annoying arguement

Originally Posted by B Roodnick

Most atheists seem to fall into this trap. Atheism is a non-belief and therefore requires no defense. Anti-religion falls into a different category. Simply stating that it must be rationale does not make it so. Please lay out your rationale for it.

It seems to be a form of prejudice as stated above.

Blondin posted a 'poster' a few pages back, it sums it up rather nicely.
"The burden of proof lies on religion. If you propose the existence of something, you must follow the scientific method
in your defense of its existence. "
To my thinking, in this new awakening of atheists, anti-religious is my athiest stance
in defence of myself and my kids rights. I use the same criteria as the quote above in either stance, if the religious want a place I think they should have to prove their defence. I don't find this prejudicial at all.

Please restate your question on the mass muders, I don't really understand your question.

Originally Posted by B Roodnick

Most atheists seem to fall into this trap. Atheism is a non-belief and therefore requires no defense. Anti-religion falls into a different category. Simply stating that it must be rationale does not make it so. Please lay out your rationale for it.

Rationale: There is no other way to determine fact from fiction other than from evidence. Currently, there is no good evidence that any of the supernatural claims of the bible are true.

If you drop a stone 1000 times and it falls to the ground, what's the probability of it falling towards the sky the next time?

Likewise, if you find a natural explanation behind everything around you a million times over, what's the probability of finding a supernatural one?

We aren't blind to contradiction, though. If there is a supernatural phenomena, I'm all ears. But, don't think that your opinion is going to sway anyone if your evidence is anecdotal or word of mouth.

Originally Posted by B Roodnick

What concerns me is that where we have seen this prejudice in the past it has sometimes resulted in huge harm as in:
1. the Holocaust
2. the Armenian Genocide
3. religious persecution under communism
4. the Ukrainian genocide

This is incredibly dishonest. There's a ton of factors that you are selectively leaving out when making comparisons.

There's a difference between skeptical criticism and..
-Promoting violence
-Hate crimes
-Genocide
-Tyranny
-Cults of personality
-Secret police
-Propaganda
-Institutionalized paranoia
-Outlawed freedom of speech

And don't give me that gateway stuff either. People aren't robots, especially skeptics. If your slippery-slope argument were true, then where is the violence against the kkk, or the women's rights activists committing hate crimes against men? Or where is the genocide of neo-nazis?

Skeptical criticism is completely different than the stupid stuff you're trying to tag onto it.

Please, stop with your drama. It's very dishonest.

Originally Posted by B Roodnick

Most atheists seem to fall into this trap. Atheism is a non-belief and therefore requires no defense. Anti-religion falls into a different category. Simply stating that it must be rationale does not make it so. Please lay out your rationale for it.

It seems to be a form of prejudice as stated above.

Again with the "prejudice" bullshit. Religion is non-reality-based thinking. Religion is argument from authority. Religion is argument from credulity. Religion is judging people, actions and cultures based on questionable understanding of dodgy dogma. Hence we have American Mormons pumping millions of dollars into legislating discrimination against gay people, pentecostal preachers instructing people to torture and kill toddlers for "acts of witchcraft", ministries dedicated to training parents on how to use a rubber hose to train their children to be passive and obedient little automatons, parents so obsessed with wielding ultimate control over their children that they will murder them rather than allow their community to find out about rebellious behaviour. Are these the acts of pious, morally righteous believers? They think so. On what basis can you disagree? The fact that the vast majority of religious people don't condone such vile acts only illustrates the fact that most people do not get their morals from holy writings whether they admit it or not. The most dangerous aspect of religion is that people use all kinds of flaky interpretation of scripture and unquestioning submission to authority to justify all kinds of things that reason and logic tell them are wrong. This is prejudicial thinking! This is what we are against.

Originally Posted by B Roodnick

What concerns me is that where we have seen this prejudice in the past it has sometimes resulted in huge harm as in:
1. the Holocaust
2. the Armenian Genocide
3. religious persecution under communism
4. the Ukrainian genocide

To equate an opposition to unreasoned, blind obedience with the kind of racial or cultural mind control that led to these and many other human disasters you have to be either incredibly dimwitted or incredibly dishonest. Genocide and ethnic cleansing have been carried out by many different groups over the years. You forgot to mention the Canaanites, the Geshurites, the Gezirites, the Amalekites and the Midianites. Do those divinely inspired crimes against humanity mean that sometimes genocide is okay? Do they indicate that genocide used to be okay but it isn't any more? On what basis do you decide when ethnic cleansing is justifiable?

In public statements, especially at the beginning of his rule, Hitler frequently spoke positively about the Christian heritage of German culture, and his belief in the "Aryan" Christ. In a proclamation to the German Nation February 1, 1933 Hitler stated, "The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."[7]^ Adolf Hitler. (1941). My New Order. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 144.

What he tried was to form a "secular faith", he wanted a nazi christianity. This choice of yours as an example is rather pathetic. It was nothing other than another sect, loony like the snake guys, or the
morons who flog themselves. The holocaust was a religious genocide, as usual the stupid christians against the world.

Rationella has stated very well in answer to the rest, but I would like to add that Stalin mudered not because of religion but due to any resistance to their message. Any resistance, and some of the few organizations who existed were the churches. It had nothing to do with religion but control.