Commentary on Richard and GoodK's Debate

[_Dr. Shades]

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.

So we're agreed--that it's Communism, not atheism, that causes people to commit mass murder?

That's been my point all along.

[_dartagnan]

Atheism is an absence of belief so it doesn't cause someone to act any particular way. My point isn't about what atheism does, but rather what it doesn't do.

We begin with the human being who by his very nature will be greedy, ambitious, power hungry, etc. Money and power have a way of corrupting the human being. Atheism does nothing to temper these things, whereas religion does. Religion offers moral teachings. Without religion there would be no democratic society or equal human rights, etc.

The amazing thing about religion, in my view, is that religion has recognized these basic facts about mankind for thousands of years. It will use religious jargon but it expresses the same thing modern behavioral scientists are acknolwedging. But in a religious context it will be put something like this: mankind is naturally sinful and needs God to show him the path to righteousness. The old adage that money and power leads to corruption is an axiom long recognized in religious dogma in the form of sin or vice.

So we have these easily corruptible humans entering into positions of power, where they can order thousands of people slaughtered by the snap of a finger. The atheist is more likely to engage in such activity because there are no repercussions to be had. For atheists like Stalin and Milosovic, religion and all that goes with it is a joke, including its notion that God provides us with morality. When a country is on the economic brink and overrun by poor minorities, having them slaughtered is just a quick fix to teh problem. Why institute long term economic planning to better their condition and encourage them to assimilate to the ideal citizen, when any such plan would likely take decades before its failure or success will become manifest?

Just kill them all. I mean why not? There is no God. There is no such thing as morality. Karl Marx said these people are brain damaged anyway and use religion as opium (sounds like what the New Atheists are saying today, including Bill Maher) and Lenin and Stalin loved Marxism, so they probably thought they'd be doing these people a favor anyway.

So what is the real problem here? Humanity is the problem. Communism is the problem only in the sense that it is a government system that supresses religion. Religion has proved to be the only organized system in history to provide a sense of moral grounding. Where religion is abolished, immorality is likely to take place.

Remember, the first step to genocide is to separate one group of people from another and to make them different, even less human. The next step is to make it a threat. In an environment that constantly pounds home the idea of human equality among all, it is less likely that a genocidal leader emerge. In cases like Stalin, you have someone who threw out the baby with the bath water. It happens alot with converted atheists. They loathe religion so much so that they abandon everything it was they picked up from it, including moral teachings.

[_GoodK]

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.

Out of curiosity, where are you getting your information from, specifically?

Just Wikipedia? Where are you reading that simply being religious was a crime under Stalin's regime?

I'm off to Magic Mountain now but I'll be glad to respond to the rest of your post later this weekend.

[_GoodK]

So we're agreed--that it's Communism, not atheism, that causes people to commit mass murder?

That's been my point all along.

In this case, absolutely.

[_antishock8]

in my opinion, I don't think it was a lack of belief in god, ie. Atheism, that was a catalyst for Stain to be a murderous thug, but rather his status as a dictator under a Communist state.

However, theists, have time and again justified their murdering beneath the banner of their theism, their religious books, and religious mandates. I have yet to see an atheist dictator murder in the name of atheism.

That's the gist of what I'm getting at...

[_dartagnan]

in my opinion, I don't think it was a lack of belief in god, ie. Atheism, that was a catalyst for Stain to be a murderous thug, but rather his status as a dictator under a Communist state.

I didn't say it was a "catalyst." I'm saying what atheism doesn't do, not what it does. Atheism has no means to stop someone from acting immorally. That's my point.
Stalin did what he did because of human nature. He didn't stop doing it becauise he had no moral ground to base such reasoning. Meaning, because he hated religion, he rebelled against everything it stood for, including moral principles.

However, theists, have time and again justified their murdering beneath the banner of their theism, their religious books, and religious mandates

Aside from Islam, you don't have much of a case to make here. The crusades were a belated attempt to defend Christendom from centuries of attacks. The only difference between atheistic rulers who slaughter millions and the Islamic caliphs, is that the latter believed God was getting the glory, and the former did it for their own. They were both after the same thing: expansion and absolute control over the people.

But yes, religion is easy to use because it is a social system that unites the people under a common cause. When there is no religion to use, the dictator will try using other means, like race, tribalism, etc. In the case of Lenin and Stalin, they used "science" whose ugly twin brother is atheism. They made the same exact arguments the new atheists are making today; religion is anti science, for the uneducated and poor, it stunts economic/scientific progress, etc.

I have yet to see an atheist dictator murder in the name of atheism.

That's because it is impossible. You don't do something in the name of non-belief. They use other witty belief systems like a devotion to "science." But an absolute devotion to a atheistic worldview is necessary in order to completely reject all religion.

[_richardMdBorn]

I recently heard a discussion on WGN radio in Chicago on

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13TH
HEIDEGGER

Tonight, we'll explore Heidegger and his Jewish follower's, including Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt. We'll be joined in studio by Sam Fleischaker, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, and Dana Villa, a professor of political science at Notre Dame.

A caller asked about a possible connection between the decline of religious belief and totalitarianism. One of the panelists cited a talk Arendt gave at NYU in the 1970s in which she was asked this question. She responded that the decline in the belief in an afterlife was a factor in this. Our atheist friends will doubtless dispute this but you may want to ponder it.

[_Dr. Shades]

Integrity compels me to admit that you make a very good case, Kevin.

[_richardMdBorn]

Georg Orwell makes an interesting point

There is little doubt that the modern cult of power worship is bound up with modern man’s feeling that life here and now is the only life there is. If death ends everything, it becomes much harder to believe that you can be in the right even if you are defeated. Statesman, nation, theories, causes are judged almost inevitably by the test of material success. Supposing that one could separate the phenomena, I would say that the decay of belief in personal immortality has been as important as the rise of machine civilization.

Collected Essays, Vol. 3, 126. 3 March 1944

[_JohnStuartMill]

in my opinion, I don't think it was a lack of belief in god, ie. Atheism, that was a catalyst for Stain to be a murderous thug, but rather his status as a dictator under a Communist state.

I didn't say it was a "catalyst." I'm saying what atheism doesn't do, not what it does. Atheism has no means to stop someone from acting immorally. That's my point.

In one sense this is not true, in the other, it is trivial.

Let's start with the trivial sense. Sure, atheism by itself has no means to stop someone from acting immorally. But neither does religion: it didn't stop the ancient Jews from pillaging and raping their enemies, it didn't stop the medieval Catholics from persecuting religious minorities, it didn't stop 19th century Southern Baptists from owning slaves, it didn't stop radical Muslims from flying planes into the World Trade Center, etc. (in fact, religion encouraged these immoralities, something atheism cannot do). You probably see something wrong with this statement: you'd say that you need to have the right kind of religion to be moral; that you'd have to conjoin belief in God to other purportedly-moral precepts, such as the Ten Commandments. Okay, great -- what's preventing an atheist from doing the same? Which brings me to my next point.

It is not true that there is nothing that could prevent an atheist from acting immorally. There are systems of moral thought that are available to atheists, and which have been for thousands of years. There were many ancient Greeks who either didn't believe in God, or who thought that the supernatural beings that did exist were wicked; they therefore derived morality from some other source. Today, the most popular systems of secular ethics are utilitarianism (which was hinted at in ancient Greece by the Epicureans, and was more fully grounded in the early 1800s by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) and deontology (which is a more recent invention, popularized by Immanuel Kant, who wrote in the late 1700s). If you conjoin atheism with one of these belief systems, then presto! you have an atheist that has an internal sanction to not act immorally.

However, theists, have time and again justified their murdering beneath the banner of their theism, their religious books, and religious mandates

Aside from Islam, you don't have much of a case to make here. The crusades were a belated attempt to defend Christendom from centuries of attacks.

No, the Crusades were an attempt to recapture the Holy Land from the heathen Mussulman and usurious Jew. There is no way to justify the Siege of Jerusalem by the Crusaders (which included a massacre of Jews and Muslims) as an act of self-defense. Sorry.

But yes, religion is easy to use because it is a social system that unites the people under a common cause. When there is no religion to use, the dictator will try using other means, like race, tribalism, etc. In the case of Lenin and Stalin, they used "science" whose ugly twin brother is atheism. They made the same exact arguments the new atheists are making today; religion is anti science, for the uneducated and poor, it stunts economic/scientific progress, etc.

Not many new atheists are saying that religion is for the poor...

There's a big difference between Stalin and Western European liberal atheists. The latter almost unanimously believe in the right of free speech and free action (so long as it doesn't violate the harm principle); the former did not.

That's because it is impossible. You don't do something in the name of non-belief.

Bravo! Well said.