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Gay marriage was instituted because the MAJORITY of Canadians either support it, or don't really care about the issue because it really doesn't affect them...and HOW it effects the ANGLICAN Church

Go Bush!!!

Amen

I sill stand by my statement that part of the reason for the French Revolution was the contribution of the RC church to impoverishing people in France. Thats why France has a strict rule about separation of Church and State. I'm not decrying faith, or any particular belief system. Its about organised religious groups seeking to control the minds of people and formenting wars to increase their own power base.

I sill stand by my statement that part of the reason for the French Revolution was the contribution of the RC church to impoverishing people in France. Thats why France has a strict rule about separation of Church and State.

One of my instructors once said that religion and general motors have much more in common than many would like to believe... and I totally concur.

You can't disagree with the historical fact that atheists have killed millions of people. I already mentioned two examples - the French Revolution and the Soviet Gulags. Research them yourself. Then maybe the next time you want to stand on your hypocritical soapbox and decry religion for its atrocities you'll remember the indisputable, historical fact that irreligion has committed its own fair share of horrors.

Atheists have murdered millions of people.

Go Bush!!! Amen

I don't think you can find a single historical example of any state sponsored killing or anti-religious killing in history SPECIFICALLY committed in the name of atheism or rational humanism.

Alas there is ample evidence in the monotheistic desert religions at least in the past for a convert or kill philosophy. While this is no longer practiced overtly by two of them

The Great Commission is partly at the root of this as is the medieval notion that somehow those not in posession of the "truth" of Christianity are "less than" those who have it.

I would find myself in agreement with at least one of the writers in the links below who suggests it is neither atheism nor theism that is at the root of violence but intolerance for the belief (or non-belief) of others and perception of it as a threat that is at the root of violence.

The NSDAP Party Program stated: "We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession...."

Positive Christianity adhered to basic orthodox doctrines and asserted that Christianity must make a practical, positive difference in people's lives. It's difficult to maintain that Nazi ideology was atheistic when it explicitly endorsed and promoted Christianity in the party platform.

Communism and traditional socialism were both intensely hated by the Nazi party which argued that, as atheistic and Jewish ideologies, they threatened the future of both German and Christian civilization. In this, most Christians in Germany and elsewhere agreed and this explains much of the Nazis popular support.

Even if some people were killed simply because they followed a religion, it does not follow that they were killed in the name of atheism. Why? Because atheism is not inherently opposed to religion: it is possible to be both an atheist and religious and some religions are themselves atheistic. Atheism also isn't a belief system or ideology which can, by itself, inspire people to do things — good or bad.

To understand this better, consider times in the past when religion has been involved with violence — the Inquisition would be good. How many people were killed during the Inquisition in the name of theism? None. Those doing the killing acted not because of theism, but rather because of Christian doctrines. The belief system is what inspired people to act (sometimes for good, sometimes for ill). The single belief of theism, however, did not.

Stalin and Hitler killed more people than the Popes did simply because they had better technology with which to commit genocide.

Atheism is "weak" (philosophically) in that atheism rejects a claim or falls short of granting assent to a claim. Theists say "A God exists," and an atheist says, "I don't think so."

Secondly, atheism is not a comprehensive outlook but is merely one small part of any atheist's entire world view. Naturally most theists take on much more than a simple god belief when they convert to theism. The same does not hold for atheism, the lack of theistic belief. But this can be deceiving because theism has in it very little that is unique to theism. Most of it is about party loyalty.

The bloodshed in the Soviet Union is everything about Communism and says nothing at all about atheism, because the cultural atheism of the Soviet Union, like the atheism of an individual human, was merely incidental to a much bigger scheme of things.

In fact, had the Soviet Union's Communism been based in religion (and several national Communist regimes have been thoroughly based in Christianity -- see Acts 4:32-5:11), I could show that there might have been even more bloodshed, because the Christian religion, being viciously intolerant of differing or opposing viewpoints, has historically been seen as either justifying or commanding the death of any dissenters.

Some Christians attack and killed non-Christians. Most do not. Intolerance, not Christianity, caused that violence.

Some Muslims attack and kill non-Muslims. Some do not. Again, intolerance is the cause.

Some atheists attack and kill Christians. Stalin was pro-atheist and vehemently anti-theist, and he wanted to force that atheism on everybody. He killed millions of Christians, to further atheism.

Pol Pot, again an atheist who killed more than his fair share of Christians. So are we to conclude that atheism is the cause of atheist atrocities? Or that Christianity is to blame for Christian atrocities?

One explanation of atheist atrocities is that, it wasn’t atheism that killed those people. It was communism. Anybody who has done a fair amount of reading on the former Soviet Union, however, will tell you that many of those Christians killed were staunch supporters of communism. So, no, communism was not the cause.

Whenever somebody or some group kills others because of a difference of opinion, it is due to intolerance.

This author shows no favour. I happen to agree with him. Not because I like the idea of intolerance, because intolerance is a lot more invisible and insidious than religion, and so it is much, much scarier.

I have no interest in blaming atheism for any atrocities. However, we must play fair. Blame all or none. If atheism is not at fault, then neither is communism, or theism, or religion. Intolerance is the only thing to blame, because it is inherently wrong to be unjustly intolerant of others or of oneself.

You really need to be very clear on these threads because they are usually trying to blame religion or atheism for what is intolerance.

What do you call "SPECIFICALLY committed in the name of atheism or rational humanism"? Would you call Hitler calling for the death of the Jews because they are a plague on humanity and on the Germans, as rational humanism? Where does it say that anyone was killed as an action "SPECIFICALLY committed in the name of any religion"? Surely it says that people were killed for a REASON. That reason may have been attributed to religion, such as the torture or death or heretics. But that is not any different than killing priests because they don't believe in Soviet authority. Anyway, the Chinese pretty much had it in for religion. So did the French during the Revolution. If you are going to get picky over semantics, you can explain everything away.

Sorry. But where is this in the OT? Or Judaism? You do know that this is forbidden in Judaism since the start, don't you?

That's the Communist argument against religion. If you don't believe in Marxism, you don't understand it, and you suffer for being a capitalist.

By the way, I would not quote from Dawkins, because he has published a book called "The G-d Delusion", which by its very title, is in contradiction to what most psychologists believe about religious belief. He stated on National Television in the UK, that he thinks all forms of acupuncture are bogus, but he is willing to propose his own ideas on behaviour, based on "selfish" genes, when no-one claims that he has followed the Scientific Method in his claims, in that he has not done clinical trials on his own claims.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1417,Hitler-Was-an-Atheist-Who-Killed-Millions-in-the-Name-of-Atheism-Secularism,Aboutcom

So, the party demands freedom for "all religious confessions", and therefore demands freedom for Judaism, and then wants to wipe out socialism because they are both atheistic and Jewish (theistic) ideologies? Can we say contradiction? How is this anything else other than mere propaganda, and political rhetoric, never intended to be true?

Nearly every isolated civilization has believed that there is some metaphysical reason behind their existance, and that is almost always linked to a god in some form.

As strange as it sounds, I have to agree with the thebasicpagan on this one. Never have I seen so many atheists crowded together in one place, granted. I can see how affiliating yourself with those of like mind may give you the false impression that the world is "realizing there is no God." I would like to see the statistics that say that atheism is the majority ideology, please. Nearly every isolated civilization has believed that there is some metaphysical reason behind their existance, and that is almost always linked to a god in some form.