Difference between revisions of "Distrust of atheists"

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Given the [[Homosexuality and Health|many diseases associated with homosexuality]], the [[Bible|biblical]] prohibition against homosexuality is quite arguably one of the  many examples where the Bible exhibited [http://creationwiki.org/Bible_scientific_foreknowledge knowledge that was ahead of its time].  See also: [[Atheism and sexual immorality]] and [[New Atheism leaders and unhealthy lifestyles#The Bible and sound health practices|The Bible and sound health practices]]
 
Given the [[Homosexuality and Health|many diseases associated with homosexuality]], the [[Bible|biblical]] prohibition against homosexuality is quite arguably one of the  many examples where the Bible exhibited [http://creationwiki.org/Bible_scientific_foreknowledge knowledge that was ahead of its time].  See also: [[Atheism and sexual immorality]] and [[New Atheism leaders and unhealthy lifestyles#The Bible and sound health practices|The Bible and sound health practices]]
  
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== Atheism and historical revisionism ==
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''See also:'' [[Atheism and historical revisionism]]
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[[File: Voroshilov, Molotov, Stalin, with Nikolai Yezhov.jpg|right|225px]]
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[[File: The Commissar Vanishes 2.jpg|thumbnail|right|220px|Nikolai Yezhov walking with [[Joseph Stalin]] in the top photo taken in the mid 1930s. Subsequent to his execution in 1940, Yezhov was edited out of the photo by [[Soviet Union]] censors.<ref>[http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishes.htm The Commissar Vanishes</ref>]]
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Historically and presently, most [[atheism|atheists]] lean [[leftism|politically left]] (See: [[Atheism and politics]]).
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[[Vox Day|Theodore Beale]] wrote about [[secular left|secular leftists]] and leftists in general:
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{{cquote|Regardless of whether it is...[[Richard Dawkins]], [[PZ Myers]], or the vast and [[Lesbianism and obesity|corpulent mass]] of [[feminism|feminists]], the Left has an observable tendency to shun debate.  They assert many different reasons for doing so, but the truth is always revealed by their seemingly contradictory willingness to debate the incompetent and the overmatched....
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One of the things that has been interesting to observe over time is the way that the heated attacks on me, both in public and via email, have all but disappeared even though my overall readership has never been larger.  Why is this?  My theory is this is because most of my critics, be they atheists, feminists, [[evolution]]ists, or free traders, have learned they simply cannot win in a direct confrontation.  They can't openly criticize my ideas because they have learned, much to their surprise, that they cannot adequately defend their own.
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As [[Aristotle]] pointed out more than two thousand years ago, even at the rhetorical level, the side more closely approximates the truth will tend to win out, because it is easier to argue when your arguments are based on truth rather than falsehood.  Events will always ultimately prove the arguments of the [[global warming|global warmers]], the godless, the female supremacists, the [[socialism|socialists]], the [[Keynesian economics|Keynesians]], and the monetarists to be false because their ideas are false.  This is why a good memory is one of the most lethal weapons against them and why it is so easy to win debates against them, as given enough time, they are going to contradict themselves.
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Why?  Because they have no choice.  Being false, their positions have to be dynamic, which means they can never hope for any significant degree of consistency.  This is why ex post facto revision and double-talk are the hallmarks of the Left, and is why the first thing Leftists do when they are in a position of power is to erase history and attempt to silence any voices capable of calling attention to their fictions and contradictions.<ref>[http://voxday.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-distaste-for-debate.html The distaste for debate], Theodore Beale</ref>}}
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See also:
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*[[Atheism and cowardice]]
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*[[Instances of Richard Dawkins ducking debates]]
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*[[Atheism and debate]]
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*[[Rebuttals to atheist arguments]]
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*[[Atheist hypocrisy]]
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=== Soviet Union and historical revisionism ===
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In terms of academic and popular history, the Communist Party of the [[Soviet Union]] (CPSU) often engaged in [[historical revisionism]] via their control of political/ideological public discourse (media, education, etc.) and via the monitoring/silencing/imprisonment/persecution of citizens through the [[KGB]].<ref>Klaus Mehnert, Stalin Versus Marx: the Stalinist historical doctrine (Translation of Weltrevolution durch Weltgeschichte) Port Washington NY: Kennikat Press 1972 (1952), on the illegitimate use of history in the 1934–1952 period</ref> 
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During and subsequent to the rule of [[Nikita Khrushchev]] (1956–64), there was competition between the pro-[[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]ists and anti-Stalinists in terms of how Soviet history was portrayed.<ref>Roger D. Markwick, Rewriting history in Soviet Russia : the politics of revisionist historiography, 1956–1974 New York ; Basingstoke : Palgrave, 2001, on legitimate Soviet Historiography particularly in the post 1956 period.</ref>
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=== Richard Dawkins, atheist atrocities, and historical revisionism ===
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[[File:Richard Dawkins at Global Atheism Convention.jpg|alt=Richard Dawkins|thumbnail|200px|left|[[Richard Dawkins]] ]]
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''See also:'' [[Richard Dawkins, atheist atrocities, and historical revisionism]] and [[Atheism and communism]]
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[[Militant atheism]] was a part of [[Communism|communist]] ideology and this is still the case in communist China (See: [[Atheism and communism]]).  For example, in 2014, the Communist Party of China reaffirmed that members of their party must be atheists.<ref>[http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/19567-china-s-communist-party-reaffirms-marxism-maoism-atheism China’s Communist Party Reaffirms Marxism, Maoism, Atheism], ''New American'', 2014</ref><ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/02/china-communist-party-atheism-zhejiang-ban-religious-members-christianity_n_6599722.html China's Communist Party Bans Believers, Doubles Down On Atheism]</ref>
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Dr.  R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term [[democide]] (death by government).  Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM</ref>  See also: [[Atheism and Mass Murder|Atheism and mass murder]]
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[[Dinesh D'Souza]] took [[Richard Dawkins]] to task for engaging in historical revisionism when it comes to the atrocities of [[atheism|atheist]] regimes and declared Dawkins "reveals a complete ignorance of history".[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmrRC6zD4Zk VIDEO].
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In a recent interview D'Souza declared:
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{{cquote|Richard Dawkins argues that at least the atheist regimes didn't kill people in the name of [[atheism]]. Isn't it time for this biologist to get out of the lab and read a little history? Marxism and [[Communism]] were atheist ideologies. [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] weren't dictators who happened to be atheist; atheism was part of their official doctrine.
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It was no accident, as the Marxists liked to say, that they shut down the churches and persecuted the clergy...<ref>http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1053&Itemid=48</ref>}} 
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See also:
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*[[Atheists and historical illiteracy]]
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*[[History of Atheism|History of atheism]]
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Dinesh D'Souza stated in another interview:
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{{cquote|As one writer put it, “Leaders such as Stalin and Mao persecuted religious groups, not in a bid to expand atheism, but as a way of focusing people’s hatred on those groups to consolidate their own power.” Of course I agree that murderous regimes, whether [[Christian]] or atheist, are generally seeking to strengthen their position. But if Christian regimes are held responsible for their crimes committed in the name of Christianity, then atheist regimes should be held accountable for their crimes committed in the name of atheism. And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention [[Pol Pot]] and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a “new man” and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist.<ref>http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/atheism/805-answering-atheists-regarding-war.htm</ref>}}
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[[Image:Khvhkgfiy.jpg|right|thumb|[[Vladimir Lenin]] ]]
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[[Karl Marx]] said "[Religion] is the opium of the people".  Marx also stated: "[[Communism]] begins from the outset (Owen) with atheism; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction."<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm</ref>
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[[Vladimir Lenin]] similarly wrote regarding atheism and communism: "A Marxist must be a [[materialism|materialist]], i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the [[class struggle]] which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could."<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm</ref>
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In 1955, [[China|Chinese]] communist leader Zhou Enlai declared, "We Communists are atheists".<ref>Noebel, David, The Battle for Truth, Harvest House, 2001.</ref>
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=== Atheist Daniel Dennet's commentary on Joseph Stalin ===
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The new atheist [[Daniel Dennett]] attempted to minimize the atheism of the [[Militant atheism|militant atheist]] [[Joseph Stalin]].  Dennett said, “ …it occurred to me—let’s think about Stalin for a moment. Was he an atheist? You might say well of course he was an atheist. No, on the contrary. In a certain sense, he wasn’t an atheist at all. He believed in god. Not only that, he believe in a god whose will determined what right and wrong was. And he was sure of the existence of this god, and the god’s name was Stalin.”<ref>[http://creation.com/atheism Atheism]</ref>
  
 
== See also ==
 
== See also ==

Revision as of 20:58, July 4, 2016

UK study finds atheists widely distrusted - even among themselves

See also: Atheist factions

In 2015, the Christian Post reported in a story entitled Atheists Widely Distrusted, Even Among Themselves, UK Study Finds:

“ Distrust of atheists is "deeply and culturally ingrained" among people, and even many atheists are not able to trust each other, according to a new study carried out by the psychology department at Nottingham Trent University in England.

Published in the International Journal for The Psychology of Religion, the study, "The Robustness of Anti-Atheist Prejudice as Measured by Way of Cognitive Errors," was conducted with 100 participants from the U.K. ....

The study shows that "anti-atheist prejudice is not confined either to dominantly religious countries or to religious individuals, but rather appears to be a robust judgment about atheists."[1]

”

The Independent reports about the participants of the study:

“ Professor Leah Giddings and Thomas Dunn led the study with 100 online participants from the United Kingdom, 70 of whom were women and whose average age was 21.

A total of 43 per cent of the contributors were atheist, 33 per cent were Christian and the remainder belonged to other faiths.[2]

”

Theodore Beale says about atheists not trusting other atheists: "The reason most atheists trust fellow atheists less than anyone else is because they recognize their own lack of integrity and morality."[3]

Americans and Canadians distrust atheists as much as rapists

See also: Atheism and rape and Atheism and social outcasts

File:2404429188 ea8f1fc48b.jpg
Studies and web traffic data appear to indicate that women in the Western World tend to be more religious than men.[4] See: Atheism and women

On December 10, 2011, USA Today reported in a story entitled Study: Atheists distrusted as much as rapists:

“ The study, conducted among 350 Americans adults and 420 Canadian college students, asked participants to decide if a fictional driver damaged a parked car and left the scene, then found a wallet and took the money, was the driver more likely to be a teacher, an atheist teacher, or a rapist teacher?

The participants, who were from religious and nonreligious backgrounds, most often chose the atheist teacher.

The study is part of an attempt to understand what needs religion fulfills in people. Among the conclusions is a sense of trust in others.

"People find atheists very suspect," Shariff said. "They don't fear God so we should distrust them; they do not have the same moral obligations of others. This is a common refrain against atheists. People fear them as a group."[5]

”

See also:

Barna Group studies related to atheism and morality

Barna Group study on behavior of atheists vs. evangelical Christians

Richard Deem wrote:

“ A random sample of 1003 adults were surveyed in May, 2008 by The Barna Group for their participation in a number of negative behaviors within the previous week. The results showed that there were vast differences in the behaviors of evangelicals compared to agnostics/atheists.

These results show that atheists/agnostics participate in morally questionable behaviors to a much greater degree than evangelical Christians - an average of nearly five times the frequency![6]

”

Barna Group study related to atheist beliefs about behaviors

The Barna Group found that atheists and agnostics in America were more likely, than theists in America, to look upon the following behaviors as morally acceptable: illegal drug use; excessive drinking; sexual relationships outside of marriage; abortion; cohabitating with someone of opposite sex outside of marriage; obscene language; gambling; pornography and obscene sexual behavior; and engaging in homosexuality/bisexuality.[7]

Given the many diseases associated with homosexuality, the biblical prohibition against homosexuality is quite arguably one of the many examples where the Bible exhibited knowledge that was ahead of its time. See also: Atheism and sexual immorality and The Bible and sound health practices

Atheism and historical revisionism

See also: Atheism and historical revisionism

Voroshilov, Molotov, Stalin, with Nikolai Yezhov.jpg
Nikolai Yezhov walking with Joseph Stalin in the top photo taken in the mid 1930s. Subsequent to his execution in 1940, Yezhov was edited out of the photo by Soviet Union censors.[8]

Historically and presently, most atheists lean politically left (See: Atheism and politics).

Theodore Beale wrote about secular leftists and leftists in general:

“ Regardless of whether it is...Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, or the vast and corpulent mass of feminists, the Left has an observable tendency to shun debate. They assert many different reasons for doing so, but the truth is always revealed by their seemingly contradictory willingness to debate the incompetent and the overmatched....

One of the things that has been interesting to observe over time is the way that the heated attacks on me, both in public and via email, have all but disappeared even though my overall readership has never been larger. Why is this? My theory is this is because most of my critics, be they atheists, feminists, evolutionists, or free traders, have learned they simply cannot win in a direct confrontation. They can't openly criticize my ideas because they have learned, much to their surprise, that they cannot adequately defend their own.

As Aristotle pointed out more than two thousand years ago, even at the rhetorical level, the side more closely approximates the truth will tend to win out, because it is easier to argue when your arguments are based on truth rather than falsehood. Events will always ultimately prove the arguments of the global warmers, the godless, the female supremacists, the socialists, the Keynesians, and the monetarists to be false because their ideas are false. This is why a good memory is one of the most lethal weapons against them and why it is so easy to win debates against them, as given enough time, they are going to contradict themselves.

Why? Because they have no choice. Being false, their positions have to be dynamic, which means they can never hope for any significant degree of consistency. This is why ex post facto revision and double-talk are the hallmarks of the Left, and is why the first thing Leftists do when they are in a position of power is to erase history and attempt to silence any voices capable of calling attention to their fictions and contradictions.[9]

”

See also:

Soviet Union and historical revisionism

In terms of academic and popular history, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) often engaged in historical revisionism via their control of political/ideological public discourse (media, education, etc.) and via the monitoring/silencing/imprisonment/persecution of citizens through the KGB.[10]

During and subsequent to the rule of Nikita Khrushchev (1956–64), there was competition between the pro-Stalinists and anti-Stalinists in terms of how Soviet history was portrayed.[11]

Richard Dawkins, atheist atrocities, and historical revisionism

Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins

See also: Richard Dawkins, atheist atrocities, and historical revisionism and Atheism and communism

Militant atheism was a part of communist ideology and this is still the case in communist China (See: Atheism and communism). For example, in 2014, the Communist Party of China reaffirmed that members of their party must be atheists.[12][13]

Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.[14] See also: Atheism and mass murder

Dinesh D'Souza took Richard Dawkins to task for engaging in historical revisionism when it comes to the atrocities of atheist regimes and declared Dawkins "reveals a complete ignorance of history".VIDEO.

In a recent interview D'Souza declared:

“ Richard Dawkins argues that at least the atheist regimes didn't kill people in the name of atheism. Isn't it time for this biologist to get out of the lab and read a little history? Marxism and Communism were atheist ideologies. Stalin and Mao weren't dictators who happened to be atheist; atheism was part of their official doctrine.

It was no accident, as the Marxists liked to say, that they shut down the churches and persecuted the clergy...[15]

”

See also:

Dinesh D'Souza stated in another interview:

“ As one writer put it, “Leaders such as Stalin and Mao persecuted religious groups, not in a bid to expand atheism, but as a way of focusing people’s hatred on those groups to consolidate their own power.” Of course I agree that murderous regimes, whether Christian or atheist, are generally seeking to strengthen their position. But if Christian regimes are held responsible for their crimes committed in the name of Christianity, then atheist regimes should be held accountable for their crimes committed in the name of atheism. And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a “new man” and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist.[16] ”
Vladimir Lenin

Karl Marx said "[Religion] is the opium of the people". Marx also stated: "Communism begins from the outset (Owen) with atheism; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction."[17]

Vladimir Lenin similarly wrote regarding atheism and communism: "A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could."[18]

In 1955, Chinese communist leader Zhou Enlai declared, "We Communists are atheists".[19]

Atheist Daniel Dennet's commentary on Joseph Stalin

The new atheist Daniel Dennett attempted to minimize the atheism of the militant atheist Joseph Stalin. Dennett said, “ …it occurred to me—let’s think about Stalin for a moment. Was he an atheist? You might say well of course he was an atheist. No, on the contrary. In a certain sense, he wasn’t an atheist at all. He believed in god. Not only that, he believe in a god whose will determined what right and wrong was. And he was sure of the existence of this god, and the god’s name was Stalin.”[20]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Atheists Widely Distrusted, Even Among Themselves, UK Study Finds, Christian Post, 2015
  2. ↑ Anti-atheist distrust ‘deeply and culturally ingrained’, study finds, The Independent, 2015
  3. ↑ Fun with atheists by Theodore Beale
  4. ↑ Multiple references:
  5. ↑ Study: Atheists distrusted as much as rapists
  6. ↑ Atheism Doesn't Lead to Immoral Behavior - Or Does It? by Richard Deem
  7. ↑ Practical outcomes replace biblical principles as the moral standard, Barna Group
  8. ↑ [http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishes.htm The Commissar Vanishes
  9. ↑ The distaste for debate, Theodore Beale
  10. ↑ Klaus Mehnert, Stalin Versus Marx: the Stalinist historical doctrine (Translation of Weltrevolution durch Weltgeschichte) Port Washington NY: Kennikat Press 1972 (1952), on the illegitimate use of history in the 1934–1952 period
  11. ↑ Roger D. Markwick, Rewriting history in Soviet Russia : the politics of revisionist historiography, 1956–1974 New York ; Basingstoke : Palgrave, 2001, on legitimate Soviet Historiography particularly in the post 1956 period.
  12. ↑ China’s Communist Party Reaffirms Marxism, Maoism, Atheism, New American, 2014
  13. ↑ China's Communist Party Bans Believers, Doubles Down On Atheism
  14. ↑ http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM
  15. ↑ http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1053&Itemid=48
  16. ↑ http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/atheism/805-answering-atheists-regarding-war.htm
  17. ↑ http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm
  18. ↑ http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm
  19. ↑ Noebel, David, The Battle for Truth, Harvest House, 2001.
  20. ↑ Atheism
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