, propagandist, and power-mad dictator. There is nothing that proves that Stalin killed people simply because they were religious, and plenty of evidence to show that everything Stalin did was motivated by his lust for power. For you to throw this claim out there and then go off on a tear about how important "careful study of this history" is, is contradictory.

Finally:
The whole idea of labeling some human violence, committed by religious people, as religious violence, and then refusing to label violence committed by atheists as atheistic violence, is nonsense.
It ALL goes back to motive. Show me beyond a shadow of a doubt that "atheistic principles" (an oft-used phrase by Stalin-parrots) or "atheism, in and of itself" (from Silent3) has been responsible for mass murder or mass torture. I can show it for "religious principles" and for "religion, in and of itself". I don't have to go back to the crusades or the Inquisition, either. I can just go back 9 years to 9/11.

“Atheists, often in large groups, existed long before Communism, and continue to exist in large groups after Communism's rise and reign,….”

Oh…. do please name, describe, locate these large pre Communist groups of atheists.

Its not the Native American Indians again is it?

It has recently been argued that it makes no more sense to ask whether Soviet citizens did or did not accept the Soviet worldview than to ask whether medieval people accepted the Christian worldview: there was simply no other available.

The analogy has obvious weaknesses, since in the Soviet case, everyone over 30 in 1937 could perfectly well remember a pre-Soviet world, and in the census of that year more than half the population identified themselves as religious believers, thus rejecting a basic tenet of the Soviet worldview.--Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism

That year "1937" should leap right out at all our self-proclaimed Communist experts on this board - that was near the climax of the far-reaching purges following the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934. A time when Stalin decimated the Red Army, executed its best general, Tukhachevsky, and a local Party leader commented - "They are putting people in prison for nothing now."

Yet still, "more than half the population" declared religious belief. On an official government form, no less.

Those same experts will also recognize that 1937 was only 8 years after the Cultural Revolution, when Party hard-liners called for the closing of ALL Russian churches and the mass arrests of clergy.

The Party leadership approved of that idea, at least in theory, and issued secret, unofficial orders to crack down on religion.

This move infuriated the rural Russian population, and drew fire from the Pope and Western governments. Stalin quickly backed down from the hard-line anti-religious policy, easy to do because of those secret orders - it was never an "official," published party order.

Wow! That's almost as hypocritical as...well, Xianity.

It's difficult to carry on as though both sides are equally valid when one side starts presenting all that "evidence" stuff.