OK, so I exhalt the virtues of a secular society and some neanderthal

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

screams "STALIN! MAO! POL POT!" in response.

The fact that WE live in a civilized society thanks to secularism doesn't register in their minds.

How, I ask, how to argue? Not trying to convince the neanderthal, but rather enlighten the ones watching the exchange.

[Az]

1. There are 78,386 registered members in this forum

There are 297,369,894 people in the United States. I think the odds are that at least one person in those two groups may be an idiot.

[enlightenment]

2. Generally, I refuse to engage in a battle of wits

with an unarmed opponent. Continue your discussion with those watching the exchange; or smile, thank said cretin for sharing his/her views, and walk away.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Hmmm. Perhaps this is sound advice. (nt)

[Taxloss]

4. In 1994, the most Christianised country in Africa was ....

(Nobody? No guesses?)

... Rwanda!

Plucky little Rwanda's long and happy history under the ministrations of Belgian Christian missionaries had made it the most uniformly Christian and devout countries in Africa, with a highly organised church infrastructure.

That didn't stop millions of people launching the most extraordinary and brutally effective genocide in history, an orgy of slaughter where neighbour killed neighbour at a far greater rate than the Nazis ever achieved. Something like a million people were killed in just 30 days, with nothing more sophisticated than machetes and spears.

The silence of the Rwandan church is a noted part of this awful affair.

A little fact bomb to throw in that kind of conversation.

[onager]

5. Mass Inanity...

This is a common response. If anyone brings up one of the Minor Unpleasant Incidents in Xian history--Inquistion, witch mania, 30 Years War, Jimmy Swaggart--you can count on this inane comparison to come up EVERY time.

The way I usually address it: ask them to find one nation, specifically set up as an atheist nation, that declared a genocide or war strictly in the name of atheism.

Of course, that can't be done. But you'll have a lot of fun watching them repeat "Stalin was an atheist" a thousand times to keep from answering your question.

This is one of the stock responses, along with:

1. "We don't know whether Jesus existed? Well, we don't know whether Julius Caesar existed either! Did anybody on DU ever meet him? Yuk-yuk-yuk!"

2. "Atheists are so arrogant! If they only knew the unfathomable mind of an invisible and omnipotent deity as well as we do, maybe they wouldn't be like that."

3. "When I recently tried to point out why Xianity is SO obviously the One True Religion, an atheist had the gall to disagree with me. I like some atheists just fine, but I can't stand Atheist Fundamentalists like that one!"

4. "I'm a Xian who majored in philosophy, so let me tell you know-it-all, condescending atheists why you're wrong..." (Insert 100,000 words of random multi-syllabic gobbledygook here.)

[PinkUnicorn]

6. Some data..

You can find some interesting information here.

They substituted the state as a god figure who must be obeyed/worshiped via obedience to the proletariat as opposed to an invisible sky god who must be obeyed/worshiped via obedience to priest figures. As for Stalin, they usually forget to mention he was at an orthodox seminary for 5 years or so.

[Arianrhod]

7. May I make a small request?

Not quite on subject. According to the most recent paleontological research, the Neanderthals belonged to a highly intelligent, creative, artistic branch of the human family that was probably eradicated by the later Cro Magnon species, from which we are directly derived. (We do, however, continue to carry some Neanderthal genes.) The Neanderthal--who constituted the secondary human species for 300,000 years--buried their dead, held to some form of religious beliefs, had brains bigger than ours, created the oldest known art sculpures, and looked so much like us that, were we to spot one at dusk on a city street, we might not glance twice at him.

I tend to cringe every time someone maligns these ancient human beings. Could we maybe find something else to represent cretinism and Dark Ages ignorance? Heck, maybe we should use our own violent, brutish Cro Magnon ancestors. . . .

Thanks.

[onager]

9. Good point.

I'm sure if you shaved a Neanderthal and put him in a suit, we wouldn't be able to distinguish him from a modern man such as, let's say, G.W. Bush.

Of course, the Neanderthal would be acting more intelligently.

[Arianrhod]

11. hahahaha n/t

[Taxloss]

12. Have you read "The Inheritors" by William Golding?

Wonderful book about the Neanderthals and the arrival of the Cro-Magnons who wipe out their nascent culture.

[Arianrhod]

8. Stalin et al never claimed to be acting in the will of God.

All these religionists are doing, therefore, is admitting that their "saved saints" are no better than unsaved sinners.

Their religion has not provided an answer to evil. OTC, all it has done is serve to justify it.

[Brewman_Jax]

10. That's probably an insult to neanderthals--LOL

They were bad men, but they were marxists. Actually, Marx was more of a socialist than a secularist. Secularism calls for a separation of church and state and religion has no part in governance. They took Marx's line "Religion is the opiate of the masses" WAY out of context.

Marx wrote in The Opium of the People that religion was the opiate of the masses as a critique of religion as an external method of mind control. Luther and the Reformation began the breaking of that hold. You can read the essay at your leisure, it's more to it than I gave it credit for.

If nothing else, the religious civil wars in Europe's past should highlight the need for a secular government.

[geniph]

13. You could always respond in precisely the same vein

by screeching back, "Torquemada! Jim Jones! David Koresh! Osama bin Laden!"

it's kind of kindergarten, but does that kind of idiotic taunting deserve an actual rational response?