World History With The Pope
Dec 13, 2007 Funny Stuff
Tags: atrocities, cruelty, injustice, pope, world history
Recent Post
- Cargo cult lives on in South Pacific
- Atheist may sue if law on Las Vegas officiants won’t change
- Bent vows touching girls not sexual
- My Magic Didn’t Save My Baby - I Forgot To Use The Moon Crystals
- By The Book
- Richard Dawkins Lecture at UC Berkeley
- Answers to Apologetic Claims about DNA and the Book of Mormon
- Email Time!
- Scum of the Earth
- Top Islamic body: Yoga is not for Muslims
Recent Comments
- shahnawaz:is this the way you people nat
- Richard:If the right reverend was righ
- Allah:These guys seriously took what
- Macca:All religions are the cause of
- Ramin:shame of u,, the islam is not
- KOPOK:Kopok sira, GOBLOG !!!
- Private:Islam is the greatest threat t
- UpsennyorepsyDrern:xukriqtopvrmifzewell, hi admin
- Xooxer:@pat: That movie is a mixed ba
- Ben:Your cartoons are very hateful
December 13th, 2007 at 6:22pm
He really looks like Ratzinger/Beenedict XVI…
I’m scared…
December 13th, 2007 at 7:10pm
that’s effing hilarious!
December 13th, 2007 at 8:33pm
Too funny! Well, sort of sad… but funny!
December 16th, 2007 at 3:29pm
I’ve long said this: the godists accuse rational thinkers of being immoral, since, of course, all morality springs from their god. Yet, they are the ones perpetrating the atrocities.
Oh, sure, some atheists do bad things, too. But in their case it is merely incidental. Theists commit atrocities BECAUSE they’re theists.
My advice: steer clear of them. If you get enough believers together, somebody is going to be tortured, killed or enslaved. All in the name of god, of course.
December 16th, 2007 at 3:50pm
kjd, that belongs on The Onion.
Isn’t that being a bit prejudice? Its not like we are all massive killers who destroy anything that we think is wrong. That small number of theists who do commit these crimes have a lack of understanding of our God, or they are using religion as a cover-up for something TRULY “irrational.”
Anyway, can you call yourself a rational thinker if you have never really thought about why we believe what we do? Remember, most of the atheists come out of the Industrial Revolution, so the real reason why you guys are here is because of something irrational.
December 16th, 2007 at 8:11pm
Hi Chad . . . you’re one silly rabbit. Get thee to a library — or do some intelligent searching on the Net.
Some of the roots of atheism go back almost 600 years before an alleged Jesus was born! [It’s a pity that god didn’t send his supposed son to Athens to get a decent education.]
The earliest recorded nonconformist thinker in the West is probably Xenophanes (580-490 BCE):
But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own-horses like horses, cattle like cattle. [Zeller, 525, n. 2. Diog Laer. iii. 16; Cic. de nat. Deor. i. 27.]
[T]here has not been a man, nor will there be, who knows distinctly what I say about the gods or in regard to all things, for even if one chances for the most part to say what is true, still he would not know; but every one thinks he knows. [Zeller, 549, n. 2. Burnett, 'All are free to guess.']
When we look to China, we find Confucius (c. 500 BCE) in the Analects (6:20):
Fan Ch’ih asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said, “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”
The philosopher Epicurus (340-270 BCE) has consistently been label a nontheist. You can find him damned by Dante (c. 1315 CE) in the Inferno for claiming that the soul is mortal and dies with the body. Epicureanism was always an underground stream in the West and even in Islam; one still running strongly today.
“The four part cure” — four conclusions from Epicurus’ atomic and hedonistic views, written by Philodemus in the Herculaneum papyri c. 100 BCE.
Don’t fear god,
Don’t worry about death,
What is good, is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
Explicit atheism — always dangerous because of guaranteed persecution by offended rulers (polytheistic and xian) — came in the person of Baron d’Holbach in The System of Nature (Le Système de la nature 1770). It was published anonymously nonetheless.
“If we go back to the beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned or disfigured them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them, and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests.”
None of these high points in rational nonconformity comes from the “Industrial Revolution.” That much should now be obvious even to you.
Rational skepticism has a far longer (and more noble) lineage than xianity.
bipolar2
c. 2007
December 16th, 2007 at 9:27pm
dude…. what?
December 16th, 2007 at 10:17pm
Bipolar hit it out of the park with that post.fuck your various gods!
December 16th, 2007 at 11:50pm
Just “Stumbled Upon” this blog. Great sense of humor. I have added you to my RSS feeder and will be back for more. Stop by and check me out sometime.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:21am
Chad, There have always been athiests. Only recently has the oppresion of the church relaxed enough for us to begin expressing ourselves publicly. Where would we be if the church had not oppressed science for close to a thousand years?
December 17th, 2007 at 1:57pm
CHAD - “can you call yourself a rational thinker if you have never really thought about why we believe what we do?”
Actually, I was one who believed as you do, I completely understand why you believe as you do. I too was raised in the church, went to religious schools for many years, was in religious youth groups and even volunteered a lot of my time to my church. First I got tired of the pious attitudes and phony “Sunday Christians” who would bow their heads in prayer then go back to being scoundrels, then I started questioning the political sermons in my church that had nothing to do with morals or caring, then I started questioning the words of the Bible itself, then I started educating myself on the history of religion, both Christian and all others, and finally I came to the realization it was all a human construct from our ancestors who had no other way of explaining the world around them and it was only still held on to because of various political and social pressures, personal desires and often time self-righteousness.
To steal the words of a wise man, “We are all atheists Chad, I just believe in one fewer god than you do.”
December 17th, 2007 at 4:13pm
Why do you feel the need to make a religion out of atheism?
All I ever see is atheists knocking the established religions.
Uh, check your history. The Christians were unorganised, secretive, communicating with codes, the fish was a unifying symbol. Later, the Romans herded them together in colosseums where lions mauled them to death. They banded together and formed a unitary force - an established religion.
Not unlike this US-brand of atheism.
Our maybe a father maybe not, Who may be in a place called heaven, but there has been no sign of it in the Hubble telescope. Hallowed be thy name, or is it Jeff? Or Dave. Unusual name, Hallowed - bit like Harold. Give us this day our daily bread, come one, we are sick of working our butts off for minimum wage - give us some extra bread, man. Forgive us our trespasses - please, the redneck around the corner reckons he shoots trespassers. As we forgive those that trespass against us - whoa there. I ain’t gonna get my draws in a twist just ’cause somebody needed to cut a corner across my lawn. Lead us not into temptation; well, not so much from Sunday to Thursday, but come the weekend, whoohoo, let her rip. Deliver us from what evil?
Let those poor souls go on believing we will all burn in hell. Tell you what, if it is a choice of hell or heaven with that lot, show me the way downstairs!
I have no need to convince them that there is no god, just as I don’t feel the need to listen to any of their BS
December 17th, 2007 at 7:41pm
“Its not like we are all massive killers who destroy anything that we think is wrong.” Chad i agree that most theists are normal people that dig ditches with the rest of us godless types but it is your tacit support of religion that allows fanatics like Jerry Falwell, the Ayatollah, the Pope, etc to gain ridiculous amounts of political gravitas and financial backing. Power has always been derived from the masses and religion provides a great way to hide the exploitation behind blind faith that you will be ultimately rewarded, that this life is unimportant in the face of eternity. Also the fact that religion provides answers that are otherwise left difficult or unanswerable (ie. “Why are we here?) makes theism seem wise and brimming with knowledge. Unfortunately theism is obviously not those things when people start flying airplanes into buildings or sell an entire army of european youths into slavery(check out the children’s crusade, top notch). Anyway i could wax sarcastic all day about this but in summation, there are sins of omission as well as those of commission. By not fighting it you are allowing it to flourish, Pope Benedict knows all about that.
And by the way Chad why is the industrial revolution irrational. I am tired of theists making ridiculous statements without providing proof or worse shifting the onus on to atheists. That makes you illogical and all the spurious filth coming from your mouth can not be taken seriously. This is true BECAUSE by not backing your statements you have failed to make a logical argument.
http://www.daltonator.net/durandal/creationism/fallacies.shtml
This is a good site for getting basics of how to deflate illogical theist arguments if you aren’t up on your pure logic. In any case thank you Chad for allowing me to vent a bit, i hope you don’t feel persecuted or somehow subject to a fatwa.
Peace be with you, As-Salāmu `Alaykum, namaste, Shalom Aleichem
December 17th, 2007 at 10:11pm
I have been looking for primary sources that would support my argument that Atheism became popular during the Industrial Revolution. Sadly, websites either charge you to see their 100-year old information, or archives just don’t have the censuses. (which really annoys me)
Anyway, here’s my point:
I wasn’t talking about famous atheists. I was talking about the average population.
We all know at about the times of the 16th century to the 19th century (and even before) Catholicism was the largest religion around in Europe. (which meant it was popular in the Americas, too) When the textile factories in Europe were produced, industry “boomed.” Along with this was what some could consider the torture of the lower class of people in Europe. These people worked from about 18 to 20 hours a day in terrible conditions with low pay: it was even worse for the children. So you can imagine, when the people were given a day of rest on Sunday for church, what they would do. Of course you wouldn’t go to church when you had probably had just gotten home from that torturous work!
These people never considered themselves (or were considered) atheists. They believed they were just skipping church so they can support their family. But it became a habit. And once a habit begins to control your life, its hard to stop it. Especially when your children and your children’s children have problems with it.
bipolar2: I hope I showed my understanding of the Industrial Revolution for my last comment.
Stupid Git: Sorry, I wasn’t focusing on the atheist people as whole when I said that. Mostly, I was arguing that kjd himself may not personally state he is a rational thinker until he understands both sides of a situation. (By the way, I’m not very good at that either. So I can’t consider myself a rational thinker) By the way, I’m not saying that only atheists need to change in this manner.
Slideshow Bob: So your saying religion is used as a fear tool to control people and make them do terrible and illogical things? That’s true. But communism was a fear tool used during the McCarthyism era. What about the [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Soviet_Union#Genocide"] Soviet Gencide[/a] that existed throughout (almost) the whole 20th century? And remember the [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool"]McMartin Preschool[/a] trials of the 1980s? We have committed great sins in our life, but the same thing has been done in even the most logical parts of life. We believe that Global Warming will destroy us in weeks or days, when actually every good scientist knows that something as bad as [i]The Day After Tomorrow[/i] won’t happen in 1000 years.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:13pm
Woah Chad my friend, America was founded by and by the turn of the 20th century still largely protestant. All the major cities were protestant founded, New York(Dutch-Calvinist) Boston(Puritans and Anglicans), Philadelphia(Quakers with German and French Protestants filling in the hinterlands). People were coming here because Catholic Europe was none too kind to Reformationists, check out the Huegenots (didnt check spelling and i dont care they are just as crazy as other theists). Not to mention the fact that England controlled the colonies for decades or even a century or more before the Revolution, being Anglican they were not quite best of friends with any Catholic nation and that religion was only large in Maryland(Mary Queen of Scotts was Catholic what a coincidence and so was the founder Lord Baltimore who was part of a tiny minority of English Catholics). Dont get me wrong the Scotts were good Catholics but not really involved in colonization in any capacity other than military service. No wonder our first Catholic president was JFK, WASPs are just more prevalent because they have been here longer and in larger numbers
Also i didn’t realize being an atheist made you a pinko. First don’t confuse Stalin’s disastrous ideology with pure communism. He simply made himself a cult of personality on top of malevolent despotism with a front of being communist. McCarthy was the same kind of person, its just much harder to put people to death in a democracy. These are great examples of fear mongers preying on the weak minded and uninformed. Second when did i say that jake gyllenhall will be trapped in new york and rescued by randy quaid. Please don’t put words in my or any other person’s mouth, i know where yours have been and i am not up to date on my vaccines. Day After was just a movie, and a bad one at that. Global Climate change is happening and always will because the environment changes, both naturally and now due to human intervention. Nor will it be as dramatic as that movie, but the problem does arise from consumption of non renewable resources and when a certain nation bases its economy on said resource. Atheist believe movies have the answers as much as the Flying Spaghetti Monster does.
Finally thank you for agreeing that religion is a tool for exploiting fear and exerting a false authority over the masses and that all good scientists do not take their intellectual cues from Hollywood.
As always peace be with you
PS Christians please start living like Jesus instead of just worshipping him. He seems to have been a pretty nice guy. Plus he was gone almost right after people got tired of hearing his rhetoric. Nothing says i love you like an agonizing and humiliating death.
December 20th, 2007 at 12:58pm
Wow! Everyone thinks they’re an expert on religion. How about this? Theists, atheists… you don’t know a thing for sure! Everything you argue about here is entirely based on faith. Theists have faith god exists. They believe an afterlife awaits those who seek peace and community with those around them. Atheists have faith that evolution occurred and that science can guide us. And atheists, don’t give me crap about evolution being proven, ITS NOT. It is a well accepted THEORY (look up definition). There is no way to test this theory (as any hypothesis normally requires). Where are the bridging species? Where is the current evolution taking place? Bottom line, Im sick of atheists and theists constantly bickering back and forth, saying one or the other is wrong! Get over it, you don’t know. Religious folks, go on believing you will be saved. Atheists, enjoy becoming soil nutrients when you die. peaceout
December 20th, 2007 at 2:16pm
nicolas.its hard to say where we would be, but im not sure it would be much more better off than we are now!!!we’d be living in a utopia or not….
December 20th, 2007 at 3:29pm
Drewski: You’re an agnostic that doesn’t see that Evolution is true? What are you, a Scientologist? Grow up.
December 20th, 2007 at 6:56pm
Drewski: you really don’t get science, do you? Nor the various meanings of the word “faith”.
I have “faith” that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have “faith” that if I drop a glass it will always fall towards the centre of the earth. This is somewhat different from believing, without a shred of evidence, that the universe was created by an omniscient, omnipotent, invisible being.
One “faith” is prediction through observation; one is blind conviction based on anecdotes. One is rational; the other is delusional. One is reconsidering your position should new evidence come to light; one is putting your fingers in your ears and shouting “Not listening!” when faced with criticism. One is disprovable; the other is not. And playing silly little semantic games does not change this one bit no matter how much the believers would like it to.
Furthermore, you clearly have you have absolutely no clue what the word “theory” actually means to a scientist, have you? None. Not a sausage. Here’s a clue:
GRAVITY (look up definition).
And by the way: I’ve personally witnessed (as in watched it happen) evolution occurring many times e.g. the backmutation of bacteria, changes in allele frequencies in fruit flies. Like I said, you really don’t understand science or evolution. Or English.
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:44am
hehehe, No offense, I have a kitchen magnet with Jesus and the stereotype 50’s guy in a suit, and the guy is saying to Jesus …
“Dear Jesus, Save me from your followers”
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:27am
Hey Drewski, if you’re sick of the theist/atheist bickering, what in the hell are you doing hanging around this website for? If you hadn’t noticed this is a place just for such debate. Maybe you really ought to reconsider how you spend your free time (and get a better grasp of the english language).
December 26th, 2007 at 3:55pm
I like raw fish rather than precooked meals and I get very few phon(y)ecalls from God and therefore I am not bothering Him and hope He will not bother me:because I am a little afrfaid of that guy who sent his only Beloved son to be killed for us all. I feel sorry for him, because he made His wife into a vergin after having given birth; that poor thing: imagine the trouble she went through!
December 26th, 2007 at 3:57pm
what’s all that nonses about?
January 4th, 2008 at 6:17am
I believe that some spritual component is part of our makeup as humans, whatever one wants to call it. That doesn’t mean that one should believe in fairy tales or help preserve the insanity that we should have left behind long ago. Here’s a rhetorical question for athiests and a very pointed one for theists-especially the xtian and muslim firebrands who continue to kill:
If God is the author of morality , isn’t “He” also the author of LOGIC, you sick motherfuckers?
Great panels, excuse me while I throw up. This pope guy scares hell outta me too!
January 5th, 2008 at 1:33am
“If God is the author of morality , isn’t “He” also the author of LOGIC, you sick motherfuckers?”
Indeed. (Well, only after God gets over the really small issue that he doesn’t fucking exist). Why, then, should we stop using logical thinking to understand the universe? Most religions (if not all of them) go in the exact opposite direction of reason, logic, intelligence, etc.
Drewski, your complete lack of understanding about science, and evolution in particular, leaves me astonished. Well, at least you didn’t used the annoying “if we descent from mokeys why are there mokeys still around, explain that if you’re so smart” bullshit.
Great blog, I think I’m bookmarking it
January 6th, 2008 at 6:18am
chad, i’m really glad I am me and not you.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:37pm
You are all wrong. the answer is here.
http://bronsonville.myminicity.com/
March 6th, 2008 at 1:41pm
So how exactly does the fact that Christians and Muslims have killed disarm the popes statement???
Anyways: “…makes theism seem wise and brimming with knowledge. Unfortunately theism is obviously not those things when people start flying airplanes into buildings or sell an entire army of european youths into slavery…” followed by “…if you aren’t up on your pure logic.” is one of the bigger laughs I got during the last weeks. Or is “ignoratio elenchi” suddenly not a term that should be in in people’s vocabulary anymore when they jump into the cold waters of “pure logic”?
Two Conclusions:
1.) Religious people never do any good and if they do it doesn’t count.
2.) Atheists never commit atrocities and if they do their atrocities are kind of like y’know not all that bad.
Always nice to get a glimpse of what “enlightenment” really boils down to these days.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:28pm
What? This doesn’t even make sense and there’s a lot of historical and statistical problems in it.