Comments for Bookrate

Comment on Deaths over history: religious vs. nonreligous by Rev. Judy

Rev. Judy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:44:46 +0000

One thing for sure, political leaders have used religion to justify their wars since time began because they need to raise armies to take what they want from others.
Religion is a powerful organizer of people.
When will we ever learn?

Comment on Just read Revelations by Michael

Michael — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:49:28 +0000

Denial is so much easier isn’t it…

The fossil record must be planted…just ask the Baptists…..sigh

Comment on Deaths over history: religious vs. nonreligous by bob

bob — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:19:08 +0000

LOL THAT IS FUNNY :)

Comment on Deaths over history: religious vs. nonreligous by bob

bob — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:17:33 +0000

can someone give a simple answer! with muslim deaths, christian deaths, and total number of deaths

Comment on Deaths over history: religious vs. nonreligous by Greg Shenaut

Greg Shenaut — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:32:03 +0000

My particular interest stems from the Pope’s recent comment about healing the “wounds caused by atheism” in the former Soviet Union. I found this remark extremely hypocritical for several reasons: he ignored the entire question of “wounds caused by religion”; he ignores the fact that in general, anti-clerical movements, including bolshevism but also including other movements such as French Republicanism, form in reaction to abuses of religion. In effect, their goal has often been precisely to heal the “wounds caused by religion” by substituting atheism, an effort which while it has definitely helped in quite a few instances, has also gone really, really bad in others. The pope also ignores the very relevant fact that, as pointed out in the comments here, religion is often used as an excuse to commit wars and other atrocities. By itself, it is likely that religious differences alone would have caused only a fraction of the abuses attributed to religion. And this also works in reverse: only a fraction of the abuses in the “atheist” Soviet Union are due solely to the desire to suppress religion, there are a raft of political, ethnic, and economic factors that are much more important. It is also important to point out that in the context of totalitarian Communism, atheism was only a small aspect of the ideology. In a fashion somewhat similar to the anticlericalism of the French revolution, which stemmed from the fact that the Church was the primary ideological base on monarchism, the anticlericalism of the bolcheviks was tied to the religious abuses of the tsars. In both cases, atheism was a reaction to and a recognition of the fact that the church was the direct, explicit enemy of the revolution, and that the revolution could not survive unless the power of the church was destroyed. However, this doesn’t mean that Communism or Republicanism = Atheism, that would be a very false equivalence.

Comment on Saddam’s Hanging by Dominique

Dominique — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:02:00 +0000

I forgot to add, a quote I read that seemed appropriate
“An eye for an eye, leaves everyone blind”.

Comment on Saddam’s Hanging by Dominique

Dominique — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:00:08 +0000

I agree with your religion definition. However, a theory is a system of ideas (not beliefs: belief is something that someone thinks is already true, an idea is a something believed to be probable) that is based on fundamental truths. Religion is absolutely not a theory. Religion is a belief system.
Your remark that evolution is religion, demonstrates you have absolutely no understanding what evolution is and have done minimal if any research into what evolution is indeed. As I’m sure you won’t listen, I will not explain what it is. But your remarks that men died in the name of evolution, proves your increasing ignorance, as does your misspelling of Karl Marx and your implication that the Communist Manifesto is based on evolution and not on economics. In case you didn’t know Hitler drew most of his support from the fact that christians and catholics (explicitly the pope) hated Jews; that’s a BELIEF caused by faith and having nothing to do with the theory of evolution.
People draw their own beliefs from evolution or fanatical thoughts – but those beliefs are independent of what evolution is. Whatever Hitler or the Japanese thought about the purity of their race had to do with their government and its propaganda and their own beliefs about the importance of nationality and the jewish heritage; it had nothing to do that we all come from monkeys. Evolution supports that fact that we all change; that is quite the opposite from being of aerian race or jewish.
And abortion? You have yet to explain what the theory of evolution has to do with abortion.

Evolution has had nothing to do with death or suffering; it is the liberation of the mind from the ignorance of creationism. It is the expansion of knowledge about our species; not the purification of it.

I don’t know where you got your “facts” or how your beliefs and methods of defining words developed, but your comment deserves to be in the trash, however I felt the need to respond nonetheless.

As a response to your article at hand; no human has the right to choose to take another’s life when not in danger. I was in india during his death and all the stores closed down, which for whatever reasons they did it for (a martyr for some) I think it was an appropriate response to a inhumane act of what some falsely claim as “justice”.

Comment on Deaths over history: religious vs. nonreligous by anon

anon — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:34:03 +0000

this

Comment on Deaths over history: religious vs. nonreligous by Arandur

Arandur — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:38:31 +0000

And the distortions continue. In addition to the time scale problem already noted, the blogger claims casualties for ALL “religious” wars and attributes them to Jesus. Rubbish.

Of course, most wars, even if religion is cited, are fought for primarily political/economic/statist reasons. Islam’s Jihads are a major exception.

Even if we were to accept all these wars as primarily religious, and if we don’t accept defense as a valid motive, seems only some of those wars could be attributed to the Christian side. It’s also unclear what stats are being used; often numerous death tolls are referenced, and these often vary hugely (even by a magnitude of 100 times). Knowing a fair bit of European history, I know that a great deal of those numbers are hugely distorted. As was pointed out earlier, one really need only take a look at population statistics to get the first inkling that something is wrong.

A more accurate comparison can be made in more recent history. It’s also rather more interesting to compare the questions of violence done by each religion in comparison to the size of its population. I would include Atheism as a religion in this matter, in which case you’d have to chalk all the massacres due to communism and militant socialism (Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franko’s Spain, etc.). That list alone is staggering, giving the lie to the idea that Atheism is somehow more peaceful than religion. That’s especially true when you’re talking about modern conditions–modern Atheism is vastly more violent than any religion with the possible exception of Islam. It’s past isn’t glamorous, either (Ghenghis Khan as the “Scourge of God” routinely slaughtered whole cities, man, woman, and child).

Comment on Just read Revelations by Collins Bradford

Collins Bradford — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:52:27 +0000

I used to be a staunch believer in evolution until I stopped believing a lot of what I read in text books, and what I heard from those I wanted to believe, because it served my own purposes and beliefs. After 8 years of study into imperical evidences and into historical convictions and cases of fraud involving evolution’s most cherished icons, I’ve come about full-circle. I agree with the Chinese’s original pre-communistic view that the world is approx. 6000 years old— and forget about whether some god or aliens planted the seeds– the claim of evolution is totally bogus, physically impossible and violates most of the laws we have come to accept in mathematics and physics. It is physically impossible for Darwinian biology and the laws of physics to both, be true. All the math that isn’t based on metaphysical assumptions at its deepest core, point to a young earth.