Atheism is dangerous? Really? [Spirituality & Religion]

@BlueVeins I would have to argue with this assessment. While Christianity has certainly been attacked in history, I can't think of a situation where atheists specifically attacked Christians just because they had religion.

Could you provide some more info?

@Pherick Here's a Wikipedia page on the subject of the French persecution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_during_the_French_Revolution

During the French Revolution, a provisional government arose, which was somewhat split into deists and atheists. This government was extremely liberal, and deliberately de-Christianized the country by whatever means possible. This included the murder of priests.

Here's a Wikipedia page on the subject of the Russian persecution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union

The Soviet Government was officially atheistic, and made a point of fucking over Christianity whenever it had the chance. This also included the murder of priests, in addition to simple thievery and torture.

@Pherick To be clear, I'm an atheist myself. I don't think it's relevant, and there were obvious motives other than pure atheistic rage. I just think it's important that we don't forget this part of history.

@BlueVeins That was my point in asking, while these definitely were attacks on the "Christianity" I would argue they were more accurately attacks on the Church. The people were sick of the wealth and power the Church wielded so they lashed out, and of course, everyday Christians were caught up in that. It wasn't just a bunch of atheists going "Hey we hate Christians lets kill them" for the fun of it.

[quote]The goal of the campaign between 1793 and 1794 ranged from the public reclamation of the massive amounts of land, power, and money held by the Catholic Church in France to the termination of Catholic religious practice and of the religion itself.[1][2][3] There has been much scholarly debate over whether the movement was popularly motivated.[1][/quote]

and Communism as practiced by the USSR, was just against anyone who might try and wield power over them in amy form, any religion was bad in their view.

[quote]The Communist Party destroyed churches, synagogues,[5] mosques and Buddhist temples, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and it introduced a belief system called "scientific atheism," with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers.[6][7] [/quote]

We should never forget this history, but it isn't really honest either to say "atheists murdered Christians for their religion", thats a VERY simple answer to a very complex issue.

@Pherick It's really not though. The Communists' and Revolutionists' respective beliefs in the falsehood of Christianity were necessary parts of the logic that lead to them slaying the adherents of those religions. You could say the same about any killing perpetrated by Christians or arguably even Nazis (in their original definition). Just because atheism wasn't the [i]only[/i] motivator doesn't make it not a relevant one.

@BlueVeins Saying "Atheists killed Christians" in your examples though is just a way to force a viewpoint on it. It's more honest to say "French Revolutionaries attacked the Church" or "Communist Officials attacked religious groups". While I don't know the religious or non-religious viewpoints of the people involved in every killing in these cases, we do know they were Communists or Revolutionaries.

@Pherick We do know the non-religious viewpoints of these people though. Atheism was literally a part of the Communist Manifesto, the literary foundation of the Communist government, and the Cult of Reason explicitly described itself as atheistic. De-contextualizing these events by leaving out these important details is dishonest, and it runs contrary to the commitment to evidence that atheists generally claim to care about.