For those keeping score at home –

Theist atrocities: Crusades, Jihad, Nazis (well played MJK), etc.

And for the Atheists: Attila the Hun, Mao, Stalinism, WWI, Pol Pot, the war on Christmas, etc.

I think my point was that it is a silly argument to say theists have caused all the atrocities in history (as Sam Harris and others have) or that atheist have (as so many have).

I like Sam Harris’ writing - I just think he attributes to much bad and not enough good to religion. He seems to want to slam the door on any discussion.

As I have said before “Jesus saves, Esposito scores on the rebound!”

http://www.jesusoftheweek.com/

Fancy finding you over here MJK. I just came back, after reading a new post by Sam Harris on the Dawkins site, talking about non-believers being derogatorily bunched as atheists and the 3 main points of debate between believers and non-believers.
It was just so relevent to the earlier discussion here.

Sam Harris / On Faith
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#3. “Atheism is bad: Rather than argue for the truth of their religious beliefs, or produce evidence that religion is useful, apologists for God often attack atheism as though it were another religion. We are told that atheism is dogmatic, intolerant, irrational, etc. This homily has the virtue of being easy to remember and reproduce—and it now reverberates ceaselessly within the echo-chamber of American religious discourse.”

newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2006/12/gods_enemies_are_more_honest_t_1.html
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or since I have trouble sometimes with the Dawkins site links:
richarddawkins.net/article,466,Gods-Enemies-Are-More-Honest-Than-His-Friends,Sam-Harris–On-Faith
RAmen Sam

Sam Harris / On Faith
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#3. “Atheism is bad: Rather than argue for the truth of their religious beliefs, or produce evidence that religion is useful, apologists for God often attack atheism as though it were another religion. We are told that atheism is dogmatic, intolerant, irrational, etc. This homily has the virtue of being easy to remember and reproduce—and it now reverberates ceaselessly within the echo-chamber of American religious discourse.”

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2006/12/gods_enemies_are_more_honest_t_1.html
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or since I have trouble sometimes with the Dawkins site links
http://richarddawkins.net/article,466,Gods-Enemies-Are-More-Honest-Than-His-Friends,Sam-Harris–On-Faith
RAmen Sam.

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.”
from John Toland, Adolf Hitler, New York: Anchor Publishing, 1992, p. 507.

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My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognised 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 for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognise 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 my self 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.
Speech in Munich (12 April 1922)

I’m supposed to be somewhere else as well, Peter. The above discussion topic is by no means a short one and shouldn’t be eaten all in one sitting anyway.
RAmen

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Ok, Nikkiee.
I’m headed to bed anyway, we’ll catch ya next time around.
G’nite
Ramen

I don’t attribute attrocities to an atheist midset (whatever it is) any more than a Christian mindset (whatever that is).

http://www.stupid.com/stat/HLTS.html

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Not sure about Stalin, but Hitler was in fact a devout Catholic. Atheism does not explain his actions in the least. Megalomania does. But he was always working under the assumption that his was doing god’s will. This explains his persecution of the Jews.

However, the common theist argument, which I have come across many times, usually refers to the atheism (and by relation…an atheist creed) of those leaders (not the movement) in refererence to atheistic immorality, rather than their overall power agendas. This is what I have been getting at.
Many citizens of those regimes didn’t have a choice as to whether they were part of these regimes. Some well known higher ranks of Hitlers inner circle (so to speak) were openly religious.
The theists appear to be very careful about these issues when arguing the nazi atrocities can be attributed to an atheist mindset.
I’ll have to pick this up later. Behind schedule on some other stuff.
RAmen