Summations Only

All of the territory that is the US today was taken by genocide as well as all of South America, and in both cases one of the dominate tools used was Christianity and the forced imposition of Western Christianity to replace whatever cultures, religions, national identities that existed.

Yes, if that is the tool used then the religion must assume responsibility.

If political powers use religion as a tool and members of that religion allow that use, then the religion is at least complicit, if not responsible.

but the use of religion was intentional and accepted as a desired goal.

Certainly, whether the people have the liberty to act or not should be a factor in determining the level of responsibility they have.

we can attribute enough atrocities that we know were directly attributed to relgiosity throughout history

religion does not have the so called moral high ground it claims it has. We can give enough examples of people who either commited atrocities in the name of religion, or who were religious, to say that morality is irrespective of religion.

So, let's get this straight ... if I were to slay a bunch of people "because God wants them dead", that would be a religious reason, but if God does exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason, it isn't?

You are missing the one important point. The only people who need to add the deaths in the bible to their tally are the people who believe that the Bible is a historically accurate book.If they have arrived at their position of moral superiority by counting the death toll of the respective teams, then they need to make sure that they count the deaths in the bible.Only those who belive that the biblical deaths did occur need to do this.

From what I can understand, Purple Dawn and now Catholic scientist do not think that the deaths at the hands of God are religiously motivated.

How can killing people for not following the instructions of god only count as religiously motivated when a person does it, but not when God does it himself?

So if I killed nearly every person on earth because they are breaking gods rules, that would be religiously motivated. Yet if god kills nearly every person on earth because they are breaking his rules, then it is not religiously motivated.What a load of bullshit.

This is some sort of pointless distraction argument designed to lead people away from the actual discussion.

Lets say I am a bible literalist and I say that I am moraly superior to you. You ask me to provide my count. I include all of the deaths from the history books that I have (including the bible). You count up all of the deaths from the history books you have. My position of moral superiority has been created using the bible as fact. I have come to my position using the bible as fact. I provide my numbers of the deaths, including those deaths cause by god and you tell me that I cannot use those figures because you do not believe that my religious book is fact. I have based my whole fucking life around this book. Including my position on morality. And you, you arrogant fuck are going to stand/sit there and tell me that my book is fictitious so my position is invalid? You are telling me that I cannot have developed my own opinions because the book I based my opinions on is not fact in your view.Does that hypothetical situation seem sensible to you at all?Why do you swear on the bible in court if it is just a book?Why dont you go down to a court house and tell them that they should just throw their bibles away. the book is not true, so swearing on a bible should mean nothing. But to a lot of people it does mean something. It does not matter that it is a work of fiction.Why do people (Message 113) automatically give Christopher Hitchins a hard time because he wrote a negative review of Mother Teresa?Because people develop their opinions and positions on things that are often not true. That does not make their position any less real.How about you go talk to the Jews and tell them that they dont have to circumcise their baby boys anymore because even though they believe that they have to, you are right and they are wrong, the bible is a work of fiction so it can all stop.Then you can head over to Africa and tell them all that condoms are OK again because the popes position is based on a work of fiction so everyone can tarp up whan they fuck from now on. (the church has recently changed their position on this issue)Then you can tell the Jehovahs witnesses that its ok for them to have blood transfuctions because their book is a work of fiction, you are right about this and they are wrong. it does not matter if they believe it to be true. They just need to do whatever you say because you say so.Then you can do a big 'Purple Dawn saves us all' world fucking tour. you will need to visit many nations and you can tell all of the crazy islamic extremists that there is no heaven. Their book is a work of fiction so there is no reason to perform any actions or develop any opinions using the book. They will tell you it is fact. You can nod and smile in a condescending way and just keep telling them you are right and they are wrong. Tell them that they need not develop any opinions of positions on the teachings of their book, even if they do believe that it is fact because it is not. Any they should take your word for it.People do some very stange things and develop strong opinions based on the teachings of their favourite holy book.People develop their opinions of morals on their holy book.I know that you can be justified in saying that their opinion may not be valid in all debates.But who the fuck are you to tell them that their own opinions are not valid because you do not believe that their holy book is true.I could base my morals on the 'Clifford the Big Red Dog Books' if I wanted to. And I could do a damn sight worse. Would my moral position be invalid because the books are a work of fiction? Of course they wouldnt. Just because the events that have lead me to my current position did not happen in your view does not mean they cannot be an effective means of justifying a personal position.

The right one, obviously.

It's not clear.

Portillo writes: He backed up everything he said? Atheistic regimes have killed over 100 million people. Thats 10,000 times more than all religious atrocities put together since the beginning of time.

"Because God wants it" is pretty much the only religious reason, in the last analysis.

Religious
1: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity
2: of, relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances

I think he has angels to do that for him.

No, but he might have.

Well, the religious beliefs referred to in 2 mostly seem to take the form "God thinks this", "God wants that", "God would like me to put the following group to death ..."

An important, but potentially off-topic, point should be made here. They don't seem to know anything, they profess the belief that he is above all that nonsense but they don't seem to know that.There is no reason to discount the possibility that God is following his own religious views about the universe. That religion maybe about super-supernatural things, or it could be strangely self-referential. We don't know and we can't know. I suppose believing something strongly might give the appearance of knowing, but it doesn't fool most of us skeptics

I agree. That's why in Message 173 I mentioned the deaths that men caused in the Bible as a result of their religious beliefs, rather than deaths that God directly caused.

Can anyone who thinks that their god killed 15,000 people for complaining (Numbers 16) really claim the moral high ground? Can they claim it over people that simply lack the belief that their god did any thing at all?

Do you ever post anything about religion that doesn't illuminate your deep hatred and total ignorance of the subject?