Atheists Have Murdered 100,000,000 Humans and Counting

[sachem]

Glad you're back! @sachem

Thanks. Good to be back.

So far.

[Chris]

Quite true, but atheism tends to lend itself to statism for obvious reasons. Not all atheists fall into this trap, mind you, but they are predisposed towards it because they have no belief in transcendent or metaphysical truths.

Looking at Europe and the America I'd agree. Statism has grown alongide the growth of secularism and atheism. Thoreau, Emerson were transcendentalists and anarchists (at least so argues Wood$#@! in Anarchism), but these days liberals are individualistic to the point of isolation leaving the state to fill the void of an abandoned God and society.

[Chris]

Many atheists like to pretend that they're not religious, but they tend to put their faith earthly authority - typically, the state.

Not ALL atheists, mind you, but a large percentage of them, significant enough to constitute one of the deadliest movements in history.

Atheism based on doubt is rare these days.

[Common Sense]

Individualism and egalitarianism came from Christianity which taught everyone is created equal in the eyes of and before the law of God. The Enlightenment merely dropped God out.

Perhaps equal in the eyes of god, but not in society. The Enlightenment didn't necessarily drop god out, but it did expand greatly on those philosophies and apply them to society. These concepts also came from philosophies that predate Christianity.

[Common Sense]

My atheism is based on doubt. Truly I would be considered agnostic I guess as I don't rule out the possibility of a creator. But essentially it is based on the lack of evidence to support the concept of divinity or a creator.

I also don't worship the state any more than I would worship traffic laws or language. I see the state as a mechanism for the organization of society.

[Chris]

Perhaps equal in the eyes of god, but not in society. The Enlightenment didn't necessarily drop god out, but it did expand greatly on those philosophies and apply them to society. These concepts also came from philosophies that predate Christianity.

Philosophies before Christianisty were familial and heirarchical just like the societies they were part of. The Greeks had democracy, for the few. Christianity changed that. I suggest Siedentop's Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism.

We need too to be careful when we speak of the liberalism and individualism of the Enlightenment, a liberalism a far cry from modern liberalism.

[Chris]

My atheism is based on doubt. Truly I would be considered agnostic I guess as I don't rule out the possibility of a creator. But essentially it is based on the lack of evidence to support the concept of divinity or a creator.

I also don't worship the state any more than I would worship traffic laws or language. I see the state as a mechanism for the organization of society.

Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, as any agnostic would know.

[Mister D]

The enlightenment may be due to Christianity by circumstance, but I'd argue that the Enlightenment has more to do individualism and egalitarianism than Christianity itself.

That's because it does. The individualism and egalitarianism Enlightenment thinkers inherited from Christianity (the "circumstance" you speak of) became gradually decontextualized, abstract and emptied of any transcendental reference. That is, they became ends rather than means.

[Mister D]

Perhaps equal in the eyes of god, but not in society. The Enlightenment didn't necessarily drop god out, but it did expand greatly on those philosophies and apply them to society. These concepts also came from philosophies that predate Christianity.

The ideal of human equality we embrace today stems directly from the equality of souls as found in Christian belief.

[Mister D]

My atheism is based on doubt. Truly I would be considered agnostic I guess as I don't rule out the possibility of a creator. But essentially it is based on the lack of evidence to support the concept of divinity or a creator.

I also don't worship the state any more than I would worship traffic laws or language. I see the state as a mechanism for the organization of society.

Yet you don't doubt a naturalistic concept of human equality which, quite frankly, is demonstrably ridiculous.