Reply #233: Nice deflection. [View All]

[Deep13]

First, it's an argument completely irrelevant to what we are talking about which is the threat to the religious point of view posed by those who manage to live without it.

Atheists are simply those who do not believe in god. We are not a "group of people" that includes either the entire Soviet or Chinese empires. This is a star man argument designed to change the subject and you know it. Those countries were not atheist states. They were communist states that replaced oppressive, dogmatic monarchies that ruled over ignorant, subjegated people with other oppressive, dogmatic governance. Anyway, the best you can claim about this argument is that theocracies are no worse whan communist states. Replacing the dogma of the churches or of imperial China with different dogmas is not what most of us here see as atheism. Besides, you cannot discount the role religion had in causing the anti-clerical backlash of communism.

On the other hand nonreligious societies tend to have fewer social problems and less crime than religious ones. In this country, there are hardly any nonbelievers in prison. The idea that subjective beliefs have no bearing on what people do may be politically correct, but have you ever compared it to reality? If it's not true, then it doesn't matter what the motivation behind it is.