I would like to have a thought provoking and civil conversation about ISIS.....what you think will stop them, what will make it worse. Please make this a civil and appropriate discussion. i am looking for a good conversation not a flame war.
But I think everyone in this thread would be pretty hard-pressed to deny the claim that Islam, being that it's a religion, provides much more fertile ground for a justification of atrocious acts than does atheism, the only claim of which is denial of something's existence. Just IMHO.
deletedalmost 10 years
It was a hallmark of Communist dictators to imprison and/or execute religious leaders because "they preached lies to the people" and of course, "religion is a tool of the bourgeoise".
I argue that's because religion is something that gets people emotionally motivated and is a good excuse, whereas atheism doesn't give you an "I did it for God" cop out
Which side are you on here? Geez, make up your mind. Just admit you don't think God exists so you can join the rest of the rational people here pointing out the flaws in respecting the religious beliefs of others.
Atheism isnt a principle/cause like religion is. it's pretty hard to rally people behind it. that's a dumb argument. The point trying to be proved is that there are still atheists who do bad things, so if Islam was just magically gone groups like ISIS would still exist.
deletedalmost 10 years
"nobody kills in the name of Atheism"
Well Pol Pot, Mao Tse-Tung, Josef Stalin, Kim Il-Sung and a few others might be disagreeing with you there.
I'm not looking for a fight because I don't know much about it, but the atheist defense against these sorts of claims is that ISIS, among other religious groups that commit acts of terrorism, is killing in the name of its religion (even if mainstream Muslims take offense to it), whereas atheist/secular groups typically don't kill in the name of atheism/secularism.
Well I'd disagree that they qualify as "terrorist groups" since terrorism has a pretty narrow definition and groups who fight in civil wars or lone nutcases don't really fit that. I should probably clarify my original point to say "nobody kills in the name of atheism."
deletedalmost 10 years
I can't even tell anyone in real life that I am an agnostic Christian who actually leans more on in the middle of "maybe there's a god, and maybe there isn't", because my parents would crucify me and I would be banished from their overly powerful Conservative household
deletedalmost 10 years
A lot of Marxist groups tied Atheism very much into it, Peta, so yeah.
It would make sense, but it's not the majority, it's all of them. There are no atheist terrorist groups because we don't believe in an afterlife. It's kind of hard to convince someone to suicide bomb a schoolbus if they don't believe they're going straight to heaven as soon as the bomb goes off.
