Duck Dynasty guy is a danger to society

[_Tobin]

I have yet to see you effectively articulate your position.

I'd rather engage with someone that can honestly represent the facts. You have demonstrated you were perfectly willing to factually distort and deny Stalin's atheism. I really have no respect for someone like you and am disinclined to discuss anything with you.

[Guest]

I have yet to see you effectively articulate your position.

Actually, I'd rather engage with someone that can honestly represent the facts. You have demonstrated you were perfectly willing to factually distort and deny Stalin's atheism. I really have no respect for someone like you and am disinclined to discuss anything with you.

Yep--I knew all along you were too paranoid to follow through with your threats to put anyone on ignore. (Do you like me better as Corpsegrinder or as the Erotic Apologist?)

Go read read my follow-up to Symmachus' post. You'll see that while both Symmachus and I agree on the facts, we differ on how those facts should be interpreted. Symmachus interprets the facts to indicate that Stalin's atheism was more or less constant, at least after reaching full maturity. I, on the other hand, interpret the facts to indicate that Stalin's atheism waxed and waned depending on the proximity of an existential threat.

[_Tobin]

Yep--I knew all along you were too paranoid to follow through with your threats to put anyone on ignore.

Go read read my follow-up to Symmachus' post. You'll see that while both Symmachus and I agree on the facts, we differ on how those facts should be interpreted. Symmachus interprets the facts to indicate that Stalin's atheism was more or less constant, at least after reaching full maturity. I, on the other hand, interpret the facts to indicate that Stalin's atheism waxed and waned depending on the proximity of an existential threat.

I don't think you understand how ignore works on this forum. And I'm certainly going to add your alt to it.

[_The Erotic Apologist]

I don't think you understand how ignore works on this forum.

Too late. I ignored you first. I win.

[_Maksutov]

At least one Christian Conservative is calling this guy out as the clown that he is:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/416048/stop-defending-phil-robertson-youre-embarrassing-yourself-katherine-timpf

Phil Robertson is an embarrassment, not a hero, and the socially conservative movement needs to distance itself from him immediately.

Don’t get me wrong — I agree that our culture is experiencing a terrifying shift towards censorship. People have become so easily offended that it’s almost impossible to say anything without someone getting upset about it; and concepts like trigger warnings, safe spaces, and microaggressions are threatening free speech.

But none of this changes the fact that Phil Robertson is an ignorant buffoon, and that many of his comments — despite the fact that he does have every right to make them — are not ones that anyone should ever want to be associated with.

Now, before you start composing your hate mail — think about it. Do you really want a dude who is going to publicly ruminate about the gruesome rape, murder, and castration of a man and his “little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters” to be an official face of your #brand?

And he is an official face. He spoke at this year’s CPAC, where he also received a free-speech award named after conservative legend Andrew Breitbart. As for his most recent controversial comments, he made them during a speech at a prayer breakfast, and the very fact that he was given the role of “speaker” suggests that he’s viewed as a model of the Christian faith. He’s an icon — but why?

After all, let’s be honest: His detailed hypothetical about the brutal rape, murder, and castration of an atheist family was disturbing, and his underlying point that only a Christian could understand why these activities were wrong was ignorant. It provided anyone who might accuse Christians of being intolerant with about the best piece of ammo that I can imagine.

So, Team Robertson — when people meet you and you tell them you’re a Christian, are these comments ones that you would want them to ascribe to your belief system? If not, say so! And if yes, well, good luck out there. — Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review.

That's encouraging, but the red meat conservatives will lap it up along with the Coulterisms and Nugentisms that it resembles.

[_Symmachus]

I cannot dispute any of the facts you bring up, here. They're all true and very apropos to the question of Stalin's personal beliefs. But I would argue that Joseph Stalin is the ultimate proof to the aphorism that says there are no atheists in foxholes. Threatened with defeat, Stalin fled and tried to hide in the superstitions of his childhood. A moral coward, Stalin was as much of a failure at atheism as he was at communism. The fact that he resumed his persecution of religion after Germany's defeat doesn't change that fact that he was ultimately too afraid, too paranoid to be an atheist. The facts of Stalin's life support that conclusion about as well as any other...don't you agree?

I'm not sure I can agree, and maybe it's because I don't see atheism in ethical terms, because while it has moral/ethical implications for some people, I don't think that being an atheist inherently requires any bravery or courage or heroism, just as it doesn't imply moral depravity. Not inherently, anyway.

I don't see why one can't be both paranoid and afraid and at the same time also not believe that god's don't exist. Nor do I get the impression at all that Stalin reverted to the belief system of his childhood; he was consistently an advocate of Leninist versions of Marxism (witness the resumption of forced collectivization of the bulk of the Russian peasant population after WWII, which had already entailed years of successive famine and therefore millions of deaths) and had no qualms about using violence to achieve that end (hence the purges and prison camps). His famous speech of 1946 at the "Meeting of Voters", which is seen as one the foundational moments in the Cold War, interpreted WWII not in terms of religion or even nationalism but in terms of soviet-style communist revolution against the powers of capitalism. There is nothing there about religion. I guess I just don't understand what you mean when you say that he "fled and tried to hide in the superstitions of his childhood." I think he used the Orthodox Church apparatus as a way to mobilize Russian nationalist sentiment and subvert criticism of his regime for policies (communist, broadly defined) that had otherwise weakened Russia and made it susceptible to mass invasion in the first place. Ordinary people who had been through the failures and horrors of collectivization, he well understood, were less likely to die willingly for the sake of a rather unsuccessfully run Revolution than for the Church and Russia, like their ancestors had, and they were less likely to rebel against his policies if those policies were supported by the Church. It seems to me like the sort Realpolitik you would expect in war time. I guess that is a case of manipulating the same apparatus he once wished to be a part of as a child, but I don't see how that's a reversion from atheism to belief, and in general I don't see religious belief or cowardice on the part of Stalin as factors.

If I were an atheist governor of Utah, you'd better believe I'd try to manipulate the LDS Church to further my policy aims, but that wouldn't mean I believe in LDS claims, certainly not that my policies were motivated by LDS belief. It would just mean I would be doing what effective politicians do: extending a power base in the interest of policies.

Go read read my follow-up to Symmachus' post. You'll see that while both Symmachus and I agree on the facts, we differ on how those facts should be interpreted. Symmachus interprets the facts to indicate that Stalin's atheism was more or less constant, at least after reaching full maturity. I, on the other hand, interpret the facts to indicate that Stalin's atheism waxed and waned depending on the proximity of an existential threat.

That's a fair point; and some of his mentions of "god" in meetings with Roosevelt in '42 and '45 seem mystifying, but I think most scholars see those as attempts at manipulating Roosevelt's sensibilities or dark humor. I'd be curious if you know about any documents which show any evidence of belief or engagement with theism except in so far as the institutions of theism (the Church) could be a tool of power. I guess it's possible that Stalin's atheism could wax and wane—although I'm not really sure how one could map out degrees of belief in god from lesser to greater for an atheist—but in any case his belief or non-belief in god, to whatever measurable extent, was not a motivating factor in his policies. It's basically irrelevant.

Tobin is off the deep end and operating outside the parameters of evidence-based rationality if he thinks Stalin or any of these others were motivated by atheism (an absurd proposition for reasons that should be obvious).

Actually, that wasn't may position at all. Try again.

Note the word "if," which I put in my comment because, as has already been pointed out, you haven't really staked out a clear position, but you seem to be implying the one I criticized when you say that one has to keep in mind mass murderers like Stalin when "championing atheism" (I think that is the verb you used). The implication of that is that you see some connection between the personal atheism of certain dictators and the mass murder perpetrated by the states they controlled. That's like saying that, since Hitler was a vegetarian, vegetarianism has something to do with state mass murder, and that therefore vegetarians have some explaining to do.

On the other hand, you also say that atheism and theism do not necessarily imply anything about one's ethics (I completely agree), which contradicts the other position you took, so if I'm not really clear what you're position is, it's not for lack of trying.

[_Tobin]

Actually, that wasn't may position at all. Try again.

Note the word "if," which I put in my comment because, as has already been pointed out, you haven't really staked out a clear position, but you seem to be implying the one I criticized when you say that one has to keep in mind mass murderers like Stalin when "championing atheism" (I think that is the verb you used). The implication of that is that you see some connection between the personal atheism of certain dictators and the mass murder perpetrated by the states they controlled. That's like saying that, since Hitler was a vegetarian, vegetarianism has something to do with state mass murder, and that therefore vegetarians have some explaining to do.

I'll explain. Tarski made a baseless assertion. In turn, I also made a baseless assertion that the top mass murderers in history were atheists. It isn't a position I actually believe, but I put it forward simply to engage Tarski's assertion. His response was it was just a few atheists among millions and couldn't be indicative of how other atheists behave. My response was that if only a few atheists could be responsible for so much death, then the world would be better off with no atheists in it. The Erotic Apologist then began engaging this assertion by trying to deny the atheism of Stalin, which for me was just a bonus. I find such denials an indication of a lack of intellectual honesty and an inability to cognitively engage the issues.

On the other hand, you also say that atheism and theism do not necessarily imply anything about one's ethics (I completely agree), which contradicts the other position you took, so if I'm not really clear what you're position is, it's not for lack of trying.

That is how I really think about this topic. My view is a lack of empathy is a much better indicator of who is a danger to society.

[_Some Schmo]

I'll explain. Tarski made a baseless assertion.

Really? Let's see...

No he is not right. Atheists usually have fine morals and theist often enough do not.

A surprising and ludicrous assertion coming from Tarski.

How is Tarski's statement in any way controversial? He didn't say all atheists, nor did he say all christians.

And then we see this little nugget of dogshit:

Since the greatest mass murders in history (on the scale of millions of individuals) were atheists, I don't think the facts support you.

...which basically tells us that Toby is full of crap and should immediately be ignored.

So “F” off, idiot panda.

[_Tarski]

Now, try this thought on for size. Being an atheist or theist really has nothing to do with your morals. Morality comes from our ability to empathize with another human-being. Those human-beings that lack that ability are in danger of becoming a sociopath and perhaps the next mass murderer.

You time wasting idiot. That was my very point stated quite clearly in contradiction to your implicit backing up of Robertson and your bringing up of Stalin. If being an atheist or theist really has nothing to do with your morals (my point against Robertson exactly) then why bring up Stalin as a way to shoot down my point---a point which you then go on to actually assert yourself.
Wow!

[_Tobin]

Now, try this thought on for size. Being an atheist or theist really has nothing to do with your morals. Morality comes from our ability to empathize with another human-being. Those human-beings that lack that ability are in danger of becoming a sociopath and perhaps the next mass murderer.

You time wasting idiot. That was my very point stated quite clearly in contradiction to your implicit backing up of Robertson and your bringing up of Stalin. If being an atheist or theist really has nothing to do with your morals (my point against Robertson exactly) then why bring up Stalin as a way to shoot down my point---a point which you then go on to actually assert yourself.
Wow!

You are so cute when you throw out insults, but I can't help but laugh. The thought of being insulted by Oopsy Bear springs to mind.