The Antichristian Phenomenon

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1. Waldheri says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 6:24 pm - Edit

   What kind of an empty argument is “communism is atheistic”? It is like saying “christianity is monotheistic”. Somewhere along the lines it seems to have been turned around, saying that “atheism is communistic”. Between the lines it is suggested that “communism is bad” and therefore “atheism is bad”.

   Is it clear that “communism is atheistic” is not an argument at all? Instead of defending communism (of which the motives can be questioned), you should be defending atheism and laughing hard at this “argument”.

   However, since this article is largely about communism, I’ll do my say. I think communism is a utopic idea which is unpractical and can not be implemented because of the human factor (greed, for one). Even if there is no human factor, for a communistic country to prevail it is necessary for all countries to be communistic. Only then communism can really work. It is a utopia.

   It is quite silly to discredit ’something’ because someone who was naughty also had that ’something’. It may have had nothing to do with it! Stalin was an atheist, and he was one of the worst dictators to have ever lived. Stalin also had a large moustache, but we don’t see anyone blaming his actions for this fact. We must look at the motives of actions! Even if Stalin killed people because they believed in a God and he thought that this should be punished by death, it is silly to blame atheism. In essence, Stalin did not allow people to have a certain freedom. Atheism does not deal with freedom. It is only the philosophical position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects theism.

   Atheists are only related because of this. It says nothing on how much freedom they think other people should have, and if they should be punished for something or not.

   Case closed?

2. Waldheri says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 6:34 pm - Edit

   Additional note: To compare political figures on the amount of deaths were caused in their name the list goes something like:
   ..

3. Waldheri says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 6:36 pm - Edit

   Shit, the system thought I was going to feed it HTML but I was trying to give “lesser than” signs. So here, from low to high:
   … Bush … Hitler, Stalin, Mao, God.

4. Db0 says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 6:50 pm - Edit

   I didn’t know God was a political figure…hmm…maybe you’re right

5. Minion4Hire says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 7:18 pm - Edit

   If think a better analogy might be “Democracy is Christian” to better tie in with the false philosphical/political correlation, as Christianity IS actually monotheistic. At least most tend to think so.

6. Waldheri says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 8:29 pm - Edit

   As one can deduce from the quoted text in this document, Marxist philosophy was maybe not outspokenly atheistic, but it did place the importance on men, and not supernatural beings. Maybe it’s not really atheism, but it is indeed a shift from religion to the reality of people. That’s why I used it.

7. Minion4Hire says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 9:51 pm - Edit

   Ah. “Monotheism is Christianity”. Missed that one entirely the first time through.

8. Deep Thought says:
   October 10th, 2007 at 7:19 pm - Edit

   Waldheri,
   You came late to the party. Db0 was making broad claims and I was pointing out that, if you stick to as-broad claims, that atheist groups suffer as badly.

   Off to a conference – more in a few days!

9. 21st Century Devil says:
   October 11th, 2007 at 1:27 am - Edit

   You make some good points in your post Db0 but i have some arguments.
   First of all,Stalin was not a dictator.He was elected to be head of state and secretary of the communist party.His actions and decisions might have been (or seem) harsh and cruel BUT desperate times call for desperate measures.If not for Stalin and his policies,the Soviet Union would have fallen to the 3rd reich.It was Stalin (and the party of course) who decided the quick industrialization of the country,thus making the defense of the USSR stronger.And the truth is that Greeks and Soviets alone could have won the war…The “Allies” did too little against the Nazis.
   Something that is silenced is that during WWII re-opened the churches!Some earlier measures against the Russian Church had been taken only because the higher clergy were plotting or fighting against the revolution.And it’s no true that Soviet policy was to destroy the churches…The Soviet people,sick of centuries of political and religious oppression under the Czar when the revolution broke out, plundered and leveled many churches,but the soviet government took measures to stop this.Did you ever hear about this? No,of course, because the capitalist media never told us so.
   History is written by the (temporary) winners unfortunately…In order for us to have a more accurate knowledge of History we must study the the books and history of the other side,the soviet side.USSR was not perfect,yes, but it was a beacon of hope for billions of people around the world!!!

   Hasta la victoria siempre!!!
   A greek communist friend of yours!
   (you know how i am,don’t you Db0???)

10. Db0 says:
    October 11th, 2007 at 5:52 am - Edit

    Of course I do. I am glad you decided to comment. Perhaps you might be able to give a different perspective to this discussion as, as I said, my knowledge is limited

11. Waldheri says:
    October 11th, 2007 at 4:10 pm - Edit

    21st Century Devil: Stalin was a dictator. It doesn’t matter how he got into power. According to your definitions, Hitler wasn’t a dictator either (as he also was elected). His actions and decisions are harsh and cruel, desperate times should never call for the extermination of millions. Yes, Stalin made the USSR stronger. Hitler also pulled Germany out of an economic crisis. That doesn’t excuse these men for killing millions. Orthodox Churches were leveled and destroyed under Stalin’s rule (their numbers decreasing from thousands to mere hundreds) and were only allowed during the second world war.

12. NMT says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 5:20 am - Edit

    Waldheri@: Following your statements it is quite easy to say Bush is a dictator too. I think you are pretty confused on politics.
    In the other hand, the French Revolution, that big and beloved sparkle of “democracy” of the “modern world” was a butchery of priests and people wearing wigs (functionaries of the monarchy)
    Just like most Socialist/”Communist” revolutions.

    Recalling the topic, communism and Socialism are about that. The actual “ideal democracies” are just an extension of the old monarchies, now ruled by the scarce and richest part of
    the population “Bourgeoises” (the middle class of the low Middle Age, the richest rulers nowadays). They are proprietaries of the big chains of market, media and so forth.
    So they rule our countries through mental (education – religion) and legal (police – army) domination just like the old monarchs and their concubinage with Popes. That’ s a state of primitive relations of power in the vein of the named “Dark Age” for a Socialist.

    Socialism calls for a redistribution of the land for the benefit of _every one_ (all free men are equals), Communism is a supposed after step making ultimately true the assertions of the
    Socialism. No body should own anything but just be free: “for _each one_ according to their abilities, and according to their needs”. But some theorists say that it is impossible to
    bring back the power to the people without a violent revolution, just like the French Revolution, because of bourgeois people will not renounce its power so easily…

    Of course you should read “something”, because this is a tight resume. Though the confusion about Socialism/Marxism in the subject is easy to solve when you know something about Marxism.
    The Argumentative method of Marx is historical and its name is “Materialistic Dialectics”, so:

    1. Every Religion in the world is an _idealistic_ aspiration to solve _real_ human problems.
    2. Atheism opposes _idealistically_ religion as an aspiration to solve real human problems.
    _______
    3. Socialism could not be really Atheistic because it is a _realistic_ answer for the inequity, so forth a _realistic_ answer the real human problems.

    Socialism don’t opposes Religion speaking strictly, real socialists see Religion as an historical level in the human development. Hence they don’t want to be religious or atheists because those conceptions of the world are at the same level “idealistic”. Materialism opposes Idealism as a Philosophical way for understanding the world. The Marxist Socialism is philosophically Materialistic from its very groundings. But some naive kids around here are confusing the topic at a high level because they think you could say Stalin killed more people than other guys and then jump on the conclusion that Atheism/Communism is bad when the trouble here was clearly if Communists and Socialists are Atheists and the answer is NO.

    To kill religious people means that you think they deserve to be killed, not that you are an Atheist, just like Bush kills religious people in the western nowadays with the mandate of the U.S. people who voted the election.

13. Db0 says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 9:00 am - Edit

    Btw, here is an article that I believe is very relevant to this.

    Also thanks for all the comments. I appreciate the dialogue and keep them coming

14. Deep Thought says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 5:26 pm - Edit

    21st century devil,
    OK, this is off topic (sorry) but – you are smoking crack. The argument that ‘the Soviet Union did the heavy lifting of beating Hitler while the Allies dawdled’ is totally lame. Sure, the Soviet Union did have a lot more people in the fight against Hitler, and they made a lot of tanks. But their trucks? American made and supplied. The raw materials for their tanks? American. The components of their tank shells? American. Rifles, ammunition, boots, great coats, hats, gloves, etc? American made and delivered? Fuel? Well, German bombing meant that those tanks were running on American-supplied fuel. And, most critically – after Operation Barbarossa when the Soviets allied with the Allies 80% of Soviet calories came from America; a famous Soviet Marshal once said that the Soviets won not because of tanks but because of American spam.

    Essentially, the Allies fed, fueled, armed, clothed, and moved the entire Soviet people to keep Hitler tied up on two fronts. American and British strategists argued at the time that it would have been better to let the Soviet Union fall (which would have happened by Spring 1944 without Allied food due to sheer starvation) and focus the supplies on the Western front but the logistics bases in the West were almost maxed out.

    The idea that the Soviet Union and Greece alone could have defeated Hitler without the massive support of the Allies is about as silly as the idea Stalin wasn’t a dictator.

15. Deep Thought says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 5:35 pm - Edit

    Waldheri
    Despite what this piece states, my argument was not that ‘atheists = communists, therefore evil’. I was pointing out that Db0’s rhetoric of ‘crusades = religious people evil’ is too simplistic and I illustrated this with counter-examples.

16. Db0 says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 7:36 pm - Edit

    Deep thought, you do know that Americans were supplying the Germans as well?

17. Deep Thought says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 10:28 pm - Edit

    Db0,
    You do know the difference between ’some American companies supplied equipment and/or continued to business with Nazi Germany’ and ‘the US government and military supplied millions of tons of supplies, material, and weapons – as well as coordination of strategy – with Soviet Russia’, right?

18. NMT says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 2:18 am - Edit

    There is no difference in between. U.S. government is leaded by companies, that’s why it is the biggest _capitalistic_ country into the whole world. The political decisions of the president aren’t so important he is just the figure in front of the masses. The people with the money is who takes the _real_ decisions. That’s why it is named Capitalism

    Take care of using such unlucky arguments for defending a position. There is a dangerous exercise of double morality and we all need here …Structure, political and economical structure for humanity’s sake!

    Once again, what’s the topic? You should know that there was so much manipulation and hypocrisy about the actual facts of the WWII. U.S. women were pushed to donate their pots and implements of aluminum to help the army (spreading blind and despotic patriotism trying to handle the economical crisis)… Also the American troops became popular because they helped mainly _France_ and _Poland_, that’s their merit. That’s why they later tried to “free” Poland from the Communist domain and started the religious zealotry joining John Paul II while America is by majority a protestant country! And that’s why they are generically named “Americans”, as French people used to call them when they arrived.

    Why we don’t recall the topic with serenity? Let’s chat about the historical existence of Jesus, for example. Or why protestants think they are so cool while catholics dominate the whole doctrine since the IV century !!

    However, sure you think “America” won against Vietnam, Somalia, Congo and Iraq too. Right?

19. Anath says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 4:34 am - Edit

    My comment here is slightly off the main communist-atheist topic but no less relevant.

    Why are people (here and otherwise) basing the degree of how terrible a leader is on how many people DIED under his regime? There are more relevant and no less important factors than just death tolls. Yeah, its terrible that millions of people died and their families, and poverty and famine and wars and nuclear bombs, but what about AFTER the slaughter? What about the lives that are not necessarily directly involved but no less unaffected? I may be a bit biased here because of my background and US citizenship, but look at what has happened to our country under this administration, just a few points…

    1. We, the young people, and our children, and our children’s children will be hard at work for the next century or two paying off the national debt. This is provided it stops tomorrow and we stop spending millions, billions of dollars a day funding it. Regardless of the number of lives lost on the battlefront, whether its one or one million, the country has ensured the near financial slavery of its citizens for generations, and isn’t improving the situation.

    2. The power right has moved into the hands of large corporations, multi-billionaires and interest groups. Yes, there was a trend before this administration, we all saw it coming, but you know those “tax cuts” promised? Yeah, those happened, promise fufilled. In areas that benefited the wealthy and megacorps. The lower class gets a bit more leniency too, with new programs designed to help them with medical expenses and food and such (but ask my mom, who works in the healthcare field with the low-income patients, just how well that works…), and leave the middle class to pick up the slack of both.

    3. Education. I can’t say enough about this… No Child Left Behind is in the process of leaving our schools in shambles. Anyone who thought the 90’s were declining quite a bit with new New Math and Outcome Based Education coming into vogue… this new program makes everything worse. Everyone is required to pass the test, but instead of working to actually educate the kids and raise the bar, the school systems have lowered the bar to a degree that anyone with two brain cells to click together CAN pass the test. I took the first edition of the new No Child Left Behind approved tests for my state, so I can attest personally that these new “improvements” and “standards” have done nothing but mess up our curriculum and dumb it down. I could have passed the test I took in 6th grade, and from what I know of everyone here, you probably could have passed it then or earlier. I took the test in 10th grade. US schools are working hard to be the worst in the world, and the kids who try to enter the workforce are too stupid to realize they’re stupid, after all, we can’t DARE damage our children’s fragile self esteems by making some BETTER than the other, so we should instead tell them all that they are succeeding, intelligent, equal, and special individuals, regardless the work they put out. Globally, our test scores have been plummeting for the last 20ish years, and continue to fall, and WILL continue to fall even more as mediocrity is further celebrated and encouraged, even, and especially, amongst Gifted students. With this propagation of mediocrity, where there is no “failure”, “everyone succeeds”, and math problems don’t even have to be correct, how can any graduate of an American institution expect to compete in the global market? Competition is higher now than ever before, and we’re lowering our standards instead of stepping up to the challenge. In a decade or two, the effects will be felt in the whole economy as companies waste more money for needless training and the young people grow increasingly inept at reading, writing, and computation. What will this country do then? (I have really been itching to write an article on this for quite some time. Can you tell I have a bit of a vendetta in education? )

    Anyway though, I could go on and on about policies and international trade, our Mexican border, the plummeting value of the dollar, the influence of interest groups and religion, and so on, but I need to get to bed soon so…

    Were any of the leaders you listed any worse in the end? At least some of them stabilized their economies and increased literacy, instead of turning their country into a stew of in-debt indoctrinated illiterate illegal immigrants. Death of a culture’s sense of competition and spirit is more costly in the long run then death of half its inhabitants.,

20. Deep Thought says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 2:59 pm - Edit

    NMT,
    I love your comments. “The people with the money is who takes the _real_ decisions. That’s why it is named Capitalism”, eh? Then please explain the supplies sent to the Soviet Union that I mention – that we never asked for payment for. Or the Marshall Plan where billions of dollars were given to Europe and Japan in return for – well, virtually nothing. Ir how about the major industrial concerns in WWII that donated time and material to the war effort for $1?

    Please, NMT – just relax. Marx said Capitalism is doomed, so why do you worry so?

21. Deep Thought says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 3:22 pm - Edit

    Anath,
    First, the point here was (way back when) that Db) was trying the old ‘the Crusades = all religious people suck” argument and I was making a counter-example to show the silliness.

    Second, the issues of the financial burdens for future generations cannot be laid at the feet of any administration except perhaps FDR and Ike. The year-to-year deficit is cirtually meaningless against the sheer weight of entitlement programs soon to come due. Ples, this is as close to world-wide as possible; Japan, China, and virtually all of Europe are facing the exact same issues, often more acutely than America.

    Blaming this on Bush or Clinton is to miss the big picture!

    Third – money has always had a ton of influence, and all over – not just is the current America. The cry that ‘the corporations are running things!’ is more than 100 years old in America alone. Remember – Clinton “reformed” welfare, not Bush!

    Fourth, education in America has been suffering for decades – but it is also declining in Europe and Japan.

    Anath, I must say, though – your statement “Were any of the leaders you listed any worse in the end? At least some of them stabilized their economies and increased literacy, instead of turning their country into a stew of in-debt indoctrinated illiterate illegal immigrants. Death of a culture’s sense of competition and spirit is more costly in the long run then death of half its inhabitants.” Leads to to say two things; tell that to the 100 million dead; and, boo-hoo, you’ve got it SOOOO BAD. Seriously, you want to stack up the gulag system versus credit card debt and claim debt is *worse*? Really?!

22. Db0 says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 3:31 pm - Edit

    I’m seriously starting to believe that you must be very ignorant or a propagandist. For example: The Marshal plan was part of the cultural assimilation the USA was doing to fight the “Communist threat”. They gave money to the countries on the tem that they would have to buy only american goods with them. In effect, the money returned to the states and the EU countries were force-fed american culture. Other beautiful plans of the USA was the funding of extreme right political parties in countries contested by USSR in an attempt to stop communist parties from taking over. This in turn had other wonderful result like Juntas (Of course that is a minor evil compared to the communists taking over eh?)

    I hope someone can be bothered to show you how little USA helped in the WW2, because I honestly can’t be bollocksed any more.

23. Db0 says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 3:39 pm - Edit

    ‘the Crusades = all religious people suck”

    Ah, and no I was not. If you are referring to the “Crimes of Atheism” post, then I was the one making the counter argument. In the sense that if you say Atheists = Stalin/Hitler = Evil then you’d better be prepared to face criticism about the Inquisition and other such lovely facts as well.

24. Anath says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 8:44 pm - Edit

    One thing you might want to note is that I am not “blaming” any individual person for the problems. Rather I am laying the due responsibility on the shoulders of the administration as a whole; president, congress, juries, school boards, governors, and all other government officials in a position of leadership. In a “representative democracy”, as we like to call ourselves, “blame” can not lie on one man or woman’s shoulders, but rather ALL the representatives who control policy. In a dictatorship or monarchy, it is relatively easy to “place blame”, even though that can sometimes be misleading in the cases of borderline bureaucracies and puppet governments.

    Comparing a national economy to credit card debt?? Its nothing similar. There’s a degree of national debt that is expected and healthy of any country, kind of like when you buy a house its expected that you’ll have to pay mortgage. However we have been in a VERY unhealthy range of debt as of late. Check this and poke around on the site a bit, read about social security. They’re not just borrowing “like with a credit card”, they’re taking money out of the social security trust fund, or, what you pay out of your paycheck to cash in on later, at retirement. This won’t effect the next generation or so of retirees, but right now my generation is the one paying for the administration’s agenda, that I don’t support, with MY retirement money. This administration has no intention of paying this debt back, and with all their misleading half-truths about “deficit cutting”, most citizens won’t know the difference. The reason this debt is “different” from other countries and other situations is where the money is coming from. It really IS coming from the savings of future generations.

    You might be a bit behind on your “welfare” (I was referring more specifically to the healthcare end) updates. The national reforms and policies I am talking about were only implemented in the past two years or so. It’s putting the company my mom works for out of business.

    It is true that education has been slipping over the past few decades, and I addressed that lightly. However the focus of my post was on a particular administration’s contributions and that of No Child Left Behind. While they say they are raising standards and helping, education slips lower than ever before. They are not working to rectify the situation, they’re exacerbating it! And who cares if education is slipping in Europe and Japan? Just because they’re becoming less educated does not make it ok that America’s children become less educated. This isn’t a problem that can be shrugged away with inflated standardized tests and statistic-twisting. That might work alright for those in academia-land, but in the real world, a D-rate job is still a D-rate job, whether or not the same job would have earned you a B+ or A- in school, or “above average” on standardized tests so dumbed down that anyone can pass. And to top it off, the gifted kids are weighed down by the special needs kids (from funding, instruction time, and up), so in effect, no child is left behind, but no child gets ahead either.

    And my “death of spirit” comment still stands. Better to be physically dead than “living” in a spiritually dead nation wallowing in its own feces, which we are definitely working towards.
    You believe in heaven, don’t you? Can life on this dying planet be better than an eternity in your heaven? Wouldn’t you wish others to a better state of existence and celebrate their passing? Or are you just thanatophobic?

25. Deep Thought says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 9:27 pm - Edit

    Db0,
    You are becoming the gift that keeps on giving. Look just a little ways up there, back along this thread, and see where NMT is making the extreme claim that ‘The people with the money is who takes the _real_ decisions. [in the US]“. Now, if that were the case, I doubt any politician would be allowed by the scary International Bankers to blow billions of dollars for no more return than cultural hegemony! The flight of American heavy industry to the Third world indicates that such plans didn’t really play out the way NMT would claim a 1940’s super-capitalist would have planned, anyway.

    “I hope someone can be bothered to show you how little USA helped in the WW2, because I honestly can’t be bollocksed any more.”

    What a pathetic little comment this is on more than one level. In addition to arming and feeding the Soviets, the US also armed and fed the British and Free French, the Free Polish, and the Chinese resistance. Efforts like the Burma Airlift, the Lend-Lease Act, and other such massive outpourings of US aid to the allies are so well-documented that I assume you haven’t bothered to read a history book about WWII since before you needed to shave. And the “I honestly can’t be bollocksed any more.” is a lame variant of “I can’t”.

26. Db0 says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 9:36 pm - Edit

    Yes, whatever. You still have not replied to the original post so I won’t take the time to fight over every little point you decide you can argue. I guess you must agree that Communism is not based on atheism then? How about secularism being better than theocracy?

27. Deep Thought says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 9:40 pm - Edit

    Db0,
    Let me re-paste this direct quote from you one more time,

    “For a Christian… …nstigating wars, dealing in weapons etc is not a bad deed.”

    Or how about when you said,

    “The majority of the christians never develop mature moral senses”

    Or other fun ones, like,

    “It is a fact that the Christian religion does not promote environmentalism in any way”

    I guess I could just let people go back to the linked post, let them read you start with an article full of these sorts of broad, sweeping generalizations, and allow them to watch you try to back out of them ever since. I really, really like how you linked to an article on the Atheist Ethicist that, if you read it, takes *you* to task for your initial claims! Lovely!

28. Db0 says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 9:52 pm - Edit

    I love how when you cannot respond, you fall back to quote-mining. Classic.

    I really, really like how you linked to an article on the Atheist Ethicist that, if you read it, takes *you* to task for your initial claims! Lovely!

    He did what now?
    *reads*
    Um…no he didn’t.

29. NMT says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 8:42 am - Edit

    Deep Thought@: You look like a Protestant Christian for me: “Please, NMT – just relax. Marx said Capitalism is doomed, so why do you worry so?”
    I feel as if a “*Testicle* of Yahweh” were pushing random words on my face. What’s the context of that quote and what do you mean?

    I’ll turn your other question back: It’s clear that you are standing in an supposedly ideological ground but you lack totally of principles in Economy.
    Firstly, you are very confused about that helpings and it is tremendously ignorant -no offense, just to say a few- that you don’t know what is the
    supposed purpose of those economical “helpings” you meant.

    If you don’t know how to buy a soul don’t shell your soul. I second the comments of Db0@.

30. NMT says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 9:25 am - Edit

    “Deep Thought@”: I sustain my _Universal statement_ on “who controls what” in the U.S. capitalist system. Going further, _it applies to any capitalist economy_. I don’t meant U.S. exclusively, and I am not saying that Communism is the salvation.

    One must be stupid for misunderstanding that one economy based upon accumulation of wealth with a distribution of 2% can be considered a smart plan for everyone.

    It is seemingly obvious that you feel yourself “specially gifted” because _you don’t break your brain for understanding other people. You just happen to use “Straw Man fallacy” over and over again thinking that your mental elaboration of premises is right for all the possible cases… wake up and start arguing over the initial topic!

    Db0@ is clear there but you are rambling over:
    — Let me re-paste this direct quote from you one more time,
    ——-“For a Christian… …nstigating wars, dealing in weapons etc is not a bad deed.”
    From where do we have a concept of Holy wars? From Bible, am I wrong or what!!.
    You laugh alone because you don’t try to prove your point, what a Christian alone have to say is pointless. You should see the very principles of the self-righteous Christian faith, not what you do think it could be.

    — Or how about when you said,
    ——–“The majority of the christians never develop mature moral senses”
    Why do you question this statement if a big bunch of the best brains in this earth have came to the same conclusion firstly than Db0@? We have discussed previously that true Christians are driven by “faith” and not by “rational-moral-sense” as “Morality” was defined after Kant. What’s your point?

    — Or other fun ones, like,
    ——–“It is a fact that the Christian religion does not promote environmentalism in any way”
    This statement is a little confusing if you don’t try to be comprehensive. In practice, as for the Protestant part, it is a solid statement. The Catholics are a little more confusing but as far as I can say you are introducing some cool-neo-environmentalist movement that doesn’t have any relation with theology. Going further, theologically speaking the land is just _propriety_ and nothing else, there isn’t something foundational in the major faiths of the world to come to the conclusion that this statement is wrong !!

31. communist says:
    October 22nd, 2007 at 4:03 am - Edit

    Who said Bush is not worse than Stalin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you think that Bush did not unnecessarily kill people!!! I think Blogger makes people blind of the fact that Stalin was not a communist!
    –
    “There is absolutely no God and Darwin is his prophet for delivering evolutionary truth,”

32. Deep Thought says:
    October 25th, 2007 at 11:20 pm - Edit

    Db0,
      You silly kid! You linked to the Atheist Ethicists article here

    http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2007/10/moral-outrage.html

    Claiming that it supports you ‘atheism isn’t communism’ defense. Seems you failed to follow the link to the previous, and related, article here

    http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2007/03/hitler-and-stalin-cliche.html

     
    That states quite clearly that your initial statements (remember them, way back when?) are no different.

      In other words, if you actually read all of the linked posts, the Atheist Ethicist…agree with the point I am making to critique you and draws the same parallels.

33. Db0 says:
    October 26th, 2007 at 6:14 am - Edit

    I’ve read both of them the first time, and then again when you prompted, and he doesn’t. In any case please stick to the point. Do you have anything to comment on the fact that communism is not based on atheism or that secularism is better than theocracy?

34. Deep Thought says:
    October 29th, 2007 at 7:31 pm - Edit

    "Do you have anything to comment on the fact that communism is not based on atheism…"
      Only that – I was unaware that anyone claimed that is was. Communism is atheistic, but it isn’t ‘based on’ atheism.

    "…or that secularism is better than theocracy?"

      Have you been sleeping? Heck, that is how we GOT here! OK, Db0, time for a quick quiz.

      In England the Queen is both head of state and head of the Church of England making the UK, technically, a form of theocracy for the past few centuries. Would you rather live in 1920’s England or 1920’s Soviet Russia?  Would you rather have to live in the Papal States of the 1890’s or the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge?

      My point has been for some time that claiming that a secular nation is auto-magically a better place to live than a religious nation is simply wrong. Once more, with feeling – several secular/atheist nations in the 20th Century slaughtered tens of millions of their own people for ideological reasons. There are examples of theocracies with freedom of religion (to some extent or another) that were peaceful, nice places to live; there have been secular societies that were hell-holes. And vice-versa!

35. Db0 says:
    October 31st, 2007 at 12:49 am - Edit

    Only that – I was unaware that anyone claimed that is was. Communism is atheistic, but it isn’t ‘based on’ atheism.

    Allow me, like you like to do, to quoteyour previous words, which were, in part, what prompted me to write this post

    Where? I am curious to know who can prove Communism is not an explicitly atheist ideology, that’s for sure!

    So you really believe that you can easily compare a "theocracy" (The mild version of ’20s GB that is) of an industrialized nation that got fat and wealthy on a horrible string of imperialism over the whole world – against a Nation that was just then struggling to get out of the feudal rule of bloodthirsty kings-gods which was still largely agricultural? You, my friend, have a strange scale…

    My point has been for some time that claiming that a secular nation is auto-magically a better place to live than a religious nation is simply wrong.

    You point if beside the point. As I explained above:

    In the end. It is not that a secular nation cannot have bad laws, but at least it will not have bad laws because of religion. It is not that atheism will make a person good but at least it will not make him to bad things because of religion. It’s that simple

36. Deep Thought says:
    November 6th, 2007 at 3:35 pm - Edit

      "So you really believe that you can easily compare a "theocracy" (The mild version of ’20s GB that is) of an industrialized nation that got fat and wealthy on a horrible string of imperialism over the whole world – against a Nation that was just then struggling to get out of the feudal rule of bloodthirsty kings-gods which was still largely agricultural? You, my friend, have a strange scale…"

      No, not really. Let us look at the two Koreas, for example. Both were roughly equally undeveloped in 1940 and were about equally devastated after the end of the Korean War. Today South Korea is an economic powerhouse with some of the wealthiest, most highly-educated citizens on earth – North Korea depends so utterly on aid from China and the US that about 40% of its citizens would starve to death in a year if that aid ended.

      Or what about Cuba? Even with the terrible rule of the pre-Castro thugs Cuba was one of the richest nations in the Western Hemisphere… until Communism took over.

      Your explanation is, well, a non-response. While your personal opinion is that a bad atheist is better than a bad theist simply because they aren’t a theist, the evidence shows that secular societies are more lethal and repressive than religious societies – meaning, simply, that you are wrong.

37. Db0 says:
    November 7th, 2007 at 8:11 am - Edit

    You have a knack of choosing countries that back up your examples. How about the many many countries in central Africa, living in the wonderful capitalistic world? How about the Eastern European block who enterred capitalism ~20 years ago and they are getting more FUBARed by the year. Are any of those better off or worse than Cuba? Also, the wealth of the nation does not directly translate to wealth of it’s citizens. That is what you fail to understand. Even the 20s GB was a worse place to live for most, than the early-communist Russia.

    The evidence shows that the more secular the nation, the better off it is. Norway is a perfect example of that.  If it is a secular nation under a tyrranical regime VS a theocratic nation under the same, then STILL the secular nation is better off. If you stopped comparing 3rd world countries to developed ones and/or looked to what makes a nation a good place to live then your argument might have had a base.

38. NMT says:
    November 9th, 2007 at 8:10 am - Edit

    In England the Queen is both head of state and head of the Church of England making the UK, technically, a form of theocracy for the past few centuries

    What a way of description for a PARLIAMENTARY state which raised free health care, education and assurance thanks to an earlier socialist government. There is no point in there, as you don’t know what you are talking about, also deviating the subject of this thread and the historical, political, economical and social content of your claims…. That’s a fallacy (post hoc, false dilemma and begging the question), just like this:
    

    Let us look at the two Koreas, [...]

    What does it prove? It is the same as "Let us look at two twin brothers, one is a middle class worker while the other is a successful and rich Christian minister. Do you see? the poor is not a minister" (argument by assertion, false generalization, begging the question and false dilemma -again) The point in deep is around the real and detailed circumstances producing those facts, not the activity of fantasizing the reality in favor of oneself almost to the same point that permits people believing in "superior beings": name them gods, lands, values, authorities or whatever.

    It is notorious that you are questioning -now- "if theocratic societies are worse than its secular counterparts". Well, I have to admit that "generalizing" in favor of any of this statements is irresponsible and perverse, just like saying that God must exist while all the evidence shows it is a social construction, namely. The point is that historically speaking you are going backward and forward at convenience. Believing is an act of acceptance of the absurd. It’s an irrational act of contempt as it was stated by Soren Kierkegaard many centuries ago: "If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe".  If I did understood well, db0@ is stating that believing could be "good" for one individual as this is an individual and egoistic context.  Though, when societies find contempt identifying, marking, labeling every individual as a Christian just to be able of taking (good) decisions, commercing with another individuals and been in charge of the State it is fascist.   And that isn’t an absurd generalization but attention to the real-historical-content of that regime, way of behavior, subculture or whomsoever adjective results fair in your head.

    In the other hand, the myth of the Jew Vampire was prevalent for many years and every single time it failed as a rule of peace and harmony since 1700 years ago. Make an example of a single country in the world whose Christian politicians and majorities turn the other cheek, make a human distribution of wealth and land, sacrifice themselves for the poor and make the peace but no war. That’s what is under the carpet here. You are trying to criticize human rulers, we are criticizing people supposedly inspired by God itself or at least in state of grace and backed up by prays around the world . -That’s a very different dimension-. Of course, you could say that human nature is fragile or sinner. But, curiously that’s what is under heavy attack here: the long standing Christian double morals and its postponement of real justice accepting undereducated war-makers, cheaters and greedy politicians representing the interests of privileged families as world rulers. Just awaiting for the judgment of, hum, erm… God?  If "In God we trust" then stop the system of justice, don’t vote and let God make the real decisions, don’t judge us, don’t see, don’t speak, don’t use your reason or just stop having a double moral system.

    This underlying mentality of humanity is garbage in need of divine helpings is indign and indignant. You are trying to criticize the failures of one young system of 50 years if much. I am criticizing a system of 1700 years and counting…

    Or what about Cuba? Even with the terrible rule of the pre-Castro thugs Cuba was one of the richest nations in the Western Hemisphere…

    I wonder if you are really a Christian… At least for the allegoric meaning of Christianity. This is totally false, it produces also repulsion. You happen to ignore -again- what’s the meaning of distribution of land and wealth shared for any economy of market Socialist, Capitalist or whatever. Cuba wasn’t one of the richest countries in the hemisphere but a country where a bunch of landowners descended from royal families controlled the plantations and institutions of a country whose economy was based in agriculture. That’s "all".

39. Deep Thought says:
    November 22nd, 2007 at 5:43 am - Edit

    Well, I must admit – I am stunned. Just a few simple statements on my part and both dB0 and NMT are reduced to promoting Communism; you know, Communism – the only political ideology that killed more people than Fascism. If this is what atheism reduces one to, you can have it.

40. Db0 says:
    November 22nd, 2007 at 6:18 am - Edit

    Have fun in your black & white world then and keep dodging…

41. NMT says:
    November 23rd, 2007 at 10:31 pm - Edit

    Where do this imaginary information came from? Anyway, there are exact numbers opened by Mikhail Gorbachev himself from the secret U.R.S.S. files -no black marker stains as some of the most "free" countries in the world use to do…

    This one-sided discussion was very refreshing for me as I am now pretty convinced that Christianity deserve the same respect as any other poisonous drugs.  Specially with this specimens speaking about the suffering in U.R.S.S. while most natives, including old and young Serbians, detest deeply their new  free-merchandised-and-miserable-life.

    It is really shameful for me have been extending this for so long time. As far as I am concerned, this chapter is happily finished as the specimen in question doesn’t know how to argue either.

42. LeaT says:
    January 18th, 2008 at 4:31 am - Edit

    Well, believe or not, I read the initial post which started all through then coming all the way here to this… My conclusion is pure and simple: if you need use the tools of sarcasm, general assumptions, calling people names, liars, don’t discuss. That’s simple. It is not only directed to Deep Though but all who ever participated in this very discussion (and to some extent became a tool of their own reasoning, simply put it). While Christianity and religion in general is an often personal matter as people tend to take their religion a little bit further than sometimes being healthy for them (also again applies to other aspects of life as well) this discussion became quite extreme, ending up going in round circles where arguments in the end meant little to suave the opponent as everyone already had their minds “made up”. Once again applies to everyone involved. I will refrain from mentioning names but least to say, at some point, you were all right, but at some points, you were also all blatantly wrong. I would say this discussion more ended up as a personal belief more than anything else. In the end, you were all saying “but I believe THIS…” and it rounded up with “What truth is best for you?” etc. Of course, seeing I believe in total Subjectivism, there is NO TRUTH! Not such a grand truth at least Christians are looking for. People can find a middleground for their arguments when they at some point feel they cannot discern further because of lack of evidence. Obviously no middleground was found here, no doubt.

    First of all, Deep Thought is a huge Anti-Communist (anti’s some other things, pro’s of others as well, some of them I totally think are way out of the window and part what I’d say is indoctrinated teachings of how a society SHOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE 2000 YEARS AGO but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER STORY ALLTOGETHER) and he made it clear to some point in his points I think. What he however failed to see that was that neither DbO and NMT were for or against Communism but simply argumented why Communism shouldn’t really be included as a Atheist ideology. To this point I think they were right because as Marx said, it is ABOVE religion, history, politics. It doesn’t want to get rid of it, it wants to be something better than it. However, Deep Thought took this argument as a laughable matter because he chose to personally interpret the text as something which meant the abolishment of, not transcendence of. That comes to my other conclusion about the argumentation involved. Personal interpretation. This is by far nothing we can help as everyone is inclined to believe or interpret a text of how they see fit because you are the one you are, not someone else. It totally makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is when you see a person trying to explain to you why you misinterpreted his or her text wrong and then start laughing at his or her “vain attempts” to cover up his or her lack of rhetorical skills. That is a complete sign of ignorance to me.

    Another question which bothered me deeply regarding the whole argumentation going on here was the favoritism for small details which detached from the coherent meaning it was included are loosing their main standpoints. It was used by both sides just as actively I should say. While small details indeed make up for a bigger whole it doesn’t necessarily mean it means the same while standing all alone by itself.

    Although I can maybe happily conclude that, while the argumentation was getting quite nasty at some points, even more so from a person who claims to have 4 kids and be a scholar teaching at a university it is possible at the end of the day for everyone to behave just as immature no matter if you are a Jew, Satanist, Christian or Atheist. I just, least to say, find the tone which was used a a time as quite shocking when this person also claimed to be a scholar teaching in those very areas on a university. Would such a manner be seen as accepted towards his students when they show maybe a similar behavior as DbO did? No, of course it wouldn’t. It just happened to be a message board and I truly believe that people tend to show themselves for the worse because of the anonymity here. No matter how enraged you become over such fallable arguments it doesn’t at the end of the day ruin your life as much as maybe it would if it turned out that the person happened to live next door and happily states one of those arguments everytime you happened to see each other.

    I totally understand DbO’s initial post though. Just because you have yourself no empirical evidences to support such claims because you obviously don’t take part of that very part of the society doesn’t mean that his argument is less valid becuase you have yourself never experienced such a thing. That is of course also logical that say, if you are something adhering to certain thoughts and ideas, of course you would naturally hang out with people with the similar mind set like you? Does this automatically make everyone as good as you or the people you know from that group or organization in a “love thy neighbor” way? No, of course it wouldn’t. We can picknick various (in)famous (anti)religious organizations from all over the world not adhering to this idea. It doesn’t say they don’t exist because you have never come in contact with them though. You see, that’s the main problem between a Christian (or any other type of believer which rather adheres to a religion than a belief system alone) because we (Atheists) often get more of those than you ever will and why should they in any way treat you wrong? You are like them, of course they like you just like you like them back. It doesn’t mean they like or love everyone (included every single person on this earth) but some people seriously have troubles when it comes to behaving more than others.

    I have to say generally though, I have seldom met a believer (Christian) that can argue for his or her sake in a sensical manner actually proving a point without in any whatsoever way feeling his or her religion is being attacked because a person (non-believer) asks questions about their beliefs and questions it in a very much understandable way. If you want to see perfect examples of stupid Christians? Look up the IMDB forum for the Golden Compass. That forum is more than anything a proof why we (non-believers) in general wish to have no further contact with most believers. I am disregarding the fact that a lot of the discussions going on are not related to the movie at all but rather pointing it as a fact of how stupid a Christian can act like just because he/she can just like an Atheist can. Of course there is always an Atheist who arises once in a while giving other Atheists bad names because they try to prosetylize Christians in a similar manner but I would say they are fewer than the Christians trying to doing the very same towards us non-believers. There is no doctrine or teaching or need for an Atheist to somehow spread their words to fellow citizens regarding their truth; it is then mostly stated as a debatable opinion and should be seen as such, no true indoctrination in that case. However, Christians tend to use this Hell-thing towards us non-believers all the time as a tool to scare us with and telling us things like if you don’t believe you are going to burn in Hell although totally rejecting the thought that if you do not believe in a book which speaks for their religion than you can neither believe anything written in it exluding all those doodles about Eternal Hellfire. Once again saying Atheists aren’t the same but at least they don’t come and knock at people’s doors (yet).

    So to finish it off, with proof of MY empirical evidence, Christians are often a closed case when they are stuck in circles trying to teach peple about something they do not believe in the first place and might have done so a long time ago but feels it do not adhere to them and their personal beliefs any longer and thus can no longer see it as a universal truth. Anyway, I thought it was quite clear and apparent at the end of it that the universal anwer for Life and Everything was 42.

43. LeaT says:
    January 18th, 2008 at 4:41 am - Edit

    Quick last post for anyone who is going to be that picknicky and point to my grammatical/spelling errors for argumentation (I had that! It was very sad, I tell you! A person trying to find something to argument for for the sake of the argumentative drama when there was none and the main issue had been left several posts ago) I hope by judging your intellectual skillz(tm) that you can figure out what I truly meant. I do hope I ain’t that bad when it comes down to rhetorical skills although English is not my primary language (although I am slowly progressing towards that way).

44. Db0 says:
    January 18th, 2008 at 8:21 am - Edit

    LeaT, you came late to the discussion but nevertheless, thanks for taking the time to respond. Don’t worry about grammar Nazis however, only the real ones are dangerous.

45. LeaT says:
    January 18th, 2008 at 6:40 pm - Edit

    Yes, I know, but I thought the issue was still interesting enough for assess even if not for my own personal enjoyment as it was a great reading to read all your responses to each other although maybe not done in the best of ways. I just felt I wanted to clarify some things which might not be apparent to the naked eye to anyone else who might be (stupid enough) to pick up the argumentation again and of course, it happens all the time but I don’t like when people fail to miss the major point because they are itching to discuss something they disagree with while getting stuck on minor details. You can rather see it was a summing up the argumentation which occured and some quick comments and references to the initial text(s).

46. NMT says:
    January 18th, 2008 at 7:51 pm - Edit

    @LeaT: Thanks for joining us, you are right, the subject is interesting enough for anybody to join lately or not. I’ve read your post [1] and agreed at most parts. Of course I don’t share (perhaps by misunderstanding) your views on what *beliefs or *maturity are. Nevertheless I have nothing to say at this point however.

    By the way your clarification confused me as I cant recall -or see- who claimed to have 4 kids(?) and in spite of what. About “DeepThought”: his web address is somewhere (may be in his signature link) -If you don’t have seen yet- There, in his web, you could see his “interests in Theology” which he tried to reflect in some posts though one cannot say if he is really a _scholar_ on the matter. I hope he isn’t for the sake of culture and education. I hope also you have read the “original” discussion for realizing why most people decided he wasn’t rationally responsible in his posts and therefore somebody who doesn’t deserved to be treated respectfully. [Respect in the kantian meaning]

    On the subject that atheism strives in communistic or Nazi approaches of life, well, the fallacy speaks for itself.
    Regards.

47. LeaT says:
    January 21st, 2008 at 12:24 am - Edit

    Well, those are of course my personal opinions and those can be a subject of matter forever as you can never seriously agree on what is mature or not since you only have yourself as a personal self reference to compare to what behavior annoys you and what behavior doesn’t. I was simply referring to stupid assumptions coming from both camps here while holding quite an aggressive tone which I sincerely shouldn’t be needed if you are only here to discuss. It was thus for me not a mature discussion we had at hand but that is of course a different matter all together.

    To clarify, DeepThought has 4 kids in a silly argument he had with dbO where he accused him for being a indoctrinated Christian and does not teach them anything else than for example, the Creation Myth about Adam and Eve. I have also checked his homepage but you see, maybe you didn’t read that far back as I did but he IS a scholar on a matter. Maybe it was you or maybe it was someone else, I cannot remember but anyway, he accused someone for not have “studied” it as much as he had because he was teaching the subject and also refered to the “I would have asked if you had been paying attention?” as in referring to a student if he/she had listened to anything at all. If a remember, he claimed to be teaching on the matter but right now I am frankly too lazy to go back and see if that is the case or not, neither isn’t it a very important matter either but I reacted strongly towards it and I also mentioned it in my initial post so either I completely misread/misunderstood or that must be the case.

    However, I understand why he wasn’t rational and the he did a lot of strawmen while on the other hand… it is strange a lot of Christians tend to do this. I checked a thread on the last.fm forums, ended the same way. Poor dbO, he should learn when to leave a discussion early before it is getting totally out of hand

    And agreed that Atheism would make people strive towards certain ideologies when it is indeed not the case at all. While faith or lack thereof can be intergrated into one’s ideology it is NOT an ideology alone.

48. Db0 says:
    January 21st, 2008 at 7:34 am - Edit

    To clarify, DeepThought has 4 kids in a silly argument he had with dbO where he accused him for being a indoctrinated Christian and does not teach them anything else than for example, the Creation Myth about Adam and Eve.

    Actually what I did say was that I doubted homeschooling would teach kids in depth on all kinds of science and I still believe that. No matter how smart the parent is he will certainly not be an expert on anything from mathematics, to chemistry, to history, to linguistics, to politics. Not to mention the teaching of evolution as a lie due to religious beliefs. In effect, I consider homeschooling as a form of child abuse. Same as with leaving your child illiterate. Anyway, I’m rambling off again…

    Poor dbO, he should learn when to leave a discussion early before it is getting totally out of hand

    I need to train myself to recognise hopeless cases

49. Strappado says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 7:50 pm - Edit

    Communism is actually more Christian than Atheist, because Communism has a much longer history than Marx & Lenin etc. And it was created without a single Atheist around.
    It starts off with Thomas Münzer, who was a priest during the reformation. While Luther opposed the Pope(resisted is more correct), Münzer (who was actually the one responsible for stopping to have Latin services) went a bit further. He helped organizing peasants and rioted, and made a commune were they shared things and he expressly referred to the Bible in doing so. In 1975 he ended up on the East German 5 Mark note.
    After him, the Anabaptists with the maniac John of Leyden were important. Thomas More’s “Utopia”. He is also known as St. Thomas More among catholics. There are lots of Christians all the way to Marx’ era, the last one being Wilhelm Weitling who was his contemporary. In short, Marx never invented Communism, but his variety was Atheist and “scientific”. And he appears to have been the most “successful”.
    I’ve written a post on this, although I’ll try to make a new one that is more systematic.
    http://dailyatheist.blogspot.com/2008/03/seed-of-communism-was-christian-seed.html

    Here’s the text from a book called The Anarchists which explains a lot of the background.
    http://www.ditext.com/joll/1.html

    Ironically, you’ll find lots of religious references in the entry on Communism in the Catholic Encyclopedia. It was written in 1910, so they didn’t have this urge to blame it on Atheism yet. Though nothing on Münzer, it’s a fairly thorough entry.
    http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04179a.htm

50. ShamWows says:
    February 24th, 2010 at 5:10 pm - Edit

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