Spanish Fascism, while benign compared to its German counterpart, was most definitely steeped in Catholicism.
Oh, never mind.
I am refering, not to the mass of people imposed on, but rather to those who embraced the new movement willingly. It is often forgotten that Communism was extremely popular among intellectuals (and remained so in the West right through the 1930s) because it offered a seemingly ‘rational’ utopian approach.
Without the enthusiastic support of some true believers, the movement could never have succeded (though of course many of them were later put up against the wall under Stalin’s show trials).
Over the last century, Communism has done, objectively speaking, more damage to humanity than fundamentalism.
I was not aware that pointing this out made me in favour of fundamentalism. On the contrary.
True enough. German fascism was much more ambivalent about the issue, with certain sections touting a new paganism. Dunno how seriously any of them took it though.
So, a bunch of atheists kill lots of people defending an atheistic system (not that atheism was the main characterisitc), but your scare quotes solve the problem.
By nonsense you mean “you’re perfectly right”?
first: Communism is a political system, not a belief system, sorry to tell you. You 9/11 story is too pitiful.
Second: …because they were beleivers in many cases. The communism-is-a-religion tale is a nice rationalisation to avoid the clear facts of history; I’m sure it helps you sleep at night because “no true atheist” ever does anything wrong.
Third: Why? Are you that giganticly ignorant of history? Because atheism as the philosophy/outlook of people running a government has only been here for a very short while, whereas religion is as old as dirt.
Is the period of France’s history between 1789 and 1799 good enough? Another bunch of atheistic guys killing right and left.
Defending an atheistic system? Try removing competition. You think the only organizations they went after were religious?
You have got to be kidding me. The French Revolution was atheists killing in the name of atheism? That is the most ignorant bullshit I’ve seen on here in a while, and that’s saying something. Countless abuses by those in power, numerous wars bankrupting the country, rising inflation, famine, and you think it was them dern atheists. You are in serious need of a clue, go read a book.
And your ‘atheism is new, religion is old’ argument doesn’t cut it. First you say it’s new, then you claim atheist abuse from centuries ago. Try again: non-communist evil atheist examples.
When power is involved, the difference between belief and politics pretty much vanishes. I have to figure communism and religion have a huge amount of overlap in their application, with the only major difference being their rituals and symbols. One worships an unattainable God, the other an unattainable worker’s paradise… no big diff.
I guess an atheist is someone who is indifferent to theism’s potential as a power structure (as well as everything else about it), but he could get caught up easily enough in something similar, like communism.
Or he could be smart about it and pick something a bit less destructive, like capitalism/democracy, which works fairly well as political/economic systems go.
Anyway, I’m an atheist who has no difficulty spotting the flaws in communism, as well as its similarities to religion. Fortunately, it’s not an either-or situation and I can reject both.
Communism was atheistic, that is a fact. Of course they went for others.
The French revolution was atheistic and strongly anti catholic. Denying it is the little story you tell you teddy bear.
Reading comprehension, child, reading comprehension. I said that atheism as the philosophy of those in power was new compared to religion. In western culture you cannot find people in power being openly atheistic before the French revolution. Judaism is at least 5000 years old the French recolution was 220 years ago. You DO get the difference in time, on’t you?
Since atheists have only been in power for a (historically) short period, you can only analyse atheism-in-power during that period.
http://www.atheists.org/The_Enlightenment,_Freemasonry,_and_The_Illuminati
Sure it was - it had no use for religious beliefs though in practice it was a lot like a religious belief.
I don’t see the implied corollary that all atheists are communist, though.
They spoke Russian too. Clearly they killed all those people because speaking Russian makes you evil.
No, by “nonsense” I mean “nonsense”. You are spouting an old and dishonest argument attempting to equate atheism and Communism and the French Revolution, because that’s all you have. As opposed to people speaking against religion, who can’t avoid seeing religion doing evil every day, everywhere.
Garbage again. Communism is a system of belief about how the world works and should be run, based on faith rather than evidence; just like Christianity. And my 9-11 story is a quite literal comparison of what you are doing; trying to pretend that a single neutral belief shared by many other people than Communists was to blame.
Something i never said. Atheism is morally neutral; it’s you who are trying to claim that atheism has a moral value, an evil one.
My; another bunch of fanatics doing what fanatics do. Surprise, surprise they kill people. As opposed to the religious, who kill and oppress without being fanatic. And again, the French revolutionaries were hardly just atheists; they had quite a few other motives for what they did.
You keep trying to blame atheism, when the simple fact is atheism can’t drive you to do anything. It’s a single belief, and completely neutral.
So…where are the death camps in present day Europe, where lack of religion is common?
So, atheism doesn’t make you do anything? Even good stuff? The whole “morally neutral” stuff is in complete and direct clash with your moralising views on the Dope.
I also see that the moment two atheist get together to do something they magically stop being atheist, they are fanatics, nice kindergarten-level dodge.
Your last question shows how difficult it is to put your head in the sand. Any openly atheistic parties in power? Didn’t think so. You keep trying to escape by ignoring the “in power (to do what they want)” part of my idea; reality is too hard to handle.
Hey, Dio, you wanna do something tonight? Something fanatical? Like… bowling or something?
I submit that this is not necessarily anything to do with atheism as a driving force, but rather with religion as something to be spoken out again, at least in Der Trihs’ eyes.
Anyway, I came across this news story and thought of this thread.
Yes, that was the issue. Fixing a broken link is fine. Changing it so it links to something else entirely is effectively the same as changing the quoted text to something the original poster didn’t say.
So long as there is no singing I won’t call my jesuit-ninja-monks to retaliate
Yeah, that’s hilarious, but communism and religion really are quite a lot alike when they get a taste of power. Imagine talking to an official of a medieval religious power structure or one of a communist power structure. You’d find they were both dedicated to some ideal that wasn’t actually attainable, but nevertheless in its pursuit they were eager to root out perceived traitors (be they “heretics” or “counter-revolutionaries/Czarists”).
Calling communism a religion is a bit of a stretch, but it’s not entirely incorrect. It’s safe to say that both, in the practice of power, tend toward hierarchical structures that are intolerant of competing forms.
Not necessarily true. I’m an atheist, and I respect my friends’ religious beliefs genuinely. Well…I dunno. I guess it depends on your definition of respect. I mean, I respect them, and according to Liberal, that’s equivalent to respecting their beliefs. Furthermore, I respect (and am kind of jealous of) their ability to believe so wholeheartedly in something so specious, even if I don’t believe in it. And even if I don’t believe what they believe, I’m not humoring them when I listen to them talk about it.
And furthermore, whoever said there are no shades of grey? There are your shades of gray. Right there.
Hardly; as I’ve often said, atheism is morally superior to religion because it’s neutral; religion is a delusional, corrupting, destructive force in the world.
Nonsense again. They obviously have something other than atheism in common, or they wouldn’t bother to cooperate. Even the belief that atheism is desirable goes beyond atheism. Again; you are in the position of someone trying to equate all modern religions that don’t believe in Zeus, and blame that disbelief for their misbehavior.
Yet oddly enough religious believers manage to do bad things without dictatorial powers. You are actually arguing that atheism is a good thing; apparently it’s just not as good at being evil.
Only on the cheek…the Wife is looking over my shoulder. 