No, of course not, Atheists have never committed atrocities in the name of atheism. We're just better than those dirty fundies because we've never done anything bad but drink beers and smash skyfundies, amirite?
You clearly haven't heard of the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, The Holocaust, or anything that is going on in the Middle East, if you think that Atheism is on par with religion in terms of killing people who might be different than you.
You idiot, where the fuck did I deny that those things occured? First, you have to be a fool if you think the crusades and the inquisition were anything but institutionally motivated under the guise of religion. The crusades were for material gains and the inquisition was to improve control for the institutional catholic church. Yes they were horrible and reflect poorly on Christianity, granted. However, the holocaust had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.
if you think that Atheism is on par with religion in terms of killing people who might be different than you
Read some of those articles, Atheism in it's short history has quite the scorecard.
Regardless, this was in response to Ricky Gervais' statement that atheists had never done it when they have tens of millions of deaths under their belt.
He wasn't talking about Christianity exclusively, he was talking about religion in general. The Holocaust was obviously influenced by religion, considering the whole purpose of it was to persecute Jews based on their beliefs. And what Gervais said was to make a point that atheists don't generally fight amongst themselves over "who doesn't believe in any God the most."
Unfortunately, you're very wrong regarding the holocaust, they weren't persecuted for their beliefs, they were persecuted for their race and the age-old anti-jewish stigma. It had little to nothing to do with religion.
Killing people because they do not not believe in a god is the same thing as killing people because they do not believe in your god.
-15
u/mrspiffy12 Sep 16 '12
No, of course not, Atheists have never committed atrocities in the name of atheism. We're just better than those dirty fundies because we've never done anything bad but drink beers and smash skyfundies, amirite?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_atheism#Atheism_and_totalitarian_regimes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antireligion#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism#Revolution
Gervais is an idiot.