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Comment by monochromatic | Hacker News Reader

That’s... just evil. Even atheists generally support people’s freedom to read and believe as they please.

Why "even atheists"? Historically, atheists are not even close to the biggest aggressors against Christians. That would be other Christians, probably followed by Muslims (during the ascendancy of the Caliphates).

Christians have been persecuted by polytheists, atheists, Muslims, and many others. Ancient Rome sent many Christians to the lions. The USSR had official state atheism, for example, and persecuted Christians. Certainly Christians have persecuted other Christians, but I think there's little evidence that Christians have been the dominant ones. Much more info is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians

On the other hand, clearly many atheists allow others to have different beliefs, including Christian beliefs, and to allow religious texts to be distributed (such as the Bible).

This seems to be much more about power and control over the Chinese people.

That page simply ignores the Christian-on-Christian violence. Where's the Thirty Years' War, "one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in human history"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

Quote from that page about the Thirty Years War: "Initially a war between various Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers. These states employed relatively large mercenary armies, and the war became less about religion and more of a continuation of the France–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence."

In particular, you have Catholic France against the Catholic Habsburgs, and the issues were not doctrinal. Not what you would expect if this was a war about religion. This was not a war about religion primarily, by the time most of the deaths occurred.

No major conflict is only about religion, including those listed in your link. They're always about power.

But to your specific point, France only entered the war almost twenty years after it started.

Late Christopher Hitchens had a brilliant answer to the atheistic USSR persecuting Christians: Stalin was building his own cult. As an ignostic or anti-theist (depending on when you ask me) I do not want to have anything in common with the cult-building monsters of past, present or future.

That's a transparent no-true-Scotsman. If it violates the argument just redefine the terms.

I assume it's because the Chinese government is officially atheist. (You could also add 20th century Communism to your list of significant persecutors -- not the same as the modern Chinese Communist party, but surely atheist.)

This has nothing to do with religion or what people believe. This is about control. Religion is another source of authority, which the Chinese government will never tolerate. This is also why there is a campaign to promote the more traditional Confucian values: obedience to your elders and emperor (now replace emperor with government) and be a useful member of a hierarchy.

As an atheist i can't even see why they would ban it. It's a mish mash of traditional views, fallacies , contradictions and stories. Studying it should teach you see all these things.

To make a bad comparison, not everyone can develop antibodies upon mild exposure to a virus.

A bad comparison indeed.

The stories include a historical person named Jesus who started a new religion after he died and was seen by his followers being alive after he was dead. These followers went on to become martyrs voluntarily.

I think it's pretty obvious why the Chinese government is so afraid of the Bible, since historically, people's lives have been changed dramatically based on what is inside the Bible. The Bible can only lead to instability.

Ditto. By banning something, they just encourage people to seek it. Better to just expose the kookiness of all religions.

Do they? Many notable atheists are known for their disdain of Abrahamic religions and how they poison minds of uneducated majority of the world.

Even strident atheists (Bill Maher) are not exactly picky about mocking whatever form of "invisible friend" you delude yourself with.

It's just easy to mock an overgrown persecution complex and blatant hypocrisy on high-profile Christian/evangelists.

Bill Maher is a TV personality. I’d not consider a representative of atheism. Richard Dawkins or Christoper Hitchens would be better candidates. Bill Maher is mostly a comedian.

Thanks for the downvotes btw, as a Christian critical of evangelists and similar conmen I don’t really care.

You should read some writings of Einstein and other great scientists btw, hardcore atheism is very radical niche and even most evolutionary biologists and theoretical physicists don’t believe it.

"Even atheists"? Are atheists pretty evil, but not quite this evil? Are atheists well-known for being anti-freedom? Why "even atheists"?

I think they meant that it is evil; also atheiest-- people who do not believe in any religion, would not do such a thing.

I think just because atheists don’t tend to care for the book. But yeah we’re typically less in to banning books than religious people so it is an odd comment.

Athiests (the community) are known for being outspoken about the damage that certian religions have caused and are causing, but they're also known for supporting the free exchange of ideas including those that they think are harmful. Atheists (the definition) aren't known for anything because atheism doesn't demand any specific behaviors.

I haven't seen that and is starting to believe that might be something typical for the US.

I wonder if there have been any explicitly Athiest regimes? That is, governments based on an ideology that explicitly denies the existence of God and devalues all religions?

If only we had historical examples of such regimes, perhaps we could see if they were benign or murderous.

Oh what a pity we don't have such examples.

My understanding is that most Communistic regimes were explicitly Atheist. I'm not a historian so I may not have my facts completely correct, but my understanding is that: The Soviet Union more or less outlawed religion. China is officially Atheistic but tolerates certain recognized religions. My understanding is that they outlaw/suppress certain things they view as "superstition" (such as supernatural and moral aspects of Qigong) in a way that would be considered questionable in the west.

On a more positive side, I wonder if there are any of the Scandinavian countries that could be considered to more or less implement Humanism. I say that because it seems like Humanism fills a lot of the same roles for Atheists (moral system, providing hope, providing meaning etc.) that religion does for theists.

> I wonder if there have been any explicitly Athiest regimes?

Some, but not all, regimes in the Leninist (and Stalinist, etc., derivatives) tradition were/are, and early the French Revolutionary regime briefly was during the period of the establishment of the Cult of Reason (which, while called a “cult” with good was, was atheistic and thus not a religion in the theistic sense), but that was soon replaced by the Cult of the Supreme Being (which was deistic, but not atheistic) during the Terror.

Atheists have a reputation for being anti-religion. This certainly isn't inherent to Atheism or reflective of all Atheists. However, I have met many Atheists who were highly intolerant or disrespectful of religion.

The religious people of all monotheisic religions don’t believe in almost all the same gods as the atheists. The atheists just don’t believe in one more.

I'm really not trying to start a tit for tat who is worse argument as all religions, including mine (Christian/Catholic) has their fair share of atrocities, but certainly many people were murdered and otherwise oppressed under state atheist regimes in Communist countries. It's worth calling out and remembering.

I'll take it a bit further:

I'm no Catholic and have never been.

But honestly: while Catholics has done much wrong they don't come anywere near Pol Pot, Stalin, the Reign of Terror etc

To late to update my post but I should add that I don't blame you or any other current Catholic for what happened during the dark ages.

And by the way, since that's not clear from my first post: I'm a Christian as well, just not Catholic.

No religious flamewars on HN, please. Upthread was teetering, but here it plummets.

Sure thing, Dang. FWIW, I'd have said the exact same if it had been "even botanists" or "even car mechanics". It just seemed massively orthogonal.

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