Spherical Time

Where's Judaism?

Otherwise, I'd probably go with all of them.

ziffel

Yeah, the Chinese killed a bunch of people because they were atheists.

"Hey, no gods exist, commence the killin'!"

The listed religions, especially the big 3, kill based directly on tenets of their faith. They have killed millions because of their religion.

aegis

At the present time, definitely Islam.

adren@line

the Chinese massacred untold numbers of Buddhists because they were not atheists.

Sorry, but atheists have a bigger shit-stain on their underwear then most non-Abrahamic theists.

on paper, "atheism" is merely a non-belief in God. In practice, it is a belief-system as much as any other religion, which is proven by the existence of this very forum, because anything that anyone uses to further a debate that is based on their beliefs constitutes part of a belief-system.

If there is no belief, and hence no belief system, then there would be absolutely no basis for any argument or debate for an atheist.

So yes, you can have a belief without a belief-system, but the only way that can hold true in practice or in a debate is if you simply state nothing of it.

EsoCyn

Uh, what? The Chinese "massacred" "untold numbers" of Buddhists because the Buddhists monks of Tibet, and the various other elites, had enslaved untold numbers of people. They weren't "massacred" because they weren't atheists.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

adren@line

did you even read that article?

They reference isolated cases that affected a few people, and then reference class distinctions (serfdom) which existed in almost any civilized country. Pretty much nothing in that article had anything to do with Buddhist belief, nor was any of it based on the Buddhist identity.

Further, the author of that simplistic article, true to simplistic logic, makes this statement:

The histories of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam are heavily laced with violence. Throughout the ages, religionists have claimed a divine mandate to massacre infidels, heretics, and even other devotees within their own ranks. Some people maintain that Buddhism is different, that it stands in marked contrast to the chronic violence of other religions.

The author of the article makes the baseless assertion that Hinduism is "heavily laced with violence", when any neutral look at Hinduism's 3000+ year history shows that the majority of Hindu violence only occurred within India amongst Hindus themselves.

The scale of violence seen amongst Hindus is nowhere near that of Christians or Muslims and was never done in the name of Hinduism.

However, the atheist commie Chinese killed Buddhists because they were Buddhist and because they were not atheist.

I suggest you re-read that article. The author overblows isolated cases of torture literally involving one or two people and then terms the atrocities committed by the Chinese government as "mistakes" and makes absolutely no connection between Buddhism and the actions of these Buddhist, all while stating in his very first sentence "The histories of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam are heavily laced with violence"

FreeAtLast

As long as ideologies reflect a sense of telling people that they are the true people of GOD and that they have to join them in order for GOD to bestow his mercy on them .... then there will be violence. And as long as people believe in religions and their messengers.. there will be violence... so I would vote for all

adren@line

but not all of those preach in messengers or a God, so why would you vote for all?

Straight Hate

Norse heathenism appears to have been quite violent.

I mean, their notion of heaven was fighting a battle all day, every day.

Janus

Of course atheists have belief systems, there are belief systems which are compatible with atheism (such as Buddhism), there are belief systems that lead one to atheism, among other things (such as skepticism), there are even belief systems that have atheism as one of their central tenets (such as secular humanism). But atheism, in theory and in practice, is not a belief at all, and in the case of strong atheists it's only a single belief.

The arguments we usually use in debates are based on science and logic, which aren't exactly the sole province of atheists. And there are even atheists who don't think much of science, reason, and skepticism.

If I'm asked to demonstrate that Islam, for example, encourages violence, I can show you a dozen verses from the Quran. Likewise, if you want to demonstrate that it was atheism that was responsible for the Communists' atrocities, you simply have to show us which tenet of atheism it is that commands, suggests, or might indirectly influence atheists to kill religious believers.

Good luck!