"1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. "
Shodan answered this well. To answer your question though, my point is that if you have God present, you won’t have communism. There is no room for him. It’s about “the state”, nothing else. Other than the death of millions, of course.
Your posts are becoming progressively less intelligible.
Marx and Lenin thought that communism necessarily included atheism, especially anti-religious atheism based on hate of the sort espoused by several posters here on the SDMB. And the Communist leaders of the USSR (and Albania and China during the Cultural Revolution and so on) acted on that belief with anti-religious persecution and slaughter. Not simply because they were Communists, but because they believed that Communism necessarily included anti-religious hate.
So all the attempts by atheists to deny that the mass slaughter of theists in the USSR and elsewhere had to do with atheism are simply “No True Scotsman” BS, as has been pointed out.
How about this: instead of playing the game of “Your side did this” and “Yeah, well what about the time YOUR side did THAT,” let’s try another approach.
Whenever an extremist of ANY ethnicity, of any religion, of any political affiliation, of any ideology, commits a terrible crime, the people who are part of his group(s) have to ask themselves honestly, “Do the things this guy believes really resemble what I believe? Are the things he’s saying anywhere close to things I know I’ve said myself? Are his causes my causes?” It doesn’t matter if we think the guilty party has twisted or perverted our beliefs. It doesn’t matter if we think he’s taken fine principles and pushed them too far. We have to ask honestly, “HOWEVER extreme and perverted this guy is, does he think/look/sound like me? And does that say anything damning about my beliefs?”
SOMETIMES, as facts come out, we can let out a sigh of relief (“That guy who shot Congresswoman Giffords was a schizo, not a conservative!”). Sometimes we can’t.
I’m NOT saying we bear responsibility for EVERYBODY on our side. Sometimes, bad people are connected to us by coincidence. As a Catholic, I feel no responsibility for the crimes of notorious Catholics like Al Capone, because Capone never made the slightest pretense to be driven by Catholic teachings. Torquemada, on the other hand, DID! I have to be ashamed of Torquemada- he committed his crimes BECAUSE of beliefs and principles I share. Even if it’s absolutely true that nothing Jesus said justified murder, the fact remains that people who sincerely consider thmeselves Christian DO commit murder in Christ’s name. It would be an unforgivable copout to resort to saying, “He’s not a TRUE Christian.”
I don’t blame Al Gore or David Suzuki for the murders committed by the Unabomber, but Mr. Suzuki SHOULD be troubled by how similar Ted Kaczynski’s principles were to those of mainstream environmentalists. I don’t blame any of my Muslim co-workers for Major Hasan’s murderous spree at Fort Hood, but I sure HOPE they’re not too quick to say “That has nothing to do with Islam and only a racist would suggest it does.” Sorry, folks, but when a man commits murder while screaming “Allahu Akbar,” you CAN’T pretend he isn’t one of you. You have to look at the bad people acting in your name and ask yourselves if something has gone terribly wrong on your side.
Certainly these are examples if communist organisations that excluded religion, but does that mean exclusion of religion is a necessary component of communism?
Agreed that they are not completely exclusive. I’ve alway thought that describing the early church a communisitc/socialist is putting 19th century European ideas into 1st century Palestine. There are similarities, but I’d call the early church “communalist”; there was never a question of ownership of the means ofproduction only on the fruits of the labour.
I agree with your general idea, but more than apologise - because only the guilty apologise - it does give you a moment of reflection “Did we do something that a non-utterly-mad person may think validates this shit?”. Having said that, I’m more than willing to apologise if it serves the greater good, although my experince tells me that those who normally demand apologies never actually accept them because they want complete renunciation, i.e. if I apologised from Breivik I’d also have to drop Chrisitanity and start taking dumps on Bibles.
The last bit about Breivik’s non-Christianity is very informative.
It is of the version espoused by Marx and Lenin (and Pol Pot and Mao and Hoxhe etc.) Both believed that materialism, especially dialectical and historical materialism, were basic to their philosophy.
They do when the babies grow up and murder people.
Look, atheists have killed lots and lots of people, especially during the 20th century. And lots of the time, their motive for killing people was that those they killed were religious and believed in God. These things happened. The fact that it bothers you to have this pointed out doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
If you are referring to Communism, people weren’t killed because were religious and believed in God-they were killed because those in power believed that they threatened the State, they very same reason other non-religious groups in communist countries were persecuted.
Exodus 22:20
Exodus 31:14
Exodus 32:27-29
Lev 25:44-46
Num 14:43-45
Num 33:50-52
Deu 3:6
Deu 13:6-10
Deu 7:2
Deu 12:30
Deu 13:1-5
Deu 17:2-7
Kings 3:19-25
2 chron 28:6
And there I’m bored,
Yahweh was a bedouin war god previous to the whole “one and only” and much later trinity mess happened.
Thus the killing of those who worshiped Baʿal etc… from the earlier “pagan” times.
Even in the NT Jesus was condemning people to death and destruction for not believing, but you are correct there really is no official christian doctrine. the actual bible has little to do with most christian dogma.
No, they don’t. If they did, where are the threads condemning Breivik’s mother for having children? Hell, to be comparable there’d have to be people condemning all mothers for his actions.
If you’re going to make ridiculous claims to defend your position, at least choose something less obviously absurd.
Cite where these athiests killed people in the name of not being theiests?
I am looking for any evidence that they their main motive was being a skeptic and not believing in the supernatural was the justification for the murders.
Note that Hitler claimed to be Catholic both in private and in public.
FYI Pol Pot was not an atheist and the party actually adopted concepts from Theravada Buddhism.
What I understand about Stalin is that no one died because they refused to embrace atheism.
They died because they were deemed enemies of the state. Religious leaders were killed because not for refusing to become atheists, but because they were considered part of the old power structure that would try to oppose the state.
Of course atheists can be bad people, but I see little proof that the lack of belief in a super natural power it is used as a common justification for mass murder.
Obviously not being a theist does not preclude one from being dogmatic about other causes, like communism.
I’m not aware that Breivik ever made any indication that he wanted his actions tied to Christianity. I downloaded his manifesto and searched for “Christian”. It appears for the first time on page 53, because that’s where he trashes the Christian-Muslim alliance at Georgetown University.
When I click on that link, I get a file not found error.
