So how is a said, non-existent being, God, supposed to be the greatest source of evil?

[richardhutnik]

Intelligentsia said:

richardhutnik said:

Accela said:

Yes, you have DarkMatter and Christopher Hitchens.  In this, you see two examples of two atheists who then argue how God is evil.  This is what i am talking about.  When an individual spends their entire cognitive being railing against God as being both evil and not real, and doesn't bother to follow up by looking at what part of humans is the real culprit here (and propose solutions), they are inconsistent in their view of things, and really not serious about dealing with issues of evil.  Such an individual proposes NOTHING to make humanity better at all, just operating undet the belief that you remove God from cognitive thought, and this alone will result in everyone being good.  Considering that atheism isn't anything but a negation, it still leaves behind all the elements that had made this construct of a human mind seen as horrid, still around, to propose other things.  You had, for example, communist nations in the 20th century doing historically horrible killing of humans, mass oppression, and other travesties, while not having god.  In that, you had worship of a human leader on top, replacing God.  Just eliminating God didn't make anything better.

Aside from the fact that you don't seem to know very much about Christopher Hitchens, you show a fundamental lack of understanding of theocratic rule (which, by the way, Hitchens was vehemently opposed to and spoke out against).

Look at Kim Jong-il, one example of your "communist" nation. He said his first time golfing he made 7 hole in ones and this was widely accepted as truth.

I'll mention Hitler only to remind you that the footsoldiers in those brigades were religious people. Theocrats are capable of taking advantage of the credulity of the religious...

Atheism isn't a proposition of anything. This is why many atheists, such as Sam Harris, are advocating Secular Humanism. It actually is a philosophy whereby the goal is to minimize the suffering of all humans.

Finally, the argument isn't against God...it's against dogma...please understand the difference.

There is anti-theism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism

http://atheism.about.com/od/Atheist-Dictionary/g/Definition-Antitheist.htm

"...I am not so much an atheist as an anti-theist. I am, in other words, not one of those unbelievers who wishes that they had faith, or that they could believe. I am, rather, someone who is delighted that there is absolutely no persuasive evidence for the existence of any of mankind's many thousands of past and present deities."
- Christopher Hitchens, Is Christianity Good for the World? 

I say I'm an antitheist because I think it'd be rather awful if it was true ... you would never have a waking or sleeping moment where you weren't being watched, and controlled, and supervised by some celestial entity from conception until, well, not even until your death because it's only after death when the real fun begins, isn't it? It'd be like living in North Korea."
- Christopher Hitchens, on the Sean Hannity show 

Christopher Hitchens declared himself an anti-theist.  This is more than just being opposed to organized religion.  It involves actively being opposed to God concept.  

And I did say that atheism isn't anything, and is a negation.  The typical default position would be seen as "secular humanism", which is the elevating of humans as the highest form and ultimate measure.  Then that ends up bring its own issues.

And then, you want to go into Hitler?  Then we get into Stalin, for whom, he did a lot of horrible things, without even naming the name of God.  You will see this happen over and over in Communist nations in the 20th centuries.  You got rid of God concept, or tried to, and ended up still having horrors that hadn't evern been historically, in the scale they were done.

You can see books like this going into detail on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

 

And the argument isn't about dogma, it is about how the God concept does evil.  In the case of Hitchens, it was a war against the concept.