idiggory wrote:
Atheists are harder to figure out. They are one of the most persecuted groups worldwide, definitely.
How the hell do you figure this? You're the second person to say this and it's just as bizarre a claim this time around as the first. I'm not aware of any country in the world where people are persecuted simply because they don't follow any religion at all. There are a whole lot of places where they are persecuted for *not* following the correct religion though. That this happens to lump Atheists in with all the religious folks who aren't the correct state religion is a side effect. It's not a target at atheists.
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But the thing is... they aren't apparent. In a muslim area of the world, they'll attract a lot of attention--sure. When everyone around is bowing towards Mecca and you are trying to do your grocery shopping, you stand out.
No more than a Christian or Jew would. I'm not sure how you think that makes Atheists "more persecuted".
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And they are probably up there with Muslims in terms of who the West persecutes.
I'm going to follow the same line Joph used. Persecution of people by other private individuals occurs all the time for a wide variety of reasons. We can play the "me too!" game, but it's kinda pointless IMO. I think it's a lot more helpful to focus on countries with actual policies in place which either directly persecute people based on their faith (or lack thereof to be fair), or which strongly encourage such persecution by their citizens.
Exactly how many Atheists have been killed because they were atheists in say the last 50 years? Any? Can you find one? What definition of persecution are you using then?
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It's really hard to say who are persecuted more--Jews or Atheists.
No, it's not. It's not even close. Atheists are not persecuted at all anywhere. The worst an atheist gets is some church goer giving them a bad look for being a "non-believer". If you think that's persecution then I suspect you need to lift your head up and look around at the rest of the world sometime. People are killed for their faith all the time. In some countries it's illegal to be a Christian. I'm not aware of any country where its illegal to be an atheist.
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I'm gonna go with Jews, because there are people alive *now* who lived through a genocide.
Strange that you associate persecution with genocide when talking about Jews, but then want to put what Atheists go through even in the same ballpark.
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Christians? LOL. Nearly all places that hate Christians hate Jews and Atheists more.
Wrong. Or, I should say, half wrong. How the hell do you equate the persecution of Jews to that of Atheists. What world do you live in where the ranking of people who are persecuted for their beliefs puts Jews at the top and Atheists in a close second? Sorry, that's bizarre.
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And Christians do more than their fair share of persecution (MOSTLY via South America, Africa and Polynesia).
Can you name a country where it is illegal to be any religion other than Christian? Can you name a country where the government acts in a way designed to encourage attacks on non-Christians? Where non-Christians are excluded from public schools holding many jobs and even political office? Can you?
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Muslims? Definitely persecuted against in the West and in Christian nations.
Your definition of persecuted seems to change radically based on which group you're talking about. Makes it an irrelevant standard in your case.
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But the majority of their persecution comes from internal struggles between Sunni and Shia. There are ample places that prefer one or the other, and plenty where you could expect to live peacefully as either. Only a few Muslim states really persecute the other. Plus, I'm not sure you are being persecuted when you equally hate the group that hates you...
Well, you are. I suspect there is a side aspect of this issue we could explore based on your statement having to do with examining which religion persecutes the most as opposed to which is most persecuted. But that would be another topic.
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Most importantly? Not to sound horribly insensitive, but if ONE attack on a church leads the pope to say that, then he hasn't paid ANY attention to the world for the last 4 decades...
Are you really that ignorant of world events? That was one recent example. Depending on who you talk to, anywhere from 10k to 50+k Christians are killed every year world wide specifically because they are Christian. Unfortunately, it's hard to validate the numbers because they occur in countries which tend not to track the number of Christians they or their policies kill and western intellectuals who one might expect to care about people being killed for their beliefs tend to turn a blind eye (so no one does any "official" or academic studies of the problem).
The western intellectual view tends to be that since Christianity is the majority religion in the west and is seen as too powerful there, that what happens to Christians everywhere else in the world either doesn't matter, or is somehow some kind of fair payback for perceived current and historical power. As a result most people in the west are completely unaware of just how harshly and often blatantly Christians are persecuted and killed everywhere else. Ironically, when someone like the Pope attempts to bring this problem to the attention of western audiences, it's met with the sort of reactions we've seen in this thread.
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Now, if they had said "People forget that Christians face persecution, too" it would have been perfectly true and fair. But that's downright bullshit.
Is it? Or are you just ignorant of the reality around you? If everyone who tries to inform you about what's going on gets harshly attacked for doing so, why do you think you are acting on accurate and complete information?