Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot killed in the name of atheism

[Bob the Unbeliever]

That's a very misleading statement. He did brutally suppress the church and other religions.

By the time of WW2, about 99% of Churches had been closed down and thousands of clerics killed. There were something like 4 bishops still practicing out of 150+.

Stalin reversed the policy of persecution due to WW2 out of pragmatism. For obvious reasons, Stalin needed to shore up domestic support, and despite being very oppressive, policies to eradicate religion and promote godlessness were not very effective anyway.

After the war Stalin restored many churches, although not to the pre-Soviet levels and their activity was closely regulated. Clergy were still persecuted at times, and anti-religious policies continued although with much lower intensity towards Russian Orthodox.

Well, sure-- of course he restored them-- they had not been destroyed in the first place, or there would have been no point it "restoring" them.

Sure-- some of the buildings were wrecked, and many clerics were killed. But a church is not just the clerics, any more than the visible part above the water, comprises the ice berg.

By trying to suppress a rival POWER structure, Stalin did effectively gut it's PUBLIC face for awhile.

But the Russians being who they were? Simply went underground for some time. I expect as official attendance/membership waned? Unofficial membership actually grew...

That's kinda how this Meme works, isn't it? Xianity seems to thrive on persecution-- the entire NT language is literally written around it.

 

[Ponder This]

Isn't that exactly what happened during the Holocaust?

No. The justification for killing people in the Holocaust was not:

1. These people are loyal citizens of our nation taking pride in it.
2. Therefore they should die.

The justification was more like:

1. These people are not loyal citizens of our nation, but rather citizens of some other nation called 'Israel'.
2. These people practice a religion that is detrimental to the health and well-being of our people.
3. They are somehow genetically impure or something.
4. Therefore, they should all die.

Nationalism doesn't work as a justification to kill your own citizens. It's used as a justification to kill people who are not part of your nation. So saying people were killed because of nationalism just begs the question as to why they weren't considered part of the nation in the first place.

 

[Ponder This]

Where did you come up with that?

As an agnostic atheist humanist, I would say:

1. I have seen no evidence for the existence of the many god(s) people have claimed exist, therefore I do not believe in god(s).
2. Religions show all the signs of being man-made.
3. Religion isn't false; it is very real and does exist in many forms around the world and over time. The happiness a person may feel when practicing their religion is also very real. Just because something a person believes may not actually be real, doesn't mean their feelings about it are not real. Human beings experience feelings.
4. Not sure how you reached that conclusion. There are many ways people can experience happiness. Religion appears to be one of them.
5. Not sure how you reached that conclusion either. Millions of people don't need to die in order to "eliminate" false ideas or claims. Bad/false/inaccurate ideas can be dealt with via critical and rational thought, reason and honest assessment of empirical evidence, among other things. As Sam Harris says above, "There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable."

So I guess it's pretty obvious by now that I think you got everything wrong here.

The 'falsity' of religion was put forth by Marx. The 'realness' of religion in the sense that people adhere to religions is not what Marx was referring to. He advanced the notion that religion does not provide 'real' happiness. By analogy he compared it to opium, as in opium makes you think you are happy, but it doesn't provide you real happiness.

If you assert that the happiness religion provides the people is real, then it's clear you disagree with the general Marxist communist philosophy on that key point. Sam Harris has said that communism and facism were not too critical of religion. That implies that Sam Harris agrees that the happiness religion provides is not real happiness. I accept that you don't have to agree with Sam Harris just because he is an atheist. Sam Harris is also free to change his mind about this whenever he sees fit to do so.

To be clear, the OP of this thread asserted that Mao and Pol Pat killed in the name of atheism. So if the justification implied is not the one I laid out, then someone should say what justification is being asserted here. Asserting that atheists simply have an uncontrollable desire to kill people seems absurd...

 

[paarsurrey]

Asserting that atheists simply have an uncontrollable desire to kill people seems absurd...

I agree with one here.
Yet to assert that Atheism people simply cannot be involved in killing people is also equally absurd. Right, please?
Regards

 

[Ponder This]

I agree with one here.
Yet to assert that Atheism people simply cannot be involved in killing people is also equally absurd. Right, please?
Regards

Indeed.
Moreover, anyone who comes onto this thread and simply posts:
'I am an atheist and I disagree with killing people' has not done anything particularly productive or illuminating, imo.

 

[ChristineM]

Indeed.
Moreover, anyone who comes onto this thread and simply posts:
'I am an atheist and I disagree with killing people' has not done anything particularly productive or illuminating, imo.

The same goes for those who come onto this thread and preach untruth's about what they fail to understand

 

[Augustus]

I eagerly await your considered opinion on almost 1 billion deaths caused directly or indirectly in wars of religion

Why would anyone need to offer a 'considered opinion' on a completely fictitious statistic though?

You would be far less wrong if you said 0 people have been killed in wars of religion.

 

[paarsurrey]

Indeed.
Moreover, anyone who comes onto this thread and simply posts:
'I am an atheist and I disagree with killing people' has not done anything particularly productive or illuminating, imo.

I agree with one here, please.
Regards

 

[Augustus]

But the Russians being who they were? Simply went underground for some time. I expect as official attendance/membership waned? Unofficial membership actually grew...

It declined. 3 decades of massive state propaganda, violent repression didn't 'boost' the Orthodox faith.

It was not particularly effective in eradicating it, but the Soviet Union was certainly less Christian at the end than the beginning.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

It declined. 3 decades of massive state propaganda, violent repression didn't 'boost' the Orthodox faith.

It was not particularly effective in eradicating it, but the Soviet Union was certainly less Christian at the end than the beginning.

If you say so. But pardon me if I fail to be convinced by your statements.

 

[Augustus]

If you say so. But pardon me if I fail to be convinced by your statements.

You don't have to. Just apply a bit of critical thinking and elementary reasoning.

Killing hundreds of thousands of a certain group does tend to reduce numbers. Attaching a high social cost to a an ideology also reduces the numbers on the fringe who are not particularly devout in their beliefs.

Banning proselytisation, minimising the contact of young people with religious teachings would be expected to have some negative effect.

30 years of education and propaganda against religion would also be expected to have some effect. You would probably agree that in the West, scientific literacy, education, urbanisation and the declining power of the Church have reduced religious adherence, so why believe it had the opposite effect in the USSR?

Given that before the commies took power, Russian society would have been almost entirely religious, the assumption that Orthodoxy actually grew as you claim would require basically nobody in the country to have agreed with the Soviet ideology.

Soviet research by the League of Militant Atheists in 1937 identified around 57% of the population were still Orthodox, a significant decline, but a massive failure from the Soviet perspective (See P Walters - The Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet State).

You could make a reasonable case that the smaller number of believers who remained were more devout, seeing as they had risked actual costs to follow their beliefs. Arguing that numbers actually grew is clearly incorrect though.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

You don't have to. Just apply a bit of critical thinking and elementary reasoning.

I did. You don't. You don't even attempt to post links to credible sources-- just your opinions....

 

[Augustus]

I did. You don't. you don't even attempt to post links to credible sources-- just your opinions....

No credible sources except the peer reviewed academic journal I referenced in the post you are complaining about not having any sources. A peer reviewed academic journal that cites Soviet archive material which confirms what should be pretty obvious to anybody:

Persecuting and killing hundreds of thousands of Orthodox, closing down 99% of churches and several decades of atheistic education and propaganda will decrease the percentage of Orthodox in a society that was almost entirely theistic at the start.

 

[Rehan]

No credible sources except the peer reviewed academic journal I referenced in the post you are complaining about not having any sources. A peer reviewed academic journal that cites Soviet archive material which confirms what should be pretty obvious to anybody

Yeah, but your reference was not a link so it doesn't count! Do you expect people to actually read what you write instead of skimming through and see whether a few words of the text look different or not? How unreasonable!

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Yeah, but your reference was not a link so it doesn't count! Do you expect people to actually read what you write instead of skimming through and see whether a few words of the text look different or not? How unreasonable!

Indeed. Without a link? Can we trust his version of the alleged "source"?

 

[Augustus]

Yeah, but your reference was not a link so it doesn't count! Do you expect people to actually read what you write instead of skimming through and see whether a few words of the text look different or not? How unreasonable!

To be fair, in the Information Age, how could someone be expected to go to the effort of locating a source on the internet when provided with merely the author's name and full article title?

The next excuse will be that, like most journals, it's behind a paywall so it still doesn't count

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

TWO chances to correct his 100% failure to support his claims.

Instead? Insults and links to obscene websites.

Ain't that cute?

 

[Augustus]

links to obscene websites.

Obscene? It's a link to a search engine with a suggestion it can help you find that which you seek.

TWO chances to correct his 100% failure to support his claims.

You are whining because you had to "select, right click, search with google" followed by clicking on the top result. It took far longer to whine than it did to locate the source.

Another one for you

Believers’ responses to the 1937 and 1939 soviet censuses - Felix Corley

View attachment 22208

 

[SkepticThinker]

No. The justification for killing people in the Holocaust was not:

1. These people are loyal citizens of our nation taking pride in it.
2. Therefore they should die.

The justification was more like:

1. These people are not loyal citizens of our nation, but rather citizens of some other nation called 'Israel'.
2. These people practice a religion that is detrimental to the health and well-being of our people.
3. They are somehow genetically impure or something.
4. Therefore, they should all die.

Nationalism doesn't work as a justification to kill your own citizens. It's used as a justification to kill people who are not part of your nation. So saying people were killed because of nationalism just begs the question as to why they weren't considered part of the nation in the first place.

I don't care how they (or you) tried to justify it and make excuses.

The Holocaust fits exactly with what you said. The Jews that were murdered were citizens of Germany, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia, Norway, etc. The Nazis just didn't want them to be part of their nation and so, got all caught up in "loyalty to and pride in their own nation" that they were willing to torture and murder 6 million people they didn't deem worthy enough to be part of the perfect nation they were trying to create.They used loyalty, nationalism and pride to convince millions of people that the Jews and other undesirables had to die.

"Thank you for your answer. However, if I understand you correctly the main point of your reply is that people were so caught up in loyalty to and pride in their own nation... that they killed millions of people that were part of their nation. Well, I must say that I find that answer too confusing to consider it worth much credence."

 

[SkepticThinker]

The 'falsity' of religion was put forth by Marx. The 'realness' of religion in the sense that people adhere to religions is not what Marx was referring to. He advanced the notion that religion does not provide 'real' happiness. By analogy he compared it to opium, as in opium makes you think you are happy, but it doesn't provide you real happiness.

If you assert that the happiness religion provides the people is real, then it's clear you disagree with the general Marxist communist philosophy on that key point. Sam Harris has said that communism and facism were not too critical of religion. That implies that Sam Harris agrees that the happiness religion provides is not real happiness. I accept that you don't have to agree with Sam Harris just because he is an atheist. Sam Harris is also free to change his mind about this whenever he sees fit to do so.

To be clear, the OP of this thread asserted that Mao and Pol Pat killed in the name of atheism. So if the justification implied is not the one I laid out, then someone should say what justification is being asserted here. Asserting that atheists simply have an uncontrollable desire to kill people seems absurd...

I can see from reading through the thread that you've been given plenty of reasons why Mao and Pol Pot did what they did, that had little to do directly with their atheism. It appears to that very few people seem to agree with you that Mao and Pol Pot killed in the name of atheism, or because they were atheists. Yet you still seem to be pushing that line. If what you provided in that last post was an attempt at a justification on your part, then I'd have to say you've failed.