Against homosexuals, many Christians discriminate because a book tells them god smiles upon such bigotry. Ditto Muslims and Jewish people. I can connect the actions of religious people to their belief in specific books.
You cannot, however, connect the actions of atheists to anything. Regardless of interpretation, the Westboro Baptist Church founder and the preacher at the Presbyterian Church closest to my home follow the same guide.
While many religious people would love to compare me to Mao, I'm mature enough to admit there's a huge difference between the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church and the local Presbyterian preacher. The former protests at military funerals because America tolerates homosexuality while the latter only mutters things such as, "While perverse, at least Married with Children was a show about straight people," as he flips past reruns of Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and The L Word, on his way the 700 Club.
While I will not connect average American Christians to mass killing, I cannot deny that organized religion has been responsible for much brutality over the centuries. Still is.
And again, we can tie religion directly to the brutality, while no religious person can tie atheism to the hurting of a fly! Despite this, religious folks point to bad deeds done by atheists and say, "see what atheism made them do!"
Wrong! Words often inspire the committing of atrocities. Atheists share no manuscript.
If the only thing you religious people had in common was a belief in god, no one could tie your actions together. When the faithful committed crimes, but could not point to a text that told them their vile actions were justified, it would mean they didn't thumb their nose at the law specifically because of their belief in god; rather they thumbed their nose at the law because it satisfied a personal desire.
No atheist handbook told Joseph Stalin, "You shall build four gulags in the summer and four more in the winter." Many religious military generals, on the other hand, opened their book of choice nightly to remind themselves that each drop of innocent blood they spilled was extremely pleasing to their deity.
It's safe to say that many "religion-made-me-do-it" criminals would have failed to act inappropriately had they not been repeatedly told their cruel actions were noble. There's nothing atheistic that caused unbelievers to commit horrific acts, which means nothing could have been removed from their lives that would have resulted in a clean rap sheet. And an infusion of religion into the life of the aforementioned Joseph Stalin, for example, would have made it easier for the man to spread evil because most religious works promote monetary equality regardless of toil.
I'd also like to point out that most atheists don't mention the fact that mass cruelty has been perpetrated in the name of religion because we're attempting to convert the masses; we're simply warning everyone about the danger religion poses when it spreads from the church.
In addition to a reduction in stoning deaths of alleged adulterers and sexual assault victims, we'd like to prevent religious folks from forcing us to live by the many nonsensical rules in their books - whether or not they claim it is their sincere belief that such statutes further public safety. If you promise to keep your religion out of the voting booth, i.e., out of my house, public schools, and the place I'm trying to buy a bottle of vodka at 3:00 in the morning, I'll even help you recruit!
Whether we're talking mass murder or discrimination, the bottom line is that we need to focus on the complete elimination of cruelty. The best method for achieving our goal is to promote freedom, base laws on common sense, and stop heaping scorn upon individuals who follow said common sense laws, regardless of the sexual practices they carry out with other consenting adults.
Since I'm after only freedom and safety for all, I would like to put an end to the one-upmanship. I'm speaking specifically of Christian apologists who boast that religion has grown over the years while atheists will soon suffer the fate of the dinosaur. The majority of Saudi Arabians believe the practice of stoning alleged adulterers is righteous because that's what they've been taught by their religious elders. In other words, I'm not quite ready to concede I'm wrong simply because I'm in the minority.
Okay, now let's end the one-upmanship.
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