Bill Maher:
But atheist cruciphobia is not a mental illness. The ideology that spawned Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot isn't a magnet for sensitive souls.
Cruciphobia is a political tactic, deliberately used to drive Christians from the public square.
Cruciphobia is hate.
Bill Maher: We’re Atheists, Not Vampires. If You Can’t Handle Seeing A Cross Now & Then You Picked The Wrong Country!Actually "vampires" is not a bad analogy for cruciphobic atheists. They run screaming at the sight of a cross, they do their work in the (spiritual) dark, and they live off the blood of Christian ethics and culture.
But atheist cruciphobia is not a mental illness. The ideology that spawned Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot isn't a magnet for sensitive souls.
Cruciphobia is a political tactic, deliberately used to drive Christians from the public square.
Cruciphobia is hate.
That the wailing and caterwauling that goes on when a Cross enters the visual field of some highly sensitive atheists and Islamofascists is an indication of its power. And it's not that the Cross itself, the physical object or symbol, that emanates fear-inspiring "waves" of power. They fear what the Cross points to: Truth and Light.
ReplyDeleteThe cross points to nothing. You failed to leave a heritage and when you die, you will be forgotten soon. Get over it, sturmbahnfueher.
DeleteA "heritage"?
DeleteI think that every now and then Maher realizes that he's gone way too far into loony land and says something rational to keep his audience from shrinking past the point of no return like MSNBC's has.
ReplyDeleteActually I’m a big fan of the truth and the light, but that’s not what the cross represents to me. It’s a medieval torture and execution device used to celebrate the cowardly and immoral act of allowing not just an innocent person, but the most innocent person, to suffer torture and death so that you can get away with your transgressions.
ReplyDeletePersonally have no problems with the cross as long as the Christian majority doesn’t use the government to force it on people. Every Christian in town can put a giant cross on their yard for all I care. It’s when that isn’t good enough for them and they insist that the government recognize their prominence and endorse their religion that I have a problem.
-KW
Here we go again, bringing in the Three Stooges of totalitarianism, with your inane suggestion that atheism inexorably leads to fascism. Sam Harris already addressed and swatted away this canard in "Letter to a Christian." In the meantime, I don't seem to recall any totalitarian quality in Carl Sagan. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteOl' "Nookalar Winter" Carl Sagan, eh? Great pick!
DeleteIf the greenhouse effect is a blanket in which we wrap ourselves to keep warm, nuclear winter kicks the blanket off.
Prophet Carl sez: Listen to me! The end is near. You must do as I say or we will all die!!!
Thanks. I hadn't thought about that pencilneck TV personality in a long time. :-)
Atheism invariably leads to totalitarianism, not fascism per se.
DeleteEvery nation governed by State Atheism, beginning with the Cult of Reason in France, has been totalitarian.
That would include State Atheist paradises such as the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Vietnam, East Germany, Romania, etc etc.
Name the countries governed by atheist ideologies that have not been totalitarian, Barry.
Every nation governed by an atheist ideology (State Atheism) has been totalitarian.
DeleteEvery nation governed by an atheist ideology (State Atheism) has been totalitarian.
DeleteI'm not sure what "atheist ideology" even means, seeing as atheists are all over the political spectrum, but let's arguendo assume there is such a thing.
Then my question is, hasn't every nation governed by a theist ideology also been totalitarian? If not, examples please.
Communism is an atheist ideology. Communist countries are governed by an atheist ideology. Communist countries are totalitarian.
DeleteTheist ideologies includes Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Scores of nations have official established state Christian churches. None are totalitarian. In fact, they are the most free democratic nations on earth. Officially Christian nations with established churches include Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, England.
Israel is the only Jewish nation in the Middle East, and the only democracy.
Islamic nations tend to be authoritarian, but none are totalitarian.
All officially atheist nations are, and have been, totalitarian.
But Barry Lyons is right about one thing: no nation governed by Carl Sagan has been totalitarian.
DeleteCommunism is an atheist ideology. Communist countries are governed by an atheist ideology. Communist countries are totalitarian.
DeleteCommunism is not an atheist ideology. There are Christian communists.
Scores of nations have official established state Christian churches. None are totalitarian. In fact, they are the most free democratic nations on earth. Officially Christian nations with established churches include Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, England.
None of those nations are governed by Christian ideology, and in fact have the highest proportion of atheists among nations. It's good to see you admit that the most atheist nations are the most free and democratic.
Islamic nations tend to be authoritarian, but none are totalitarian.
Hahaha.
Communism, based on Marxism, is atheist. "Opiate of the people", Scientific Materialism, all that.
DeleteThe fact that nations with established Christian churches are (today) home to atheist majorities is further evidence that Christian nations are not totalitarian and respect freedom and human rights. Your point about atheist majorities in Christian countries makes my point, not yours.
You really don't think too much before you write comments, do you troy?
In what way are Iran and Saudi Arabia less totalitarian than, say, the communist DDR was?
DeleteYou're a lunatic, Michael. Atheism doesn't imply communism at all. I'm not a communist and neither was Ayn Rand.
DeleteAtheism doesn't imply communism, but communism implies atheism. And communism is the only organized political form atheism has ever taken.
DeleteI know Ayn Rand very well-- I was an Objectivist in an earlier life (in college). Her ideology, while it has some strengths, is degenerate philosophy and would be totalitarian in practice.
[In what way are Iran and Saudi Arabia less totalitarian than, say, the communist DDR was?]
DeleteIranian gulags? Islam is not inherently totalitarian. It is authoritarian and repressive, for sure, but totalitarianism along the lines of national and international socialism is not a part of Islam.
There was a socialist movement among Islamic countries that began with Nasser, and some Islamic countries have suffered the totalitarian-style repression typically associated with socialism.
But Islam, for all of its many faults, is not totalitarian. Totalitarianism began with atheism-in-power.
Egnor,
DeleteWhat is the difference between 'totalitarian' and 'authoritarian'?
You can't just consider the results. For example whether the state concerned has gulags or not (which are basically just prisons - and America has currently managed to put more of its citizens in gaol than ever were in Stalin's gulags).
Totalitarian states are authoritarian states with an ideology. Authoritarian states don't have an ideology - they're more akin to kleptocracy in which the leaders are robber barons passing enough of the nation's wealth to their supporters to stay in power.
The Soviet Union was totalitarian because it had an ideology - Communism. Saudi Arabia is a totalitarian state because it also has an ideology - Islam. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was an authoritarian state - everything he did was to keep his supporters happy. I'd argue than present day China is more like an authoritarian country than a totalitarian one, since its initial ideology, Communism, is becoming less relevant. It's becoming an authoritarian capitalist country, with its billionaire business people.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteNo. Communism was born out of the Industrial Revolution and rampant capitalism with the poor working and living conditions of the industrial workers as they were displaced from agriculture. As in the cotton mills in 18th century Britain.
Even when communism came to power in Russia and China, it wasn't in a secular-atheist environment - it was facilitated by prolonged wars with the death of millions.
And when Christianity had power, atheists were persecuted. As with the 3 Inquisitions. Not many, but the exceptions that prove the rule.
No, communism is atheism ascended to the power of statehood. Deny it all you want; you cannot change reality. Deal with it.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think that I have to accept your moronic assertions?
I don't care what you accept. You cannot change reality by denying it.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteIt's just that your moronic assertion of 'reality' isn't real.
Ignorance is a poor way to go through life.
ReplyDeletebach:
ReplyDeleteCommunism is the only political form atheism has ever taken in power.
Perhaps some day atheism will come to power and provide us with enlightened liberal democracy.
After a century of abattoirs, you'll have to excuse those of us with a memory if we aren't enthusiastic about empowering you guys one more time.
Egnor,
ReplyDeleteExcuse me if I scoff at your continual ignorance of history, particularly after you claimed that the Great War was the result of the French Revolution. Which you again claimed was due to atheism.
Communism was a result of the gross inequalities engendered by the Industrial Revolution. Les Miserables and the novels of Dickens weren't based on fictional social conditions. The squalor and poverty of the workers' slums in industrial towns were real. The great wealth of the industrialists was equally real.
Communism came to power in Russia and China as a result of years' long war with millions of deaths. The aim was to destroy the economic systems that had produced the misery, not to promote atheism.
In contrast, the disruption of the Great War led to a more egalitarian distribution of wealth in the West. Accelerated by the Great Depression and the Second World War, because at least the West had functioning democracies.
Atheists don't have a common ideology, so it's not possible for atheists to assume power as atheists.
Typical, given that you're an atheist and therefore have a vested interest in covering for the list of atrocities committed under atheist rule.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteI don't cover for the atrocities committed by Communists in the Soviet Union, China and other Communist hellholes. Communists committed atrocities to advance the cause of Communism, not atheism.
I was just as pleased as everyone else with the fall of the Soviet Union. And I hope Communists never again gain power.
bach:
ReplyDeleteYour cowardly refusal to examine the intimate relationship between communism and atheism is the problem here.
An honest man would ask the question: why is it that the only political form atheism has ever taken has been totalitarian and unprecedentedly murderous?
This is a question that atheists never ask, and is a large part of the reason I have no respect for atheists.
Egnor,
ReplyDeleteThere's no intimate relationship between atheism and Communism. Just as there's no intimate relationship between Christianity and democracy.
Communism arose in the 19th century because of the gross inequalities of the Industrial Revolution, with the squalor and poverty of workers' slums. There were reasons for the Europe wide revolution of 1848.
I don't have any respect for you. You have no common sense and no knowledge of history.
Communism, as elaborated by Marx and Engels and their minions, is predicated on atheism-- dialectical materialism, to be specific. Marx spoke of "the materialist conception of history", and of historical materialism. They explained history, economics, society, and even individual psychology as arising from godless historical forces. Marxist atheism was explicit and a major aspect of the Marxist worldview-- obviously if history and man were created by God, it would not be the result of purely material forces.
ReplyDeleteThere are obviously atheists who are not Marxists. But Marxism is intimately related to atheism, probably more closely than any political movement is related to any [ir]religious viewpoint, and atheists' denial of the obvious and unwillingness to come to terms with the problem is striking evidence of intellectual dishonesty.
No, Communism arose because of the gross inequality of the early Industrial Revolution. The squalor and poverty of the workers' slums in the new industrial towns, which were real.
ReplyDeleteThe jargon of Marxist theory was just a means of explaining the exploitation. A class struggle as a political struggle for power.
Obviously claiming that history and Man created by God is just as unsuccessful in explaining the exploitation. And exploitation it was. Per capita income didn't go smoothly from $3 per day in 1800 to $130 per day today. For most of the 19th century, daily income was still just $3 - with the increase coming towards the end of the century.
The Industrial Revolution resulted in a very small minority of the very rich and a vast majority of the poor. Which persisted till the Great War, with its major disruption of society.
The Catholic Church recognised the problem late, but it did recognise the problem. Towards the end of the 19th century.
And inequality is again becoming excessive in Western countries again. As Pope Francis has noted. Inequality isn't bad, but excessive inequality is. Money isn't the root of all evil, but excessive love of money is.
Greed was the cause of excessive inequality. Communism and socialism were in response to greed not to advance an atheistic worldview.
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