NFL: Listen to Tim Tebow’s comeback against the Bears

[cooperbh]

(12-18-2011 03:32 PM)JDaveG Wrote:  Then you should read more. The Holy Martyrs in Russia were absolutely killed precisely because of their Christian faith and precisely because they were not atheists. One of those Holy Martyrs is my eldest daughter's Patron Saint, Saint Elizabeth the New Martyr. Here is a snippet of her story dealing with her martyrdom:


http://orthodoxwiki.org/Elizabeth_the_New_Martyr

You want to pretend that didn't happen, and you make this false distinction (that in reality doesn't even exist) that this supposedly was not "in the name of" atheism. And yet atheism is a basic tenet of Communism, at least as it was practiced in the Soviet Union. The blood of the Holy Martyrs in Russia and other Communist states (which, for the record, account for over half of all the martyrs in Christian history) screams against your false distinction.

I would also point out that the Crusades and the Inquisition were hardly sanctioned by all of Christianity, so it is no defense that "all atheists didn't agree with the Bolsheviks." At the end of the day, Eastern Christians were victims of the Crusades, not perpetrators. So taking a portion of Christian believers and extrapolating that to all Christian believers as being "in the name of" Christianity is disingenuous. Particularly when the same arrow can be pointed at the Soviets and atheism.

This is just special pleading on your part (also known as a double standard). You should read some history before you speak further.

Atheism is not a tenet of Socialism or Communism. Members of the Russian Orthodox Church were not persecuted because of their religious beliefs, but because of their long standing connection to the Tsars and their support of anti-Communist forces during the Russian Civiil War. In other words, the elimination of Christianity by the Bolsheviks was a means, not an end.

Atheism is not an institution with aspirations and mechanisms for converting non-believers and growing its ranks. Christianity is. Again, the two can't be compared.