Recently on a unrelated chat forum, some suggested that athiests needed to prove god didn't exist, and that 'atheism' was the cause of more misery than religion.
I let them have it.
"*positions soapbox, climbs aboard*
An army runs not on its stomach, but the invading people have to have their heart and mind in it as well. Enter religion. Jur, accept it. Religion is the root of all wars. Even the mess in the Middle East. Its as beyond discussion as Climate Change.
Wholesale slaughter is certainly not being carried out, 'even today' in the name of Athiesm. Indeed, Atheism is not a driving force or a belief system, it is a lack of a belief system. Stalin didn't need religion as a tool to drive his army. He had fear on his side with a hungry, scared and desperate people under him.
I shall mention those drives that you conveniently missed. Er, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Shining Path of Peru, the Portuguese and Spanish invasion of the South American Incas, Mayans, Aztecs and other indigenous civilizations who were told 'convert or die'. Central America is home to millions of people who are followers of the Catholic faith. I put it to you that they were the only ones spared. 'Convert or die'.
Read what the Europeans did in the Indian Ocean, then to the Pacific Ocean Islanders. Religion was a weapon, touted as a salvation; perhaps you can tell me who profited in the long run. Who runs colonies? The victors of the time rewrote the history.
Similar treatment was metered out to the Australian Aborigines, the native Philippinos, Indonesians, Malays, the Karens, the Sri Lankans and Tamals, and done get me started on the subcontinent. Countless millions were killed for misguided, superstitious religious reasons, under the guise of social guidance, even between wars. Ethiopia and Sudan. Go back to King Leopold's Belgian push into the Congo, 'to save the continent from the devil'. He had almost the entire country slaughtered or enslaved.
Oh did I mention that Hitler was a confirmed Catholic. I noticed you didn't. The present US fundamentalist Christian Republicans in the USA, who not only destabilized the Middle East but are now blaming the extremist problem on the locals, is rumored to be pushing their own Armageddon bible story into reality. Their own self fulfilling prophecy.
Before anyone can say that Athiests have to prove God doesn't exist, the religious have to prove he does.
*falls off soapbox, feels better, thank you*
1 comment:
You should also point out that the requirement of evidence is placed on the believers, not the non-believers. If I said that there were pink mice who danced around my room at night you would require me to supply evidence. You could then go and gather as much evidence as possible, but because it's impossible to prove a negative you'd have to come to the conclusion that "beyond reasonable doubt" there almost certainly are no pink mice (BTW I'm not a pink mouse believer either).
Although some people may find this a far out analogy, and say it doesn't apply to their religion, I'm afraid it's EXACTLY the same. Provide proof or shut the hell up.
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