1. Do they really think the earth is flat?

Comment #224410 by William Sierichs Jr. on August 4, 2008 at 10:07 pm

Ms. Garwood - and by extension, the article - got one thing wrong.
The pagan Greeks and Romans knew the Earth was roughly spherical and had a decent idea of its size, given the limits of their measuring equipment.
In the 4th century C.E., however, Christian bishops rejected all of that Satan-inspired pagan knowledge -- the only true knowledge was in the Bible.
And the Bible says the Earth is a flat plate, covered by a dome, immersed in a sea of water, with the sun and moon orbiting in the dome.
So prominent bishops such as Basil (the Great) of Cappadocia, John Chrysostam of Antioch and Ambrose of Milan all gave lengthy sermons on Genesis, explaining the Flat Earth truths in the Bible. They disagreed on some details - such as whether the Earth rested on pillars or on God's hand - but agreed that it was flat, dome covered (and heaven help the heathen who dares question what the dome is made of; man is not meant to know such things) and surrounded by water, whose purpose was to keep the Earth cool until Judgment Day (the water continually dripped through the dome because the sun continually burned it up, you see).
These sermons are part of collections of these bishops' writings and sermons, available in English translations approved by the Catholic Church. They can be found in university libraries and probably good public ones.
Over time, sensible observers realized the pagans were correct and gradually abandoned the Flat Earthism of the Bible, but the sermons remained in collections. (BTW, the atomists also were fools, we are assumed -- God doesn't need atoms to run the universe. So say Lactantius and Ambrose.)

2. Historian predicts the end of 'science superpowers'

Comment #218150 by William Sierichs Jr. on July 25, 2008 at 12:20 am

Christianapologetic:

Before anyone can start trying to prove or disprove anything about the Bible, you have to tell us which Bible you mean.
Jews have a Bible that does not include the Christian scriptures.
The first Christian scriptures were collected by Marcion in the earlier part of the 2nd century, but did not include some items of the "New Testament" now, notably the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and his version of "Luke" does not sound like the version we have today. A good case can be made that the four official Gospels today had not yet been written by Marcion's time. Also, there were a lot of other gospels that early Christians considered to be true gospels but are not in today's Bibles.
The church hierarchy declared Marcion a heretic and later created what became the Roman Catholic Bible.
Protestants, however, declared some of the RC books to be nonscriptural - "Apocrypha" - and left them out of the Protestant Bible.
Meanwhile, the Greek Orthodox Church Bible has books in that the RC Church does not accept as canon.
The Slavonic Bible adds yet another book, and some Eastern churches add yet one more book to their Bible.
The Ethiopic Church Bible has yet MORE books that no one else includes in their Bibles.
Finally, the Mormons say they have yet more books that came from Jesus which they consider to be part of the Bible, but the older Christian churches reject the Book of Mormon.
Another thing you have to tell us: We don't have the original versions of any of the books, only copies of copies, and not two copies of any one book are identical; each contains variants from the others; and while some differences are obvious copying errors, other variants have genuine theological consequences. Scholars cannot create a "Bible" source collection without deciding which version of a sentence is the correct one --- and if scholars disagree, you can get two different Bibles in the old languages.
Next, of course, the texts have to be translated, leading to yet more variations. Catholics consider the King James Bible to be a false Bible.
So, please tell us which version of the Bible you say is the true one, and prove that it is the true and accurate version and translation (or prove why we should ignore the Bibles you don't consider to be the true Bible).
My info comes from several sources, particularly "The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs" by A.J. Mattill Jr. and "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy" by C. Dennis McKinsey.

3. Antony Flew reviews the Index of The God Delusion

Comment #214827 by William Sierichs Jr. on July 21, 2008 at 12:05 am

Flew's article here is a mess, but if he is a Deist, as seems likely, then he's still an atheist, according to Christianity. The historical Christian definition of atheism is denying the divinity of Jesus. "Denial" includes not only active denial but passive denial, by refusing to convert to Christianity. After all, if you believe Jesus is God, then you would convert, wouldn't you? So rejecting Christianity is atheism. So Flew is still an atheist, unless he himself asserts that Jesus is God. Anything else is atheism, as far as Christianity is concerned.
Yes, this means that the first four U.S. presidents, and probably several others later, Lincoln in particular, were atheists. So the U.S. honors 3 atheists on Mount Rushmore. As for Teddy Roosevelt, I sometimes get the impression he thought He was god, so maybe there are NO Christians on a famous monument!

4. The Return of Religion

Comment #212248 by William Sierichs Jr. on July 16, 2008 at 10:38 pm

I stopped taking this seriously as soon as I realized he used "evangelical atheist" seriously.
Most of my objections to this mishmash of special pleading, strawman thrashing, murky mysticism and other intellectual nonsense have been covered in other posts. I have a couple of points to make:

Even if he were right that the ideas of Voltaire, etc. were known to all educated people - and he's wrong - the fact remains that large numbers of people (especially in the U.S.) hold to a literalist view of the Bible and Christianity and also insist that the government has a duty to promote and support their narrow, particular beliefs.

As a result, U.S. money has a Christian slogan on it. Many people work to force everyone to pray to the Chr. god in order to pledge allegiance to the U.S. Religious expressions, especially the 10 R.E.s, are in many public, U.S. buildings. Many gov't bodies, especially in the U.S. South, open meetings with Chr. voodoo rituals. Chr. judges turn a Nelsonian eye to violations of the U.S. Constitution's ban on establishing religion. Gov't leaders (Bush, etc.) enforce religious beliefs in blocking or trying to block abortion, contraception, proper science education, stem-cell research and anything else the narrow minds of millions of devout Christians abhor.

Additionally, in the U.S., some states had laws into the 1960s that prohibited teaching evolution, just as it was not until the 19th century that Catholics officially were allowed to teach and learn about heliocentrism. After courts ruled that anti-evolution laws were unconstitutional, Christians returned with laws requiring that the mythical fiction of creationism be taught alongside evolution. When courts knocked that down, we got "intelligent design," Creationism Part Deux. Now they're back with "teach the controversy" and "scientific freedom" (to teach the lie of creationism).

As long as this situation holds (and similar violations of religious freedom in other countries), then it is not "evangelism" or "stridency" or "shouting" or any other pejorative that morons like Scruton throw out. It is a reasonable objection by moral people to having superstitious, obscene and morally idefensible beliefs and practices forced on us. We have every right to denounce this garbage and to explain to everyone why we object and why the people who say the U.S. is "under the Christian voodoo spirit" are wrong. If some of us get passionate, it's only because of the massive scale of the assault that Christianity has launched on freedom and science angers - and should anger - any moral, intelligent person.

Also, it is not strident to argue that science refutes the idea of gods (notice his bigotry - the majority of people in history and many still today were/are polytheists; monotheists are the minority in history, yet he writes as if monotheism were the only option to atheism). Such a view might be right or wrong, but the argument itself is not "strident," any more than it's strident to argue that science proves astrology or phrenology or racism wrong. I'm sure racists (who are overwhelmingly Christians in the West) consider it strident to point out that evolution refutes racism. It's not strident to point out that science refutes geocentrism, a 6,000-year-old Earth, Velikovskyism, and so on.

If Scruton were an intelligent, moral person, he would be going after his fellow Christians who abuse the powers of governments to force their beliefs, rites, etc. on everyone. He simply proves Dawkins et al are absolutely right about "moderate/liberal Christians" being part of the problem, not part of a solution to theocracy and Christian bigotry.

Bill

5. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207468 by William Sierichs Jr. on July 9, 2008 at 10:43 pm

A point I should have made in my post above: Having someone like Dawkins or Myers speak at N.O.'s Darwin Day could be used to generate a lot of statewide publicity for evolution/science and a lot of embarassment for the creationists. It would be even better if it could be shown that either one drew a bunch of out-of-state visitors to the event. That would be an exclamation point to the reasonable position.
Bill

6. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207465 by William Sierichs Jr. on July 9, 2008 at 10:34 pm

I'm as ticked off about Louisiana's law as every other defender of science against superstition, and I'm angry at the moronic public officials who have done massive damage to a troubled state that is desperately trying to attract high-tech businesses and better-educated workers/residents.
But apropos some comments -- many people in Louisiana recognize the law is unconstitional and scientific garbage. Barbara Forrest is not alone. A number of La. educators and scientists fought alongside her. Also:
1) The newspaper in Baton Rouge, the capital, [disclaimer - I work for the paper] wrote 3 editorials against this foolishness, as well as running a sizable number of letters con and pro. I think any unbiased reader would agree that the defenders of science were far more intelligent than the creationists.
2) The New Orleans Secular Humanist Association (NOSHA) is very active and includes scientists who fought the bill. I must add that all its members survived Katrina, even though quite a few are now scattered around the U.S., while statistically, most of Katrina's victims must have been Christians. Score one for the atheists. Their activities included a newsletter, securing pro-secular proclamations from Mayor Nagin and running a weekly TV show [another disclaimer -- I was a guest on 2 shows, dealing with Christianity's history and a book of essays I published].
3) A New Orleans Darwin Day celebration had its 9th year at the University of New Orleans. NOSHA started it, but the UNO academics now run it. This year's guests included Barbara Forrest, a NOSHA member, and Michael Shermer.
4) Louisiana has or had several other freethought groups, including a sizable group in Shreveport, in northwest La., in the 1990s. I was a member. It broke up because people moved away (mostly due to the economy) but I've heard a new group has formed. I have not kept up with all state activities, but I know some papers have printed vigorous rebuttals to the creationists and theo-Nazis.
If Professor Dawkins or P.Z. Myers or other big guns in the freedom of religion/good science movement want to help battle the forces of cretinism and superstition in La., perhaps they could volunteer to speak at next year's Darwin Day in N.O., and maybe lure a couple of dozen out-of-staters to visit.
As an FYI, despite Katrina and other problems, you can still enjoy a lot of decadence in the New Orleans area, and I'm sure some NOSHA members would love to show outsiders around to the best restaurants, bars, nightclubs, etc., or to nature trails and bayou tours, if you prefer. Even formerly stick-in-the-mud Baton Rouge now boasts a few museums and other features downtown that are worth a day trip for anyone tired of the decadence of Bourbon Street, etc. (No, I am not paid by the La. Tourism Commission, but will happily volunteer to show visitors around BR, or help them indulge their appetites in New Orleans' dens of iniquity).

7. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165266 by William Sierichs Jr. on April 21, 2008 at 9:21 am

First off, Christianity was the sole source of the Holocaust. Both antisemitism and Western racism are Christian in origin.
Racism is based upon ideas developed in the 18th century (the first known use of "race" in the modern sense was 1772, as far as I can find), but Europeans' discriminatory laws and prejudices against dark-skinned peoples were much older. The legal basis to enslave Africans was on the grounds they were pagans; bans on "interracial" marriages started to keep Christians and pagans from having sex.
Once the concept of race appeared, it was used to "explain" why dark-skinned pagans were so resistant to conversion. In the 19th century, for a combination of reasons, Christian antisemites decide Jews also had to be an inferior race, otherwise they would have recognized the "higher truth and morality" of Christianity and converted.

Which leads to a second point. Christians believed that all morality comes from God, therefore anyone who rejects God is also rejecting morality -- and historically that was interpreted as accepting Satan and evil. That's why Christians equate atheism with immorality.

But Christians defined "God" as including Jesus. So rejecting Jesus is the same as embracing Satan and immorality. So all pagans and Jews historically were seen as atheists and therefore immoral. Pagans were exterminated in Europe while Jews were locked away in ghettoes and forced to wear distinctive clothing so as to protect purified Christians from contamination by the impure Jews.

In the 19th century, as church-state separation freed Jews from traditional restrictions, many Christians decided that the new problems societies were facing in the Industrial Revolution, as well as the spread of immorality in the form of popular mass literature and pornography (available to the masses thru the new medium of photography) had to come from some evil source. Gee, what could that be ...

By the late 19th century, a sizable mass of conservative Christians saw Jews as being behind all of societies' evils. At the same time, Jews were trying to destroy Christianity by promoting "atheism," primarily in the form of c-s separation, but also thru political liberalism and communism. After World War I, these right-wing antisemites began winning political power thru their relentless demonization of atheism, notably c-s separation, communism and, of course, the puppet masters pulling everything's strings - Jews.

That's why millions of people across Europe, not just in Germany, supported the mass expulsions or slaughter of Jews in 1939-1945. And many viewed the war against the USSR as, in part, a Chrsitian crusade against "godless Judeo-Bolshevism."

Bottom line: Hitler et al hated atheism, saw themselves at war against atheism, and believed they were doing God's work in cleansing out all the forms and sources of atheism.

It wasn't atheism but the hatred of atheism by Christians that led to the Holocaust and was a contributing factor in all that the fascists/Nazis did.

8. New Atheists Are Not Great

Comment #145659 by William Sierichs Jr. on March 17, 2008 at 11:50 pm

"So what explains the uniformity of moral laws?"

What uniformity?

Many people consider it moral to kill women who show their naked faces in public.

Many people consider it moral to douse witches (who can be children, such as 12-year-old Modike Mamoropene of S. Africa in September 1995) with gasoline and set them on fire. BTW, the mob that burned Modike first forced her to pour gasoline on her mother and burn her. 277 "witches" were murdered in S. Africa from April 94 to April 95 in what was undoubtedly consider a moral crusade to rid the world of evil beings.

Many people consider it moral to marry young girls to old men (India, some U.S. polytheistic cults). In India, the young widows are usually ostracized by society after the deaths of their husbands.

Many people consider it moral to demonize gays, even kill them.

Many people consider it moral to punish, even kill, people for apostacy and blasphemy, which can include naming a teddy bear "Mohammed."

Many people consider it moral, even godly, to launch an unprovoked war of aggression against a hapless Middle Eastern country, occupy it for 5 years, try to steal its oil, ignore the million or so natives who died as a result of the occupation, torture POWs (many of whom are innocent civilians), and brag that your country is simply bringing democracy to the benighted natives.

I could go on, but I think people see my point. "Morality" is not uniform. On the contrary, it has evolved at different rates in different societies, and even within some societies, some people are more morally evolved than others. Supporters of George W. Bush, for example, are pre-hominids (in evolutionary terms). Humanist opponents of Bush are 21st-century C.E. homo sapiens.

As a Bush supporter, Tony Snow is less evolved than "Lucy" was when she was buried 3-plus million years ago. D'Souza? Primordial slime, perhaps? Or would that be too "angry"?

9. Richard Dawkins' US Tour begins this week

Comment #140576 by William Sierichs Jr. on March 7, 2008 at 10:48 pm

Wooter:

Sooooo, what if you enter the next room, and the first person you meet is Mohammed. And he says, "Allah would like to have a few brief words with you before he sends you to the place where all infidels go." What would you say to Allah?

What if you enter the next room and Zeus is sitting there, juggling a thunderbolt, and says, "Any last request before you start your 1,000 years in Hades?"

Pick any of the world's many religions and gods, other than the one you believe in, and imagine that you picked the wrong god in the great roulette wheel of life.

If you say Christians have the one true god (I'm assuming you're a Christian here, but if not, the same argument applies no matter which deity you profess), why is it that the majority of humanity, living and dead, has not found the Christian arguments persuasive. Christians are atheists to all other theists because Christians deny their gods. If their gods are real ... if you enter the next room and Manitou is waiting there with some nasty fate to punish your atheism ... you're just as screwed as the rest of us atheists.

The odds are very high that you're just another one of the damned ... if any gods exist, that is.

10. Richard Dawkins' US Tour begins this week

Comment #138487 by William Sierichs Jr. on March 4, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Sorry, Bonzai, but major reasons of a tour like this are:
1) to get some publicity for a point of view; newspapers will likely write up stories if someone like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc. shows up in town. Newspapers write up big meetings when prominent superstition-mongers come to town. Freethinkers should try for the same coverage for rational speakers.
2) to allow like-minded people to meet, and possibly bring in new people who can be encouraged to support freethought, atheism, humanism, whatever else evolves out of such a meeting
3) to allow for some intellectual stimulation, both by talking with audience members and by questions and answers with Professor Dawkins or whoever else is the speaker.

11. Richard Dawkins' US Tour begins this week

Comment #138094 by William Sierichs Jr. on March 3, 2008 at 10:50 pm

Professor Dawkins really needs to come to New Orleans, Louisiana.
First, it has an active secular humanist group (NOSHA)(all of whom survived Katrina, even though that was sent to punish N.O. of its sins -- I guess secular humanism and atheism are not sins).

Second, it just had its ninth annual Darwin Day event. NOSHA started it, but the event has been taken over by staff members at the University of New Orleans. The latest Darwin Day speakers included Barbara Forrest and Michael Shermer. Many people will recognize Shermer's name. If you don't ID Barbara at once, she's a La. philosophy professor who was an important witness on Idiot Design at the Dover, Pennsylvania, trial and helped persuade the judge to bar ID/creationism from the schools. The event drew 200 people on a Saturday afternoon.

Third, New Orleans is desperate for good publicity, so they might give Professor Dawkins the key to the city or at least issue a welcoming statement. NOSHA has gotten Mayor Nagin to issue some humanistic declarations in the past.

Fourth, for all N.O.'s problems, it still has lots of great food and music.

12. America: slouching towards the Enlightenment

Comment #135420 by William Sierichs Jr. on February 28, 2008 at 11:59 pm

Unitarianism was an outgrowth of anti-Trinitarian movements in Europe. If I understand the history correctly, Michael Servetus was one critic of Trinitarianism. Anti-Trinitarianism spread in Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and Hungary, and eventually reached the American colonies.

Ironically, it took particular root in Puritan New England. One consequence was to reinforce church-state separation in Massachusetts. The Puritans liked to use public money to support educating their ministers at Harvard. But when Unitarians finally took control of the university's government in the 19th century (1830s, I think), the Congregationalists (Puritans) all of a sudden decided that government should not support religious schools after all!

13. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135419 by William Sierichs Jr. on February 28, 2008 at 11:51 pm

Re: Comment 135397

The "not ... founded on the Christian religion" is part of the ratified treaty. Some time after it was adopted, someone stole a page of the treaty containing that phrase and substituted an irrelevant paper in Arabic. So the phrase was/is always part of the treaty.

Barlow was a staunch church-state separationist. He wrote a book, "Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe," (1792, 1795 for separate parts) urging them to adopt the U.S. system of government. He devoted one chapter to attacking religion-government links.

Barlow apparently believed that the original principles of Christianity as founded by Jesus had been corrupted by power-mad clergy, so he defined the "Church" as "the government of a state, assuming the name of God, to govern by divine authority; or in other words, darkening the consciences of men in order to oppress them. In the United States of America, there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a Church … [Although many Americans were religious] … In short, religion is there a personal and not a corporate concern."

"We have noticed hitherto only its most striking characteristics, in which it [the Church] appears like a giant, stalking over society, and wielding the sword of slaughter; but it likewise performs the office of silent disease and of unperceived decay; where we may contemplate it as a canker, corroding the vitals of the moral world, and debating all that is noble in man."

And "The existence of any kind of liberty is incompatible with the existence of any kind of church. By liberty I mean the enjoyment of equal rights, and by church I mean any mode of worship declared to be national, or declared to have any preference in the eye of the law."

He made other, similar comments throughout the chapter.

BTW, Barlow died in 1812 in Poland while trying to catch up with Napoleon in Russia so as to represent the U.S. to him.

14. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133828 by William Sierichs Jr. on February 26, 2008 at 11:05 pm

Re: Living in Nazi Germany and confronting moral dilemmas.

It did not have to be that way, as a particular incident shows. In late 1942, more than 16,000 Jews still lived more of less openly. Thousands eventually were rounded up and murdered, but many others survived the war, even though the Gestapo knew who they were and where they were.

The reason for this survival condemns Christian Germans (most of the population) and all those church leaders - Protestant and Catholic alike - who proclaimed themselves sources of morality.

The surviving Jews in Germany in late 1942 were in "mixed marriages," married to "Aryans." Many were rounded up under various excuses, but not all could be handled that way. In late ebruary 1943, the Gestapo rounded up some 2,000 Berlin Jews. Many German Jews who survived the war did so because the Nazis actually had some sensitivity to public opinion and hesitated to attack marriages. The roundup occurred because of a push by some Nazi leaders to get rid of the last Jews in Feb. 1943.

What happened instead was that thousands of their "Aryan" family members (and by one account I've read, other Berliners) protested outside Gestapo headquarters for a week, at the end of which the Jewish prisoners were released. Bad publicity about the roundup, nationally and internationally, one top of some recent war reverses (Stalingard) were enough to push the Nazis to heed the protests.

Now imagine that millions of Christians had protested, both within and without Germany, at the first actions against Jews in the 1930s. Or against freethinkers. Or against communists. Or ... etc. The entire horror of WWII could have been stopped before it started. Instead, many clergy supported Hitler et al, and many others were silent, and popes Pius IX and XII signed or upheld deals with Hitler and supported him, despite misgivings, because they saw him as the best hope against godless communism.

This story can be read in "Backing Hitler," by Robert Gellately, 2001, which documents ordinary Germans' support for and daily interactions with the regime. The roundup story is pp. 142-144.

15. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133633 by William Sierichs Jr. on February 26, 2008 at 12:50 pm

AfraidToDie:

You're right that many church-goers seem to be atheists, at least in their daily lives. My point is, Lenin, Stalin and many other early Bolsheviks had been brought in Christianity, which does not seem to have had the magic-morality effect on them that is supposed to happen when people sit under a copy of the 10 Religious Expressions in a classroom or mumble the Magic Decoder Ring name of a particular deity in a school prayer.

Also, just because someone abandons the church does not mean they're atheists. So we don't know if Lenin became an atheist for sure. Stalin's background and comments suggest he was religious, at least, into his 20s and maybe never an atheist at all.

Again, you're correct that atheism per se has no effect, good or bad, on one's morality. Church experiences certainly can drive people to hate and kill others for religious disagreements. Whether Stalin persecuted the churches because of bad experiences is, as far as I know, an unproven idea, although I have read suggestions that some anger at bad experiences in church influenced him.

16. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133226 by William Sierichs Jr. on February 25, 2008 at 11:03 pm

The "Hitler was an atheist" comment is a flat-out lie. Hitler and the millions of people who supported him and other fascist governments across Europe overwhelmingly were Christians, and Christian beliefs played a significant part in their worldview. In particular, they feared and hated "atheism," by which they meant not just atheist atheism but church-state separation, political liberalism, socialism, "godless judeo-bolshevism" and, behind the scene, the supposed source of modern atheism and its immorality - Jews. It's impossible to understand what happened in the 1930s to 1945 without factoring in Christian beliefs and institutions. Christian hatred of atheism certainly was a major factor in the Holocaust and probably played a role in public support for the invasion of "godless" Russia.

Here are the comments of one observer, an American clergyman, Stewart W. Herman Jr., who lived in Berlin from 1936 to 1941 and wrote a book in 1943, "It's Your Souls We Want," which discussed Nazism and religion [my worlds in [] ]: "The atheists may immediately be discounted as exercising any perceptible influence on German religious thought today. … [Freethinkers had increased previously, but] their influence declined gradually in the days of the Republic and has been suppressed completely by the new regime which places 'godlessness' in the same category with anarchistic Bolshevism." Herman added that even Germans who cared little about religion "disliked and distrusted people who renounce all faith in God." He also remarked that most Nazis were Christians, although he believed Nazism itself was becoming a new religion. When the Nazis shut down the Berlin headquarters of the largest freethinker group in Germany, they gave the building to a church for religious uses!

Hitler himself was publicly a Roman Catholic to the end of his life. He paid the church tax, was never excommunicated, never publicly renounced the church, and when he died, German Archbishop Bertram ordered his churches to hold a requiem for Hitler. Privately, Hitler probably had become a generic Protestant by the late 1930s. In 1936, Cardinal Faulhaber had a lengthy talk with Hitler and wrote in a note that: "The Führer commands the diplomatic and social forms better than a born sovereign. … Without doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture. … Not as clear is his conception of the Catholic Church as a God-established institution."

There's a lot more on this subject. A book titled "The Holy Reich" by Richard Steigmann-Gall goes over the role of Christianity in Nazism.

As for Lenin and Stalin, they were brought up as Christians, as were moste early Bolsheviks, which is probably why the structure of Soviet communism looks a lot like Christianity, but with the state as a god. "Atheists" toward the state god were executed. Lenin probably abandoned Christianity in his mid-teens, but Stalin spent time at a seminary studying to be a priest in his later teens, and reportedly wrote religious poetry in his 20s. So Lenin and Stalin were brought up with school prayer, the 10 Religious Expressions and church services, and look how they turned out!

By the way, Winston Churchill says in "The Hinge of Fate" that when he went to Moscow in 1942 and told Stalin of Operation Torch, Stalin replied, "May God prosper this undertaking." Later, Churchill said, he asked Stalin jokingly if Stalin held Churchill's anti-soviet activities years earlier against him, Stalin replied, "all that is in the past, and the past belongs to God." So I have doubts Stalin was even an atheist.

17. Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

Comment #128720 by William Sierichs Jr. on February 17, 2008 at 6:51 pm

Correction to previous post: Gelly vs. Cleve was in 1693, not 1793.

18. Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

Comment #128719 by William Sierichs Jr. on February 17, 2008 at 6:49 pm

The first problem here is that the concept of Social Darwinism existed before Darwin! Below are some quotes from an 1835 article defending slavery in the U.S. by a U.S. senatr, H. William Harper of South Carolina:

“Man is born to subjection. Not only during infancy is he dependent and under the control of others; at all ages, it is the very bias of his nature, that the strong and the wise should control the weak and the ignorant. So it has been since the days of Nimrod. The existence of some form of Slavery in all ages and countries, is proof enough of this. … The proclivity of the natural man is to domineer or to be subservient. A noble result indeed, but in the attaining of which, as in the instances of knowledge and virtue, the Creator, for his own purposes, has set a limit beyond which we cannot go.�

He made similar arguments throughout the article in defending slavery.

Secondly, Christianity is the source of racism. The so-called race laws in the U.S. originally had nothing to do with race, a concept not developed until the later 18th century. When the American colonies began passing laws forbidding what we would call black and white marriages, the basis was the Christians and pagans were not allowed to marry or even have sex. Here's a Virginia colony law of 1662:

"And that if any christian shall committ Fornication with a negro man or woman, hee or shee soe offending shall pay double the Fines imposed by the former act.�

Similar laws were passed elsewhere. It was the pagan status of dark-skinned peoples that led to prejudice and laws against them. When the idea of "race" came along it was adopted to "explain" why dark-skinned pagans were so resistant to conversion. After all, any person of higher intelligence had to see that Christianity was true and everything else led to Satan and damnation.

When the permanent enslavement of Africans entered British and colonial laws in the 17th century (Africans brought to the colonies originally were treated as indentured servants), at least 3 legal challenges were made. Two were cases both styled "Butts vs. Penny" in 1677 and one was Gelly vs. Cleve in 1793. The courts ruled that as Africans were pagans, they could lawfully be enslaved. Here's the Gelly verdict: "trover will lie for a negro boy, for they are heathens, and therefore a man may have property in them, and that the court without averment made, will take notice that they are heathens.�

Both the anti-marriage laws and the slavery rulings have deep roots in Christian theology, and both ultimately derive from statements in the Jewish scriptures, as adapted by Christians.

19. Atheists Agonistes

Comment #10349 by William Sierichs Jr. on November 27, 2006 at 11:21 pm

I've seen several comments at various places on this site that Hitler was an atheist or, as in the article, Christianity/religion had no role in the horrors of the 20th century. In fact, Christianity bears a lot of guilt for wars and massacres.
In Europe, Jews suffered centuries of discrimination, coercion and violence while Christians routinely denounced them as "atheists," and therefore immoral. In the later 1800s, Christians decided Jews had to be an "inferior" race, "explaining" why they would not convert and why they were so immoral as to cause (supposedly) so many of the Continent's economic and political problems. Conservative Christians were particularly bitter about church-state separation (called "atheism" and blamed on liberals, communists and Jews) as it freed Jews to be full citizens and supposedly unleashed their economic depredations against Christians. Godless Communism was considered one of Jews' most-dangerous weapons in this war against Christianity.
I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the Christians, including Hitler, who were the leaders and supporters of post-WWI fascism, grew up in this environment, exposed to bitter Christian attacks on Jews. Devout Christians overwhelmingly were the constituency of post-WWI fascism, including Nazism. The millions of Christians who supported or accepted fascist or fascist-like governments — knowing full well their bigotry and violence — killed and died for Hitler and similar leaders across Europe in 1939-1945. They filled 1930s newspapers and church publications with denunciations of "atheism," meaning church-state separation, communism, socialism, liberalism, Freemasonry and, the sinister force seen behind all this, Jews. The Holocaust was solely a Christian operation. (The documentation is massive. Try "Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry," by Moshe Y. Herczl, 1993, and "The Holy Reich," Richard Steigmann-Gall, 2003, for two examples. "Twisted Cross," by Doris L. Bergen, 1996, documents the massive German Protestant support for Hitler and Nazism.)
Hitler was never an atheist or pagan. Officially, he was a lifelong Roman Catholic. He never publicly renounced his church; was never excommunicated; paid the church tax to the end; and, after his death, German Cardinal Bertram ordered his churches to hold a requiem for Hitler. In 1936, after an evening's conversation, German Cardinal Faulhaber recorded, "Without doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture. … Not as clear is his conception of the Catholic Church as a God-established institution." On this basis and other evidence, it's likely that Hitler privately moved to a kind of generic Protestantism in the late 1930s.
Most Nazis were church-going mainstream Protestants, creating the main friction with the Catholic Church and some sects. Nazis and sympathizers, in Germany and elsewhere, often talked as if they were at war against atheism, which required removing its main source, Jews, and their main weapon, "Judeo-Bolshevism." It's not much of an exaggeration to say that, for many devout Christians, WWII was a war against atheism. Even Popes Pius XI and XII, who despised Hitler and Nazism, nonetheless saw him as a defender of Christendom, one probable source of Pius XII's passivity on WWII crimes.
By the way, Lenin and Stalin were reared as Christians, as were many Bolsheviks. Lenin became an atheist in his mid-teens, Stalin studied for the priesthood in his teens, and wrote religious poetry in his 20s. It's not even certain he was an atheist, despite his hostility to churches. Churchill records Stalin as invoking God several times in their Moscow talks, including "May God prosper" Operation Torch. I doubt it's a coincidence that Soviet communism looks a lot like Christianity, although worshiping the state as a god and killing "atheists" who don't believe in the state.
Christian beliefs were the driving force behind the murderous disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1940s and again in the 1990s. The "ethnic" divisions there are strictly religious; most Yugoslavs speak the same language and share the same culture. Yet, in the '40s, Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs slaughtered each other by the hundreds of thousands; and the organized massacre of Jews started in Croatia before the Nazi Holocaust officially started. While Muslims were not as brutalized in the '40s as Jews, they were the primary targets of Christian paranoia and organized violence in the '90s on religious grounds.
(I had some more material, but the site's filter wouldn't accept it, so it might have been too long. I'll post some more later if people want more information.)