quote:

---

ljbrs !?!
"The people who did this terrible act were exceedingly religious."

Just flatly disagree with you, those people were fanatics, who perverted their own religion, in order to be able to commit such acts.

---

Nubi Wan:

They perverted their religion, but were religious, nonetheless. They were very religious, even believed (according to three letters which were left with their belongings) that they were going to be in Heaven immediately after they died.

quote:

---

"Atheists, agnostics, non-believers, et al., do not have a nasty history in their background. They do not commit such heinous crimes."

Last me checked, Stalin was an atheist, who had quite a bit of blood on his hands. Think there might be one or two, more heinous atheists in human history?

---

Communism was exactly like a religion. Lenin and Stalin had created a religion of the state. At least, Communism was treated in the same way other religions have operated. You might not call Communism a religion, but I most certainly do. It had a belief system which, unlike a science, permitted no questioning. If Communism acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, then...

quote:

---

"So, next time you put down the non-believers, make certain that you read the history of your beliefs. The histories are simply attrocious."

Don't think me put any "non-believers" down, just said the posters here, it seemed to me, had a chip on their shoulders. And where might me "read the history" of my beliefs, ljbrs? Know a "scienitific mind" wouldn't make assumptions without some facts to base them on.

---

Again, I suppose you could try history and philosophy books as a beginning. I, personally, do not care one way or the other about your beliefs or non-beliefs. I am one of those people who think that atheists have a negative belief in that they are certain that certain deities do not exist.

quote:

---

"I do not mind your having beliefs. What I do mind is your misinterpretation of my beliefs." SIC! Right.


And just a sidebar, if you believe, that there is right and wrong, you do have a "belief system."

---

Yes, some belief systems are better than others. I think that the scientific way is the appropriate method for determining the validity of anything at all. I have yet to see any religion which comes close to the sciences in its thinking. *Right* and *wrong* are not part of the equation unless you are insisting that the definitions for *right* and *wrong* be incorrectly applied to science. Correct and incorrect would be more accurate words to use in science. There is no *moral* view about *correct* or *incorrect*. Either a scientific theory *works* or it *does not work*. The *does not work* would include many gradations of scientific quality, however.

In science, there is peer review and there are checks on theories and observations which must be met. Science is very, very different from religion.

I do not care what your religion is, one way or the other. It would only become a problem if you were to use it to hurt others.

ljbrs

*Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error.* Goethe

quote:

---

stalin was educated in a russian orthodox seminary until his expulsion for revolutionary activity. stalin understood religion, and he established a system where he was god (known as the cult of personality). every meeting, party gathering or public even began with praises to stalin (from about 1929 to his death in 1953) including such epithets as "the engineer of human souls". this guy was good at what he did.

comrade billyboy

---

Thanks, comrade billyboy! It is good to have knowledgeable folks here in this forum to fill in the gaping holes in my reasoning. Although I remember that information from long, long ago, I would not have been able to come up with that without much research. Religious people simply do not seem to understand that many (if not all) belief systems (including today's various religions) often actually began in some charletan's (in this case, Lenin's) desire for power. This is the way cults are formed, some of which eventually become powerful religions.

ljbrs

*Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error.* Goethe