Christianity vs Communism
Offline I have always said that both of these doctrines are very similar. For starters, they are very controlling and are very dogmatic.
I am gonna try to find some similarities between both of them:
(1) Followers of both doctrines like to control people. In North Korea, for example, hidden cameras are used to spy on people in the streets. A man with long hair could easily get arrested.
(2) Censorship. They both censor whatever offends them. Let's not forget that during the Cold War, most forms of music were banned in the Iron Curtain, and let's not forget Christian organizations were constantly attacking different types of music
(3) Extreme altruism: communism took sharing to an extreme, by forcing farmers to share their belongings with other farmers to create equality. Communism's tendecy to abolish social classes was no different than Jesus preaching against the rich. Or one of the ten commandments saying you should never covet thy neighbor's goods.
(4) Persecution of gays, feminists, etc.
(5) A tendency to turn followers of their dogmas into saints. Typical of the Catholic Church, but the communists did canonize Stalin and Lenin, as if they were saints.
(6) Genocide. Christians like to say communists killed people because they were atheists, but the truth is, communists destroyed anything or anyone that went against their doctrine. The conquistadors, Charlemagne, Oliver Cromwell were no different.
(7) Control of the educational system. Communists tried their best to convince their young that their way was the only way. Schools were used for this. Christians do the same with the educational system. Here in Panama, for example, they teach religion in schools, but only Catholic Religion.
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Believing that life was horrid before they showed up and is horrible for those who don't follow their dogmas. The Soviet Union believed the west was corrupt and doomed. Christians believe non-Christians are misguided.
I am sure there are more similarities, but it is clear to me that Communism is like Christianity's bastard child. Let's not forget that it originated in the mind of a man influenced by Christian society: Karl Marx. He did not like churches, but he sure as hell took a lot from them.
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These are elements of fascism, not to be confused with communism itself. Fascism can attach itself to any political or social structure, contrary to some popular beliefs (such as those of Korean and Cold War days) fascism is not strictly peculiar to communism, although communist structures, it would seem, have historically suffered the most from it.
Communism is not as altruistic as plain socialism, I slightly disagree with the characterisation of communist altruism as extreme, but otherwise this seems like a fair comparison. Communism shuns individual ownership and affluence in a very similar way to the christian gospels. Mind, however, that christians, in general, do not.
Again this element is not strictly peculiar to communism.
Granted. (and hilarious to wit)
Fair enough, not entirely peculiar to communism, a lot of communists have been killed because they weren't capitalists.
There's a fine line between a social education model and an education system under propagandistic control. Such is the nature of education.
Socialism in general sees Capitalism as ultimately Feudal. Communists are thus convinced it is an inevitably corruptible system, there is a lot of truth in it. As it goes to the comparison, necessity is the mother of invention, so it's stands to reaon that a perceived need is behind the origin of both schools of thought, as it would be behind any.
Agreed on this one.
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Communism lends it's to totalitarian regimes because it consolidates power into the hands of the very few. Checks and balances are removed, the government turned into a colossal moderation entity for everyone.
If the agents of the government could indeed be totally impartial, this would work quite well. In the real and human world, however, the only possible outcome is corruption.
Let's be uncomfortably truthful for a moment:
Russia was far worse off before Stalin rose to power. Compared to the tsarist reign of Nicholas II, Stalin's was entirely tame and just. Nicholas used every excuse he could find to get into war (because he enjoyed them like they were a festive sporting event. He even brought his youngest son along to the front with himself), massacred people at a whim and lived in emaculate luxury while the entire country sat in squalor. However power hungry and sadistic Stalin was, he did do a damn good job of getting his country firing on all cylinders again.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Russia may be one of the few countries in Europe that has never enjoyed democracy. Putin isn't any better.
As was pointed out in another forum (I post in many forums), what I said in the first post can easily apply to facism and Islam as well, and for good reasons, all of these ideologies are dogmatic and tend to go to extremes in their ways of thinking. They can go as far as seeing anyone who doesn't agree with them as the enemy. Period.
A couple of minor pet peeves:
To those referring to 'communism', can you please tell me WHICH ONE? Communism, as espoused by Marx? Marxism, as espoused by Lenin? Leninism, as practiced by Lenin and (early) Stalin? Stalinism, as practiced by Stalin? Post-Stalinistic Soviet Socialism, as practived by Kruschev through early Gorbachev? Maoism? Post-Maoist Semi-Westernized Chinese Communism? European Communism, as advocated by Communist parties throughout the EU?
Very, very different critters, all.
Marx, for example, would have been horrified at the Soviet System, especially under Stalin and the Post-Stalinists. Lenin, by comparison, admitted to American industrialist Armand Hammer shortly before his death that his attempts to institute Marx's ideas had been a gross failure.
Eloise:
I think the term you would have been better served by is "Authoritarian". Fascism != Communism. Fascism indicates that while industry and private enterprise is directed in its focus and purpose by the central authority, it remains at least nominally in private hands. Communism, on the other hand, transfers direct ownership of enterprise into the hands of the State/Collective, the exact form of which depending on which form of 'Communism', as mentioned above. Marx, after all, would not advocate 'State owned' industry in the form that it came about, with power and control in the hands of the very few, but rather that all members of the society be considered equal partners in all industry. In this, modern Chinese Communism is nearly fascism, but culturally it retains more of a Maoist flavor.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
I understand your frustration BMac this isn't a subject which is done any justice by being generalised too loosely. That said, this thread could still be fun to discuss, No?
er.. I hope you aren't suggesting that I've said they were equal, I'm sure I was pointing out that they aren't. In any case, however, yeah I agree that I could have said authoritarian there.
Private ownership is not necessary to fascism, I don't think, if that's what you mean. Is that what you mean? Fascism involves ideological control as well as material.
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You always could’ve never been further from the truth.
Communism is a science that applied correctly cannot be dogmatic, but most certainly has been improperly applied by many through history and there are certainly parties around today that are full of people who follow them dogmatically.
Communism is most certainly controlling, that is an element that is absolutely necessary to abolish capitalism, that system which must be abolished for humanity to be free from all forms of exploitation and oppression.
I get to North Korea before I bother reading the rest of this. If you think North Korea represents communism it’s clear that you’ve not gotten your education about communism from actual communists, yet are speaking here as if you know what you’re talking about when you speak of communism. North Korea, China, Cuba and all sorts of “communist” parties are held in contempt by the majority of communists in the world, including every one I’ve ever met. Any of these countries can be demonstrably shown to have ventured far away from a scientific Marxist approach and are simply capitalist regimes.
Marxism is not a doctrine, it’s a science. I’d run for the hills if any Party claimed that you accept what they say based on their word rather than demonstration. The beacon to all communists in the world right now, that glorious people which give us all great hope, are the Maoists in Nepal (The Maobadi) who have overwhelming support of the common people in their country after waging a 10 year long People’s War that abolished the monarchy there.
Not whatever offends us, rather what might stand in the way of bringing about a system free of all forms of oppression and exploitation. When a successful revolution has occurred and state power is seized by the common people, reactionaries of all forms do everything in their power to make a counter revolution, this has unfortunately successfully occurred repeatedly through history because, among other reasons, the former ruling class and reactionaries were not properly suppressed…censored, whatever you’d call it. I say jail to all those who exploit people and wish to bring about a system like our current one in which the vast majority of humanity struggle daily to survive and must enter into degrading relationships of exploitation to have a shot at life.
We live in a world in which there is by far enough means to produce enough food and shelter for all, yet look at this disgusting world in which there are children in Haiti who are eating cookies made of sugar, oil, flour and dirt in an all-too-often failed effort to survive. If by censoring those who wish to uphold this system in which money can be easily converted into beliefs/actions by those who wish to thwart revolutionary change, then this is a very small “crime” to have to commit in relation to the systematic exploitation of the Earth and it’s common people by the capitalist ruling class.
Yes. Human rights are always more important than property rights. And the rich should be abolished. As long as there are those in society who own the means to produce needed and desired goods, they will use that ownership to control society largely to their liking via public opinion-molding machine, control of the flow/price of goods, and command of armed forces. Until the means to produce needed and desired goods are placed into common ownership you have a dictatorship of the capitalist ruling class who control your very ability to survive and what information you have access to. For this dictatorship to be broken, there’s going to be lots of forced sharing…please don’t cry.
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You’ve never properly studied communism, but choose to speak about it. I personally never speak about things until I’ve studied them from all angles. Show me a communist party that “persecutes” anyone but the ruling class and it’s tentacles and I’ll show you a bunch of revisionist idiots who probably voted for Obama. Communism is about emancipating all of humanity, communists aren’t feminists only because it is included with being a communist, and there are gay communists aplenty as well as nothing based on a scientific understanding that could be used to justify persecuting gay people.
I consider Marx, Lenin and Mao to be among the most intelligent and caring people ever to live, but there is no supernatural beliefs involved of course, as there is nowhere in the science of MLM. Stalin is not looked well upon by many communists, many of us believe that his religious and unscientific upbringing never left him fully and caused the suffering of many. We separate the good and bad with him, he was right on some things, but as far as I know there is no communist party in existence that holds Stalin in very high regard.
Genocide is the targeting of a race. Communists target the ruling class who are criminals who steal from and kill the poor people systematically. Communists don’t target people who disagree with them except to the extent that those people are a danger to carrying forward the revolution that is needed to emancipate all of humanity.
I’m firmly and proudly a communist (MLM) and have never killed anyone that I know of. Hell I’ve even shared food and such with capitalists, former US military terrorists who dropped bombs on the poor people of Vietnam etc.. We’d love to talk out our differences, but the science tells us that the ruling class will never peacefully give up their dictatorship and will begin systematically shooting at us, commanding their armed forces to shoot us, and using their public opinion-molding machine to even get other poor people to come shoot us the very moment we try placing the means of production in common ownership…or usually far before we reach that step.
Yes, MLM is the only way to abolish capitalism. This knowledge is grounded firmly in the scientific method and is open to be proven false by any number of tests. If a communist society is ever established I imagine that with two generations of the schools being under our control will be all it’ll take to give the final death nail to capitalism and religion for good. Future society will look back in horror at the way humanity once lived.
The West is not corrupt, the ruling class in the West carries out capitalism/imperialism, their prized system, exactly the way it works and the horrors we see in the world are a result of it. Capitalism is working perfectly for those on the right side of it.
I'm getting tired of all the "Communism is a religion" arguments.
The reason Communist totarilian regimes are similar to other such regimes, is because they both are a consequence of human nature.
Communist ideaologies have similarities with charities, that doesn't mean the Communists are charitiable.
Communists (MLM) holds no cards regarding our hatred of and need to eradicate the capitalist ruling class, not because it's in our nature to want to destroy, but because we've armed ourselves with a scientific understanding of the nature of this system and what it will take to emancipate all of humanity and end all forms of exploitation.
Totalitarianism is not human nature. Beliefs, ergo behaviors are largely controlled by the public opinion-molding machine. Furthermore we are products of our environments. With a different environment and people with different interests in control of the public opinion-molding machine, beliefs ergo behaviors are much different.
Your comparison of Christianity to Communism shows you lack of based knowledge in either. Read and get educated then you'll be equipped to defend what you believe whether it be correct or incorrect. The past history of Asia and Europe gives us all very convincing evidence of what a world under communism would look like. A dark and terrible place to live is what it gave the world in the past and that's all it would offer. Christianity on the other hand has the opposite effects. A true Christian up bringing helps to build men and women with morals and love for their neighbors. One of many thing communism does not. ...A wise man consider his words before he speaks and fill his mind and heart with knowledge and wisdom so that his words may have value!
Communism is quite comparable to Christianity in its effects.
There were peasants in Russia who still were sad that 'Uncle Joe Stalin' had gone, long after his rule, since he did actually bring some measure of improvement to the lives of many impoverished regions of his 'domain'.
And if you avoided any disapproved behaviour, especially criticism of the Government, things were not so bad, generally, especially in comparison to life under the Orthodox Church-sanctioned Czars.
Not so different to a theocracy.
Democracy is not supported by scripture - 'give unto caesar what is caesar's' - it endorses emperors and kings.
God is the model of an authoritarian state, and the afflictions he visits on the world make him worse than Stalin.
The 'slogan' of Marxism, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", is at least as compassionate as anything in Christianity, and superior to most of it. Of course, the actual regimes distort or ignore that, just as do many faith-dominated regimes.
But then they will say the equivalent thing you do, "they were not true communists"...
It is to the credit of many believers that they find ways to interpret scripture to support a more compassionate outlook. There are some wise things in there, but a lot of not-so-wise, and many downright bad, such as with regard to the status of women and slaves.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
The way that Stalin and China twisted the words of Marx to implement the dictatorships we witness are completely in line with "God". My way or the highway. Most people don't know that Jefferson supported the French Revolution which lead to a dictatorship. What no one admits is that he would NOT have supported the cause if he knew the outcome.
However, SOME aspects of the fictional character "Jesus" are in line with humanity's evolutionary cooperation and compassion. The problem is that the "son" tries to play the "good cop" when the "dad" ultimately doesn't give a shit about whom he maces.
Dogmatism of a religious nature or political nature will always retard humanity from finding solutions to the human condition.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Similarities between Christianity and Communism may seemingly be there. However, communism's ties to atheism is direct! Isn't it?
Pol Pot? Very much atheistic. His extermination of his own people and educated is due to his lacking belief in Higher Being. He thought it to be all right to kill a human being once he decided that the person was of no more use. Mao Tse Tung? Saddam Hussein? Don't go and call Saddam a devout follower of any religion. He was a bad Muslim that was definitely going to the Muslim hell. Hitler? If he was so influenced by Christianity what was his deal imprisoning and censoring Christians; then, the eventual execution of Christians that were Great Germans, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer? How can you compare the hundreds of millions of lives taken by these communist and atheist dictators to Conquistadores, Charlemagne, Cromwell, witch hunts, etc.? Atheists don't censor? Please. Atheists canonize Darwin and the whiny Dawkins. Catholics should not be "sainting" anyone, that's definitely something the Protestant Church has commented on.
Also, saying what the communist dictators believed as "doctrinal" does not make their beliefs and thoughts religious at all, let alone Christian. Really? Please use correct terminology on things like this, especially in a forum titled "Atheist VS Theist."
Atheists have flooded naturalism, uncontrollably into the universities and into the media. Pushing theories as fact by creating theories off of other theories. I'm pretty sure that it's atheism and naturalism that controls and censors anything that has to do with Christianity. Phillip Bishop, professor at U of Alabama, went through all sorts of problems with the school board and such because of his beliefs and his job and career was threatened. He never forced upon anyone his faith. Yet, he was being limited and governed even into his own personal life and time. Censorship at this level in a supposed free and public square of which the University is built on and the freedom that this country was founded upon is characteristic of Atheist circles.
I see more similarities and horrendous acts of the direct relationship between atheism and communism. Hope you can see that also.
Thanks for reading.
-jn
Communism and atheism have nothing in common.
Communism and christianity have a little in common, but not much.
And finally, communism never existed.
Saying Hussein wasn't a true moslem is a no true Scotsman fallacy. Ditto for Hitler being christian. Why'd the church work for him if he was so anti-christian?
And your "example" of an atheist mass murderer is nothing more than an example of a dictator who wanted power, and just happened to not believe in gods. But I bet he believed in something, and it wasn't atheism that drove him to conquer.
WWII and the crusades were primarily abrahamic faiths going wild, and killed more people than all other wars previously combined.
Theists are the undisputed champions of war, oppression, and cruelty.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I forgot who said "Those who accept absurdities will go on to commit atrocities".
Kiss my daddy's ass or he will beat the shit out of you. That is ultimately what it leads to. You even face the "moderates" with this and they will side with the nuts because you challenged their claim.
Once you buy the naked assertion "all" as part of the omni attribute of a deity claim, you have created a dictator mentally without realizing it.
God can do what he wants.
God doesn't have to explain himself to you.
God works in mysterious ways.
All crap that supports tyranny because it denies and ignores the importance of scrutiny and oversight.
In real life without fictional beings, we live under common law under political leaders that can be held to account when they do things we don't like. The same cannot be said with the character of the Abraham god/s.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Well, your "betting" that Pol Pot believing in something is vague...Pol Pot did not have any regard for any deity or what not. He believed that there wasn't any true religion or morality that was objective. You are in denial of atheism's affect on these genocidal leaders, and just pushing it away. WWII and the crusades is war, genocide was not war. If you want to talk numbers, hundred million PLUS lives were taken by outright atheist leaders. You cannot say they were evangelical Christians or Theists or even Pantheists. Their disregard for life is horrible.
Thanks for reading.
-jn
I am sorry it bothers you that people do not value your superstition. But we are not monsters as you falsely want to claim. But since you brought this dead stereotype up, lets see how it fits on the fans of Jesus.
Lets use your logic. All Catholics molest kids because some of their preachers did.
Pathetic attempt to paint all atheists as loving monsters like Po Pot.
Scott Roeder murdered an Abortion doctor. Timothy McVeigh was a Christian. And lets not forget the church in Europe in the dark ages, or the witch hunts of Salem in the colonies.
Saying all atheists love dictators is like saying all men with mustaches love Hitler because they have mustaches.
Got any other stupid stereotypes you want to spew?
All you are doing is throwing an ad homin at an entire label because it is a dissenting view. Thomas Jefferson was not an atheist but he'd find your childish ad homin a sign of your insecurity.
Merely blaspheming the claims of the religious does not make someone a tyrant, otherwise you'd have to call the biggest critic of religion of the founding fathers a tyrant too.
"Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions" Thomas Jefferson.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god, for if there be one, surely he would pay more homage to reason than to that of blindfolded fear" Thomas Jefferson
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Thomas Jefferson
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
first of all, let's all just stop using the word "communism" to mean a political ideology. there is no such ideology as "communism." if we want to be generic, "marxism" is much more appropriate (though what most people are thinking of is one of the several adulterations of "marxism-leninism" ). marxism is a form of socialism. communism is supposed to be the end result of applied marxism, at least according to lenin. marx himself never really elaborated on what "communism" would look like, nor did engels, and by the days of the second international, the term had almost been forgotten.
the first party to identify itself as "communist" was the Russian Communist Party, which was the new name lenin gave to the bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1918, in order to emphasize that they were now a separate party, no longer a party faction.
if a person seriously wants to dialogue about marxism, they have GOT to get their terminology straight, just like a person who seriously wants to dialogue about evolution can't keep insisting that darwin said people come from monkies. if this is too much for you, you should just shut the fuck up about "communism" altogether.
now on to this dross...
nope. atheism is incidental to marxism. marxism's ties to young hegelianism are direct. marxism's ties to luwig feuerbach are direct. we can even say marxism's ties to capitalist theory, particularly as elaborated by david ricardo, are direct.
there is no self-evident causation, thus you need to furnish documentary evidence if this statement is to be taken seriously by anyone outside of a sunday school class.
what about mao zedong? mao is a specialty of mine, thus i would like nothing more than to benefit from your copious knowledge of mao and his thought. where shall we begin? "on practice"? "on contradictions"? his writings on guerilla warfare? or the events of his life? please proceed, but tread lightly: when it comes to mao, my nose is hypersensitive to bullshit.
was not a marxist, in word or deed.
was rabidly anti-marxist.
are you kidding me? christians imprison and censor each other all the time! the albigensian crusades, the fourth crusade when constantinople was sacked by the latin christians, zwingli burning anabaptists left and right, mary i killing protestants, elizabeth i killing catholics, cromwell and his puritans persecuting pretty much everybody who didn't agree with them, the list goes on and on.
and he wasn't "influenced by" christianity. he was a faithful catholic who paid his church tax until the day he died.
let's not fudge the numbers. be precise, please.
you haven't proved hitler was atheist. neither has anyone else. why? he never said he was an atheist. quite the contrary, he invoked god often. you want to argue he wasn't a "true christian"? fine. but you still got a long way to go before you can prove atheism.
here are a few theist dictators, btw: napoleon, papa doc duvalier, rafael trujillo, juan peron, franco, mussolini, hirohito, chiang kai shek, fulgencio batista, jean-bedel bokassa, idi amin...need more?
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I am not saying that all atheists are monsters, but the thinking can lead that way.
And again the Christian examples you make are all very VERY small compared to the sheer numbers. I know that it isn't exempting any heinousness of these acts on both sides, it's just that when founded on an atheistic mindset it seems that the limit of murder is endless with the atheist leaders we all know about.
And also I do not want to seem like I am protecting the Catholic priests that got blasted about their sexual crimes (I am not part of the Catholic Church, and know that there's so much wrong with their Theology and Church doctrine and such), but they are the ones that are focused on because of the great stories and controversy that will be stirred up. However, when we look at the people that do not have an objective morality and have a relative sense of ethics, then it isn't surprising to people that they molest children, murder, rape, etc. Isn't this true? The "Christian" heinous acts of history ONCE AGAIN were insignificant when put against the a-theistic leaders. The fact that you feel like you are in such a minority globally, makes you feel secure behind the failings of all the religions out there. However, you say you, as an Atheist do not believe in anything is naive. Are you saying you believe in nothing at all? How about a-theistic pushes towards believing in one self? Believing in various theories? I won't call it faith, but atheists definitely believe in things. So according to your reasoning, you are not an atheist. You should change your title to "believer."
"Saying all atheists love dictators is like saying all men with mustaches love Hitler because they have mustaches."
-Brian37
-i never said all atheists love dictators...and your little joke of an argument shouldn't see the light of day. Come on now.
The point is that it really isn't a stereotype I am trying to perpetuate here, but that it is a clear argument that atheists can't just shrug off saying, "That's not atheism," when people like Pol Pot, Mao, and Stalin are clearly atheists.
Christianity has much to learn at the ecumenical level, but when atheists attack the fringe cults and ignorant denominations as the fundamentalists and "word of faith" preachers, it is just evident that there aren't more influential arguments atheists have against true Christianity.
Thanks for your response, it really does make me think more about how atheism works. I am not attacking you or the peace-loving atheists out there, and that it isn't just all about "religion VS irreligion" and their genocidal tendencies.
I can't share the full gospel as the Protestant Canon teaches in this forum so I'll end here.
Thanks for reading.
-jn
The word "atheist" by itself does not predict a god damned thing. It only says that the person does not have a belief in a god. Just like the word "Catholic" will not predict if you molest kids or not.
Your false cry of "be careful" is really masking your insecurity that you might be wrong.
The fact is ALL humans are capable of the same range of human emotions and actions, good and bad, because all those actions, are a result of evolution, not belief, or lack of belief.
I gave you plenty of examples where religion became the absolute power. I gave you examples of individuals who claimed a god did horrible things to other people. I gave you examples of the state being the god.
ANYTHING left without the check of oversight and scrutiny and consent can and will go off the rails. Labels have nothing to do with it. Our evolution has always produced alpha males. It has always produced abusive monopolies of power in humans, it did before the invention of your myth and it still does today in Iran and North Korea.
Civility in a pluralistic society does not depend on belief in Allah, or Vishnu or Jesus or even being an atheist. Maintaining a pluralistic society requires consent and common law independent of labels.
I am a fan of Thomas Jefferson and so is Christopher Hitchens who wrote a book about him. Atheists are just as capable of valuing protection of dissent and pluralism. The fact that we don't value your particular pet deity as a claim, does not mean we are incapable of valuing human rights. It just means we don't find your claim credible.
So please refrain from embarrassing yourself with such an old dead stereotype. Monopolies can arise in religion, in politics and nations and even private business. Labels have nothing to do with monopolies of power.
We have FYI an atheist here who is an uber Libertarian who would agree with the right wing on economic issues. And you could not consider me in the same ranks of Po Pot being a Redskins fan. That requires me to value the open market an private business ownership.
We ARE just as diverse in our thinking and politics and economic view and class status as any other label. We are all individuals and you would do better treating us as such instead of equating us to such a monster.
I am not special. I am one of 7 billion, but you are no different just because of your pet god claim.
Now, what you can do to help yourself have a better more enjoyable stay here is to
1. Treat us all as individuals.
2. Separate yourself from your claims. You have more than one claim on more than one subject, including those outside the god claim. So we are merely reacting to ONE claim on ONE given issue.
3. Do not take our blasphemy personally. The extreme of doing such are things like the Danish cartoonist being threatened with death by Muslims. We may pick on your god claims but we are NOT saying you are a bad person, we are merely being blunt about you being wrong.
If you cannot prove the claims you make, we wont hate you. We wont barbecue your kittens or ravage your women. We simply will not adapt the position you hold on that particular claim.
But please, do not use that argument again, That is just an attempt to demonize us.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Even psycho's get some things right.
No, you're making things up. Where's your evidence that he and others created attrocities because of atheism?
Both prominently featured genocide.
Billions because of religious leaders, a handful in comparison by atheist leaders. And the atheist leaders did it for their own profit, while the religious did it for their religion.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
atheism is not thinking. atheism is a default position. atheism means a LACK of belief in any god. period. that's all. ATHEISM HAS NO CONTENT. NONE. you cannot "think" like an atheist. you can think like a marxist, a fascist, a democrat, a republican, a christian, a hindu, etc., etc., because those are all appellations denoting ideologies that have CONTENT.
i repeat: ATHEISM HAS NO CONTENT.
that being said, ANY thinking can lead ANY way. it's all up to the thinker.
what, and "stalinmaopolpot" equal the majority of atheists? (i couldn't resist running their names together, as all theists immediately jump from "atheism" to "stalinmaopolpot," when they very rarely have any concrete knowledge about any of those rulers. kind of like when a little kid says, "godnjesus." )
yes, we do. the same argument we have for all religions, "true" and otherwise: a lack of compelling evidence. there is NO evidence for your god outside ancient texts, fuzzy feelings, and email chain letters.
still waiting to hear all about mao...
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson