The evil of atheism?
Loone,
Why not include the full quote.
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. (Psalms 14.1) RSV 1952.
So all atheists are pretty bad huh?
Jesus, of course, a paradigm of love and compassion, orders that nonbelievers will be thrown “into the furnace of fire” where “men will weep and gnash their teeth,” just as “the weeds are gathered and burned with fire…” (Mathew 13.40-42).
Plato (400 BCE) recommended 5 years of imprisonment for a first offence and death for the 2nd offence.
Thomas Aquinas, from medieval times, taught, “The sin of unbelief is greater than any sin that occurs in the perversion of morals”. He recommended that such people be exterminated from the world by death” after the third offence.
Indeed the persecution of atheists continues to this day. Even as recently as the early part of the 20th century it was illegal, in many US states, for atheists to testify in a court of law.
So Loone, you should feel in good company in your accusations and condemnation of atheists. While I suspect you would strongly support my being put to death, assuming you have unquestioning belief in the words of Jesus, it is unfortunately not so easy these days. It must be very sad for you to see the continued erosion of the power for Christians to murder atheists. The idea of human rights must also be a difficult ideology for you to tolerate: This terrible idea that people should not be imprisoned or killed for expressing certain thoughts.
But history shows that indeed the power of Christians to seriously repress and subvert the human rights of many people has dwindled very significantly. We have gone from the word of Jesus, 2000 years ago, who inspired Christians to kill atheists on sight, through medieval times where at least imprisonment was tried first, to the present time where in the past 5 years we have seen a rapid rise in organizations such as ‘The Atheist Alliance’ (a worldwide organization), and the ‘Freethought society’, and the organization for the ‘Freedom from religion’, and many more. But finally one of the last bastions of religious bias has begun to fall, politics, we now have an atheist Governor in the form of Jesse Ventura in Minnesota. It is but a beginning but it does show an inexorable trend.
But why is this trend occurring? What has been happening throughout the past 2000 years that would erode the power of Christians to support indiscriminate murder and repression of the freedom of thought? I think the answer is very clear – knowledge and education, or in other words the erosion of widespread ignorance, and the increase in the understanding of the world. With this increase in knowledge comes compassion, laws, civilization, intolerance of tyranny, and reason.
The conclusion is clear: Early Christianity and its eagerness for murder is equated with ignorance and terror, and with the decline of the Christian power of terror comes learning, understanding and wisdom.
But of course as I am sure you will remind us: Wisdom, understanding, reason, are all the traits of Satan and must be despised by Christians, right?
Cris
And to that an ETERNAL purpose! 
