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Forums - General Discussion - Atheist Ads on Buses in Brazil

mai on 15 December 2010
highwaystar101 said:

Yes Stalin was an atheist, but I'm not a communist responsible for 40 million deaths, and I don't plan to be either. I'm not Stalin. Same I'm sure the terrorists responsible for 9/11 were muslims, but I'm sure the muslims I spoke to wouldn't condone their murders, etc...

He wasn't communist either, and in no way responsible for 40 million deaths. In fact, I have doubts he was an atheist as well, he graduated from Orthodox religious school in Gori, Georgia and was responsible for revival of Orthodox Church in USSR in 40s. In no way it's a proof that he was a religious person though, likely had pragmatic reasons to do so.

@OP

I'm suprised, I though Brazil and most of South American countries are highly religious.



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SecondWar on 15 December 2010
alekth said:

The one with Hitler would have been really bad (aside from him being a pretty unclear case), but I guess it's okay if "Religion doesn't define character" is part of the same poster.
The one with the plane is kind of off. It's certainly true that a lot can be justified by interpreting religious texts, but the same can be said about other ideologies. Plus that act was viewed as extremism, and religious people are either going to ignore it as something they don't identify with, or if already holding such views, ignore it.

I like the "Faith gives no answers. It just stops questions." one best, because IMO that's the biggest problem with religion.

I was watching tv programme and in an episode awhile back there a few characters a a religious seminar. The characters the scene centred on was the pastor, a grandmother and her granddaughter. The granddaughter (who was around 18) was asking the pastor a lot questions as she had read something in her text which she couldnt believe, and the grandmother was angry at her for asking questions about the text.

That really sums up why I dont buy much of it.



De85 on 15 December 2010
sapphi_snake said:
mrstickball said:

If what I did was throw my beliefs in people's faces, then what are the ads that the atheists are putting on the sides of busses? Do you condemn their tactics as throwing their beliefs in people's faces? Or are you joking as I would hope?

Well the purpose of those billboards is publicity, and there's nothing wrong with publicity. That's one situation where throwing your beleifs in other people's faces is acceptable. Doing it in any situation however is unacceptable. You threw that quote, suggesting that the Bible has some sort of authority and that we should listen to it, fact which I found insulting.

Dude, did you even read that Bible quote??  It wasn't even in any way religious.  I bet if it had been attibuted to Confucius of Plato you would have been actually agreeing with it.  It's just a pithy statement that isn't even related to God in any way.  Your knee-jerk reaction to it is amusing though...



Kasz216 on 15 December 2010
mrstickball said:

Funny. As far as I know, Hitler didn't believe in God (there are arguments on virtually every side, but paint Hitler as becoming increasingly anti-God as his regeme went on). The rerort will be brutal against that add too - I'd imagine the Catholics could put Mother Theresa on a side of a bus with "Believes in God" alongside Stalin or Pol Pot as being atheists.

The other ads - I don't really have a problem with. If you want to debate and argue religion, thats fine. Just don't lie about it.


Yeah, i was going to say.  Hitler was VERY religion and seemed to only tolerate mysticsim because that's what his generals believed.

It's not even more anti-god as his regime went on, so much as he mentioned it more in his speeches, in his writings he's ALWAYS been anti god.



Kasz216 on 15 December 2010
Armads said:
SecondWar said:
Armads said:
Stefan.De.Machtige said:

What a waste of money!

There were many times in  history where people could reject religion. But they chose not to, and they still do today. Religion is just part of the human psyche.

 

By the way, hitler was an atheist. At the end of the war, he wanted the german people to die with him, because... the best had fallen, and germany was proven weak and therfore needed to be destroyed. The whole Russian invasion was one best examples of Darwanism in human history.


Choosing not to believe in a religion in any country in the western world in anytime period earlier then 1900 meant execution. Also Hitler makes it very clear that he believed in a god in his autobiography Mein Kampf.

The Ads are good, not because they're convincing but because they simply raise awareness.

Does that thing really class as an autobiography. Id more call it the nazi bible and an ideological rant.

Either way it was written by him and arguments that he wasn't christian are only partially correct.  He was raised catholic, but he hated the church.  However he still clearly believed in the bible and thought he was doing what God wanted:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." -Hitler Mein Kampf

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922

Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5

 

There's a wealth of quotations straight from the man proclaiming that he believed his goal was in line with God.


And for every quote like that, there are like 12 of him calling religion stupid.

He literally blames Christianity for why the new world sucks compaired to the time of the greeks and ancient rome before christianity.

There are actual plans captured during the invasion of germany that details how hitler planned to eliminate all religion from Germany.

http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/nurinst1.shtml

Hitler was an atheist.  He just wasn't a stupid one.



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ocnkng on 15 December 2010

Totally agree with these advertisements. About time we had some expression too.



 

It is better to die on one's feet

then live on one's knees

thranx on 15 December 2010
sapphi_snake said:
mrstickball said:

I think you could also argue the opposite can be true concerning religions/ideologies and crimes against humanity.

If indeed someone has comitted a crime in the name of atheism (and I believe people have...I think that Stalin's views were certainly enforced by an atheistic worldview), then the inverse must be true - that people have comitted crimes in the name of religions, too. I don't think there is an innocent ideology when it comes to the presence, or absence of religions. People have killed in the name of Jesus, Allah, the Spaghetti Monster, and who should of won on America's Got Talent. Stupid stuff happens...Even in the name of crazy things.

The most important thing we can do is create a world to where we're free to debate the merits of ideologies and beliefs in pursuit of the right kind of ideologies that are free from the violence and murder that many people cling to in the name of particiular ideologies. Its like the Bible says 'As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another'. When groups of people prevent that - regardless if it is fundementalist Christians, Muslims, Atheists, or Zororastrians, then there is a major problem. We've seen that the real thing that causes death and violent purges is when one group of people prevent civil discourse and debate....Regardless if the prevailing party is religious or anti-religious.

You just had to quote the Bible and loose all credibility by throwing your religious beleifs in people's faces, right?


What are talking about? Its a qoute that is non religous. Sure it came from the bible but there is nothing religous about it. Its about people, and it was a fitting qoute. If you are going to condem for that than you are just being blind and not tolerant in any way.



Rath on 15 December 2010

Why couldn't they just do the "God probably doesn't exist" ads? Those were much more gentle and made atheist seem less arseholish.

I saw one of those ads in NZ and chuckled actually, why put them up in NZ where atheists aren't discriminated against?



ProdigyBam on 15 December 2010

It always seems like atheists have to fight against religion especially christianity.

True christians like me dont fight against atheism, to each his own, ads like these show that these people somehow think about religion and i think deep in their heart they know that there is something after life ends, so they fight against it to forget it.

Btw, the most hounded believer (including non-believer/atheists) on the world are christians, 170 thousands are diying every year because of their faith.

And because of communism (atheism is linked close to communism) 200 million people died, so?

Live and let live, my dear friends.



Fedor Emelianenko - Greatest Fighter and most humble man to ever walk the earth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVVrNOQtlzY

oroboros on 15 December 2010

In 1985 the Austrian author Wilfried Daim published a photograph of an alleged document signed by Hitler in 1943, which proposed the:

"Immediate and unconditional abolition of all religions after the final victory ('Endsieg') not only for the territory of Greater Germany but also for all released, occupied and annexed countries ..., proclaiming at the same time Hitler as the new messiah. Out of political considerations the Muslim, Buddhist and Shintoist religion will be spared for the present. The 'Führer' has to be presented as an intermediate between a redeemer and a liberator, yet surely as one sent by God, who has to get godly honour. The existing churches, chapels, temples and cult places of the different religions have to be changed into 'Adolf-Hitler-consecration places'. The theological faculties of the universities have to be transformed into the new faith. Special emphasis has to be lain on the education of missionaries and wandering preachers, who have to proclaim the teaching in Greater Germany and in the rest of the world and have to form religious bodies, which can be used as centres for further extension. (With this the problems with the abolition of monogamy will disappear, because polygamy can be included into the new teaching as one of the statements of faith.)