Tuesday, June 30, 2015

"The atheist atrocities fallacy ."

Image result for pol pot images  I am often accused of being an atheist, which I most certainly am not. (There is a big difference between an atheist and an agnostic. And if you want to see why a rational person can be skeptic when it comes to religion you might want to start by reading a wonderful book by Timothy Freke called The Laughing Jesus) And because folks believe that I am an atheist, Christians, particularly those to the right of me politically, like to bring up terrible people from history and accuse them of being non-believers when they argue with me.

I suppose this has something to do with the fact that the Klan proudly claims to be a Christian organization, and I am quite sure that most of its members are in lockstep politically with my right wing conservative friends. 

Anyway, I was thinking about all that when I read the following article by Michael Sherlock. (h/t to the commenter over at the Mediaite website. )

"Religious apologists, particularly those of the Christian variety, are big fans of what I have dubbed, the atheist atrocities fallacy. Christians commonly employ this fallacy to shield their egos from the harsh reality of the brutality of their own religion, by utilizing a most absurd form of the tu quoque (“you too”) fallacy, mingled with numerous other logical fallacies and historical inaccuracies.

 Despite the fact that the atheist atrocities fallacy has already been thoroughly exposed by Hitchens and other great thinkers, it continues to circulate amongst the desperate believers of a religion in its death throes.  Should an atheist present a believer with the crimes committed by the Holy See of the Inquisition(s), the Crusaders and other faith-wielding misanthropes, they will often hear the reply; “Well, what about Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler? They were atheists, and they killed millions!”

Given the obstinate nature of religious faith and the wilful ignorance it cultivates in the mind of the believer, I am quite certain that this article will not be the final nail in this rancid and rotting coffin.  Having said this, I do hope it will contribute to the arsenal required by those who value reason, facts and evidence, in their struggle against the fallacies perpetually flaunted by those who do not value the truth above their own egocentric delusions, delusions inspired by an unquenchable thirst for security, no matter how frighteningly false its foundation.

Before addressing the primary weaknesses of the atheist atrocities fallacy itself, I would like to attend to each of these three homicidal stooges; Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler, who are constantly trotted out to defend a religious worldview.  I will lend Hitler the most time, as the claim that he was an atheist represents a most egregious violation of the truth.

HITLER

“Besides that, I believe one thing: there is a Lord God! And this Lord God creates the peoples.”  [1]    ~Adolf Hitler

 “We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations; we have stamped it out” [2]   ~Adolf Hitler

Hitler was a Christian.  This undeniable fact couldn’t be made any clearer than by his own confessions.  Yet, I will not merely present you with these testimonies, as damning as they happen to be on their own, but I also intend on furnishing you with a brief history of the inherent anti-Semitism of the Christian religion.  I will do so to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that Hitler and his Christian Nazi Party were acting in complete concordance with traditional Christian anti-Semitism.
To begin, here are just a few of Hitler’s Christian confessions:

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…For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.” [3]....

...POL POT (See pic)

Pol Pot, possibly not even an atheist, but almost certainly a Buddhist, believed in the teachings of the Buddha, no matter how perverted his interpretations may or may not have been.  His violence, much like the violence of many earlier religionists, wasn’t the result of a lack of belief in a god, whether Zeus, Osiris, Yahweh, or the god-like Buddha of Mahayana Buddhism, but in the megalomaniacal belief that heaven or destiny was guiding him to improve the state of affairs for all those who could be forced to share his misguided utopian delusions.  Not only was Pol Pot a Theravada Buddhist, but the soil in which his atrocities were sewn was also very Buddhist.

In Alexander Laban Hinton’s book, Why Did They Kill?: Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide,’ Hinton drew attention to the role that the belief in karma played in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, particularly with regards to the cementation of a docilely accepted social hierarchy, not too dissimilar from Stalin’s ready-made Russian religious tyranny, as well as highlighting the Buddhist origins of Pol Pot’s ideological initiatives.

Hinton remarks:

This [Pol Pot’s regime’s] line of thinking about revolutionary consciousness directly parallels Buddhist thought, with the “Party line” and “collective stand” being substituted for dhamma…One could certainly push this argument further , contending that the Khmer Rouge attempted to assume the monk’s traditional role as moral instructor (teaching their new brand of “mindfulness”) and that DK regime’s glorification of asceticism, detachment, the elimination of attachment and desire, renunciation (of material goods and personal behaviors, sentiments, and attitudes), and purity paralleled prominent Buddhist themes…  [30]

I have only presented a small snippet of the available evidence that points to religion’s role in Pol Pot’s crimes, and there is not one single piece of solid evidence that Pol Pot was an atheist, so let us once and for all dispense with that speculative piece of religious propaganda.  Pol Pot spent close to a decade at Catholic school and nearly as long studying at a Buddhist institution, so religious education was something he had in common with both Hitler and Stalin, but I would never use such data-mined facts to assert that religious education invariably inspires tyrants to commit atrocities, although a case for such a proposition could probably be made without committing too many logical and historical inaccuracies.  I won’t even bother sharing the un-sourced quote from Prince Norodom Sihanouk that Christians present as “proof” that Pol Pot was an atheist, as its origin is not only dubious, but its contents reflect a belief in heaven, which, if genuine, negates any claim that Pol Pot was an atheist.

THE ATHEIST ATROCITIES FALLACY

The atheist atrocities fallacy is a multifaceted and multidimensional monster, comprised of a cocktail of illogically contrived arguments.  It is, at its core, a tu quoque fallacy, employed to deflect justified charges of religious violence, by erroneously charging atheism with similar, if not worse, conduct.  But it is much more than this, for within its tangled and mangled edifice can be found the false analogy fallacy, the poisoning of the well fallacy, the false cause fallacy, and even an implied slippery slope fallacy.

Tu quoque (“You Too”) Fallacy

The Tuquoque fallacy is an informal fallacy used to dismiss criticism by means of deflection. [31] Instead of addressing an accusation or charge, the perpetrator of this fallacy will offer an example of their opponent’s alleged hypocrisy with regards to the allegation.  This is precisely how Christian apologists employ the atheist atrocities fallacy.

To give you an example of this fallacy in action, we need only examine the reply of renowned Christian apologist, Dinesh D’Souza, to charges of religious violence:

And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? [32]

“…it is interesting to find that people of faith now seek defensively to say that they are no worse than fascists or Nazis or Stalinists.” [33]
          
    ~Christopher Hitchens~

This fallacy will be often employed with an added sprinkle of one-upmanship, with the apologist using the immense scale of secular atrocities to argue that atheism is worse than religion.  However, if we were to honestly calculate those victims of ritual and religious sacrifice across the entire planet, the total number of witches burned and drowned across Europe and in America, the near genocides of the Pacific Islanders by the London Missionary Society, and similar missionary organizations, the dismembered bodies of the Saint Francis Xavier’s Inquisition in Goa, the disembowelled remains of the Anabaptists in Europe, the men, women and children murdered by Muslim conquerors from the Middle-East to Spain, the stoned and strangled blasphemers in Christian states of the past and Muslim ones of the modern age, and all of the unmarked graves of all of the victims of religion, from the dawn of that plague to now, I am quite certain that the numbers game would prove to be an unfruitful one for the desperate apologist." [Read More]

You can thank me for the education later.






64 comments:

The Black Book of Communism said...

The biggest killers of the 20th century, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were all atheists.

100 million people. Only the Muslims come close to playing in that league.

The Field Negro blog is the quite the font of leftist misinformation. But facts will win in the end.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Book-Communism-Repression/dp/0674076087

Anonymous said...

"I am often accused of being an atheist, which I most certainly am not. (There is a big difference between an atheist and an agnostic."

Field, for what I understand an agnostic is one who isn't for or against religion and tends to lean toward the existence of God, but is not certain.

What is your definition of an agnostic? I would really like to know because it would clear up a lot of accusations of you being an atheist. I have been on FN for years and you certainly think like a bitter fundamentalist atheist.

Even the quotes in this post are excerpts written by atheists. Are they the only people you know that uses 'rational' thought? BTW, every human 'rational' thought is at least laced with feelings, if not loaded with them. That's why rational people will invariably differ on the interpretation of the same set of facts.

Please, tell your FN readers what your 'rational' thoughts are about the difference, in your humble opinion, between atheism and agnosticism.

Go Pack Go said...

Blacks: blah blah blah whine whine whine

The Fixer said...

Go Pack Go: blah blah blah whine whine whine

There.

Anonymous said...

Tu quoque (“You Too”) Fallacy


Racist whites also use this fallacy. We've seen it as the blah unity flag was compared to the confederate flag and also Islamic symbols were compared to the confed flag. Bill O'Reilly used it when discussing racist organizations. This is the white racist's stock in trade.

SFNorCal said...

Blacks are too accepting of mediocrity

dinthebeast said...

The same fallacy is used by the right to distract from their atrocities: "both sides do it". Both sides do not do it. They are murdering poor people as we speak with their refusal to expand Medicaid. I guess a lot of people are afraid of atheists, because they sure do hate on us a lot. Atheism is not a threat to religion, there is no reaching the religious in their billions. They have made their choice in what to believe, and it does not matter to either of us what I think of their decision.
For a god who is supposed to be almighty, he sure seems to need a lot of defending...

-Doug in Oakland

Colonel Corn said...

PilotX said...
Racist whites also use this fallacy. We've seen it as the blah unity flag was compared to the confederate flag and also Islamic symbols were compared to the confed flag
----

PilotX's head is so filled with lies he has no idea what a fallacy is.

Go figure.

PoopAvenger said...

Fuck the white man.

The Fixer said...

Whites are too accepting of mediocrity.

there.

The Fixer said...

Colonel Corn's head is so filled with stupidity he has no idea what a fallacy is.

Go figure.

there

Anonymous said...

dinthebeast, since January 21, 2015 there have been 57,762,169 abortions since Roe vs Wade. That's 42 years of legalized abortions that have taken the lives of helpless unborn babies. Have you considered that such a law Legalized murder of the vulnerable in America?

It most certainly has taken a toll on the conscience of America and its citizens. Hence, maybe you need to look in your own political back yard before you go trashing others. A nation that continues along this dark evil path cannot survive.

Anonymous said...

This game is a dubious one on both sides.

Pointing out that communist ideology is opposed to religion does not prove that Stalin committed authoritarian human rights abuses because of atheism. Nothing about disbelief in God requires one to covertly murder one's political rivals, for example. It is entirely possible to have a code of ethics as an atheist. The fact that Stalin was a ruthless dictator doesn't derive in any way from his being atheist.

But the same point at least partially applies to religion as well. It's very arguable that a lot of the atrocities carried out nominally in the name of religion aren't actually driven by the religion at all. At worst, religion is the excuse for actions that are really driven by typical base human motivations like bigotry or greed.

For example, historians widely believe the medieval Crusades were primarily about land-grabbing in the Middle East, not Jesus. Retaking the Holy Land was only a pretext for the conquest.

And I don't believe for a minute that groups like ISIS are really motivated by the Koran. Their stupid, simplistic belief system is really about falsely blaming literally everything wrong in the Middle East on the West, while absolving Muslims of any fault for poor governance of their nations -- and it posits violent tough-guy dictatorship as the solution to all ills. Their core values are just xenophobia, blame-shifting, and contempt for democracy and civil liberties. The only point of invoking Allah is that it makes them look marginally less assholish if God is allegedly sanctioning their horrible actions. Otherwise, Islam is incidental. Take away their Korans and they'd just find some other excuse to do the bad things they already want to do.

Anonymous said...

Well, well well. The KKK is planning a march to the capitol of SC for keeping the Confederate Flag flying proudly on State grounds.

A high ranking klansman said "Roof is a great young warrior" and that he felt sorry for what has happened to Roof. He further said that Roof's target should have been black gangbangers and black rappers.

Anyway, the biggest Klan in the South, if not in the country will be protesting the removal of the Confederate flag. "It's our White heritage" says the Grand Dragon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/30/kkk-south-carolina-confederate_n_7695738.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics

Selective outrage said...

dinthebeast, since January 21, 2015 there have been 57,762,169 abortions since Roe vs Wade.
--------------------------
Anon 11:20 how many miscarriages have happened in the 42 years since Roe v Wade? More than the abortions or less? Do you only care when babies die due to abortion or do you know of a way to help mothers carry their babies to term? Does that weigh on your soul too?

White male said...

Anyway, the biggest Klan in the South, if not in the country will be protesting the removal of the Confederate flag. "It's our White heritage" says the Grand Dragon.

---------------------------
I'm shocked!

Anonymous said...

We have White Supremacy, because for 2500 years we, whites, have produced the best minds on the planet, the greatest flourishing of the arts and sciences ever seen, the most complex and organized societies. We have White Supremacy, whatever exactly it may be, because we have been the earth’s most successful race. No other has come close.

Deal with it.

Blacks do not have the background to grasp the extent of White achievements. Still, permit me a brief and very incomplete list of things white people have done or invented:

Euclidean geometry. Parabolic geometry. Hyperbolic geometry. Projective geometry. Differential geometry. Calculus: Limits, continuity, differentiation, integration. Physical chemistry. Organic chemistry. Biochemistry. Classical mechanics. The indeterminacy principle. The wave equation. The Parthenon. The Anabasis. Air conditioning. Number theory. Romanesque architecture. Gothic architecture. Information theory. Entropy. Enthalpy. Every symphony ever written. Pierre Auguste Renoir. The twelve-tone scale. The mathematics behind it, twelfth root of two and all that. S-p hybrid bonding orbitals. The Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. The purine-pyrimidine structure of the DNA ladder. Single-sideband radio. All other radio. Dentistry. The internal-combustion engine. Turbojets. Turbofans. Doppler beam-sharpening. Penicillin. Airplanes. Surgery. The mammogram. The Pill. The condom. Polio vaccine. The integrated circuit. The computer. Football. Computational fluid dynamics. Tensors. The Constitution. Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Homer, Hesiod. Glass. Rubber. Nylon. Roads. Buildings. Elvis. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. (OK, that’s nerve gas, and maybe we didn’t really need it.) Silicone. The automobile. Really weird stuff, like clathrates, Buckyballs, and rotaxanes. The Bible. Bug spray. Diffie-Hellman, public-key cryptography, and RSA. Et cetera.

Anonymous said...

The Klan rallying for the flag ought to really help things.

Anonymous said...

Selective Outrage said, "Anon 11:20 how many miscarriages have happened in the 42 years since Roe v Wade? More than the abortions or less? Do you only care when babies die due to abortion or do you know of a way to help mothers carry their babies to term? Does that weigh on your soul too?"

11:54 PM
----------------
What do miscarriages have to do with abortions, which is intentional killing of innocent babies? THAT should weigh on everyone's conscience and soul. However, after killing millions mind and heart becomes callous, and it just becomes a way of life in America.

Think about it: "57,762,169" babies WILLFULLY killed in America since the passage of Roe vs Wade to Jan 21, 2015.

When Roe vs Wade became law, Mother Teresa called America a 'spiritual desert', rich in materials, but no heart that cares for its unborn children. Of course, we don't need her to tell us that. Just look at our kids today.

She predicted America would only become more violent because when mothers start killing their own unborn children, what's to keep men from killing children, children from killing children, neighbors from killing neighbors and children?

"Mothers", she contended, "is the last line of defense and hope of nurturing and love for vulnerable children."

IMHO, there is something quite sinful and evil about abortions. It's an act against life, love and God. It pains the heart and stains the conscience of America....just one more evil to sleep with.

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:46am, has occurred to you that half of your list of so-called white accomplishments came from non-whites? Of course, you raided, raped, enslaved, killed and even perfected the art of genocide: from lynching to electrocuting to gas chambers to bombing people to death to Jim Crow.

Now those are inventions and accomplishments Whites like you can be proud of....no other race can boast that!

Anonymous said...

What do miscarriages have to do with abortions, which is intentional killing of innocent babies?
------------------------------
how many miscarriages have there been since Roe v Wade has been in effect. Do you even know? Wanna bet there were a lot more than abortions. Selective outrage.

Anonymous said...

"The Klan rallying for the flag ought to really help things."

Yes, it ought to help any wavering Republican politicians down in ol' Dixie, who might otherwise be inclined to defend the rebel flag, to sprint the hell away from this issue as fast as their legs can carry them.

Establishment big-money GOPers love to kiss white racists' keisters in return for votes. (How else could they win support for awful economic policies that enrich oligarchs and screw over literally everybody else?) But they do need a bit of plausible deniability, a fig leaf to cover up their race-baiting. Can't be too overt about it. It becomes impossible to pretend you're merely standing up for "Southern tradition" and "heritage" when the public can see you're on the same side as the gents in the white hoods. That'll lose you all the non-racist votes.

Now ... if only liberals could convince the KKK to put some energy into denying global warming and opposing a living wage, that would leave the Republican Party completely stymied, not knowing whether to shit or wind their watches. The politically poisonous Klan coming out against liberal policy goals would be the best possible advertising liberals could ever hope for.

The Fixer said...

Whites do not have the background to grasp the extent of Black achievements. Still, permit me a brief and very incomplete list of things white people have done or invented that you had no part of because an imbecile like you couldn't invent anything.

There

Hillbilly Bob said...


Still, permit me a brief and very incomplete list of things white people have done or invented:
-------------------------------------------------



I see inbred uneducated whites are still claiming possession of other's accomplishments. This is just sad. Wanna bet that moron flies a confederate flag?

Anonymous said...

"What do miscarriages have to do with abortions, which is intentional killing of innocent babies? THAT should weigh on everyone's conscience and soul. However, after killing millions mind and heart becomes callous, and it just becomes a way of life in America."

Nope. Not babies. Babies have fully developed nervous systems and are self-aware.

Most abortions are of early-term fetuses -- vaguely baby-shaped blobs of protoplasm with no intelligence or consciousness. They are alive only in the same sense that hangnails are alive.

They are not people, and their deaths are not homicides -- except to superstitious. knuckle-dragging cavemen like yourself.

The Purple Cow said...

Joe Stalin trained as an orthodox priest in a seminary for seven years. Later, he had a chapel but inside the Kremlin just 150m from his office. It's al in Simon Sebag-Monifoire's excellent biography - well worth a red.

Anonymous said...

@deal with it: "We have White Supremacy, whatever exactly it may be, because we have been the earth’s most successful race. No other has come close.

Deal with it."

In your recap of supposed white achievements, you conveniently left out one--the nuclear bomb, you know, the "Doomsday Weapon," the WMD which you whites have in abundance, riding atop intercontinental missiles with multiple warheads, the detonation of which can annihilate all life on the planet, plunging the planet into a nuclear winter, destroying in the process all those supposed white achievements.

I'd trade all those supposed white achievements for a world without The Bomb, and the constant threat looming over us, the threat that one mishap, one misstep, can turn this planet into a burned-out cinder.

Anonymous said...

A true Christian, disciple of Jesus, follows the precepts of Jesus, and subscribes to the New Commandment that he left us:

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

John 13:34-35

Anonymous said...

"Joe Stalin trained as an orthodox priest in a seminary for seven years. Later, he had a chapel but inside the Kremlin just 150m from his office. It's al in Simon Sebag-Monifoire's excellent biography - well worth a red."

Stalin had a complicated relationship with religion. Yes, he came from a religious family and attended a seminary ... before dropping out to become an atheist.

And yes, he did return to religion toward the end of his life.

But in the interim, he acted like a good communist, fighting "the opiate of the masses" by shutting down massive numbers of Orthodox churches, ensuring atheism was taught in schools, and persecuting anyone who still attempted to worship. So out of the three tyrants mentioned in this article, it's most truthful to call Stalin an actual atheist.

It's still a stupid point to blame atheism for Stalin's bad acts, though, because nothing about atheism required Stalin to be a paranoid, megalomaniac bastard. Those just happened to be his natural character traits. His actions were in no way mandated by any kind of atheist moral code or doctrine. And the latter is the criticism atheists make of religion: not just that religious people sometimes happen to be bastards, which is of course guaranteed to occur, but that religious doctrines actually sometimes demand people behave in a bastard-y, evil sort of way.

I think the view by atheists about the evils of religion are overstated. A lot of what we consider evil behavior isn't mandated by religion; the religion is mostly just a noxious rationalization for bad behavior after the fact, rather than the origin.

But there are some aspects of religion that I'd agree are the source of real harm. Opposition to evidence-and-reason based science is definitely one of those genuinely bad aspects of religion (as illustrated ably by the anti-abortion dumbasses posting in these comments).

Anonymous said...

"I'd trade all those supposed white achievements for a world without The Bomb, and the constant threat looming over us, the threat that one mishap, one misstep, can turn this planet into a burned-out cinder."

I wouldn't worry too much about global nuclear annihilation at this point. The missiles are still around, but the political motivation to use them on a large scale is gone. Despite recent sabre-rattling between the USA and Russia, the Cold War is definitely still over.

If there's a real worry today, it's not about global nuclear war, but individual "loose nukes" that could get into the hands of terrorists. There's virtually no chance humanity will get vaporized at this point, but a major city still could go up in a mushroom cloud -- and in fact, that's more likely than global nuclear war used to be, since terrorist organization can't really be "deterred" the way nation-states can, only systematically destroyed through defunding, legal prosecutions, and assassinations.

We should still be working hard to eliminate nuclear weapons, as they are still a malign force in the world.

But the new existential threat to humanity is not so much that we will bomb ourselves extinct as that we will pollute our species out of existence. So far, our political systems do not inspire confidence that we will successfully transition to a low-carbon economy in time to avoid rendering large segments of the planet environmentally uninhabitable.

Anonymous said...

As to the existence of God, God has several attributes, two of which are Life and Mind.

The relevant sciences, for all their dependence on the scientific method, and empiricism, have failed to source Life in body, or Mind in brain, although God knows, they have tried.

The human body is an avatar, hat tip to James Cameron, for another body, one more excellent in every way than the physical body.

Hence life and mind exist exterior to the physical body, even as famed neuroscientist Dr. Eben Alexander has acclaimed, himself once an atheist before his near-death experience.

Since the physical body is an avatar for another, anything that compromises its physical soundness in the physical realm, a disease of the brain, for example, or the loss of a limb, can compromise the extent to which mind can be projected through the brain, or the extent to which we might enjoy mobility without the use of prosthetics.

In addition, the broadly accepted theory, the big bang, is another mystery, as it constitutes an effect without a cause.

The big bang gave rise to both space and time, two elements necessary for any cause to exist, but missing at the outset of the big bang, suggesting that the big expansion had it origin outside of time and space, in another realm, a non-physical one, a conclusion coinciding with religionists' understanding that God created the heaven and the earth, since creation would require that He stand outside of creation as the Creator, pretty much as Bill Gates and Company stand outside of their creation, Microsoft Windows, even though their intelligence in the creation and design of the software is readily observed and appreciated.

Anonymous said...

"I wouldn't worry too much about global nuclear annihilation at this point."

You want to bet your life on it?

"7 Close Calls in the Nuclear Age"

http://mentalfloss.com/article/25685/7-close-calls-nuclear-age

"Missile Site, Oil Wells Co-Exist in North Dakota"

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/03/04/missile-sites-oil-wells-co-exist-in-north-dakota.html

"The Nun Who Broke Into the Nuclear Sanctum"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/science/behind-nuclear-breach-a-nuns-bold-fervor.html

"U.S. Has Long Failed to Protect Nuclear Weapon Stockpile"

"APRIL 04, 2014

"Even for a bloated U.S. government well known for its perpetual inefficiency, this is somewhat shocking; decades of faulty bookkeeping, weak security and lousy oversight has put the country’s nuclear weapon stockpile at risk.

"This is incredibly serious and it appears the feds aren’t terribly concerned about making changes. The government agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), responsible for securing the nation’s nuclear weapons—and the facilities where they are housed—has failed miserably. This is obviously detrimental to national security and affects everyone who lives in this country."

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2014/04/u-s-has-long-failed-to-protect-nuclear-weapon-stockpile/






Anonymous said...

"I wouldn't worry too much about global nuclear annihilation at this point.

You want to bet your life on it?"


You attached a bunch of links, but none of them seem pertinent to the point you're trying to make.

Your Mental Floss link was about "close calls" during the Cold War. Well, okay, those stories are always interesting ... but the Cold War is over, as I pointed out. Even if a nuke were to accidentally go off today -- which is more difficult than you think, actually; dropping an unarmed nuke out of a plane or unintentionally igniting its conventional explosives won't make it go off -- this almost certainly wouldn't lead to WWIII. Russia no longer has reason to believe we want to wipe them out; hostilities just aren't at that level anymore. If a bomb went off somehow, Putin isn't going to immediately panic and start launching ICBMs back at us.

All your other links are about improperly guarded and maintained nukes, and the associated risk that terrorists could get a hold of one. But I explicitly admitted that this WAS an ongoing and real danger. Terrorists could indeed get a nuke and flatten a city, killing hundreds of thousands of people. It's not likely, but it's possible.

However, that's still not the same sort of danger as what you mentioned about the possibility a full-scale nuclear war could break out and destroy everyone on Earth, which was my entire point regarding nukes. We have passed the point of nukes posing an existential threat to the entire human race. There's really no meaningful risk of a holocaust anymore. Now these weapons are just a threat to individual people.

Joder La Resistencia said...

Hitler in his own words-

"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure."

"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State."



"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."


"There is something very unhealthy about Christianity"

Sounds like more Anti-Christian bigotry we get from field negreo and his ilk.

Anonymous said...

"You attached a bunch of links, but none of them seem pertinent to the point you're trying to make.

That's because you're reading selectively, more interested in debunking my claims than in supporting them.

Not just nuclear bombs, but nuclear energy itself continues to pose a threat to the ongoing existence of humans on the planet.

"Fukushima Radiation Now A Global Disaster: Japan Finally Asks World For Help, Two Years Too Late"

Fukushima Radiation in the Ecosystem, North American West Coast

http://www.ibtimes.com/fukushima-radiation-now-global-disaster-japan-finally-asks-world-help-two-years-too-late-1416058

Even as you attempt to downplay the threat, we only need one mishap to set off a chain reaction that could have catastrophic ramifications, resulting in an all-out nuclear war, which is my original thesis.

Nothing you have said is reassuring, as the nuclear threat is not only a clear and present danger, but one from which the world won't, and can't, rebound if a mishap, or a misstep unleashes our vast nuclear arsenals.

Joder La Resistencia said...

And also Hitler's closets were atheists. They also talked about Hilter being Anti-Christian.

The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race. This can be seen in the similarity of their religious rites. Both (Judaism and Christianity) have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end they will be destroyed. The Fuhrer is a convinced vegetarian on principle.
— Goebbels Diaries, 29 December 1939


They only people declaring Hitler a Christians are atheists who hold bigoted views. In order to prove their bigotry, they have to cherry pick quotes and out and out lie.

Which makes a perfect field negro post.




Joder La Resistencia said...

“God is on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil's on my side, he's a good Communist.”
―Joseph Stalin


You know, they are fooling us, there is no God… all this talk about God is sheer nonsense.-Stalin


“God's not unjust, he doesn't actually exist. We've been deceived. If God existed, he'd have made the world more just... I'll lend you a book and you'll see.”
―Joseph Stalin



Not to mention Stalin's crackdown on religion(including persecution and the killing of over 100,000 during Stalin's purge of religion) and promotion of atheism in schools and public institutions.


The League of Militant Atheists comes to mind.


Sounds like a Christian to me....

Hitler was a socialist said...

Hitler was a socialist.

https://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/hitler-was-a-socialist/

Your Leftist Media said...

"Now ... if only liberals could convince the KKK to put some energy into denying global warming and opposing a living wage, that would leave the Republican Party completely stymied, not knowing whether to shit or wind their watches"

You've figured out Leftist politics. Congratulations.

Joder La Resistencia said...

Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler were also socialists, communists. They were also anti-gun, Anti-American, anti-capitalist and Anti-Conservative.

Which puts them in lockstep with field negro, purple cow and many on the left.

The Purple Cow said...

"Stalin had a complicated relationship with religion. Yes, he came from a religious family and attended a seminary ... before dropping out to become an atheist. And yes, he did return to religion toward the end of his life."

My point is that the seven years he spent in a Seminary profoundly affected his global paradigm, his philosophy and his personal belief systems, ethics and values (such as they were) throughout the rest of his life. So even in that period of his life when he professed atheism, religion still influenced who he was and the decisions he made.

However, as you say, to blame his psychopathy on religion or a lack of religion at any given time is banal to the point of idiocy.

Hitler on the hand, clearly lacked Stalin's intellect, and I've seen little evidence that he really thought through his feelings on religion at all. There are quotes attributed to Hitler on religion - sometimes given within the same year - that directly contradict each other. I suspect that Hitler's views on religion varied according to the particular audience he was addressing at any given time. Like Saddam Hussein, Hitler 'got religion' when it was convenient to him, and lost it again when the situation required it.

Bill said...


FieldNegro said...
Christians, particularly those to the right of me politically


Here we go again.

Of course like a good dumbocrat, no mention of islam or muslim.

Bill said...


The FieldNegro said...
HOUSE NEGRO OF THE DAY.
(THAT BLACK POLICE OFFICER WHO HELPED TO ARREST Brittany "Bree" Newsome AFTER SHE TOOK DOWN THE CONFEDERATE FLAG.


Should Black people put the color of their skin before doing their job?

Anonymous said...

"Most abortions are of early-term fetuses -- vaguely baby-shaped blobs of protoplasm with no intelligence or consciousness. They are alive only in the same sense that hangnails are alive.

They are not people, and their deaths are not homicides -- except to superstitious. knuckle-dragging cavemen like yourself."

2:04 AM
---------------
You should email your comment to the Pope, all Catholics, all Christians, all Buddhists, and all the other religions and good people who hold all life sacred.

Most of all you should tell God that you are the 'new' God, which knows and determines what is life and what is not.

PS. I'd rather be a knuckle-dragging caveman than to be you because YOU have some serious heart and conscience issues that has no place on God's earth.

Bill said...


Ouch.

Jimmy carter explaining why Obama has had "minimal success" on the world stage.

"I can;t think of many nations in the world, where we have a better relationship now then when he took over.
...
I would say the United States influence, and prestige, and respect in the world is probably lower now then it was 6 or 7 years ago."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgraAbd1MIE


I wonder what is causing Jimmy Carter to throw Obama under the bus.

Joder La Resistencia said...

Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler also sought to limit freedoms of religion and speech.

Like atheists and their friends on the left are doing today.

Anonymous said...

Apropos of this post, religion and the church have long been an inspiration as well as a refuge for Black and Brown people.

A place where with faith they gather to praise a Greater Good,to hope and nourish themselves with strength to face the challenges of their daily lives.

So even this is taken away.

Eight churches burnt down in ten days...


Anonymous said...

"And also Hitler's closets were atheists. They also talked about Hilter being Anti-Christian."

Hitler may not have been a particularly religious guy (although his ideology wasn't militant atheism either). But the Nazis as a whole were overwhelmingly Christian. This has been covered on this blog before. Most Nazis, like most Germans in general, were Lutherans, with lesser number of Catholics.

On top of which, the Nazis created their own special version of Nazi Christianity, because plain old garden-variety Christianity wasn't racist enough for them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

Nazis were mostly Christian. I'm not saying that means Christianity caused Nazism, but it certainly didn't deter it. The two belief systems coexisted quite nicely, probably because of religious "cherry picking" on the part of the Nazis -- they took the bits of Christianity they liked and threw out the parts they didn't like. (Much as typical American Republicans happily dispense with the core Christian beliefs of compassion in favor of ruthlessness and unbridled greed, all while exhibiting a holier-than-thou attitude to everyone else.)

Anonymous said...

"You should email your comment to the Pope, all Catholics, all Christians, all Buddhists, and all the other religions and good people who hold all life sacred."

I'll get right on that.

PilotX said...

Don't know Field, there's isn't much difference between an atheist and agnostic. Neither accept the existence of a god/gods. In each case if there was some way to definitely prove the existence of such both atheists and agnostic would be inclined to believe. Potato potAto.

Anonymous said...

"My point is that the seven years he spent in a Seminary profoundly affected his global paradigm, his philosophy and his personal belief systems, ethics and values (such as they were) throughout the rest of his life. So even in that period of his life when he professed atheism, religion still influenced who he was and the decisions he made."

That's true, but actually it's also probably true of most atheists. In my experience, the people that most vehemently reject religion are those who had an oppressive, extreme religious upbringing.

If you dig into the life history of someone who is most aggressive in rejecting religion and trying to "de-convert" others, you'll usually find someone whose parents raised them with some sort of fundamentalist "Christianity on steroids" belief system (or Judaism on steroids, or Islam on steroids, etc.) Basically, the kids of religious zealots are likely to grow up to be angry atheist zealots.

This is similar to how people who grew up under oppressive right-wing economic regimes are likely to be hard lefties, while people who grew up under oppressive left-wing regimes are likely to be hard wingnuts. (See Ayn Rand as an example of this. Big government fucked over her family, so "logically" to her, virtually NO government must be a great idea.)

Anonymous said...

"Nazis were mostly Christian." And mostly socialist.

Anonymous said...

"'Nazis were mostly Christian.' And mostly socialist."

And you're mostly an idiot. No, wait, I take that back: 100% idiot.

The "socialist" component of Nazism was mere window-dressing used to help them recruit poor Germans in the early days of the party, in competition with the other rising political movement of their day, the Communist Party of Germany.

And those minimal left-wing beliefs went bye-bye almost immediately after Hitler gained power in 1933. Hitler had all of the followers of Strasser, the so-called "socialist" component of the party, murdered in the Night of the Long Knives.

The "Socialism" part of National Socialism was a sham. The "National[ism]" (and racism) part was not.

Yīshēng said...

OpenID lilacpr2000 said...
A place where with faith they gather to praise a Greater Good,to hope and nourish themselves with strength to face the challenges of their daily lives. So even this is taken away.
>>>>>>>>>>

You KNOW things are bad when the whooteemoos resort to killing OTHER Christians (AGAIN) in church because they're Black.

But then again, ISIS kills other Muslims too, maybe they plan to replace the confederate flag with the one from ISIS.

Anonymous said...

On the topic of your last post, another black Southern church has fallen victim to arson. Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Greeleyville, South Carolina, is currently burning, with firefighters on scene.

It's pretty hard to believe the burning of seven black Southern churches in a short period of time is some kind of coincidence.

I'd say bigot backlash, to both Obama and activist demands to rein in abusive police, is the most likely culprit.

Anonymous said...

It's pretty hard to believe the burning of seven black Southern churches in a short period of time is some kind of coincidence.

I'd say bigot backlash, to both Obama and activist demands to rein in abusive police, is the most likely culprit.

5:33 PM
---------------
Well, it's not hard for Kinky. He knows it's a coincidence and Blacks are rushing to judgment. I bet at least half of those burnings happened in SC and the rest were in other states in the deep South.

This reminds me of terrorizing of Blacks by KKK and other white racist organizations. Unfortunately, Blacks in the South are rather docile and will only 'forgive' those who did it.

Why? Because there isn't a damn thing they can do about it. In fact, down South as well as North, these events send Blacks into a fearful spiral, a kind of trance of powerlessness, a prelude to the coming of death by Whites....EVIL works that way.

Anonymous said...

Dear Lilac, as a concerned man about your country I want to alert you to the fact that PR, like Greece, is in deep deep financial trouble.

It seems PR owes billions of dollars and cannot pay off it debts. In addition, there is an exodus of people heading for the USA.

I know from your previous comments that you love PR and not so fond of the states because of the way America treat AAs and Latinos. I agree. However, isn't it about time that you reconsider getting off the island and coming to America?

If you need a place to stay, feel free to stay at mine.

depressed negro
PS. I only have one bed so we'll have to share it. But don't worry, I am completely 100% safe.

Anonymous said...

"Well, it's not hard for Kinky. He knows it's a coincidence and Blacks are rushing to judgment. I bet at least half of those burnings happened in SC and the rest were in other states in the deep South."

All of the churches are in the South:

Two in Tennessee, one in Georgia, one in North Carolina, two in South Carolina, one in Florida.

Three of the blazes have already been confirmed to be the result of arson.

Could it be someone other than racists setting these fires? Yes, it's possible. But my money's on the White Sheet Brigade as the responsible party.

Anonymous said...

FYi, PR has $75 billion in debt. That's almost as much as what Madoff stole.

Anonymous said...

Lilac, you mustn't stay with Depressed Negro. If he gets some of that sweet Lilac booty, he won't be depressed anymore and won't post here, and then we'll all be deprived of his gems of wisdom. (LOL)

Anonymous said...

Apparently, there are black folks who have bought into the lie that the Confederate battle flag represents "Southern pride" and "heritage" and all that BS, and they object to taking it down. That's some world-class coonery right there.

Field, maybe these people should replace that black South Carolina police officer as your House Negro of the Day. After all, he was just doing his job, regardless of what he might think about the government's Confederate flag policy. These fools, on the other hand, are willing to embarrass themselves for free.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/07/black_supporters_of_the_confederate_flag_don_t_let_cowards_in_bedsheets.html

Anonymous said...

Hoorah!

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous Anonymous said...
Apparently, there are black folks who have bought into the lie that the Confederate battle flag represents "Southern pride" and "heritage" and all that BS, and they object to taking it down. That's some world-class coonery right there."

There have always been Blacks who have sided with White Supremacists. That is called uncle tommin, sell-outs, slave catchers and house negroes. They have always been with us since slavery.

Even George Wallace had Black support during the 60's.

MLK was severely criticized by many Blacks for 'creating trouble, and making things worse for us'.

The most dangerous people to the Black race was, and still is, Black sell-outs who hate being Black because in their minds and hearts:

"Blacks ain't 'nothing'. And if Blacks are somethin, it's them who is the problem, not the wm."

Bottom line it is this: "The problem is the existence of Blacks and quite a few AAs act very apologetically for being here on earth."

Is there any wonder Southern Blacks forgive immediately Whites who murder their love ones? What kind of human being does that? One that is apologetic for existing and feels powerless.

We really need to own up to our own fears and develop some courage to stand up for what's right.

"If you aren't willing to die for a cause, then you aren't fit to live."

Anonymous said...

"Is there any wonder Southern Blacks forgive immediately Whites who murder their love ones? What kind of human being does that? One that is apologetic for existing and feels powerless."

True, blacks are often quick to forgive, but not for the reasons that you have given.

Blacks forgive for very real, self-centered reasons, to lighten the burden on a soul that's already heavily burdened, retaining in the process the integrity of their soul, if not the remnants of their sanity.