226. Poor little Rennie. He's even so dumb as to think that the rotation of the Earth's magnetic field could have something to do with the idiotic and impossible story of the sun and moon standing still.

Rennie: please stop making a fool of yourself.

Knight_of_BAAWA at 11:35PM on Jul 9th 2007

227. Clud wrote;
Are all atheists evil in your opinion? Anyone who doesn't believe in a god compared with Mao and Stalin? I thought we'd gotten over this Mao and Stalin killing people in the name of atheism thing, because nobody can prove that they did it in the name of atheism. "

Of coarse not all atheists are communist mass murderers any more so than all sociopaths are serial killers. However, all serial killers are sociopaths, and communist mass murderers are atheists. There is indeed a link between atheism and communism, and it isn't me who said so.

Karl Marx wrote: "Communism begins from the outset with atheism.

Vladimir Lenin similarly wrote: "A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could."

So as stated by Marx, it was understood that Communism is not simply a political party, political system or philosophy. This fact is illustrated by the numerous ways in which Communism embraced and attempted to promulgate peculiar quasi-religious (and often clearly anti-scientific) beliefs which had nothing all to do with politics or government, and everything to do with atheism. Although Communism typically touted itself as anti-religious and pro-science, it was, in fact, deeply anti-scientific. One of Communisms hallmarks in the Soviet Union and China was its aggressive and violent suppression of religions. How anyone can believe atheism didn't enter into policy decisions of these regimes is amazing. Especially since this fact was admitted.

RennieS at 12:18AM on Jul 10th 2007

228. Jon wrote;

"You were correct to state that RNA cannot self-replicate. That is indeed true. However, scientists believe that at point point it was able to self-replicate, and thus the theory is that RNA was the origin of life. Currently, scientists simulating an RNA world have come close to discovering, through experiments, an RNA capable of self-replication."

Sorry for the long response time. Been occupied last few days. Thanks for the interesting link. I enjoyed the read. However, what you speak of can only happen in a chemistry lab or in the cells of living organisms. It could never have taken place in a primitive ocean or anywhere on a primitive Earth. Who or what would be there to provide a steady input of peptide reagent? Who or what would be there to provide a steady supply of the appropriate nucleotides? Also, according to one article in Science, (Wood, R. D., et al. 2001. Human DNA repair genes. Science 291:1284.) "Genome |DNA| instability caused by the great variety of DNA-damaging agents would be an overwhelming problem for cells and organisms if it were not for DNA repair." Even water is one of the agents that damages DNA! If DNA somehow evolved on the earth it would be dissolved in water. Water and ultraviolet light would destroy DNA much faster than it could be produced. If it were not for DNA repair genes, DNA could not survive even in the protective environment of a cell! How then could DNA survive when subjected to all the chemical and other DNA-damaging agents that would exist on primitive Earth?

RennieS at 12:52AM on Jul 10th 2007

229. Rennie just doesn't get it:

"Of coarse not all atheists are communist mass murderers any more so than all sociopaths are serial killers. However, all serial killers are sociopaths, and communist mass murderers are atheists. There is indeed a link between atheism and communism,"

No, there isn't.


"and it isn't me who said so."

Yes, it is. Marx was a hypocrite who used all of Hegel while denying what Hegel wrote. Thus, the actuality is that communism isn't atheistic.


"If it were not for DNA repair genes, DNA could not survive even in the protective environment of a cell! How then could DNA survive when subjected to all the chemical and other DNA-damaging agents that would exist on primitive Earth?"

Because you don't understand that DNA didn't just fully form, like you want to strawman.

Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:38AM on Jul 10th 2007

230. Karl Marx also wrote: "Communism begins from the outset with atheism; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction."

Partial quotes for the win! What Marx is saying here is that atheism is one of the founding principles of communism, but that atheism is far from being what communism is all about.

Stalin is really the only one who even killed theists, and that was during the purge of the Russian Orthodox Church. The estimate for that was under 1 million. The greater part of his death toll was blamed on the famine, which was determined to be genocide against the Ukrainian people, regardless of their religion. Stalin even let the Russian Orthodox Church begin practice again in order boost patriotism across the country.

Mao Zedong had purged his political enemies, not just theists, but anyone who stood against him. With most of his deaths being attributed to famine and overwork during the Great Leap Forward.

The total of the two, coming from reputable sources is set at roughly 60 million, a far cry from your original estimate of 120 million. Now, do I support Mao or Stalin, hell no. But I think you should really get your facts straight before making facetious claims.

clud at 1:05AM on Jul 11th 2007

231. Clud wrote;
"The total of the two, coming from reputable sources is set at roughly 60 million, a far cry from your original estimate of 120 million. Now, do I support Mao or Stalin, hell no. But I think you should really get your facts straight before making facetious claims."

Reevaluating China's Democide to be 73,000,000
http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/11/reevaluating-chinas-democide-to-be.html



"Lethal Politics: Soviet
Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917"

By R.J. Rummel
New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990
61,911,000 Victims: Utopianism Empowered 1917 to 1987

We won't bother with Cambodia, Ethiopia, North Korea, North Vietnam, etc... You do the math. China and Russia murders alone far exceed your estimates. But hey, if it helps you to sleep better at night to discount the slaughter, go for it.

We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth
----Voltaire.

What makes your sources more reputable than the above? Other than your opinion, that is.

RennieS at 2:10PM on Jul 11th 2007

232. Ahh yes, we can debate numbers all day long, estimates for the two totalled go from 5 million to 120 million. 5 million being the crazy low-ball number, and 120 million being the crazy high-ball number.

Here are my sources:

Soviet Union, Stalin's regime (1924-53): 20 000 000 [make link]
There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school. The two schools are generally associated with the right and left wings of the political spectrum, and they often accuse each other of being blinded by prejudice, stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, and maybe even having a hidden agenda. Also, both sides claim that recent access to former Soviet archives has proven that their side is right.
Here are a few illustrative estimates from the Big Numbers school:
Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993 cites these:
Chistyakovoy, V. (Neva, no.10): 20 million killed during the 1930s.
Dyadkin, I.G. (Demograficheskaya statistika neyestestvennoy smertnosti v SSSR 1918-1956 ): 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" for the USSR overall, with 34 to 49 million under Stalin.
Gold, John.: 50-60 million.
Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998): c. 50 million killed 1924-53, excluding WW2 war losses. This would divide (more or less) into 33M pre-war and 17M after 1939.
Rummel, 1990: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:
1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
1939-45: 18,157,000
1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine
William Cockerham, Health and Social Change in Russia and Eastern Europe: 50M+
Wallechinsky: 13M (1930-32) + 7M (1934-38)
Cited by Wallechinsky:
Medvedev, Roy (Let History Judge): 40 million.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: 60 million.
MEDIAN: 51 million for the entire Stalin Era; 20M during the 1930s.
And from the Lower Numbers school:
Nove, Alec ("Victims of Stalinism: How Many?" in J. Arch Getty (ed.) Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, 1993): 9,500,000 "surplus deaths" during the 1930s.
Cited in Nove:
Maksudov, S. (Poteri naseleniya SSSR, 1989): 9.8 million abnormal deaths between 1926 and 1937.
Tsaplin, V.V. ("Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody" 1989): 6,600,000 deaths (hunger, camps and prisons) between the 1926 and 1937 censuses.
Dugin, A. ("Stalinizm: legendy i fakty" 1989): 642,980 counterrevolutionaries shot 1921-53.
Muskovsky Novosti (4 March 1990): 786,098 state prisoners shot, 1931-53.
Gordon, A. (What Happened in That Time?, 1989, cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993): 8-9 million during the 1930s.
Ponton, G. (The Soviet Era, 1994): cites an 1990 article by Milne, et al., that excess deaths 1926-39 were likely 3.5 million and at most 8 million.
MEDIAN: 8.5 Million during the 1930s.
As you can see, there's no easy compromise between the two schools. The Big Numbers are so high that picking the midpoint between the two schools would still give us a Big Number. It may appear to be a rather pointless argument -- whether it's fifteen or fifty million, it's still a huge number of killings -- but keep in mind that the population of the Soviet Union was 164 million in 1937, so the upper estimates accuse Stalin of killing nearly 1 out of every 3 of his people, an extremely Polpotian level of savagery. The lower numbers, on the other hand, leave Stalin with plenty of people still alive to fight off the German invasion.
[Letter]
Although it's too early to be taking sides with absolute certainty, a consensus seems to be forming around a death toll of 20 million. This would adequately account for all documented nastiness without straining credulity:
In The Great Terror (1969), Robert Conquest suggested that the overall death toll was 20 million at minimum -- and very likely 50% higher, or 30 million. This would divide roughly as follows: 7M in 1930-36; 3M in 1937-38; 10M in 1939-53. By the time he wrote The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (1992), Conquest was much more confident that 20 million was the likeliest death toll.
Britannica, "Stalinism": 20M died in camps, of famine, executions, etc., citing Medvedev
Brzezinski: 20-25 million, dividing roughly as follows: 7M destroying the peasantry; 12M in labor camps; 1M excuted during and after WW2.
Daniel Chirot:
"Lowest credible" estimate: 20M
"Highest": 40M
Citing:
Conquest: 20M
Antonov-Ovseyenko: 30M
Medvedev: 40M
Courtois, Stephane, Black Book of Communism (Le Livre Noir du Communism): 20M for the whole history of Soviet Union, 1917-91.
Essay by Nicolas Werth: 15M
[Ironic observation: The Black Book of Communism seems to vote for Hitler as the answer to the question of who's worse, Hitler (25M) or Stalin (20M).]
John Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen (2001): 20M, incl.
Kulaks: 7M
Gulag: 12M
Purge: 1.2M (minus 50,000 survivors)
Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin: directly responsible for 20 million deaths.
Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europes Ghosts After Communism (1995): upwards of 25M
Time Magazine (13 April 1998): 15-20 million.
AVERAGE: Of the 17 estimates of the total number of victims of Stalin, the median is 30 million.
Individual Gulags etc.
Kolyma
Kuropaty
Vorkuta
Bykivnia
Famine, 1926-38
Richard Overy, Russia's War (1997): 4.2M in Ukraine + 1.7M in Kazakhstan
Green, Barbara ("Stalinist Terror and the Question of Genocide: the Great Famine" in Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust Unique?) cites these sources for the number who died in the famine:
Nove: 3.1-3.2M in Ukraine, 1933
Maksudov: 4.4M in Ukraine, 1927-38
Mace: 5-7M in Ukraine
Osokin: 3.35M in USSR, 1933
Wheatcraft: 4-5M in USSR, 1932-33
Conquest:
Total, USSR, 1926-37: 11M
1932-33: 7M
Ukraine: 5M
That's for Stalin.

Here's Mao:

People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong's regime (1949-1975): 40 000 000 [make link]
Agence France Press (25 Sept. 1999) citing at length from Courtois, Stephane, Le Livre Noir du Communism:
Rural purges, 1946-49: 2-5M deaths
Urban purges, 1950-57: 1M
Great Leap Forward: 20-43M
Cultural Revolution: 2-7M
Labor Camps: 20M
Tibet: 0.6-1.2M
TOTAL: 44.5 to 72M
Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret Famine (1996)
Estimates of the death toll from the Great Leap Forward, 1959-61:
Judith Banister, China's Changing Population (1984): 30M excess deaths (acc2 Becker: "the most reliable estimate we have")
Wang Weizhi, Contemporary Chinese Population (1988): 19.5M deaths
Jin Hui (1993): 40M population loss due to "abnormal deaths and reduced births"
Chen Yizi of the System Reform Inst.: 43-46M deaths
Brzezinski:
Forcible collectivization: 27 million peasants
Cultural Revolution: 1-2 million
TOTAL: 29 million deaths under Mao
Daniel Chirot:
Land reform, 1949-56
According to Zhou Enlai: 830,000
According to Mao Zedong: 2-3M
Great Leap Forward: 20-40 million deaths.
Cultural Revolution: 1-20 million
Jung Chang, Mao: the Unknown Story (2005)
Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries, 1950-51: 3M by execution, mob or suicide
Three-Anti Campaign, 1952-53: 200,000-300,000 suicides
Great Leap Forward, 1958-61: 38M of starvation and overwork
Cultural Revolution, 1966-76: > 3M died violent deaths
Laogai camp deaths, 1949-76: 27M
TOTAL under Mao: 70M
Dictionary of 20C World History: around a half million died in Cultural Rev.
Eckhardt:
Govt executes landlords (1950-51): 1,000,000
Cultural Revolution (1967-68): 50,000
Gilbert:
1958-61 Famine: 30 million deaths.
Kurt Glaser and Stephan Possony, Victims of Politics (1979):
They estimate the body count under Mao to be 38,000,000 to 67,000,000.
Cited by G & P:
Walker Report (see below): 44.3M to 63.8M deaths.
The Government Information Office of Taiwan (18 Sept. 1970): 37M deaths in the PRC.
A Radio Moscow report (7 Apr. 1969): 26.4M people had been exterminated in China.
(NOTE: Obviously the Soviets and Taiwanese would, as enemies, be strongly motivated to exaggerate.)
Guinness Book of World Records:
Although nowadays they don't come right out and declare Mao to be the Top Dog in the Mass Killings category, earlier editions (such as 1978) did, and they cited sources which are similar, but not identical, to the Glaser & Possony sources:
On 7 Apr. 1969 the Soviet government radio reported that 26,300,000 people were killed in China, 1949-65.
In April 1971 the cabinet of the government of Taiwan reported 39,940,000 deaths for the years 1949-69.
The Walker Report (see below): between 32,2500,000 and 61,700,000.
Harff and Gurr:
KMT cadre, rich peasants, landlords (1950-51): 800,000-3,000,000
Cultural Revolution (1966-75): 400,000-850,000
John Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen: 27M death toll, incl. 2M in Cultural Revolution
Paul Johnson doesn't give an overall total, but he gives estimates for the principle individual mass dyings of the Mao years:
Land reform, first years of PRC: at least 2 million people perished.
Great Leap Forward: "how many millions died ... is a matter of conjecture."
Cultural Revolution: 400,000, calling the 3 Feb. 1979 estimate by Agence France Presse, "The most widely respected figure".
Meisner, Maurice, Mao's China and After (1977, 1999), doesn't give an overall total either, but he does give estimates for the three principle mass dyings of the Mao years:
Terror against the counterrevolutionaries: 2 million people executed during the first three years of the PRC.
Great Leap Forward: 15-30 million famine-related deaths.
Cultural Revolution: 400,000, citing a 1979 estimate by Agence France Presse.
R. J. Rummel:
Estimate:
Democide: 34,361,000 (1949-75)
The principle episodes being...
All movements (1949-58): 11,813,000
incl. Land Reform (1949-53): 4,500,000
Cult. Rev. (1964-75): 1,613,000
Forced Labor (1949-75): 15,000,000
Great Leap Forward (1959-63): 5,680,000 democides
War: 3,399,000
Famine: 34,500,000
Great Leap Forward: 27M famine deaths
TOTAL: 72,260,000
Cited in Rummel:
Li, Cheng-Chung (Republic of China, 1979): 78.86M direct/indirect deaths.
World Anti-Communist League, True Facts of Maoist Tyranny (1971): 64.5M
Glaser & Possony: 38 to 67M (see above)
Walker Report, 1971 (see below): 31.75M to 58.5M casualties of Communism (excluding Korean War).
Current Death Toll of International Communism (1979): 39.9M
Stephen R. Shalom (1984), Center for Asian Studies, Deaths in China Due To Communism: 3M to 4M death toll, excluding famine.
Walker, Robert L., The Human Cost of Communism in China (1971, report to the US Senate Committee of the Judiciary) "Casualties to Communism" (deaths):
1st Civil War (1927-36): .25-.5M
Fighting during Sino-Japanese War (1937-45): 50,000
2nd Civil War (1945-49): 1.25M
Land Reform prior to Liberation: 0.5-1.0M
Political liquidation campaigns: 15-30M
Korean War: 0.5-1.234M
Great Leap Forward: 1-2M
Struggle with minorities: 0.5-1.0M
Cultural Revolution: .25-.5M
Deaths in labor camps: 15-25M
TOTAL: 34.3M to 63.784M
TOTAL FOR PRC: 32M to 59.5M
July 17, 1994, Washington Post (Great Leap Forward 1959-61)
Shanghai University journal, Society: > 40 million
Cong Jin: 40 million
Chen Yizi: 43 million in the famine. 80 million total as a result of Mao's policies.
Weekly Standard, 29 Sept. 1997, "The Laogai Archipelago" by D. Aikman:
Between 1949 and 1997, 50M prisoners passed through the labor camps, and 15,000,000 died (citing Harry Wu)
WHPSI: 1,633,319 political executions and 25,961 deaths from political violence, 1948-77. TOTAL: 1,659,280
Analysis: If we line up the 14 sources which claim to be complete, the median falls in the 45.75 to 52.5 million range, so you probably can't go wrong picking a final number from this neighborhood. Depending on how you want to count some of the incomplete estimates (such as Becker and Meisner) and whether to count a source twice (or thrice, as with Walker) if it's referenced by two different authorities, you can slide the median up and down the scale by many millions. Keep in mind, however, that official Chinese records are hidden from scrutiny, so most of these numbers are pure guesses. It's pointless to get attached to any one of them, because the real number could easily be half or twice any number here.
Perhaps a better way of estimating would be to add up the individual components. The medians here are:
Purges, etc. during the first few years: 2M (10 estimates)
Great Leap Forward: 31-33M (14 estimates)
Cultural Revolution: 1M (13 estimates)
Ethnic Minorities, primarily Tibetans: 750-900T (8 estimates, see below)
Labor Camps: 20M (5 estimates)
This produces a total of some 54,750,000 to 56,900,000 deaths. The weak link in this calculation is in the Labor Camp numbers for which we only have 5 estimates.
Notice that many early body counts (such as Walker) completely miss the famine during the Great Leap Forward, which was largely unknown in the west until around 1980. There are two contradictory ways to assess those early estimates which ignore the famine:
"If these are the numbers that they came up with without the famine, imagine how high the true number will be once you add the famine deaths."
"Can we trust any of these numbers? After all, if they missed such a huge famine, they can't have known very much about what was going on inside China."
... so this line of reasoning will get us nowhere. In fact, the median of the 7 estimate that predate 1980 is 45.7M, which is almost the same as the median of the 7 estimates that post-date 1980 -- 58M. (At this scale, a 12M difference counts as "almost the same".)

That still doesn't say they did it in the name of atheism though of course. Communism is a horrible thing as these numbers show, but atheism is not nearly as bad as this.

clud at 10:59PM on Jul 11th 2007

233. It is interesting to note how many people think rational equates to "not believing in God" and thereby relieve themselves of the burden of thinking. All they need remember is belief in God is irrational, close their eyes and ears, and shout, "I can't hear you, I can't hear you!"

An example from "Pilgrims Progress" by John Bunyan (1628 - 1688) is *not* an example from "Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer (1342 - 1400).

For someone to suggest that Christianity is "belief by faith alone" is to demonstrate a complete ignorance of the volumes of philosophical and scientific work done by Christians over the centuries. It is a generally accepted fact in the philosophy of science that the Christian worldview of a rational God who created a rational man able to understand a rational universe is the foundation of science as we know it.

On the other hand, I am continually reading atheistic literature that makes the claim the universe is irrational, arbitrary, and meaningless. "This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." Richard Dawkins.

The corrolary to this "indifference" is, of course, determinism. If people are only evolved matter, then any appeal to free will is an oxymoron. Our thoughts and actions are determined by our genes and environment, not by any act of will. "“But doesn’t a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused’s physiology, heredity and environment. Don’t judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?” Richard Dawkins

The Christian woldview understands that people are, in fact, what we observe them to be. The Christian observes that we are free moral agents aware that some things are right and some things are wrong. Even the atheist, despite his philosophical objections, lives as if there is right and wrong. So who really "believes by faith alone?"

Dave at 12:07PM on Jul 12th 2007

234. Hear, hear, Dave. Excellent post.

RennieS at 1:15PM on Jul 12th 2007

235. Clud wrote....
"... so this line of reasoning will get us nowhere. In fact, the median of the 7 estimate that predate 1980 is 45.7M, which is almost the same as the median of the 7 estimates that post-date 1980 -- 58M. (At this scale, a 12M difference counts as "almost the same".)"

Blah, blah, blah.... I never asked for sources. I merely asked why you consider your sources to be more "reputable" than the ones I referred to. I still don't have an answer. While I agree with some of your points, the unrequested and unnecessary reams of sources indicate that you are focused on one-upmanship rather than sincere intellectual inquiry, so bicker with someone else

RennieS at 4:21PM on Jul 13th 2007

236. Clud wrote....
"... so this line of reasoning will get us nowhere. In fact, the median of the 7 estimate that predate 1980 is 45.7M, which is almost the same as the median of the 7 estimates that post-date 1980 -- 58M. (At this scale, a 12M difference counts as "almost the same".)"

Blah, blah, blah.... I never asked for sources. I merely asked why you consider your sources to be more "reputable" than the ones I referred to. I still don't have an answer. While I agree with some of your points, the unrequested and unnecessary reams of sources indicate that you are focused on one-upmanship rather than sincere intellectual inquiry, so bicker with someone else

RennieS at 4:30PM on Jul 13th 2007

237. Atheism and tyrany: Listen up crybaby Knight, baawa, baawa: William Penn said" people must choose to be governed by God or condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants." When asked what caused the civil war President Lincoln replied: "We have forgotten God." This list can go on and on.

Haladharadasa at 4:21AM on Jul 14th 2007

238. 1. The unwillingness of most religious people to ever seriously look at the possibility that deity might not exist at all is why they are rightfully accused of irrationality. Rational people KNOW there is no harm in considering both sides of a question. But you can't have a serious discussion about that with most believers because of their knee-jerk defensive reactions, very similar to those of an alcoholic in denial.

2. Most nonbelievers I know spend a lot of time questioning this and other great mysteries. We think, constantly. We read. We research. We discuss. We learn about religion, believe it or not, because we feel it is necessary to know the mind of the enemy. And we don't limit ourselves to the one book, the one Thomas Jefferson referred to as "that dunghill". You know, the Bible. I'm a nonbeliever but I have studied several different religions. Buddhism is the only one that really has substantive wisdom to offer (of the so-called major religions). And it offers a great deal; I could actually get into it except for that whole reincarnation thing. Protestantism and Islam are pretty much appalling, fascist in nature and hostile to progress (think Galileo here, or Copernicus, or stem cells). Catholicism is downright bizarre, but at least in its modern incarnation is fairly well-behaved. You "Christians" and Muslims should take a cue from that.

3. Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao were not about atheism. They were about totalitarian political control. They eliminated gods in order to replace those gods with themselves. You don't seriously think most atheists plaster posters of themselves all over town, do you? Evil comes from the human soul, whether atheist such as Mao or religious such as Torquemada. And by the way, if god created you then he created Stalin, too. And Jim Jones. And Ted Haggard. And Jim Bakker. And Vlad the Impaler. And Gilbert Gottfried, unfortunately.

4.Religion fears science and it is obvious why. It is entirely possible that one day science might prove whether or not god exists. If yes, then all is hunky dory. Everybody wins. But if no, well then, the world will change and the churches will lose all their power. And power is what religion is all about. (Please don't feed me all that crap about the wonderful science religion has done... it's only done in the name of self-preservation, these days. There are no more Gregor Mendels.)

5. Religious people insist upon acting as though they're better than nonbelievers. Not true. I remember reading an Ann Landers or Dear Abby column many, many years ago where a writer was expressing surprise that a fellow congregationalist had badly screwed her over. I remember the columnist responding along the lines of, "In every church you will find rapists, murderers, and con men in among the rest of the people. Just because someone goes to church does not automatically make them good people." The religious, and American Christians in particular, are downright snotty. At the risk of being crude: If it shits, it ain't holy.

6. The monumental ego it takes to think that a perfect being created you! Oh, puh-leeeez! You are just a dab of protoplasm with failing eyes and an aching back, decorating the surface of a beautiful damp rock. The only thing special about you is that you're supposed to be able to THINK FOR YOURSELF.

But in the name of god you have given that up.

Bri at 5:48AM on Jul 14th 2007

239. Hey Bri (named after that stinky cheese?) you and clud plus crybaby Night-of-baawa, baawa, baawa are birds of a feather: ego-trippers like so many other atheists who see themselves as a god that has replaced GOD in their life. Wake up to the music: another of the countless names of GOD is Adhoksaja, He who is beyond the material senses, so no amount of material science is going to reveal or disprove Him to you. As long as you read religious books to learn about "the enemy" you will never know GOD nor your so-called enemy. Your enemy is you for you are against the very "soul" of which you speak. All dedicated atheists are so to speak killers of the soul and therefore tyrants to one degree or another. Whether one indulges in political purges or personal suicide, the atheist is the antipathy of peace and love, the apetite of the soul. Therefore you are starving of happiness and venting your resulting frustration on "the enemy." Yet you remain unhappy because happines (satisfaction) comes from GOD that starts with a belief in GOD and ends with a face to face embrace. An atheist cannot taste such happiness for they are like bees looking at honey in a jar.

Haladharadasa at 7:41AM on Jul 14th 2007

240. Hala:

You sure think you know a lot about me for someone who has never met me. How dare you claim to know the state of my soul? My soul laughs and soars and knows triumph and tragedy exactly the same as yours. But I do not need a book, or a building, or a man in a suit to be in touch with those feelings. The company of good friends, a well-written book, contemplation of Hubble photos, music, and my dog are all things that elevate my soul.

On the other hand, watching religious warfare erupt around the Earth, the countless lives lost in the name of imaginary beings, stains my soul as a human being.

Do not for a moment think that spirituality and religion are the same thing. Humankind existed on this planet long before Moses and the others spun their tales. If you cannot see spirituality in the cave paintings of the Paleolithic, if you cannot see the human spirit in space travel, if you don't feel your spirit soar upon contemplating the stars, without having it fed to you, that's not my problem. Indeed, it is yours, betraying your lack of original thought and unwillingness to consider that there are indeed THREE sides to every coin.

Thank you for proving my point about religious people thinking they're better than nonbelievers, by the way. Also for proving that they're not willing to discuss things. Oh, and when did I say I didn't believe in things beyond the material senses? I believe in love, and that can't be empirically proved...

Oh, and I love the part about atheists being "killers of the soul" and the "antipathy of peace and love". What a crock of small-minded, bigoted bullshit that is. Atheist Carl Sagan filled souls all over the world. Atheist John Lennon gave his life for peace and love (shot by a born-again Christian). Atheist Mark Twain considered black people to have souls just like white people. Agnostic Albert Einstein opened the door to the universe for us. I can't help it if you feel empty without a predigested value system being spoon-fed to you. My values, love, morality, and philosophy all come from my very human heart.

I have raised 4 very successful children. I have spread joy throughout my community, both through schools and through the theater, by making people laugh. I have created art of which it was once said, "[his] work has the ability to wrench people's souls out of their bodies and put them back fixed when they never even knew they were broken". Animals, children, and emotionally wounded people seek me out and where I can, I heal them.

What's YOUR bio, Mr. Better-Than-You??

Bri at 8:54AM on Jul 14th 2007