Calzaer

So your reason for rejecting Thor is different from your reason for rejecting Vishnu and your reason for rejecting Coyote and your reason for rejecting Kaun Yin and your reason for rejecting Tao? Wow. How much thinking about these gods and the thousands of others (including the dead ones, only one of which can be rejected "because nobody worships it anymore" - yay peer pressure! - since you can't use that reason to reject something else) have you had to do to come up with a different "right" reason to reject every single one except your own?

Seems to me a real Catholic would have spent more time praying to his OWN god than thinking about other ones, but unless you're pulling a whole "This only applies to people who are not me" on us, there just wouldn't be enough hours in the day.

Out of curiousity, tho, could you tell us why you reject Thor, Odin, Coyote, Tao, Kaun Yin, and Vishnu? I'd love to see which one is rejected for being "a false god", since only one can be rejected that way....

Albert Cipriani

It’s called being ironic, not dishonest.

Ah, yes, Nietzsche’s supermen. Thank the non-existent god for that. What would we have done without Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot leading the way out of those absurd Catholic rituals we used to perform and into the broad barbed wire expanses of concentration camps? Everyone knows that the monasteries that saved what was left of European civilization after the supermen of prior centuries had sacked it were actually extermination camps. – Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

WilliamB

This is an old argument right here, and wrong. Remember that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot are often mentioned together not because they were atheists, but because they were communists. Notice that Hitler is often lumped in with these guys, despite the fact that he was not an atheist, because what he had in common with those other men was the crucial and central matter: a fanatical devotion to a political ideal, a ruthless ambition, and extreme intolerance of anyone in opposition. To blame atheism for all the suffering and bloodshed caused by communism (or any other political oppression) is simply an historical error, which accords atheism with a power it never possessed, and seeks to pass over the real and dangerous power of screwy politics.

Are we going to teach our children in school that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were evil because they were atheists, and simultaneously ignore the fact that communism is a really bad idea, and a demonstrably bad one at that? Can we really defend the proposition that atheism is the central and most important feature of communism? Note that among people who currently defend communism, but who claim, correctly, that the above three made grievous errors, do they blame them for being atheists? Of course not, because the mistakes those tyrants made and the evil that they were compelled by had precious little to do with atheism.

Can the same be said of John Calvin and his reign of terror in Geneva, or of the lunatics of the Inquisition? We can see that not all atheists are tyrants, and that not all tyrants are atheists; but while not all theists are inquisitors, all inquisitors are theists.

Lemur

This is not so. North Korea and China both have atheistic governments which have no problems imprisoning (at least!) various unauthorized theists simply because of their religious beliefs when discovered. Of course it's not called an inquisition but for all intents and purposes, it is.

WilliamB

Lemur, you're right. I was mistaken as to the technical definition of inquisitor, which doesn't merely refer to theists.

John A. Broussard

And here I thought this kind of irrational thinking went out with the fall of Communism. I can remember when any criticism of the American way was considered to be an endorsement of Stalin's death camps.

Now, anyone who comments adversely about the Inquisition, the Albegensian crusade, the Sicilian vespers (I'm sure you can fill in more than I have here), you're going to point out how much worse Hitler et al. were.

Please explain the logic behind this kind of reasoning. If you're curious, I can sure show you the faulty logic behind it. Can even give it a name. A latin name if you prefer.

lotus

That's real old. In case you didn't know...
communism was a reaction to large class distinctions observed in 19th century Europe, purely political and nothing to do with religion. The reason Russian implementation concentrated on atheism was because the orthodox church played a large part in maintaining the monarchy, Tsar was thought to be appointed by God and was not to be opposed.
As for Nazism, I'd like to know what it has to do with atheism, because as far as I know, nothing at all.
But anyway, tyrants don't come to power appearing as tyrants. They come to power bearing the radical ideologies that claim to have solutions to present problems, which are embraced by people living under severe hardship, desprate for the promised change. Whenever there's change, there's oposition from those who don't benefit from it, therefore tactics of force and fear are used to crush the oposition and give birth to violent trends. (Hint: think how Christianity came about)

KleinGordon

This is sure to get the infamous "thumbs down" from Albert.

Let us argue in the manner of Plantinga, shall we?

1. If evidence and proof of God's existence fail in the same way as evidence and proof of the IPU's existence fail and if it is unreasonable to believe in the IPU, then it is unreasonable to believe in God.
   1. By comparison.
2. It is unreasonable to believe in the IPU.
   1. Because the IPU is a completely fabricated being (hint, hint).
3. Evidence and proof of God's existence fail in the same way as evidence and proof for the IPU's existence fail.
   1. Indeed, beings of "maximal pinkness" can be conceived of and so must exist in reality.
   2. Horses - created in the IPU's image save for the horn - exist as testimony to Her actuality! PBUH!
4. Therefore, it is unreasonable to believe in God.
   1. From 1, 2, and 3.

QED :thumbs: <--Preemptive

IPU = Invisible Pink Unicorn

All in good fun, Albert!

Justin Z

This certainly seems to be the case, either that or my Pascal's Wager comment just wasn't funny, which I'm certainly willing to accept as a possibility.

~Justin

advancedatheist

Uh, Lenin and Stalin rejected Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Mao rejected Confucianism and Taoism, and Pol Pot rejected Theravada Buddhism. Which religion repudiated by the Communists are we supposed to profess?