Now someone on JWN has indicated that he or she heard that I had died. Well, I fear that that might happen reasonably soon as I am getting long in the tooth, but as Mark Twain once said, “The report of my death has been grossly exaggerated.”
Now on a side note to Mr. Natas and his atheist friends, let me say that I am well aware that religious persons of many kinds have done evil things, including those who claim to be Christians. I feel as much disgust for them and their acts as some atheists do. However, the term religion is an abstract noun; it does not exist apart from what religionists do or don’t do unless one believes in something like platonic forms or ideas. And frankly, I have never met an atheist who was or could be anything but a philosophical nominalist. So to suggest that all believers in the transcendent, God, or gods are in some way responsible for what the crusaders, the inquisitors, the Watchtower or Pat Robertson have done is a terrible non sequitur. After all Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were all irreligious and Stalin and Mao were atheists; and those three were quite probably responsible for more deaths than all the religious figures in human history. So we should damn atheism or all atheists for their crimes? I don’t think so. And neither should you, Mr. Natas, or anyone else condemn me, a Christian pacifist who hates to kill animals, for the crimes of other religious persons.
JIM
Response to the atheist From Jim
by mouthy 4 Replies latest jw friends
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mouthy
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I quit!
To be honest with you I get a kick out of it when an atheist tells me how the would would be some sort of Utopian paradise if religion where no more. I find it to be a very naive and bigoted view of things. People may use their religion as a excuse or justification for their vile behavior but people don't need religion to be greedy murderous or power hungry. As you pointed out this past century was full of examples of those who without any belief in a God were capable of carrying out mass murders.
The fundamentalist atheist that use that type of argument don't realize how much the sound like Pat Robertson and those they have such disdain for.
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I quit!
To be honest with you I get a kick out of it when an atheist tells me how the would would be some sort of Utopian paradise if religion where no more. I find it to be a very naive and bigoted view of things. People may use their religion as a excuse or justification for their vile behavior but people don't need religion to be greedy murderous or power hungry. As you pointed out this past century was full of examples of those who without any belief in a God were capable of carrying out mass murders.
The fundamentalist atheist that use that type of argument don't realize how much the sound like Pat Robertson and those they have such disdain for.
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littlebird
Thank you Mouthy, I'm glad you're alive, you keep things hopping around here.
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mouthy
Thanks littlebird ,Some dont agree with you LOL
But I am glad you think so