Ah, argument by dismissing the other side’s input as “[blah blah bullshit]”. That never gets old.
That’s an ideology. Religions are one kind of ideology, but not the only ones.
With pleasure. The basis of Christianity is that individuals are individuals in the way that western society has traditionally understood, i. e. with the free will to make choices. The basis of Marxism is that humanity is arranged into classes whose behavior is determined, and history is set; no individual can do anything about it. Thus, in order to Marxism to become the dominant beliefs system, the central beliefs of Christianity would have to be wiped out.
(There have been a few small Christian groups who practiced communist beliefs as they applied to property, but they obviously did not endorse the Marxist take on how the classes and there relations determined all of history.)
The Holocaust, the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. And who asked the question in the first place? Who labeled the Jews as Christ-killers? Who spent centuries demonising them?
The Holocaust was carried out in the heart of Christian Europe unopposed even by the churches in that country and was as Christian a project as the Crusades.
tu quoque!!! 
just kidding
anyway, the point we atheists have been trying to make is that atheism does not condone, recommend, or force anyone to do horrible things. Its just saying there there is no god, now go do what you will. Christianity on the other hand is strangely divided, on this, with god saying in some parts of the bible “go murder those who dare oppose me, ill help you do it” (not word for word) or “love everybody” (through jesus, again not word for word). this dichotomy makes it easy for people to pick which part of the bible they want to follow, and twist it to their own needs.
I know, I know. There have been no religiously-motivated atrocities because no truly religious person puts sugar on their porridge.
So how about it if we don’t call communism a “religion,” but instead call it dogma?
Did you just make this one up?
That’s a pretty strong argument - the atrocities were not done out of atheism, but in the name of a dogma that they did have.
Because it was a competing dogma. The dogma of Communism could not tolerate the threat of a different dogma, Christianity. It’s really as simple as that, and I’m not sure why you seem to have a hard time understanding it.
The lesson learned from historical atrocities? Beware of Dogma.
It looks like a few other folks have beaten me to the points I wanted to make, but I’ll make 'em anyway.
First, I strongly question that this is a common argument. At least a common argument for atheism. I’ll grant that it might be an argument against the idea that Christianity is a benevolent organization, and that there are certainly arguments for and against that position, but it hardly creates a double standard.
Even if one wanted to argue the objective and long-term good vs. evil of organized Christianity, that argument still has nothing to do with atheism. At all.
Um, I hate to be nit-picky, but cite!?!? Who says that? Really? Is there an example on this board that you can point to where someone says that from point x forward, all atheists will only be forces for good? I frankly don’t believe that anyone here has come across anyone who holds that opinion.
This I think is the fundamental disagreement about this that the OP and I have. I think that even if you concede that a strong communist state requires atheism, you still have what amounts to suppression of religion for the purposes of maintaining power. You can feel free to view Communist Russia as a sort of atheist theocracy, but the fact of the matter is that the atheism foisted on the people of Russia was not an atheism born of belief or conviction, but was a tool to serve another purpose. I think Stalin could give a s*** about whether or not there is a God, he merely used the supposition of there not being a God to secure power.
I’m not that good at this argument, and others here have done it better, so I’ll maybe stop trying now. But I will add that the tit for tat “who’s had a worse impact on the world, Christians or non-Christians,” is a ridiculous argument with little point.
What exactly is the debate that you’re arguing about? What playing field? Is it just “who behaves worse, atheists or Christians?” If so, it’s a pointless argument that has nothing to do with whether or not atheists or Christians are wrong or right.
Your original claim that got challenged was about communism, not Marxism.
And is all that true about Marxism? That Marx thought all those things you say here?
That’s pretty certainly an exaggeration. The Crusades were directly backed by the Catholic Church. The Holocaust wasn’t backed by the churches of Germany. In fact, on the Protestant side, the Confessing Church actively spoke out against it, and the Catholic ensyclical “Mit Brennender Sorge” (“With Burning Anxiety”) condemned racism and the obedience of unjust laws.
It’s true the churches didn’t do all that much to stop the Holocaust, and certainly didn’t do all they could, but that’s different from them actively endorsing it.
Communism=Marxism. Communism is the economic and political philsophy laid out by Marx and his followers.
Atheists have done horrible things in the past. No doubt atheists will do horrible things in the future. So what? Atheism is not a moral code, a philosophy, a dogma or a religion. It prescribes no behavior for its adherents and makes no judgments about how humans should behave.
If Christians (or members of any religion) are supposed to act in one fashion, based upon the teachings of their religion, but have often acted in an opposite fashion, then that’s fair to point out. But there is no single way that atheists are supposed to behave (other than lacking belief in deities, of course, by definition) so pointing out that Mao killed lots of people is pointless. Atheism has nothing to say about mass murder.
okay argue these trivial details all you want, but your original point that atheists conspire to “tilt the playing field” has been more than sufficiently rebutted by multiple people. Least of all by the fact that there is no “playing field” of the type that you mean, where we stack up the body bags on either side and take tallies.
I would say that communism is an economic program with many possible variants, but Marxism is the only variant that played a significant role in world history. So while the Marxism=communism equation would be troublesome in a discussion of economic philosophy, I think we can let it stand in this thread.
Marxism is hostile to traditional religious belief as being a force for the preservation of the traditional social order, but nothing in Marx’s philiosophy (which is all about history, politics and economics, not cosmology or epistemology) strictly mandates an atheistic world-view.
Old or not, still accurate. Don’t like it, bitch at the ones doing the doubletalk.
-Joe
My original point was just that you can’t be theistic and a Communist.
Some people are, believe it or not.
Well, if we say big C Communism==Marxism, then sure.
But of course you are aware of all sorts of small c communist religious utopian movements? Like, say, early Christianity?
What? Why not? There are lots of religious people in the UFFR, and the surrounding countries.
Just because the big most recent incarnation of communism tried to stamp out religious power because Thou Shalt Not Share, doesn’t mean that communism = athiesm.