The Alleged Troubles With Atheism

[Jagella]

I didn't "dodge" it, I pointed out that summing up A complex, explicitly violent millenarian ideology with a bumper sticker slogan detached from actual reality is inane.

You replied to my question but never answered it.

If it wasn't clear enough...

It was clear enough that you dodged my question.

...what about that anodyne slogan, taken in isolation and abstracted from any real world Marxist-Leninist ideology would incite people to mass murder? Nothing.

There you go! Now that wasn't so hard, now was it?

It's just a platitude that sums up one aim, and says nothing about how that aim is to be achieved and what else is justified in achieving that aim.

You described what an ideal is. Western ideals suffer from the same problems. How, for example, are we to maintain equality among all men? (Notice that the founding Fathers left out women and by implication all non-European men.)

As an argument it is about as substantial as absolving ISIS of any crimes because they said they were trying to create a harmonious global society by killing anyone who disagreed with them.

I didn't mean to absolve anybody. I was pointing out that a person does not need to be democratic, capitalistic, religious, or Western to understand lofty moral ideals. If such lofty ideals are not put into practice, and they very often are not put into practice, then harm usually results. It happens everywhere in the West as well as the East.

Now your question, if several governments preached a version the following violent, millenarian ideology and all of them killed many millions people for exactly this reason, and they were all outliers in terms of repression and violence, should we consider that their ideology probably had something to do with the killings and should people who care about compassion and social responsibility who don't really like millions of innocent people being killed and exceptional levels of repression and violence criticise this ideology?

Yes. Ideology harms people everywhere. Did you ever hear of "Manifest Destiny"? It's an American ideology that God's will is for white America to extend its dominion over all of North America. It sounds very much like those Marxist comments you posted.

Leninism posited a belief in humankind’s effective perfectibility through development of a new type of person, capable of living under communism. Belief in the attainability of an aesthetically pure, harmonious, and unitary future society required the removal of imperfections and the active sculpting of society by the state... [thus it required] “a radically new type of violence, truly decisive and self-contained, a form of violence that will put an end once and for all to violence itself.”93 This dialectical notion of violence to end violence is of cardinal importance for understanding how violence in the service of the revolution was not simply justified but sacralized in Bolshevik thought...the Soviet concept of “active humanism”—the necessity of taking (violent) action to eradicate the sources of human suffering—was quite central to the representation of violence as morally good...

The Sacralization of Violence: Bolshevik Justifications for Violence and Terror during the Civil War - Jame Ryan

LOL--You keep posting these quotations from people exposing Bolshevism, and I respond in kind posting quotations and information that exposes Western practices. If you haven't gotten it by now, there is no evil unique to Communists. OK? Did you get that? Read it again if not.

Suffering and resentment is omnipresent throughout human history. Revolution is the exception, not the rule.

Then the American Revolution was one of those terrible exceptions to the rule, or is revolution only bad if it happens in societies different from our own?

Marxist Communism required the eradication of all other ideologies as they were obstacles to creating a utopia. Religion, liberal democracy, human rights, democratic socialism etc. were all obstacles to progress and needed to be eradicated.

That's just like Manifest Destiny in case you missed what I posted above.

When you have the One True Belief System, all others are false and must be destroyed to allow Humanity to reach its true purpose.

Oh? Now where did that idea come from?

I judge brutally killing 1/3 of your population and creating a totalitarian hell-hole in pursuit of a pipedream utopia to be morally worse than creating a flawed liberal democracy, where most people are protected by a relatively equal access to the law and most people can live a reasonably safe and happy life.

Wouldn't you agree?

So you do actually believe you can morally evaluate actions.

So was Hitler worse than Obama? What about Pol Pot?

So would you judge it to be better based on your knowledge? Or you don't want to be "holier than thou"?

Would you agree that we can, and should, call some ideologies better or worse than others, even while accepting the failings and flaws of our own belief system? Also, that it is reasonable to believe that beliefs do indeed influence human behaviour and that extremely violent, totalitarian ideologies based on utopian fantasies are therefore undesirable?

I will no longer answer your questions.

No we don't and repeating it without evidence doesn't make it true.

I read about the Christian seminary's nefarious influence on Stalin in the book Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy.

Anyway, you also seem to forget that Lenin was near equally violent, and Mao, and Pol Pot were worse. Stalin wasn't an outlier, they all were extremely violent and they explicitly told you their ideological justifications for their violence. In no cases was it because of a Bible they explicitly rejected as superstitious nonsense.

Actually, the fact is that neither Stalin nor Lenin committed the first "Communistic" murder. According to the Bible, the Holy Spirit murdered a married couple due to their refusal to participate in the sharing of the wealth among the early Christian sect members (see Acts 5). No doubt Stalin was familiar with that story having read it while he was in the seminary.

To summarize, I find your views on Marxism to be very reminiscent of the red bashing of the McCarthy era. During that time the American government persecuted American citizens for suspecting that those citizens had ideas and thoughts sympathetic to the ideas and practices of Soviet Russia. In other words, we persecuted our own people for merely thinking in accord with an ideology we feared persecuted people who disagreed with it! Hypocrisy is so very hard to see when we are the hypocrites.

 

[AdamjEdgar]

None of these scholars see religion as focusing entirely on explaining existence

Eh? When I read your quotes, I find them completely in support of my claim...these are not contrary to what I said...that religion "focuses" almost entirely on it!
Are you sure you are quoting sources that support your view here?

 

[Ella S.]

Eh? When I read your quotes, I find them completely in support of my claim...these are not contrary to what I said...that religion "focuses" almost entirely on it!
Are you sure you are quoting sources that support your view here?

Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension, then.

 

[Augustus]

You described what an ideal is. Western ideals suffer from the same problems. How, for example, are we to maintain equality among all men?

Yes, well done, all people have ideals. Nobody has suggested otherwise.

My point was that trying to create a good society with rule of law, human rights, freedom of conscience, etc., even if imperfectly implemented, is better than trying to create a utopia by killing 1/3 of your population to eradicate "wrongthink".

Actions and consequences matter more than ideals.

I didn't mean to absolve anybody. I was pointing out that a person does not need to be democratic, capitalistic, religious, or Western to understand lofty moral ideals. If such lofty ideals are not put into practice, and they very often are not put into practice, then harm usually results. It happens everywhere in the West as well as the East.

I've stated that multiple times, along with the point that some societies are worse than others, such as those that kill 1/3 of their population.

Ideology harms people everywhere.

All humans have ideologies, but some are more violent and lead to worse outcomes than others.

Marxism-Leninism is one of these. As was Nazism.

Then the American Revolution was one of those terrible exceptions to the rule, or is revolution only bad if it happens in societies different from our own?

It was more a regime change than a revolution imo.

It's also a good example of such things being driven, not by the oppressed, but by one elite who wants to replace a ruling elite.

America was richer on average and paid less taxes than Britain. The founding fathers were some of the most privileged people in the world.

It would have been worse if they'd decided to kill 1/3 of the population though.

That's just like Manifest Destiny in case you missed what I posted above.

Nope. Not a totalitarian ideology. More a justification for a violent conquest of other violent people at a time when such things were common.

America has done many bad things. It's fair enough to compare them to their contemporaries (comparing 18th c to 20th c is less useful though).

Segregated mid 20th c America was morally reprehensible. Was still better than cultural revolution China or Stalinist USSR though.

I will no longer answer your questions

You never answered them in the first place. Just a load of whataboutery, misrepresentation and dancing around the point.

Actually, the fact is that neither Stalin nor Lenin committed the first "Communistic" murder. According to the Bible, the Holy Spirit murdered a married couple due to their refusal to participate in the sharing of the wealth among the early Christian sect members (see Acts 5). No doubt Stalin was familiar with that story having read it while he was in the seminary.

Wouldn't have been close to the first, even if it had actually happened, which it didn't, and all of them pretty much irrelevant to whether 20th c Marxism-Leninism was more murderous and repressive than liberal social democracy.

To summarize, I find your views on Marxism to be very reminiscent of the red bashing of the McCarthy era. During that time the American government persecuted American citizens for suspecting that those citizens had ideas and thoughts sympathetic to the ideas and practices of Soviet Russia. In other words, we persecuted our own people for merely thinking in accord with an ideology we feared persecuted people who disagreed with it! Hypocrisy is so very hard to see when we are the hypocrites.

To summarise: you have adopted the vapid position that quoting Marxists in context based on their well documented ideology and in a manner that was reflected in their actions, and quoting academic historians quoting Marxists in context and in a manner that was reflected in their actions "Mccarthyite Red Bashing".

You refuse to accept that many Marxist-Leninists genuinely did believe in the violent milenarian totalitarian ideology they very vociferously promoted, and that this may indeed have contributed to the societies who followed these ideologies being unusually violent and repressive.

You think America is equivalent to a totalitarian state, and you think there is no difference between killing 30 people and 30 million and won't acknowledge that Obama was less bad than Hitler or that it was preferable to live in 1950s America than China during the cultural revolution or Year Zero Cambodia.

You parrotted common anti-theistic "Christian Dark Age" myths and said the elitist, theocratic, xenophobic, patriarchal slave society of ancient Greece was socially progressive and admirable.

You're not exactly covering yourself in glory here...

 

[AdamjEdgar]

Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension, then.

Maybe you should get a new world view...I'm not surprised at the stupidity of your answer considering your world view, in the 1700's made the following claim...which is btw suspiciously similar to the God/Devil model and hardly unique...

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

Don't you see that similarity in that with religion?

How do you explain feelings, emotions, culture and justice? Considering they are shown to be intrinsic even in young children only exposed to environments where none of those principles are expressed in generally accepted ways.

 

[Ella S.]

Maybe you should get a new world view...I'm not surprised at the stupidity of your answer considering your world view, in the 1700's made the following claim...which is btw suspiciously similar to the God/Devil model and hardly unique...

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

Don't you see that similarity in that with religion?

I am a Welfarist Utilitarian, not a Hedonic Utilitarian.

That said, no, I don't see every binary as similar to religion. I think that's more apophenia on your part.

How do you explain feelings, emotions, culture and justice?

How do I explain them? What is there to explain?

How they evolved? Ask a biologist. Descriptions of how they operate? Ask psychologists and anthropologists.

 

[Jagella]

Yes, well done, all people have ideals. Nobody has suggested otherwise.

You're suggesting that our ideals are holier than that of the Communists. You haven't met your burden of proof.

My point was that trying to create a good society with rule of law, human rights, freedom of conscience, etc., even if imperfectly implemented, is better than trying to create a utopia by killing 1/3 of your population to eradicate "wrongthink".

No Marxist ideal mandates killing 1/3 of their populations. You excuse our failing to live up to our ideals, so it's only fair to excuse their failures. Any killings under Marxist ideology result from failure to live up to what Marx said.

I've stated that multiple times, along with the point that some societies are worse than others, such as those that kill 1/3 of their population.

That's where your rhetoric starts getting dangerous. Many people have suffered under those who think they know what a better society is. That's what happened under the Communist revolutionaries, and I fail to see how what you're saying is any less dangerous.

All humans have ideologies, but some are more violent and lead to worse outcomes than others.

Marxism-Leninism is one of these. As was Nazism.

I would add American exceptionalism and British imperialism to that list.

America was richer on average and paid less taxes than Britain. The founding fathers were some of the most privileged people in the world.

It would have been worse if they'd decided to kill 1/3 of the population though.

Which population are you speaking of? America committed genocide against the American Indians. Would you like me to post the proportion of the Indians killed, and if it exceeds 1/3, will you be consistent and conclude that American capitalism is worse than Marxism?

Nope. Not a totalitarian ideology. More a justification for a violent conquest of other violent people at a time when such things were common.

Regardless of what you choose to call it, Manifest Destiny resulted in a lot of dead people. You seem to make good use of euphemisms.

America has done many bad things. It's fair enough to compare them to their contemporaries (comparing 18th c to 20th c is less useful though).

Segregated mid 20th c America was morally reprehensible. Was still better than cultural revolution China or Stalinist USSR though.

That depends on whom you ask. No doubt people who had their father lynched by the KKK as the authorities looked on doing nothing wouldn't excuse the death of their father by comparing it to what Stalin did.

You never answered them in the first place. Just a load of whataboutery, misrepresentation and dancing around the point.

I did answer your questions to the best of my ability.

Wouldn't have been close to the first, even if it had actually happened, which it didn't, and all of them pretty much irrelevant to whether 20th c Marxism-Leninism was more murderous and repressive than liberal social democracy.

What was the first Communistic murder? It is good to see that you avow that there are lies in the Bible. I agree that the murder in Acts 5 didn't happen the way it's described, but the story may well be evidence that the early Christians did murder other Christians at times.

To summarise: you have adopted the vapid position that quoting Marxists in context based on their well documented ideology and in a manner that was reflected in their actions, and quoting academic historians quoting Marxists in context and in a manner that was reflected in their actions "Mccarthyite Red Bashing".

I don't doubt that some Marxists committed atrocities. There's not much we can do about that, but we're better off putting a stop to our own evils.

You refuse to accept that many Marxist-Leninists genuinely did believe in the violent milenarian totalitarian ideology they very vociferously promoted, and that this may indeed have contributed to the societies who followed these ideologies being unusually violent and repressive.

I don't agree that the real roots of violence under Communist regimes can be attributed to Marxist ideology. Your treatment of the issue is very shallow. Marxism is more of an effect of violence and repression than it is a cause.

You think America is equivalent to a totalitarian state, and you think there is no difference between killing 30 people and 30 million and won't acknowledge that Obama was less bad than Hitler or that it was preferable to live in 1950s America than China during the cultural revolution or Year Zero Cambodia.

I would need to look into those issues to form a more informed opinion. Until then, I think it's best if I err on the side of caution judging Communism as innocent until proved guilty.

You parrotted common anti-theistic "Christian Dark Age" myths and said the elitist, theocratic, xenophobic, patriarchal slave society of ancient Greece was socially progressive and admirable.

You're not exactly covering yourself in glory here...

If that's the worst I'm doing, then I'm not too worried about it. I'm interested in the truth. Covering myself in glory can come later.

 

[Augustus]

You're suggesting that our ideals are holier than that of the Communists. You haven't met your burden of proof.

You seem to have completely the wrong idea about what I've been saying.

Almost all ideologies are built around purportedly noble ideals:

"Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one’s tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei... homicide committed for selfish motives is a statistical rarity in all cultures. Homicide for unselfish motives is the dominant phenomenon of man's history. His tragedy is not an excess of aggression but an excess of devotion... it's loyalty and devotion which makes the fanatic." - Arthur Koestler

The point is not about the "ideals" but the actual behaviour that is justified in order to achieve these ideals.

If you follow a millenarian, utopian ideology your ideals are fine. The problem is humans are animals and we evolved with certain tendencies. There is a limit to the extent we can mitigate these.

We have to work out what structures best mitigate our failings, and learn to create societies where people who don't like each other can get along without violence. There is no one size fits all approach.

Mass scale, centralised, violent millenarian ideologies are the worst kind though as they accentuate human failings in pursuit if a childish fantasy.

Many Communists were highly moral and empathetic people (as were many ISIS members). Their morality drove them to commit atrocities as their ideology told them it was ok as it contributed to the greater good.

No Marxist ideal mandates killing 1/3 of their populations. You excuse our failing to live up to our ideals, so it's only fair to excuse their failures. Any killings under Marxist ideology result from failure to live up to what Marx said.

The term I've been using throughout is "Marxism-Leninism and its offshoots" as practiced by the 20th C totalitarian regimes. The point is not about some normative "Pure" Marxism, or about all potential forms of (small c) communism, but about well-documented real world ideologies as adopted by numerous countries.

As I've already pointed out Marxism-Leninism saw violence as a moral good, and that you could kill as many people as you liked as long as it was deemed to benefit the Party and its cause.

If you want it in the most pithy way: "What violence would you not commit to exterminate violence?" - Bertolt Brecht

When the Khmer Rouge killed 1/3 of their population it wasn't some failure of them to do what their ideology demanded, it was to reset the clock to Year Zero which required eradication of the old ways and those who may want to return to them.

Year Zero (political notion) - Wikipedia
Khmer Rouge - Wikipedia

This was perfectly in line with the ideology.

Pretending otherwise is like saying the Holocaust was caused by the Nazis failure to live up to Hitlers ideals.

I don't doubt that some Marxists committed atrocities. There's not much we can do about that, but we're better off putting a stop to our own evils.

We can never put a stop to evil, but we can take steps to mitigate the harms we cause.

One way is to oppose explicitly violent millenarian ideologies like Nazism and Marxism-Leninism because violence in pursuit of a deluded fantasy tends not to lead to positive outcomes.

That's where your rhetoric starts getting dangerous. Many people have suffered under those who think they know what a better society is. That's what happened under the Communist revolutionaries, and I fail to see how what you're saying is any less dangerous.

"It is preferable to live in a democratic country with a rule of law, where people's rights are legally protected and they can live according to their own preferences than a massively oppressive totalitarian state which kills 1/3 of the population in pursuit of some utopian fantasy".

What is dangerous about that?

It is impossible to view the world without preferences (i.e. is a better than b). You suffer from this flaw the same as every other human does.

Preferences are not dangerous per se, they are essential to create functioning societies of whatever kind.

What was the first Communistic murder? It is good to see that you avow that there are lies in the Bible. I agree that the murder in Acts 5 didn't happen the way it's described, but the story may well be evidence that the early Christians did murder other Christians at times.

I'm not religious, but wouldn't classify mythology as lies just because it is not factually true.

No idea about the first though. Some familial or tribal society somewhere in pre-history no doubt. Forms of communism have existed across many cultures. Communism is no doubt viable in small scale societies based on personal relationships too.

Marxism-Leninism on the other hand is a specific 20th C ideology that advocated applying violence in order to create a global scale industrial utopia. This is not remotely viable.

I would need to look into those issues to form a more informed opinion. Until then, I think it's best if I err on the side of caution judging Communism as innocent until proved guilty.

Do you need to withhold judgement on Hitler too?

Do you believe in the perfectability of humanity? Do you believe in the perfectability of humanity via the application of purifying violence to society? Do you believe that the application of purifying violence to society in pursuit of an impossible goal?

If you were transported to 1970s America you would have a good chance of a happy-ish life whoever you are. If you were transported to Year Zero Cambodia, you (and everyone you know) would most likely be killed outright or worked to death because you are educated and not a peasant.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say, if faced with this choice, you would exhibit a preference for the former.

I'm interested in the truth.

You don't think it is true to describe Marxism-Leninism as an explicitly violent millenarian ideology?

You don't think it is true to say explicitly violent millenarian ideologies are almost certainly going to cause far more harm than good and should thus be opposed?

 

[Subduction Zone]

If you follow a millenarian, utopian ideology your ideals are fine. The problem is humans are animals and we evolved with certain tendencies. There is a limit to the extent we can mitigate these.

A hat making ideology? Oops, never mind, that would be "millinerian".

 

[Augustus]

Which population are you speaking of? America committed genocide against the American Indians. Would you like me to post the proportion of the Indians killed, and if it exceeds 1/3, will you be consistent and conclude that American capitalism is worse than Marxism?

Sorry missed this. Will answer later when have a bit more time

 

[Jagella]

Your posts are getting way too long and cumbersome, so in the interests of those of us who type slowly and who hate to constantly scroll up and down, I've decided to focus on the most interesting issue you raised.

"It is preferable to live in a democratic country with a rule of law, where people's rights are legally protected and they can live according to their own preferences than a massively oppressive totalitarian state which kills 1/3 of the population in pursuit of some utopian fantasy".

What is dangerous about that?

I know I said I quit answering your questions, but I couldn't resist this one. You were doing fine until you got to what I formatted in bold. It was Stalin and not the entire Kremlin who killed millions of Russians, and the 1/3 figure is highly questionable. Many leading Soviet figures renounced those acts of Stalin, and they never repeated them.

Let's at least tell the truth.

Now, this red hating / red baiting of yours can only serve to inflame relations between East and West. Russia, China, and apparently North Korea have nuclear weapons. It's foolhardy to antagonize them by always going on about how evil they are. We went through decades of that during the Cold War, and it nearly resulted in nuclear war.

That's what's dangerous about that.

There is hope that those who love to smear communists will come to their senses. None other than former President Ronald Reagan recanted his calling the Soviet Union "the evil empire." He was visiting Moscow not long after that, and Mikhail Gorbachev showed him wonderful hospitality. As pretty young Russian girls danced around him, a reporter asked Reagan if he still thought Russia was that evil empire. Reagan answered: "No."

Do you care to agree with Reagan?

 

[Debater Slayer]

3 communist regimes collectively in the 20th C killed that many: USSR, China and Cambodia.

The Spanish Inquisition killed maybe 3000-5000 people in 350 years (a fraction of a tenth of a percent of the population)

The Khmer Rouge killed 2-3 million in 4 years (1/3 of the population)

The Great Leap Forward killed anywhere from 15-60 million people.

I think death counts alone are a limited way to measure the brutality and oppression imposed by specific systems of governance. They are only one facet of the equation.

For instance, if we analyze the current Saudi and Iranian governments, the civilian death toll will probably be much lower than that caused by the administrations of Harry Truman and George W. Bush alone. Does that mean those theocratic, fundamentally oppressive countries are better to live in than the U.S.? Of course not. It just means the ways in which their abuse manifests are not necessarily raw death counts.

The Inquisition seems to me a similar situation: its resultant death count may be lower than those of many other abusive systems of governance, but that doesn't touch on the forced conversions, oppression of other religious groups, blasphemy laws, torture, and religious dictatorship. A lot of Muslims reportedly had to hide their Islamic faith in order to avoid forced conversion or torture, for example, and pronouncing certain beliefs against the prevalent theocracy could likewise get people imprisoned and tortured.

The idea that the Inquisition has killed millions is clearly unsupported by credible historians and academics, but many of the other forms of oppression and theocratic dictatorship imposed by the Inquisition are well-documented. I think it's important for people in our current times not to downplay those or overlook how destructive and abusive theocracy tends to be--just as is the case with state-wide communism, which, in my opinion, is an overly idealistic ideology that tends to provide the state and its leaders with too much power and neglects to be cautious of the flaws of human nature.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think death counts alone are a limited way to measure the brutality and oppression imposed by specific systems of governance. They are only one facet of the equation.

For instance, if we analyze the current Saudi and Iranian governments, the civilian death toll will probably be much lower than that caused by the administrations of Harry Truman and George W. Bush alone. Does that mean those theocratic, fundamentally oppressive countries are better to live in than the U.S.? Of course not. It just means the ways in which their abuse manifests are not necessarily raw death counts.

The Inquisition seems to me a similar situation: its resultant death count may be lower than those of many other abusive systems of governance, but that doesn't touch on the forced conversions, oppression of other religious groups, blasphemy laws, torture, and religious dictatorship. A lot of Muslims reportedly had to hide their Islamic faith in order to avoid forced conversion or torture, for example, and pronouncing certain beliefs against the prevalent theocracy could likewise get people imprisoned and tortured.

The idea that the Inquisition has killed millions is clearly unsupported by credible historians and academics, but many of the other forms of oppression and theocratic dictatorship imposed by the Inquisition are well-documented. I think it's important for people in our current times not to downplay those or overlook how destructive and abusive theocracy tends to be--just as is the case with state-wide communism, which, in my opinion, is an overly idealistic ideology that tends to provide the state and its leaders with too much power and neglects to be cautious of the flaws of human nature.

Well, I mean I once crossed paths with some agrian anarchists. They had no problem with the fact than 9/10th of the current human population had to die to get to their perfect world.
The way I see it, is that some people in effect fall for over-reductive claims about what would be good. A sort of nirvana fallacy and it gets dangerous because it involves that any variant of what is Good holds the Truth.

 

[Augustus]

I know I said I quit answering your questions, but I couldn't resist this one. You were doing fine until you got to what I formatted in bold. It was Stalin and not the entire Kremlin who killed millions of Russians, and the 1/3 figure is highly questionable. Many leading Soviet figures renounced those acts of Stalin, and they never repeated them.

You seem confused about many things in this post. As I tried to point out on multiple occasions, you keep misrepresenting things and this is leading to fallacious arguments that you refuse to have corrected.

I guess you are American as many Americans struggle to understand things from outside their own terms of reference, as such they see criticism of Marxism-Leninism as Cold Warrior style "Red Baiting" grounded in conservative Christianity.

You seem unaware that much criticism of Marxism-Leninism was not from tub-thumping jingoists, but from those who either were socialist or former Marxists like Orwell or Koestler, who had seen the Soviet system was doomed to fail and was simply oppressive.

Also has been clearly noted 3 or 4 times 1/3 was the Khmer Rouge, not Stalin, And Mao also killed more than Stalin. As has been noted even more times, if the violence was limited to Stalin as a "bad apple" you might have a point, but it started with Lenin and was common across multiple regimes in multiple countries. The idea that Stalin "corrupted" the noble revolution isn't supported by the facts.

Now, this red hating / red baiting of yours can only serve to inflame relations between East and West. Russia, China, and apparently North Korea have nuclear weapons. It's foolhardy to antagonize them by always going on about how evil they are. We went through decades of that during the Cold War, and it nearly resulted in nuclear war.

That's what's dangerous about that.

There is hope that those who love to smear communists will come to their senses. None other than former President Ronald Reagan recanted his calling the Soviet Union "the evil empire." He was visiting Moscow not long after that, and Mikhail Gorbachev showed him wonderful hospitality. As pretty young Russian girls danced around him, a reporter asked Reagan if he still thought Russia was that evil empire. Reagan answered: "No."

Do you care to agree with Reagan?

Again you are being confused by jumping to US-centric conclusions rather than actually reading what is posted with an open mind.

Russia is a nationalistic illiberal democracy. It's probably closer to being a fascist state than a Maxsist-Leninist one.

China follows a form of authoritarian State Capitalism/economic nationalism.

They are good examples of what happens to millenarian ideologies over time. When their utopian fantasies prove impossible to achieve in the real world, they abandon the ruling elite abandons the utopian goal and simply clings to power for the sake of power.

They no longer follow a violent, millenarian ideology. They just become oppressive autocracies with pragmatic goals that pay nominal lip-service to the original goals of the Revolution.

The original revolutions were carried out by people who actually believed in the nonsense they spouted though.

You seem hostile to religion because you see it as false and with violent and repressive tendencies, but bend over backwards to offer apologetics for a deluded ideology like Marxism-Leninism that believes humans are perfectible through violence and that we can live in a paradise for ever and ever.

You won't answer of course because you can't without showing the inconsistency of your position, so I've answered for you. Correct any errors if you like (just think how you would answer if the questions were about a violent millenarian fundamentalist religious cult, that should help to to remain consistent)

a) Are humans perfectible? (no)
b) Can an ideology that requires humans to be perfectible succeed? (no)
c) If an ideology explicitly condones extreme violence in order to help progress society towards utopia, is this violence likely to be effective in this goal? (no)
d) Is an explicitly violent ideology in pursuit of an impossible goal that inspires great devotion on behalf of it adherents who believe they are a noble elite creating an earthly paradise likely to make its adherents more violent than followers of many other ideologies? (yes, of course)
e) Should we therefore prefer many of these other ideologies with more rational and limited aims that take into account human limitations and don't mandate extreme violence in pursuit of impossible fantasies? (yes, within reason)


Unless you disagree with any of the above, you basically agree with what I've been saying in this thread

 

[Augustus]

The Inquisition seems to me a similar situation: its resultant death count may be lower than those of many other abusive systems of governance, but that doesn't touch on the forced conversions, oppression of other religious groups, blasphemy laws, torture, and religious dictatorship. A lot of Muslims reportedly had to hide their Islamic faith in order to avoid forced conversion or torture, for example, and pronouncing certain beliefs against the prevalent theocracy could likewise get people imprisoned and tortured.

I generally find it problematic to try to compare things across eras as standards change significantly.

No government in the world had freedom of speech, conscience and certainly not the right to openly challenge ruling elites. This was true of any religious or 'secular' power structure. The Renaissance was a period of increasing absolutism as the powers of a central state grew in contrast to the more feudal Medieval period where monarchs were much weaker.

The inquisition was distinct from the monarchy/state and, in part, limited the power of the monarchy/state (or to assert the power of the church to judge certain kinds of 'crimes'). Heresy was a crime against the state, and by adding a 'buffer' then it allowed a greater chance for people to recant and be brought back into the fold.

Even by the standards of the time, Spain was probably worse than many places and certainly was oppressive and cruel towards heterodox communities. There was also a geo-political context to this beyond it simply being some abstract theological issue though, .

Spain had only recently finished the reconquista, prior to which they had been subjugated by a 'foreign' elite. They were threatened by the Ottoman Empire, who actually were encouraging revolts by the Morisco population and fighting them all over the Mediterranean. They were also threatened by Protestants/Protestantism from the 80 years war with the low countries and conflict with England too

Without modern communication and transportation technologies, the limitations greater potential for social schism to lead to war and the threat of conquest. These were real problems.

Of course there was also lots of bigotry, prejudice, corruption and score-settling that went along with the process, especially with the expulsion of the Jews (which, as well as being morally awful, was a terrible strategic mistake that greatly aided the Ottomans and other European countries). There is a degree of mitigation though.

I like to do a "King Dawkins" thought experiment. When would be the earliest you could have had a king making decision based purely on modern Secular Humanist principles a la Richard Dawkins and be successful in the long term (my general estimate is 1945).

The idea that the Inquisition has killed millions is clearly unsupported by credible historians and academics, but many of the other forms of oppression and theocratic dictatorship imposed by the Inquisition are well-documented. I think it's important for people in our current times not to downplay those or overlook how destructive and abusive theocracy tends to be--just as is the case with state-wide communism, which, in my opinion, is an overly idealistic ideology that tends to provide the state and its leaders with too much power and neglects to be cautious of the flaws of human nature.

Spain was an absolutist monarchy, not a theocracy.

In the 2 major Catholic powers, the monarchs tended to assert their supremacy over the church, and the Papacy was limited in its power.

The monarchs certainly did use religion to assert heir power and legitimacy though, which meant those who were not part of the orthodoxy were considered problematic and were often persecuted.

Their behaviour wasn't really that much different to the norms of the day though, and Spain has suffered from the "Black Legend" Protestant (and post-Protestant Enlightenment) historiography that shapes the western view of the Spanish and their Empire.

Of course we can look it as something that we would not like to repeat, and see the problems that may develop from rulers viewing themselves as having a Divine mandate. (At risk of oversimplification) I'd say this is something similar to what happened in the 19th/20th C regarding nationalism, how to justify the legitimacy of increasingly centralised power in the process of nation/Empire building.

Neither of these periods produced very positive outcomes. The process of uniting is generally also a process of exclusion and enmity.

 

[Jagella]

I guess you are American as many Americans struggle to understand things from outside their own terms of reference, as such they see criticism of Marxism-Leninism as Cold Warrior style "Red Baiting" grounded in conservative Christianity.

Joseph McCarthy's inciting a "red scare" in America to this day stands as a testimony to our unjust actions in our drive to prove we are more just than cultures that are alien to our own. Why perpetuate that narrow-minded, shallow, and biased way of looking at people we may not immediately understand? What's the point other than to kick them around?

You seem unaware that much criticism of Marxism-Leninism was not from tub-thumping jingoists, but from those who either were socialist or former Marxists like Orwell or Koestler, who had seen the Soviet system was doomed to fail and was simply oppressive.

Disgruntled former members of various groups are in abundance. They prove little.

Also has been clearly noted 3 or 4 times 1/3 was the Khmer Rouge, not Stalin, And Mao also killed more than Stalin.

You didn't specify the alleged perpetrator of the 1/3 population killed in the post I was responding to.

As has been noted even more times, if the violence was limited to Stalin as a "bad apple" you might have a point, but it started with Lenin and was common across multiple regimes in multiple countries. The idea that Stalin "corrupted" the noble revolution isn't supported by the facts.

Why stop there with Communist countries? As I have pointed out to you numerous times, nations that are not Communist have done plenty of killing too.

Again you are being confused by jumping to US-centric conclusions rather than actually reading what is posted with an open mind.

I can understand why you insist that people be openminded with your position on this issue.

You seem hostile to religion because you see it as false and with violent and repressive tendencies...

I've seen and experienced first-hand the deceptions and cruelties that are part of religion. My resulting hostility toward religion should then come as no surprise.

...but bend over backwards to offer apologetics for a deluded ideology like Marxism-Leninism that believes humans are perfectible through violence and that we can live in a paradise for ever and ever.

I've never personally experienced any harm nor was I ever deceived by a Marxist. I'm not a Marxist, but I do believe in fair-play when judging people and their ideas. I do agree with some of Marx's philosophy in particular his pointing out how workers are exploited by the wealthy. I also like the ideal of a society that makes sure that all its members have everything they need, an ideal that is sorely lacking under capitalist philosophy.

By the way, I just checked Google to see what the number of people killed by the inquisition is, and I came up with this:

Estimates of the number killed by the Spanish Inquisition, which Sixtus IV authorised in a papal bull in 1478, have ranged from 30,000 to 300,000. Some historians are convinced that millions died.

Your statistics regarding the number of victims of the Inquisition then appear to be grossly understated.

Also, regarding Stalin, I've seen documentaries about him, and one of them mentioned that prior to his rise to power he was diagnosed by a physician as paranoid. Stalin's paranoia could easily explain his deadly ways rather than by assuming his Marxist influences or his atheism are responsible. So we have at least two plausible, non-Marxist explanations for Stalin's genocides:

A. His Christian Indoctrination as a Boy
B. His Paranoia

Read 'em and weep!

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Joseph McCarthy's inciting a "red scare" in America to this day stands as a testimony to our unjust actions in our drive to prove we are more just than cultures that are alien to our own. Why perpetuate that narrow-minded, shallow, and biased way of looking at people we may not immediately understand? What's the point other than to kick them around?



Disgruntled former members of various groups are in abundance. They prove little.



You didn't specify the alleged perpetrator of the 1/3 population killed in the post I was responding to.



Why stop there with Communist countries? As I have pointed out to you numerous times, nations that are not Communist have done plenty of killing too.



I can understand why you insist that people be openminded with your position on this issue.



I've seen and experienced first-hand the deceptions and cruelties that are part of religion. My resulting hostility toward religion should then come as no surprise.



I've never personally experienced any harm nor was I ever deceived by a Marxist. I'm not a Marxist, but I do believe in fair-play when judging people and their ideas. I do agree with some of Marx's philosophy in particular his pointing out how workers are exploited by the wealthy. I also like the ideal of a society that makes sure that all its members have everything they need, an ideal that is sorely lacking under capitalist philosophy.

By the way, I just checked Google to see what the number of people killed by the inquisition is, and I came up with this:



Your statistics regarding the number of victims of the Inquisition then appear to be grossly understated.

Also, regarding Stalin, I've seen documentaries about him, and one of them mentioned that prior to his rise to power he was diagnosed by a physician as paranoid. Stalin's paranoia could easily explain his deadly ways rather than by assuming his Marxist influences or his atheism are responsible. So we have at least two plausible, non-Marxist explanations for Stalin's genocides:

A. His Christian Indoctrination as a Boy
B. His Paranoia

Read 'em and weep!

You really don't understand why communism in its pure form is not possible?

 

[Augustus]

Joseph McCarthy's inciting a "red scare" in America to this day stands as a testimony to our unjust actions in our drive to prove we are more just than cultures that are alien to our own. Why perpetuate that narrow-minded, shallow, and biased way of looking at people we may not immediately understand? What's the point other than to kick them around?

Again, I suggest trying to broaden your horizons beyond America and American politics. You might actually learn something

(It's also quite ironic that you are clearly so parochial and biased yet accuse others of being narrow minded)

Disgruntled former members of various groups are in abundance. They prove little.

George Orwell and Arthur Koestler are generally considered to be 2 of the most prescient commentators on Soviet Communism who were proven right by later events. They were also from the left, not the right.

They also had nothing to do with a McCarthyite "Red Scare", but you seem emotionally invested in clinging to that fallacy so can't see you listening to reason.

You didn't specify the alleged perpetrator of the 1/3 population killed in the post I was responding to.

I did, and provided 2 links.

No wonder you get so many things wrong if that is your level of reading comprehension

When the Khmer Rouge killed 1/3 of their population it wasn't some failure of them to do what their ideology demanded, it was to reset the clock to Year Zero which required eradication of the old ways and those who may want to return to them.

Year Zero (political notion) - Wikipedia
Khmer Rouge - Wikipedia

This was perfectly in line with the ideology.

Pretending otherwise is like saying the Holocaust was caused by the Nazis failure to live up to Hitlers ideals.

Your statistics regarding the number of victims of the Inquisition then appear to be grossly understated.

According to modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed (~2.7% of all cases).

Spanish Inquisition - Wikipedia

I've never personally experienced any harm nor was I ever deceived by a Marxist. I'm not a Marxist, but I do believe in fair-play when judging people and their ideas. I do agree with some of Marx's philosophy in particular his pointing out how workers are exploited by the wealthy. I also like the ideal of a society that makes sure that all its members have everything they need, an ideal that is sorely lacking under capitalist philosophy.

I've never been harmed by a Nazi, but that doesn't mean I can't recognise that Nazism was a violent, millenarian ideology.

Ditto Marxism-Leninism.

You don't seriously think that violent millenarian ideologies can be successful do you?

Also, regarding Stalin, I've seen documentaries about him, and one of them mentioned that prior to his rise to power he was diagnosed by a physician as paranoid. Stalin's paranoia could easily explain his deadly ways rather than by assuming his Marxist influences or his atheism are responsible. So we have at least two plausible, non-Marxist explanations for Stalin's genocides:

A. His Christian Indoctrination as a Boy
B. His Paranoia

Read 'em and weep!

Again an unsupported assertion that the atheist Stalin, who write philosophical texts on Dialectical Materialism, was being driven by Christian indoctrination in his policies such as his Atheist 5 Year Plans, and purges that were not qualitatively different to the practices of his predecessor, the atheist Lenin, is hardly going to make anyone "weep".

Were Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot also driven by paranoia and Christian indoctrination too?

You won't answer of course because you can't without showing the inconsistency of your position, so I've answered for you. Correct any errors if you like (just think how you would answer if the questions were about a violent millenarian fundamentalist religious cult, that should help to to remain consistent)

a) Are humans perfectible? (no)
b) Can an ideology that requires humans to be perfectible succeed? (no)
c) If an ideology explicitly condones extreme violence in order to help progress society towards utopia, is this violence likely to be effective in this goal? (no)
d) Is an explicitly violent ideology in pursuit of an impossible goal that inspires great devotion on behalf of it adherents who believe they are a noble elite creating an earthly paradise likely to make its adherents more violent than followers of many other ideologies? (yes, of course)
e) Should we therefore prefer many of these other ideologies with more rational and limited aims that take into account human limitations and don't mandate extreme violence in pursuit of impossible fantasies? (yes, within reason)

Seeing as you didn't dispute the above, I'll assume you agree. In which case there is little need for you to continue with such feeble attempts to pretend Marxism-Leninsm was benign until nasty Stalin corrupted it.

 

[Nakosis]

You really don't understand why communism in its pure form is not possible?

Just kind of realized this myself. Don't know if we agree as to the why though.
Communism I now see as the secular heaven. Utopia without the religious claptrap.

Maybe possible if you could remove humans from the picture and replace them with actual intelligent life.
I think our evolution has put communism beyond our grasp.
Some still feel humans can be willed into the perfect species.
There's no real knowledge how to go about this though. Magically I suppose.

 

[Nakosis]

Yes. See Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism by Paul Vitz. He argues that atheists reject a heavenly father due to disappointment in their earthly father.

I'd think it'd be more the opposite.
Dissatisfaction with one's "earthly" father leads one to create the "perfect" loving father, i.e. God.

Project the perfect being into existence so they can live happily ever afterlife.