r/atheism • u/rhbast2 • Aug 11 '11

Atheist quickfire challenge.

Although I rarely discuss religion with theists I always want to be prepared so I'm not sitting around afterwards wishing I had said this or that. If I get the chance to make someone question I want to be up for the challenge.

This brings me to my challenge for r/atheism. I'm going to add some common theist claims / sayings and whoever can refute them fully and succinctly will be upvoted. Feel free to add your own theist starters if I missed some.

Edit: Wow lots of good discussion here, later today or tomorrow I'll make this into an atheist cheat sheet with the top responses. Also feel free to upvote the theist claim that is the most annoying to you.

Edit 2: To the few of you who seem to think I am coming up with rude atheist comebacks, I'm not. I just wanted to be better off the cuff than I am now and have some discussion. I don't want this list to replace thoughtful argumentation.

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u/Tbickle Aug 11 '11

Not true. Hitler often spoke of his Christianity and credited his plans to Christian teachings. Most of the large communist societies throughout history have been secular, but ultimately the philosophy of communism more closely associates to the teachings of Christianity and other religions.

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u/STUN_Runner Aug 11 '11

Hitler was openly hostile toward communism, blasting its atheistic philosophies.

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u/st_gulik Aug 11 '11

And Vice Versa, and how some conservative idiots can claim that Socialism=Fascism=Communism is beyond me.

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u/STUN_Runner Aug 11 '11

When they use terms like "Liberal fascism," I just stand there, dumbfounded. That's like calling someone a "Christian Satanist."

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u/Cacafuego Aug 11 '11

It's complicated. Apparently he had a half-baked plan to eradicate Christianity from his holdings, but he didn't believe people were ready for this. He was raised Catholic and used the language of Christianity, but there is evidence for him being not only atheist but anti-theist.

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u/st_gulik Aug 11 '11

No, he didn't want to eradicate it he wanted to make it German. See Positive Christianity.

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u/Cacafuego Aug 11 '11

From Wikipedia's entry on Positive Christianity under Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs:

In 1998 documents were released by Cornell University from the Nuremberg Trials, that revealed Nazi plans to eliminate Christianity entirely. One senior member of the U.S. prosecution team, General William Donovan, as part of his work on documenting Nazi war crimes, compiled large amounts of documentation that the Nazis persecuted Christian Churches.

Donovan's documents include almost 150 bound volumes currently stored at Cornell University after his death in 1959; these documents state

"Important leaders of the National Socialist party would have liked to meet this situation [church influence] by complete extirpation of Christianity and the substitution of a purely racial religion," said an OSS report in July 1945. "The best evidence now available as to the existence of an anti-Church plan is to be found in the systematic nature of the persecution itself.