this is one of the reasons why religion is dangerous

[_Zoidberg]

What is harmful about religion is dogmatism. Hitler and Stalin were also big fans of dogmatism. My grandma still believes that Stalin was the best thing that's ever happened to Russia, she's so brainwashed. They had parades with banners that said "Thank you, comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood" when she was little. There was lots and lots of indoctrination going on there.

Most religious movements are also dogmatic. I'm not talking about Unitarian Universalism etc. If someone is an atheist, on the other hand, you really have no way of knowing whether they are authoritarian or not. But you can safely assume that if they are authoritarian, it is not faith-based. Can someone be a good Mormon and not follow the prophet, or at least make a resolution to not follow the prophet when the prophet is talking out of his rear? Most people would say no, including the prophet.

All things being equal, a good Mormon will be more authoritarian than an atheist. More unquestioningly obedient and holding more irrational and potentially harmful beliefs. I think it should be obvious.

[_John Larsen]

What is harmful about religion is dogmatism. Hitler and Stalin were also big fans of dogmatism. My grandma still believes that Stalin was the best thing that's ever happened to Russia, she's so brainwashed. They had parades with banners that said "Thank you, comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood" when she was little. There was lots and lots of indoctrination going on there.

Most religious movements are also dogmatic. I'm not talking about Unitarian Universalism etc. If someone is an atheist, on the other hand, you really have no way of knowing whether they are authoritarian or not. But you can safely assume that if they are authoritarian, it is not faith-based. Can someone be a good Mormon and not follow the prophet, or at least make a resolution to not follow the prophet when the prophet is talking out of his rear? Most people would say no, including the prophet.

All things being equal, a good Mormon will be more authoritarian than an atheist. More unquestioningly obedient and holding more irrational and potentially harmful beliefs. I think it should be obvious.

I agree. We have stumbled into the realm of Nationalism. Nationalism and Religion are twin evils and share many of the same traits.

John

[_Coggins7]

There have been many Christian heads of state or in other positions of power that have murdered and abused human rights. Almost all heads of state during Medieval Europe, for example, were Christian.


To make this argument stick, you're going to have to show that Medieval Christianity was New Testament Christianity in any substantive sense. This was state Christianity, and was religion fused with absolutist government.

You have still told us nothing about religion qua religion.

[_Yong Xi]

Find me a Christian dictator that murdered millions.

While Adolf Hitler was most likely not a practicing Christian, he certainly galvanized a Christian nation. Hitler's anti-semitism was fully supported by Christian Germans and historically by the Catholic Church. This didn't happen in a vacuum. Hitler came to power with the support of his people. Nazism and Fascism could not have arisen without the zealous religious underpinnings of the populace. They believed, as did Hitler, that divine providence supported the annihilation of Jews and others and helped to establish the "Third Reich".

How could the Holocaust happen in a Christian nation? Hitler, while perhaps not a Christian dictator, certainly was a dictator to the Christians.

I really wonder whether Hilter could have succeeded in galvanizing an atheistic populace against the Jews.

[_Zoidberg]

I think proportions have already been explained to you. You basically issued a form of the Book of Mormon challenge. If we can't come up with anything, you are right and we are wrong.

Find me a dictator who did not have facial hair and murdered millions. Or, even better: who was female and murdered millions. Or who was gay and murdered millions. The fact that there are none proves that people who shave, women and gay people are superior.

While you're at it, find a solid reference that Stalin murdered millions. You might want to look up the definition of murder. Then we can adequately compare the number of victims to those of some Christian ruler. But only if the data is available.

You are in so far over your head Zoid, your going to need full diving gear to survive this thread. For a solid reference regarding the crimes of your beloved Stalin, read The Black Book of Communism, the present scholarly standard in this area. You might also try any of the eminent Robert Conquest's book on the subject, including Stalin: Breaker of Nations, and Harvest of Sorrow.

This is common, historical knowledge Zoid. That which lies in your heart will eventually be exposed for all to see here, one way or the other, wittingly or unwittingly.

Oh good, the latest idiocy installment. Yes, I just love Stalin. He's my freaking hero. Why don't you post the number of people Stalin murdered here and tell me what documents were used to determine that number? I'll even clarify, but that will probably be in vain: the number of deaths that were actually intended by Stalin, not the ones that happened as a side effect. Only then will we be able to make an adequate comparison to the number of people whose cause of death was purely religious.

I don't know why I even bother with you.

Edited: And, of course, all this information will be even remotely useful if those deaths can be shown to have resulted from Stalin's lack of religious beliefs.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

I think proportions have already been explained to you. You basically issued a form of the Book of Mormon challenge. If we can't come up with anything, you are right and we are wrong.

Find me a dictator who did not have facial hair and murdered millions. Or, even better: who was female and murdered millions. Or who was gay and murdered millions. The fact that there are none proves that people who shave, women and gay people are superior.

While you're at it, find a solid reference that Stalin murdered millions. You might want to look up the definition of murder. Then we can adequately compare the number of victims to those of some Christian ruler. But only if the data is available.

You are in so far over your head Zoid, your going to need full diving gear to survive this thread. For a solid reference regarding the crimes of your beloved Stalin, read The Black Book of Communism, the present scholarly standard in this area. You might also try any of the eminent Robert Conquest's book on the subject, including Stalin: Breaker of Nations, and Harvest of Sorrow.

This is common, historical knowledge Zoid. That which lies in your heart will eventually be exposed for all to see here, one way or the other, wittingly or unwittingly.

Oh good, the latest idiocy installment. Yes, I just love Stalin. He's my freaking hero. Why don't you post the number of people Stalin murdered here and tell me what documents were used to determine that number? I'll even clarify, but that will probably be in vain: the number of deaths that were actually intended by Stalin, not the ones that happened as a side effect. Only then will we be able to make an adequate comparison to the number of people whose cause of death was purely religious.

I don't know why I even bother with you.

From Dr. R.J. Rummel's website at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/LINKS.HTM



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:
o 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.
o 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.
o 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
o William Cockerham, Health and Social Change in Russia and Eastern Europe: 50M+
o Wallechinsky: 13M (1930-32) + 7M (1934-38)
+ Cited by Wallechinsky:
# Medvedev, Roy (Let History Judge): 40 million.
# Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: 60 million.
o MEDIAN: 51 million for the entire Stalin Era; 20M during the 1930s.
* And from the Lower Numbers school:
o 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.
o 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.
o Gordon, A. (What Happened in That Time?, 1989, cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993): 8-9 million during the 1930s.
o 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.
o 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.

* 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:
o 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.
o Britannica, "Stalinism": 20M died in camps, of famine, executions, etc., citing Medvedev
o Brzezinski: 20-25 million, dividing roughly as follows: 7M destroying the peasantry; 12M in labor camps; 1M excuted during and after WW2.
o Daniel Chirot:
+ "Lowest credible" estimate: 20M
+ "Highest": 40M
+ Citing:
# Conquest: 20M
# Antonov-Ovseyenko: 30M
# Medvedev: 40M
o 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).]


As you can see, the low end is 20,000,000, with the high end peaking at about 30,000,000, assuming that the 50,000,000 number is much too high.

For comparison, Mao comes in now at at somewhere between 40 and 50 million. I've seen estimates as high as 65 million. And this may go higher in the future, because much of what happened during the Cultural Revolution is not historically accessible at the present time.

[_Coggins7]

Notice Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's estimate.

[_John Larsen]

I am no big fan of Stalin, but to give him credit for everyone of those deaths seems a little extreme. That would be like blaming George Bush for every death in Iraq. Not really fair.

John

[_dartagnan]

Hitler's anti-semitism was fully supported by Christian Germans and historically by the Catholic Church.

Fully supported?

Don't you think you're going beyond the evidence here?

I think fear is a better word than support.

I agree with you about dogmatism, however. If that were the title of the thread I probably wouldn't have said anything. But not all religion is bad and there are too many atheists here who want to generalize with their attacks against religion. All things are not equal.

[_Coggins7]

I am no big fan of Stalin, but to give him credit for everyone of those deaths seems a little extreme. That would be like blaming George Bush for every death in Iraq. Not really fair.


Why do you think this is extreme? Do you think these estimates are pure guesswork or wishful thinking?


George Bush cannot be blamed for a single death anywhere. All the blame for what is transpiring in Iraq is upon the heads of those who started this war with us and have maintained it in Iraq, including Al Qada, Syria, Iran, and various Islamist groups sending mercenaries and weapons into Iraq.

This is like blaming Winston Churchill and FDR for death and destruction in Germany. Wasn't that something Hitler brought upon his own country?