In the middle ages Atheists where branded as much more dangerous than any other Religion or Sect and they were to be put to death forthwith and many were cruelly put to death and toretured just for the hell of it. Of course they were never allowed to escape be renouncing their Atheistic views and embracing the one true faith like many other religious people were allowed prior to their burning at the stake.

Why was the Christian doctrine of forgiveness not applied to everyone?

Why was the Christian doctrine of forgiveness not applied to everyone?

For the same reason that the Marxist doctrine of universalism was not extended to those who dared to worship any other God other than the jealous God of Marxism.

(Sorry, irrelevant as Stalin's atheism, Torquemada's theism, or Hitler's baptism might have been to carrying out their horrors, it is no coincidence that the Inquisition was Catholic, and Communism and Nazism were inherently and violently anti-religious.)

Yet, while I rarely hear denial of Christian excesses taken seriously, it is almost unanimously accepted in academic circles that dictatorships that called themselves "Marxist" - every single one - were perversions of an ideal that would cause Marx to turn in his grave (!)

That this doesn't cause "skeptics" to marvel is revealing.

David A.,

You said:
"That this doesn't cause "skeptics" to marvel is revealing."

As is your failure to actually answer the question despite repeating it at the top of your post...

[Deleted by the author on 17 Nov 2009 23:16 GMT]

For those of you who are genuinely seeking an answer and are sincerely open to the possibility of God, heaven, hell etc etc .. please visit

www.spiritlessons.com

Thank God for the ignore function on this site ... it cuts out all the losers and bigotry from small minded atheists

Your day will come

Michael,

"the ignore function on this site ... it cuts out all the losers and bigotry"

Wow, finally something we can agree on.

One day your prince will come!

When will anybody learn ?
The word believe is meaningless and so by definition is atheism.
Show me somebody who KNOWS. They would probably be put in a wax museum.

Matter of linguistics only. The word isn't meaningless, but allows room for a sliding scale. The creationist/I.D. attempt to discredit evolution by misrepresenting the word 'theory' is a good example of how language can be abused.

Mrs. G. E. Porter,

The word 'believe' isn't meaningless. For example, I can accept that people believe in God. No problem there. I have problems when people claim to know that God exists bu this is a different matter.
Theism and atheism concern belief and a lack of belief in a god or gods. This means something. The word 'believe', whether positive or a lack of, means something.
Knowledge though is described by gnosticism and agnosticism.
Why do you think that 'believe' is meaningless? And certainly, why do you say that atheism is meaningless? Because if atheism is meaningless then so is theism.