Help neutralizing idiocy

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Mettyx
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Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Mettyx » Wed May 15, 2013 7:39 am

This kind of faux-liberal idiocy needs to be fought back.

So could you just click like on this response inthe comments section-
(CTRL+F Caldwell)


Oh, it's one of those morally repugnant and intellectually bankrupt articles on Alternet defending the most violent, repulsive, anti-human rights, anti-science, anti-democracy superstitions in the world.

Two points:

1.
There is no such thing as “Islamophobia.” This is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. In fact, people(pseudo-leftist useful idiots) who use it are racists because they believe you can't make Muslims accountable on the same level as you would everyone else.

2.The meaningless and deceitful notion of fundamentalism, to quote an ex-muslim, A.Rivzi:

"I also understand that extremism in any ideology isn’t a distortion of that ideology. It is an informed, steadfast adherence to its fundamentals, hence the term “fundamentalism.” When you think of a left-wing extremist, do you think of a greedy capitalist? Would you imagine a right-wing extremist to be dedicated to government-funded social welfare programs? The “extremists” and strict followers of the Jain faith,
which values the life of every being, including insects, don’t kill more than their average co-religionists. Instead, they avoid eating foods stored overnight so as not to kill even the microorganisms that may have collected in the meantime. In a true religion of peace, the “extremists” would be nonviolent pacifists to an extreme (and perhaps annoying) degree, not the opposite."

Please Alternet, articles like these are a nasty stain on your credibility, rationality, reputation.

I think that's the best response of all the comments(it's not me) I've read so far.

Reachable
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Reachable » Wed May 15, 2013 3:29 pm

I suspect that the term "fundamentalism" was coined or adopted by those embracing it as a way of justifying their beliefs by proclaiming that their beliefs are the true and basic.

The commenter quoted fails to understand that extremism within the whole domain of an established religion is a different ideology than that held by most others under the same religious brand. You can't make a valid analogy between that and a specific secular philosophy because you're talking about a different philosophy under an umbrella that contains many.

All the major religions share the core values of peace and brotherhood, so, yes, it's fair to say that fundamentalists of all stripes distort their religion's basic values.

Mettyx
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Mettyx » Thu May 16, 2013 12:39 pm

You mean how a muslim biologist tried to talk about evolution in UK, received death threats and then completely backtracked?

Or how third of the muslims born and raised in UK think it would be OK to kill people for leaving islam?

What minority are you talking about exactly, is 25% a minority and the rest consider this OK?

Was over 100 000 muslims in Bangladesh gathered to demand the burning of atheist bloggers a minority?
Do you know how hard it is to gather 10 000 people for anything let alone 100 000?

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by xan_user » Thu May 16, 2013 8:42 pm

Mettyx wrote: Do you know how hard it is to gather 10 000 people for anything let alone 100 000?
its not that hard if you serve beer and hand out free cigarettes...
According to NASCAR estimates, 3,518,000 million attended last year's 36 Sprint Cup races. The average of 97,722 per event was the lowest since NASCAR began adding the crowd figures to race reports and down from a high of 4,670,400 (129,733 per race) in the 2005 season.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Reachable » Fri May 17, 2013 9:40 am

xan_user wrote:
Mettyx wrote: Do you know how hard it is to gather 10 000 people for anything let alone 100 000?
its not that hard if you serve beer and hand out free cigarettes...
According to NASCAR estimates, 3,518,000 million attended last year's 36 Sprint Cup races. The average of 97,722 per event was the lowest since NASCAR began adding the crowd figures to race reports and down from a high of 4,670,400 (129,733 per race) in the 2005 season.
That's so spot on!


Consider these characteristics of a religious subgroup:

1) The fervent belief that those of their religion are universally persecuted.

2) Vocal public condemnations of other religions as being misguided or inferior.

You can see these come all stripes, including fundamentalist Atheists, which (I think) are in the minority.

By the way, the 19th century American Christian fundamentalists were the progressive, tolerant ones, and there may still be groups like that around, so one should be wary of rigid definitions.

Mettyx
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Mettyx » Fri May 17, 2013 6:27 pm

Reachable wrote:including fundamentalist Atheists
LOL, could you define what a "fundamentalist Atheist" is?
Such nonsensical contortion would be hilarious...actually I'm surprised you didn't use the word "militant".


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Lucky Luciano
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Lucky Luciano » Sat May 18, 2013 12:28 am

I'd say (as an atheist myself) that Richard Dawkins is a pretty good example of a both fundamentalist and militant atheist.

As for extremist islam - perhaps stopping the bombing of their countries, the targeted assassinations of "suspected" terrorists(and thousands of innocents killed as "collateral damage"), the support for despots and the toppling of inconvenient regimes could diminish it.

This is my 1st post on this forum, not the best place to start I guess. :roll:

Cistron
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Cistron » Sat May 18, 2013 2:05 am

Lucky Luciano wrote:I'd say (as an atheist myself) that Richard Dawkins is a pretty good example of a both fundamentalist and militant atheist.
I'd say he just loses patience too quickly after explaining evolution for the n-th time. However, it surely makes good television seeing him go up against hard-lining evangelist Christians telling them how stupid they are. For that matter, Stephen Fry is amazingly entertaining when he's on a catholic bashing run as well.

Never heard of Alternet. Is this an important "news" channel to the west of the big pond?

Mettyx
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Mettyx » Sat May 18, 2013 5:05 am

Lucky Luciano wrote: As for extremist islam - perhaps stopping the bombing of their countries, the targeted assassinations of "suspected" terrorists(and thousands of innocents killed as "collateral damage"), the support for despots and the toppling of inconvenient regimes could diminish it.
This is a falsehood perpetrated and proliferated by aforementioned pseudo-liberal useful idiots and islamists.

This is a recount of Thomas Jefferson’s meeting in 1786 with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Libya’s ambassador to London. Jefferson noted:
The ambassador answered us that [their right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.
This thread of jihadist thought continues to this day. Yet while those words were once imputed to religious belief, now many "liberals" desperately ascribe them to causes not in existence in 1786.
So where did Abdul Rahman Adja’s bin Laden-esque words come from?

They couldn’t have been a response to American imperialism (the start of the conflict precedes the presidency of George Washington), U.S. foreign policy, globalization, AIPAC or Islamophobia. Yet his words are virtually identical to those spouted ad nauseum by jihadists today who justify their bellicosity as a reaction to these U.S.-centric factors, which were nonexistent in Adja’s time.

How do we make sense of this? Well, the common denominator here just happens to be the elephant in the room.


P.S.
I believe the main reason why there are so many useful idiots in the west is emotional comfort, it is much easier to believe west is evil and all this is reactionary than it is to believe that a large chunk of human population are for all intents and purposes barbarians, their brains rotted by toxic and violent superstition.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by xan_user » Sat May 18, 2013 7:00 am

The ambassador answered us that [their right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.
isnt that basically what dubya (and his dad) said about invading islam?

Mettyx
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Mettyx » Sat May 18, 2013 7:38 am

xan_user wrote: isnt that basically what dubya (and his dad) said about invading islam?
WTF?
They invaded Iraq because of its invasion of Kuwait, helped by the corporate oil interests. Second time the same, corporate neocon interests helped by desire to finish daddy's unfinished business.
It's exactly this kind of "liberal" idiocy I'm talking about, "invading islam"?? That's not even coherent.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by xan_user » Sat May 18, 2013 2:03 pm

Mettyx wrote:
xan_user wrote: isnt that basically what dubya (and his dad) said about invading islam?
WTF?
if a certain predominantly christian, western country in the northern hemisphere was invaded, wouldn't a lot of Christians (like the bushes for example) call it "invading god's country"?

dubya said his invasion was an order to him directly from god. invading Iraq and Afghanistan was a modern day Spanish inquisition, it was just veiled well. we just do a better job of hiding our western jihad message against islam, while they are just more upfront when they speak of their belief in their book.

btw, we gave Hussein the green light to invade kuwait when the bush administration told him we would not get involved in their "petty border disputes" when he came to US for help in stopping kuwait from illegally slant drilling into iraq.



the real idiocy in this world, is not being able to step back and look at both sides, as if you were actually in their shoes, or at least in their neighbors shoes.

andymcca
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by andymcca » Sun May 19, 2013 8:57 am

trololololol?
Otherwise Mettyx zomg you're so right please go be content in your rightness and stop bothering the clueless rest of humanity who will never see the Truth.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by whispercat » Mon May 20, 2013 9:50 am

Mettyx wrote:
Reachable wrote:including fundamentalist Atheists
LOL, could you define what a "fundamentalist Atheist" is? Such nonsensical contortion would be hilarious...actually I'm surprised you didn't use the word "militant".

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Militant Atheists

I'm trying to figure out what you've been smoking. I thought this was common knowledge.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by xan_user » Mon May 20, 2013 7:54 pm

But, how many years will it be before the tea-baggers qualify as militant anarchists? (or are they already?)

Mettyx
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Mettyx » Wed May 22, 2013 2:46 pm

Am I a militant gravitationalist? A militant human induced global warming believer? When did being so highly informed about a topic such that truly remarkable new evidence is required to change an informed persons mind, be defined as militant?
Are all of the world's experts "militant" about their topic? I'm sorry, but I have very little intellectual respect for someone who is so twisted that they reject the evidence for gravity. This is not militancy. Militant religionists like David Koresh, Bin Laden, Scott Roeder and Timothy McVeigh (even Jim Jones wasn't militant) deserve the title, but there are no equivalent atheists (and don't start with Hitler, who was a christian or Stalin or any other cultist, if you displayed any rationality in their regimes you were likely to be killed).

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by colm » Thu May 23, 2013 2:24 pm

Mettyx wrote:
Reachable wrote:including fundamentalist Atheists
LOL, could you define what a "fundamentalist Atheist" is?
Such nonsensical contortion would be hilarious...actually I'm surprised you didn't use the word "militant".


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each one of them is standing alone.
I tend to avoid politics and religion...

its about bringing together, and peaceful boundaries.

a desire to go ape and maul someone is time to leave.

Mettyx
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Mettyx » Fri May 24, 2013 9:01 am

colm wrote:
its about bringing together, and peaceful boundaries.

Yeah, reality doesn't work like that. All the great superstitions(islam, christianity...) go to great lengths to indoctrinate the captive audience especially children and even besides that they act like a virus.

When you believe ancient magic of ancient ignoramuses is absolute eternal truth all bets are off.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by HFat » Sat May 25, 2013 9:50 am

Believing in obvious lies and official religions which don't involve deities is not any better. Such as your obvious lies and lapses of logic above. See fascism.

A bit weird to put pragmatists like Stalin who have on occasion been known to stand by religion against militant atheists in the "militant atheist" category though.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by andyb » Sun May 26, 2013 10:25 am

I'd say (as an atheist myself) that Richard Dawkins is a pretty good example of a both fundamentalist and militant atheist.
Fundamentalist Atheist "yes", militant "no".

How anyone could describe Dawkins as "Militant" is to either not understand the meaning of the word itself, or themselves be so detached from reality that they cannot identify who is and who is not "militant", I would like to also add that I see Dawkins as both "shrill" and "strident".

---

Dictionary.

adjective

"favouring confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause:the army are in conflict with militant groups".

---
As for extremist islam - perhaps stopping the bombing of their countries, the targeted assassinations of "suspected" terrorists(and thousands of innocents killed as "collateral damage"), the support for despots and the toppling of inconvenient regimes could diminish it.
I have no doubt that the above things help foster anger and resentment, as they would with me if those things were happening against my country, however as an Atheist I cannot be driven to violence on the promise of going to heaven, I cannot be driven to violence knowing "that God is on my side" and that makes our cause just. And finally, I also cannot be driven to violence due to a religious war - there is no book of Atheism that instructs us to kill, convert or enslave people of any other religion as there is in the Qur'an - therefore anyone who suggests that there is such a thing as "Militant Atheism" is ignorant of many facts.
I'd say he just loses patience too quickly after explaining evolution for the n-th time.
That he does, I am glad I am not alone in witnessing someone with a very short-fuze who is a scientist first and foremost trying to explain known and proven information to people who are (often) not capable of even considering another point of view - which is often a serious problem with "Fundamentalist <insert religion here>" who "already KNOW the truth".
For that matter, Stephen Fry is amazingly entertaining when he's on a catholic bashing run as well.
This is the late and still great Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry - both make excellent points that the Catholics cannot stand up against, although my favorite part is where Fry shows something very rare - anger, specifically when he points out that the Catholic church brand him as "Evil" for being Homosexual - the Catholic church is repugnant and evil itself in my opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2wzsaZKiGo

The main 6 problems with Islam (picked out because it is the main religion talked about in this post) are as follows.

(-1-) The lengthily texts (Hadiths and Qur'an) are littered with passages that strongly suggest to the followers of Islam that certain things are allowed by the way that actions are portrayed and stories told in these Holy "perfect" books, especially those quotes from Mohammed himself (remember that this is the most perfect person who has or will ever live), these include child rape, treating women like cattle, murdering enslaving or converting people from any other religion, general violence, and rewards for violence.

http://prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Quotes.Islam

On the right hand side there are a selection of "subjects" that you may want to peruse such as "Tolerance", "Murder" and "Lust". Please note that truly awful things also exist in the first testament as well as within other holy scripture.

(-2-) Islam has no leadership (i.e. "chain of command" such as the Catholic Church) so almost any preacher can select all of the nastiest parts of the Qur'an and repeat them endlessly, and with no repercussions from that Cleric's seniors, so the brainwashed masses often believe literally anything such preachers tell them as the truth and that they should follow - this does not seem like a serious problem until you think about it for a while, and this is one of the reasons why Islamic terrorists are far more common than those from other religions.

(-3-) The Islamic Family. For some reason that I do not understand "Islam" is seen by a great deal of that religions followers as a family, which is why (when mixed with the other points) that when something bad happens in one part of the world to some Muslim people on the other side of the world go crazy beyond any logical (to me) reason. As a side-point, a great many people (usually idiots who cant read the meanings of words in Dictionaries) often refer to "Muslims" as a "race" which they are clearly not.

(-4-) Islam is not JUST a religion, it is also a political system and a law system, when you mix those with "an Almighty God and the best man that has ever lived and can ever live" you are seriously asking for trouble.

(-5-) Islam specifically tells its followers that if they cannot defeat their enemies with violence (anyone who is not a Muslim) they are to "infiltrate" those people, live alongside them and defeat them slowly from within by driving people away with threats, out-breeding their neighbours and trying to create enclaves within other communities.

(-6-) Islam is "Anti-Free Speech". Muslims are constantly pleading for "Special Rights" using totally illogical words such as "Islamophobia", constantly complaining demonstration and becoming threatening when anyone (or group) says anything that Muslims don't like or "hurts their feelings". This has gotten to the stage now where its not just laughable but "allowed" by the government, police and media in the UK with little or nothing in the way of repercussions - Islam gets away with saying whatever it wants (i.e. uses Free-Speech) but complains about anyone saying anything they don't like (i.e. stopping Free-Speech for others).

I am sure if I put my mind to it I could think of more things to add to that list, but even as it stands each one individually is a threat to peace, but added together you have a religion, political system and law system all in one. To my knowledge no other religion has this mix that is such a threat to peace as Islam is.


Andy
Last edited by andyb on Sun May 26, 2013 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

HFat
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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by HFat » Sun May 26, 2013 12:02 pm

You call me ignorant. I call you ignorant. An impasse?
No, because it's not only a matter of opinion. It's testable. What a concept!
Anyone can look up this stuff. Take "haram" for instance. You have to be seriously ignorant not to know what it means. I say it means something very different from what you assert. Anyone can look it up and determine very quickly who has a clue and who doesn't...

Dunning–Kruger is the process and Breivik is the destination.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by andyb » Sun May 26, 2013 4:37 pm

You call me ignorant. I call you ignorant. An impasse?
No, because it's not only a matter of opinion. It's testable. What a concept!
Anyone can look up this stuff. Take "haram" for instance. You have to be seriously ignorant not to know what it means. I say it means something very different from what you assert. Anyone can look it up and determine very quickly who has a clue and who doesn't...
Forgive me, I confused myself with two words that I never use in daily expressions that have opposite meanings. I have corrected my mistake using plainer English that I, and most readers would be familiar with.


Andy

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by whispercat » Sun May 26, 2013 7:51 pm

HFat wrote:
A bit weird to put pragmatists like Stalin who have on occasion been known to stand by religion against militant atheists in the "militant atheist" category though.
Not weird when you study the history of the Soviet Union. Stalin was ironically raised in a religious family in the Greek Orthodox tradition. His father was a priest. Stalin even spent five years in a Greek orthodox seminary training to be a priest. Suffering severe beatings at the hand of his father, his attitudes towards religion slowly changed.

Once Stalin came to power he adopted the Communist Party's stance on religion which was somewhat tolerant of private individual worship but hostile towards religious institutions. He began a nationwide campaign to destroy churches, confiscate church property, and to persecute and kill church officials. During Stalin's reign, the Russian Orthodox Church went from 50,000 to 500 churches. Stalin eased up on his campaign during WWII and allowed more and more churches to re-open, including churches, temples and mosques from all religions. But many historians feel this may have simply been an appeasement for practical reasons during war time to keep the country's morale high. He remained a staunch atheist until he died.

So, yes, Stalin was a militant atheist.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by HFat » Sun May 26, 2013 8:40 pm

Stalin was also the leader of the Komintern and as such you have to look at what the Communist Parties aligned with Moscow did.
But let's look at Russia...
whispercat wrote:During Stalin's reign, the Russian Orthodox Church went from 50,000 to 500 churches. Stalin eased up on his campaign during WWII and allowed more and more churches to re-open, including churches, temples and mosques from all religions.
The issue is: was this persecution motivated by atheism?
Recall that Stalin attacked any individual, group (even imaginiary groups) or organization which could present a challenge to his authority. He attacked more atheists than religionists, including people who were more principled ideologues than himself.
Since his policy with regards to both secular ideologies and religion famously changed with circumstances, it's unconvincing to argue his policies with regard to religion was primarily ideologically-driven.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by HFat » Sun May 26, 2013 8:41 pm

andyb wrote:Forgive me, I confused myself with two words that I never use in daily expressions that have opposite meanings. I have corrected my mistake using plainer English that I, and most readers would be familiar with.
Great. Now you can correct all your other mistakes as well as your sources.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by andyb » Mon May 27, 2013 11:42 am

Great. Now you can correct all your other mistakes as well as your sources.
If you point out my "mistakes", I will either edit them if I have made a mistake, or give reasons why I have not edited them if I disagree with your opinion.

Simply stating that someone has made "mistakes" that the author is not aware of is pointless. There maybe mistakes, you already pointed out a glaring mistake which I have edited, but I am not currently aware of any others.

I am perfectly open to "constructive criticism", the key word there is "constructive".


Andy

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by whispercat » Mon May 27, 2013 7:01 pm

HFat wrote:Stalin was also the leader of the Komintern and as such you have to look at what the Communist Parties aligned with Moscow did.
But let's look at Russia...
whispercat wrote:During Stalin's reign, the Russian Orthodox Church went from 50,000 to 500 churches. Stalin eased up on his campaign during WWII and allowed more and more churches to re-open, including churches, temples and mosques from all religions.
The issue is: was this persecution motivated by atheism?
Gee, let's see:

Stalin was an atheist... check
Stalin was a Communist .. check
An explicit and important doctrine in communism is atheism and the eradication of religion over time.. check
Stalin, like Lenin before him, and Krushchev after him, began a campaign against religious institutions...check

I would say the odds of Stalin's persecution of religious clerics and institutions being at least partly motivated by his own and his party's belief in atheism are pretty high.
HFat wrote:Recall that Stalin attacked any individual, group (even imaginiary groups) or organization which could present a challenge to his authority.
If Stalin was merely worried about threats to his power, it is highly unlikely he would have allowed the re-opening of churches during war time, when the need for security is highest and enemy collaborators could be anywhere.

HFat wrote:He attacked more atheists than religionists, including people who were more principled ideologues than himself.
He attacked many groups for many reasons. Atheism was one reason for one such group. It's specious to argue that because atheists happen to bear a higher proportion of attacks that this says anything about either Stalin's attitude towards atheists, or his motivations for the persecution of religion.
HFat wrote:Since his policy with regards to both secular ideologies and religion famously changed with circumstances, it's unconvincing to argue his policies with regard to religion was primarily ideologically-driven.
Why? Given all we know about Stalin's upbringing, his beliefs about religion, the actions he took against religious institutions and priests, the banning of religious material, the cynical ploy to curry favor with the churches during the war, Occam's Razor would point to the more simple and likely explanation that Stalin's motivations were ideological. Even if atheism were not the primary motivating factor, any less of a factor would still qualify Stalin as a militant atheist.

The need for national unity, pride and loyal resistance against the Nazis became a higher priority for a few years during the war than the long term goal of eradicating religion. This seems like a practical compromise in the face of a national crisis than a serious reason to disbelieve Stalin's commitment to carrying out the long term Communist policy.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by Cistron » Tue May 28, 2013 12:52 am

whispercat wrote:I would say the odds of Stalin's persecution of religious clerics and institutions being at least partly motivated by his own and his party's belief in atheism are pretty high.
I don't know much about Stalin's biography, but if he grew up under a strict orthodox hand and was repeatedly beaten (as mentioned above), the odds are pretty high that he was very troubled. So the eradication of religion might have been backed up by Marxist ideology, but perhaps had a more vengeful motivation.

I think we can all agree that he and many other war criminals are not balanced individuals and shouldn't be the standard upon which Atheism is rated. Going with this notion it is wrong to judge any religion based on its militant movements, however, and unfortunately, frequently they are inspired by one or the other supposedly holy scripture. And of course there is this little problem that most religions make their members troubled in one way or the other.

I'm also not sure what there is to judge about Atheism. All it means is the absence of a belief in a superior being. It doesn't imply shared morals or cultural standards. Don't mix it up with truth-lovers, sceptics and people that adhere to the scientific process.

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by andyb » Tue May 28, 2013 4:16 am

Stalin was an atheist... check
Stalin was a Communist .. check
An explicit and important doctrine in communism is atheism and the eradication of religion over time.. check
Stalin, like Lenin before him, and Krushchev after him, began a campaign against religious institutions...check

I would say the odds of Stalin's persecution of religious clerics and institutions being at least partly motivated by his own and his party's belief in atheism are pretty high.
I don't know a great deal about Communism within Russia or any other country, however I do note that pictures of Stalin (and possibly others) were routinely found on display in peoples houses in the same way that a great many religious people do with JC (Christian example), this to me would suggest that Stalin (and maybe others) expected themselves to be treated like a God - this is known to be true withing North Korea.


Andy

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Re: Help neutralizing idiocy

Post by whispercat » Tue May 28, 2013 5:02 pm

Cistron,
Good points you raise. I hope my post didn't come across as judging atheism negatively. I wasn't attempting to say anything about atheism in general, only pointing out that examples of militant atheists do seem to exist, Stalin being one.

Andy,
Interesting observation about the quasi idolatry of Stalin (and others) vis-a-vis portraits in homes. I had forgotten about that, but remember it was mentioned on a radio program I heard once about ordinary life in the former Soviet Union.

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