Posted on 09/20/2016 3:58:42 PM PDT by NYer
Even the most rookie evangelizer of the Catholic faith has come across the conversation-ending statement that religion is responsible for the majority of the wars and international atrocities throughout history.
This comment is typically tossed out by people who have walked away from what they see as an authoritarian structure hellbent on the motto of “conversion or death.” They point to the Crusades and the Inquisition, or for that matter 9/11, and demand to know who would want to associate themselves with a religion that would carry out such terrifying actions in the name of a God who is supposed to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving.
On the surface, the argument seems to make sense, but it’s specious. At the very least, a little fact checking is in order.
First off, it’s critical that we evangelizers acknowledge that there have been atrocities carried out in the name of God, whether sanctioned by the Church or not. Brushing those cases aside as though they were just a few bad characters behaving badly doesn’t do much for our credibility. We should take ownership of the bad things that have happened during Church history, providing context when it matters.
But we should also be ready to calmly ask our friends, so familiar with those stories in distant history, if they are equally as informed about the great atrocities and crimes against humanity perpetrated in the more recent 20th century, when an estimated 109,000,000 people were murdered by secularist governments and atheist regimes. No one murdered by Stalin, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh (and too many others) died a victim of religion.
With that in mind, a documentary called Martyred in the USSR is in pre-production and looking to spread this message. This film, directed by Kevin Gonzalez of 12 Point Productions, is set to tell the story of the intense persecution carried out against Christians and Jews in the USSR, an attempt to eradicate all believers from the atheistic communist state. The producers hope that by shedding light on this subject, we can readily demonstrate that when God is pushed out of the public square and the social conscience, the results are staggeringly grim.
The persecution of the faithful under totalitarian regimes stands before us like a blinking light, urging us to turn back before it’s too late. John Das, a Catholic student-physician who is volunteering as the Lead Archivist of the film, encourages people “to learn about the persecution of the Church under atheist communism…so few people are aware of the crimes committed against our brothers and sisters living in the former Eastern Bloc.”
We shouldn’t shy away from recognizing the reality that atrocities have indeed been carried out in the in name of religion in the past; our willingness to admit to it matters, because it could be a model of witness by which our atheist friends become willing to acknowledge what has been done not in God’s name, but in the name of those who would not have God mentioned at all.
Information about the film Martyred in the USSR can be found at http://martyredintheussr.com. Catholic Christians can visit the website and see how they can help with the making of the film.
Ping!
Hillary has already called Christians “deplorable” and “irredeemable,”so the warning that persecution is coming is there.
Just ask a liberal if they believe in evolution. When they say yes, then point out that the only people who survived to reproduce in the Soviet Union and Communist China are the killers and those who supported them - by definition.
The Crusades were a defensive action taken after 400 years of muslim conquest.
They were not successful. Islam still exists.
See also the books “Tortured for Christ” and “In God’s Underground”, by Richard Wurmbrand;
and the works of Solzhenitsyn.
Completely untrue, having spend many months over 4 trips to Russia.
Here's a link to share.
And even then, the Red Chinese made the Soviets look like slackers.
The proper rebuttal (IMO) of atheists who pull the “killing in the name of God” card has several prongs, depending on the initial claim.
The two big prongs are in response to an unthinking “Crusades/Inquisition” claim.
Prong #1: The Judeo-Christian God instructs us NOT to kill, particularly in His name. Note how this is not true for Muslims. Our God gives life and if mankind were 100% obedient, that’s all that He would have to do. But we’re not, and He can’t. The only thing He can do is limit the damage to life that we do, like we did in WWII with the atomic bombs.
Prong #2: If the atheist insists that death is the way of religion, and that we could do better if we gave up Judaism and Christianity, pull out the atrocities of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, the Kims of North Korea. If you pull out the numbers slain, and they still insist that religion is worse, then ask them how they measure “worse” and why do they do so.
If not believing in God results in tens of millions to one hundred million deaths, and believing in God results in far fewer deaths, then not believing in God is worse.
Also good to point out that religion was more closely tied to government in the past. Religion served as the marketing to make things happen.
Convince your subjects that the cause is in the name of God, and the State gets its way.
Also, also, note, along the same lines, it is the evil people who are most drawn to power. When there was more temporal power in the church, more of those were drawn to it.
This even happened on trivial levels - those abusing the sale of indulgences were basically no different than Mexican traffic cops today.
Power is what draws the evil out.
Which is why it’s a good idea to minimize the state’s power.
Lefties seem to think only evil people are in business, and the government is filled with saints.
Truth is, it’s a mix.
Who’s bringing the Somalian Muslims into the U.S. in droves? Catholic Charities, with the help of the Lutherans.
You forgot all the illegal immigrants from down South. But yeah those guys are being paid enormous sums of money, more than at any time in U.S. history to bring the terrorists into our midst. The numbers have escalated no less than 5 times what they were before Obama assumed office.
Whenever I post a comment at so-called libertarian sites that atheists have slaughtered more people than Christians, the comment is removed. That includes Breitbart. Atheists don’t want to be associated with their co-religionists in power.
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