Katczinsky,

Sorry, I couldn't let this go by without comment.

Actually the greatest atrocities in world history have occured in the last 110 years....and have been committed by non-christian governments (Communist Russia, Communist China, Pagan Germany during the Nazi period - could also throw in Cambodia under Pol Pot and North Korea). Of the 5 governments I listed - 4 are atheistic (Communist) and one is pagan.

All the deaths attributed to Christian/Abrahamic governments in the history of the world combined to not add up to the deaths caused by these non-christian governments.

So, as far as comitting attrocities goes, atheistic governments are exponentially worse than even the worst Abrahamic government.

Sorry, but actually the worst genocides in recorded history occurred under the name of the Crusades, and the genocide and ethnic cleansing of an entire continent in the Americas. Those two were so grand that the numbers aren't even computable let alone recorded. Both of which were committed in the name of Christianity. The reason why absolute numbers don't exist from Christianity's atrocities is because they wrote history. A history that all of the parties you cite didn't have a part in writing.

I'm not excusing the atrocities committed by them, I'm just straightening out some misconceptions.

Let's start with Mao. This is debatable. Of course he committed atrocities, but most of the numbers computed by modern day analysts include those caused by drought. I've actually studied this, and if anything can be conceded, it is the combination of mother nature with a set of very bad policies into a perfect storm; not a conscious decision of ethnic cleansing like our "honorable" Christian forefathers.

Neither Mao, Stalin, nor Pol Pot committed any of these atrocities "in the name of atheism".

Hitler was a Christian, and the vast majority of the Germans who 'went along with it' were Christians. Whether or not he had a fetish for the occult is irrelevant to the topic at hand considering many of the atrocities and imperialism were in the name of the Christian God.

In addition, atrocities "committed by Communist countries" largely don't stem from a conscious genocide but a mass hysteria rising from the turmoils of revolution, usually generated from a fear of 'counter revolution'. This is something that happens in virtually all revolutions and civil wars. As an example, aside from the numbers from the drought, a good chunk of such estimations was from forces Mao didn't completely control in the first place, such as the Red Guards which pretty much amounted to teenagers with guns getting carried away. And of course Stalin's paranoia of counter-revolution and assassination.

Completely unsubstantiated.

Wow. Calling Nazi Germany a "Pagan" government is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?? That sounds like Christian hatespeak to me.

we do not percieve the universe.

we percieve the universe as it is interpreted by our senses.

i think you have it backwards. the desire to preach ones religion to eveyone else and attempt to convert them seems more due to a lack of conviction. some people need others to believe too, they feel more justified in a mass than they do alone.

perhaps this is wrong though. perhaps we should be able to measure the strength of ones faith by the ammount of preaching they do and the nuber of conversions they make. is this a valid measure of faith ?

Several points:

1. "The Crusades, especially the First Crusade, are undoubtedly the foremost Christian example of religious war. They are not only an example of one of the dangers of religion, they also serve as an excellent example of one of the primary dangers to religion, that of being co-opted and used by secual powers for secular purposes. While the First Crusade began as a religious response to an entirely secular plea for military assistance by the desperate Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, by the end, it was dominated by petty warlords scrambling for land and power. And with each susequent Crusade, the religious influences and motivations were pushed further and further aside, until by the last four Crusades, neither the Pope nor the common people whose fervor propelled so much of the religious zeal to take the Cross were involved in any way." ("The Irrational Atheist" by Vox Day)

The point being, the Crusades started as a legitimate response to outside aggression in the name of Christianity and was quickly co-opted to purposes decidedly outside Christian doctrine. In other words, they were not all Christian wars.

2. By your own admission "...the numbers aren't even computable let alone recorded." So you have no proof how many were killed. Yet somehow you can confidently say that the crusades killed more people than the efforts of modern atheists (for which I do have factual numbers). Conveniently, you slide in a comment that the actual numbers of deaths were covered up becaus the church was so powerful it could change history. This is silly on its face. The Christians were fighting Muslims and mostly they lost. So, really how much power did the church have?

Secondly, a quick scan of various websites (pro and anti Christianity) put the total number of deaths during the Crusades somewhere between 1 and 9 million.

For just the communist governments I listed in my previous post (and note communism has only been around for about 90 years compared to Christianity's 2000 years or the Cursade's 200 years ): USSR: 61,911,000 deaths, China: 76,702,000 deaths, Cambodia: 2,627,000 deaths, North Korea: 3,163,000.

Still waiting.

Belief in a Creator is more rational and makes greater sense than atheism.

I like discussing my beliefs, but you don't like discussing yours. This makes me wonder if you believe anything.

Why do you disagree with Christianity? What is it about my faith that you disagree?

3. One might buy into the idea that millions of deaths in the Chinese communist uprising was actually attributable to a drought, if the case history for atheistic regimes was not so ironclad in its verdict that - where atheists rule, people suffer and die. Or could there have been droughts in Vietnam, USSR, and a perpetual one in North Korea?

4. As to Hitler's Christianity, even Richard Dawkins acknowledges that most of Hitler's quotes of being Christian came before 1934 (while he was still running for public office) and there are many quotes that reveal a deep hated for Christianity. This is what he says; "It is possible that Hitler had by 1941 experienced some kind of deconversion or disillusionment with Christianity. Or is the resolution of the contraditions simply that he was an opportunistic liar whose words cannot be trusted either way?" ("The God Delusion" pg 276 - Richard Dawkins)

Hitler was not a Christian, however Hitler was no atheist either. There is evidence to "...suggest that he was a pagan who was skeptical, but open to the possibility of acquiring temporal power through supernatural means.
The Thule Society that founded the German Worker's Party that was the predecessor of the Nazi Party, was an esoteric society connected with the occultist Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists. Hitler was the fifty-fith member fo the DAP, which was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or NASDAP, only four months after he joined on October 19, 1919." ("The Irrational Atheist pg 211 - Vox Day).