Commentary on Richard and GoodK's Debate

[_dartagnan]

God-believers have killed over 40 million Hindus in the sub-continent. God-believers have killed an estimated 500 million non-believers over the course of Islamic conquest in an attempt to bring people under dar el Islam (spelling, I'm sure).

Islam is unlike all other religions in that it requires adherents to fight and make the world Islam. The golden rule doesn't exist in Islam. There are no human rights in Islam unless you're a Muslim. But Islam is a religion, religion isn't Islam. Ancient conquests of enemy territory was hardly unique to Islam. Political conquests have always existed, only a fraction of which were led under a banner of religion. Religion can be used to unite a group to serve a common cause. Nationalism and race can also do that.

So, I'm not sure you're entirely accurate to state, Dartagnan, that atheist leaders are more likely or more inclined to commit mass atrocities.

What I've said, time and time again, is that as a percentage, this is a hard fact. And this logically means that an atheistic dictator is more likely, based on history, to engage in genocide. You point to the few medieval Islamic caliphs and I can counterbalance that by pointing to a hundred theistic Presidents, kings and princes who didn't commit such atrocities. On the other hand, I can point to a half dozen atheists from the last century who did commit these atrocities, but can you counterbalance that with hundreds of atheist rulers who didn't?

I think it's ideology which drives this one, more than anything.

With Islam, yes. But misplaced ambition and a hunger for power has always existed in humans, especially those in a position to wield it. It is a temptation and is something unique to humans in general, not just religious humans. Those who wish to accomplish these selfish goals can use whatever they want at their disposal. Religion is just one of many convenient and effective social mechanisms that is used to unite a group under a common cause. Nationalism and race can also serve that purpose. It isn't surprising that those who used religion for political means, weren't really religious (i.e. Hitler, Constantine) at all. I happen to believe Muhammed used religion for his own means the same way Joseph Smith did. It was for their own personal gain.

The problem is human nature. Religion at least offers some sense of moral grounding whereas atheism offers nothing of the sort. If anything, it has a tendency to ridicule morality because it is strongly associated with religious teaching. Beastie once tried to say following the "scientific method" would solve all these problems in human society, as if it could somehow provide a better substitute for all the positives religions provide. She never did explain how this would be true.

[_antishock8]

CFR on the percentage thing.

This is why I like you, Dart. I don't like your religious inclination, but you give thoughtful and thorough answers. It's too bad others aren't able to appreciate the effort you put into posting.

So. Are we talking about god-believers and atrocities versus atheists, or are we sticking to Christians versus atheists?

[_dartagnan]

My percentage figure is based on the half dozen atheist rulers already mentioned. Like I was saying to Shades, even if we could name 20 theistic rulers who commited genocide, we're still looking at something like less than 1% of all theistic rulers in history. Therefore logic dictates that these represent the exceptions not the rule. But when we turn to atheistic rulers, how many can we actually come up with? The half dozen already mentioned is a low figure, but it very significant percentage-wise if we cannot name hundreds of atheist rulers who didn't commit crimes against humanity. I have yet to see anyone name a single atheist dictator who was nice.

The recent genocides in Serbia had elements of religion used for identity/divisive purposes, but the mad man behind it, Slobodan Milošević, was a hard core atheist. The Rwandan genocides were not religiously based, but were based on tribal divisions. The first step to genocide is to seperate one group from another using divisive tactics. Tribal affiliation can serve this purpose, the same as race or religion.

Are we talking about god-believers and atrocities versus atheists, or are we sticking to Christians versus atheists?

I'm talking about an apples/apples comparison between theistic and atheistic rulers. I'll grant you the bad apples in Islam which probably constitute the majority of those found in the entire camp of theism, and yet history and the statistics still suggest, quite strongly, that the recipe of atheism + political power is something we should all be willing to dodge at all costs. Power is a temptation that any given human can easily take advantage of. Most religions generally temper these temptations with moral codes, humility dogma, etc. This isn't to say every religious person is immune to giving in to such temptation and abusing one's power. It is only to say that the religious person is less likely (especially if he/she isn't a Muslim) to slaughter thousands of people for the "good" of the socio-economic system he envisions. This is why Stalin killed tens of thousands of religious teachers and burned tens of thousands of churches during his reign. He wanted to eradicate religion entirely because he saw it as a stumbling block for his communist vision. Why? Because religions teach things that would only cause problems in a communistic society, particularly universal human rights, equality, sovereignty of a creator, something that is greater than ourselves (including the government) etc.

So what's left if there is no religion?

Atheism by its very nature cannot offer anything to encourage a person with no moral grounding, to act morally responsible. This isn't to say no atheist couldn't or wouldn't act morally responsible. But moral behavior is learned, and most atheists today have learned their morals early in their lives, more often than not, ironically, from religious institutions.

Morality isn't an innate code that travels down the chain of evolution. Morals are learned and humans learn them and discriminate. They pick and choose which ones to consider following. Religions serve society because they teach morals. Sure, they teach a lot of other things we'd disagree with, but these are relatively harmless myths, that, in fact, have been shown to be scientifically, medically and psychologically beneficial to the individual. But I digress...

[_GoodK]

It is not accurate to claim Stalin killed people simply because they were religious as if he was fighting some sort of atheist vs theist battle.

The plain truth is, while I don't feel like Stalin represents atheism in the first place, he still did not kill people just because they were religious or believed in God.

I highly recommend reading Stalin by Robert Service - which I just finished yesterday. It is an exceptionally well written biography.

[_dartagnan]

The anti-religion campaigns in the Soviet Union certainly didn't begin with Stalin. Stalin was merely going along with Lenin's established agenda. During the regimes of Lenin and Stalin atheism was the only scientific truth according to the state. It was a state crime to criticize atheism.

The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools...Many Christian believers in the Soviet Union have told of being imprisoned for no other reason than believing in God. Many have recently been canonized as saints following their death at the hands of Soviet authorities; they are collectively referred to in the Orthodox Church as the "new martyrs".

All in all, some 20 million Christians would be killed during these campaigns of terror.

In November 1917, following the collapse of the tsarist government, a council of the Russian Orthodox church reestablished the patriarchate and elected the metropolitan Tikhon as patriarch. But the new Soviet government soon declared the separation of church and state and nationalized all church-held lands. These administrative measures were followed by brutal state-sanctioned persecutions that included the wholesale destruction of churches and the arrest and execution of many clerics.
Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested. In 1918, the Cheka under Felix Dzerzhinsky executed over 3000 Orthodox clergymen of all ranks. Some were drowned in ice-holes or poured over with cold water in winter until they turned to ice-pillars. In 1922, the Solovki Camp of Special Purpose, the first Russian concentration camp was established in the Solovki Islands in the White Sea. Eight metropolitans, twenty archbishops, and forty-seven bishops of the Orthodox Church died there, along with tens of thousands of the laity. Of these, 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad. Father Pavel Florensky was one of the New-martyrs of this particular period...Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals. Many Orthodox (along with peoples of other faiths) were also subjected to psychological punishment or torture and mind control experimentation in order to force them give up their religious convictions

This was al before Stalin...

The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the celebration of Christmas and the traditional Russian holiday of New Year (Feast of the Circumcision of Christ) was prohibited (later on New Year was reinstated as a secular holiday and is now the most significant family holiday in Russia). Gatherings and religious processions were initially prohibited and later on strictly limited and regulated...The sixth sector of the OGPU, led by Eugene Tuchkov, began aggressively arresting and executing bishops, priests, and devout worshipers, such as Metropolitan Veniamin in Petrograd in 1922 for refusing to accede to the demand to hand in church valuables (including sacred relics). In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to less than 500.
Between 1917 and 1935, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested. Of these, 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad.[

Yeah, I'm sure they weren't persecuted at all because of their religion. I'm sure they were all guilty of other crimes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutio ... viet_Union

The plain truth is, while I don't feel like Stalin represents atheism in the first place, he still did not kill people just because they were religious or believed in God.

Plain truth huh?

(Rolls eyes)

[_GoodK]

The plain truth, once again, is that Stalin killed people who opposed the Soviet state. He did not kill people simply because they believed in God. Wikipedia won't even say that.

Stalin killed people who opposed him.


Sounds sort of like the Christian God of the Old Testament, come to think of it.

[_GoodK]

Some interesting tidbits on Stalin from Stalin by Robert Service:

The cult was the centre of the belief system of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Texts such as Marx's Capital and Lenin's The State and Revolution functioned like the Gospels, and the Short Course and Stalin's official biography were equivalent to the Acts of the Apostles. The punctiliousness about words and pictures was reminiscent of Christian ecclesiastical traditions in the former Russian Empire - and Stalin, who had attended the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary till his twenty-first year, may well have been influenced, consciously or not, by his memory of the Orthodox Church's unbending adherence to fixed rites, liturgy and images...Medieval Christianity and vulgar Marxism were a potent mixture.

- pp 542 emphasis mine

Public life functioned on the premise that all good things in the USSR flowed from the talents and beneficence of Joseph Stalin. Among the expressions of the cult was The Book of Delicious and Healthy Food,
whose prefatory epigraph consisted of the following quotation from him:
'The defining preculiarity of our Revolution consists in its having given the people not only freedom but also material goods and the opportunity for a comfortable and cultured life.' No work of non-fiction could appear without mention of his genius.

- pp 545 emphasis mine

There was basic logic to his murderous activity. It was a logic that made sense within the framework of personal attitudes which interacted with Bolshevism in theory and practice...Chief among his considerations was security, and he made no distinction between his personal security and the security of his policies, the leadership and the state... He was shocked by the ease which it had been possible for General Franco to pick up followers in the Spanish Civil War which broke out in July 1936. He intended to prevent this from ever happening in the USSR. Such thinking goes some way to explaining why he, a believer in the efficacy of state terror, turned to intensive violence in 1937-8.

pp 347-348 emphasis mine


Once again, implying that Stalin was ridding the country of theists in some kind of massive atheist campaign simply isn't true, and seems sort of dishonest, in my opinion.

One example is his treatment of the Jews. He didn't start his anti-Jewish campaign for theocratic reasons (like the Catholic church did), he adopted it after the USSR fall out with the Israeli government.

[_dartagnan]

GoodK seems hell bent on denying that atheists have ever persecuted theists. As if the mere thought goes against his fundamental view of the cosmos. Good grief, this is established history here. Even if it were a moot point regarding Stalin (and it isn't), it is indisputable that Lenin instituted an anti-religious system that punished those who believed in God. People were punished socially and economically and teh system thrived throughout Stalin's term. Crushing taxes were enforced on Churches because once they couldn't pay, they'd be arrested for nonpayment. Trumped up charges were brought against bishops because, well, this is communism, people don't have civil rights and the state can pretty much arrest you for anything it wants to. Saying they were killed because the state viewed them as a threat is correct. But it is their religious devotion that was viewed as a threat, so it isn't wrong to say they were killed because of their religion.

Once again, implying that Stalin was ridding the country of theists in some kind of massive atheist campaign simply isn't true, and seems sort of dishonest, in my opinion.

It is true, and nothing you just posted undermines this. Of course there were anti-religion campaigns. The initial effort was to let religion die naturally through propaganda means. But there was the problem of the older generation who remained faithful. Those were the ones who had to watch out. If they criticized atheism, it was a offense to the state and they could be arrested and killed. All of this happened under both Lenin's and Stalin's regimes. Bishops were being arrested, granted, not for simply "believing in God," but they had ridiculous charges brought against them like complaining about nationalisation of Church property, encouraging other priests to "wander," etc. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what teh motive here really was. The eradication of religion by any means necessary.

The plain truth, once again, is that Stalin killed people who opposed the Soviet state.

And since religion was viewed as a threat to the state, Stalin was instrumental in killing them for that reason. Of course these were not the "official" reasons, but clearly the obvious ones.

Stalin's role in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church is complex. Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917), many churches had been leveled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were persecuted and killed. Over 100,000 were shot during the purges of 1937–1938. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

From Alexander Yakovlev's, A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia,

In 1918 the Russian Orthodox Church had 48,000 parishes and in 1928 a little more than 30,000. Of Moscow's 500 Churches, 224 were left by January 1930 and two years later only 87. Even the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was blown up. Before the revolution there were 28 monasteries in Yaroslavl province. By 1938 they were all closed down, and more that 900 Churches were destroyed. p.165

You seemed to have overlooked the fact that these campaigns took place during Stalin's regime. Pay attention to the chronology here. Lenin was already long gone. Do you really expect us to believe that 29,000 churches were burned because they were places where people gathered around to think of ways to overthrow the government, thus, justifying your claim that their persecution had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with them being a sipposed "threat" to the state?

He did not kill people simply because they believed in God. Wikipedia won't even say that.

Wiki does say that, and I even highlighted the part where it did, although the wiki author probably expects readers to infer from the timeline who is implicit in ordering these acts against religious organizations. Obviously it was Stalin. The article clearly says that during Stalin's regime, 29,000 churches were destroyed and tens of thousands of clergymen were arrested and/or murdered. Now if you want to insult our intelligence by insiting this had nothing to do with their religious belief, then go right ahead. If you want to defend this murderous tyrant and add a silver lining to his actions by referring to his "genius," then go right ahead. All of this is to be expected I suppose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism

State atheism is the official promotion of atheism by a government, typically by active suppression of religious freedom and practice.State atheism has been mostly implemented in communist countries, such as the former Soviet Union,[1] China, Communist Albania, Communist Afghanistan, North Korea, Communist Mongolia and Poland under communist rule also promoted state atheism and suppressed religion. In these nations, the governments viewed atheism as an intrinsic part of communist ideology. However, whether such persecution is a result of state atheism is disputed by others. State atheism in these countries may include active (and, sometimes, violent) opposition to religion, and persecution of religious institutions, leaders and believers. The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism,[3] in which social success largely required individuals to proclaim atheism and stay away from churches; this attitude was especially militant under Stalin. The Soviet Union imposed atheism over wide areas of its influence, including places like central Asia

[_GoodK]

GoodK seems hell bent on denying that atheists have ever persecuted theists.

First sentence: straw man. Wow.

Actually, I said that Stalin did not kill people just because they were religious. He killed those that he thought were a threat to security. You act as if he went door to door asking people if they believed in God and according to their answer shipped them off to the Gulags.

Good grief, this is established history here.

Good grief yourself, it is not established history that Stalin killed people just for being religious. This is not true at all.

Even if it were a moot point regarding Stalin (and it isn't), it is indisputable that Lenin instituted an anti-religious system that punished those who believed in God.

It is a moot point for a lot of other reasons, including the fact that Stalin was in a Christian seminary for over 20 years and the blame could easily be shifted on Christianity if we are looking to blame ideologies for the crimes of evil dictators.

Crushing taxes were enforced on Churches because once they couldn't pay, they'd be arrested for nonpayment.

Totally irrelevant to my point: Stalin did not kill people simply for being religious.

Trumped up charges were brought against bishops because, well, this is communism, people don't have civil rights and the state can pretty much arrest you for anything it wants to.

Totally irrelevant to my point: Stalin did not kill people simply for being religious.

But it is their religious devotion that was viewed as a threat, so it isn't wrong to say they were killed because of their religion.

No, it was their opposition to Stalin that got them in trouble. Not their religious belief. There was quite a bit of opposition to the soviet state.

And since religion was viewed as a threat to the state, Stalin was instrumental in killing them for that reason. Of course these were not the "official" reasons, but clearly the obvious ones.

No, they were not the clearly obvious ones. All you are doing - and you could really save yourself the time - is reiterating how mean Stalin was to the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church is the same group that sanctioned the "evacuation" of the Ukranian Jews long before Auschwitz came to be. This still says nothing about rounding up people because they believe in God and executing them.

Stalin did not kill people simply for being religious, and you sure are having a really hard time making a decent case for it.

You seemed to have overlooked the fact that these campaigns took place during Stalin's regime.

You seemed to be overlooking the fact that this doesn't say anything about Stalin killing people simply for being religious.

The article clearly says that during Stalin's regime, 29,000 churches were destroyed and tens of thousands of clergymen were arrested and/or murdered.

For what? Being religious? Or for other reasons? Does the one page of information on wikipedia give us reason to assume that people were killed simply because they believed in God? Because believers were killed? Please don't insult our intelligence.

If you want to defend this murderous tyrant and add a silver lining to his actions by referring to his "genius," then go right ahead. All of this is to be expected I suppose.

Of course a straw man argument is to be expected from the Squidbilly, but the truth is I never called Stalin a "genius" nor did I defend his actions. I don't think his represents an atheism regime any more than I find his actions defensible. I do find his Christian background rather fascinating, and telling, though.

[_dartagnan]

Actually, I said that Stalin did not kill people just because they were religious. He killed those that he thought were a threat to security.

Of course he did, and as I have proved, he considered religion a threat to the security of the communist state. In a communist state, there can only be one reigning ideology amongst the people. There is no place for religion, which is why communist nations have consistently shown intolerance towards religious organizations. They offer the same reasoning for their eradication as you and JAK and others have argued on this forum, that religions are inherently dangerous.

You act as if he went door to door asking people if they believed in God and according to their answer shipped them off to the Gulags.

I never "acted" in any such way. I provided a detailed argument as to why atheism is more dangerous in the political sphere, than theism. You haven't even begun to touch that argument. Instead, you're quibbling over whether or not Stalin personally went "door to door" and killed religious people with his own hands.

Good grief yourself, it is not established history that Stalin killed people just for being religious. This is not true at all.

Then you need to read more than just one book, preferably one that focuses on these particular events, and not one that gives a basic biography of Stalin without even detailing basic events during his anti-religion campaigns.

It is a moot point for a lot of other reasons, including the fact that Stalin was in a Christian seminary for over 20 years and the blame could easily be shifted on Christianity if we are looking to blame ideologies for the crimes of evil dictators.

This is all irrelevant because Stalin became an atheist after reading Darwin, and this was before his reign of terror. Shifting blame on Christianity is not "easy" at all. In fact you've have to be completely dishonest to even think of trying it, but I can see your desire to spin away from the obvious implications here. It would be nice for you if you could somehow make Stalin a man operating on Christian principles. Good luck finding a single historian who agrees.

Totally irrelevant to my point: Stalin did not kill people simply for being religious.

Yes he did, but this isn't to say he just killed anyone who was religious. The evidence is clear that he tried to kill religion by cutting off its head. This meant intimidating the younger generation through economic and social restrictions, if they engaged in religious activity. It also meant getting rid of the older pious generation and its means to spread the faith. Ridiculous taxes were imposed, and when this didn't work, the Churches were burned, and if this didn't work, the priests were arrested for some ridiculous charge that the communist state doesn't need to substantiate. His methods were similar to those imposed by Islam on its subjugated peoples. Not everyone who was non-Muslim was killed for simply being non-Muslims, but those who tried to spread their faith or convert Muslims were killed, along with the converted. Atheism was the official religion in the Soviet Union.

No, it was their opposition to Stalin that got them in trouble. Not their religious belief. There was quite a bit of opposition to the soviet state.

And I guess the Jews during Nazi Germany were not killed because they were Jews, but rather because they were a threat to the Nazi government. I mean Hitler said it, so it must be true! The rationale was exactly the same. I mean they were arrested, after all, so they must be guilty of some crime against the state.

This still says nothing about rounding up people because they believe in God and executing them.

But if you would read the article, it details quite a few anti-religion campaigns or "purges" during Stalin, which did precisely that. It is hard to execute tens of thousands of people without "rounding them up."

I don't think his represents an atheism regime any more than I find his actions defensible. I do find his Christian background rather fascinating, and telling, though.

Of course you do. You'll find a way to blame some religion for just about anything. You highlighted commentary in that biography about Stalin's religious childhood, as if this were in some way "interesting" or had anything to do with teh issue at hand. His religious upbringing is common knowledge, as is the fact that he vehemently rejected theism for the same reasons you and others have, long before he became a murderous tyrant.