Greetings,
I wasn't here fifty years ago, so I guess I'm off the hook on that one.
Just like I didnt live during Crusades, Woodrow didnt live during islamic conquest of India and some Jew didnt live in a time when jews were conquesting Philistines, but You still think that we should apologize for those acts. Believe me, in my country communism existed for 50 years, the words atheist and communist meant almost same. Of course some atheists were trockists, some even more marxist than the Polish United Workers' Party. In 50' and 60 there were plenty of people like Dawkins, the personal enemies of the God, with same shine in their eyes, with same pride. Now they speak about those times with shame, they are forgotten, just like will be mr Dawkins in year 2050.
Absolutely. Marx's lasting achievement is providing the most detailed critique of capitalism the world has seen. That is where the Enlightenment gave the impetus for his work. The proposed replacement, communism, is an idea that was too ideal to be practicable. For it to work, the leaders would have to be saints, honest to a degree that is simply impossible in politics.
You are aware that terror was already included there, in marxism? The revolution fighting with capitalists. So this is the finest system?
Marxism is capitalism for the proletariat? Could you just break that down for me a bit? I know I'm not always the quickest of cats, but that sounds a bit bonkers to me.
Yes it is, capitalism was based on the will of profit by the owners, and the communism was based on will of profit by the workers. Same greed, same individualism, internationalism.
Secondly, atheism on its own can't be held responsible for the atrocities you mention. Unquestioning faith in other dogmas is what allowed them to happen
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The connection between atheism is bigger than You think.
You are surely aware of the centuries of persecution that Jews have been subjected to? The only reason six million Jews weren't killed in five years during the Middle Ages is that the technology didn't exist then. When the plague arrived in Europe in the 1340s and everyone was terrified and trying to work out what had caused it, guess who was top of the list of suspects? Jews were burned across Europe in huge numbers. If they could have killed six million, they would have.
You are very wrong, You remember about the Thou Shall Not Kill comandment? Europe those times were under spiritual rule of the Roman Catholic Church, killing innocent people was and always is against religion. You mention some actions when catholics did break the commandments, but are You aware that during the Crusades bishops were defending jews against lynches? The history of antisemitism is a time when anti jewish riots did happen, but for most of the time, which is over 1 thousand years, jews and christians did live in peace, both in own closed communities, both didnt like each other, but no one even thought about the Final Solution of The Jewish Cause. It was against religion and the religion then ruled the people. Holocaust as well as Gulag were possible just after the mind for many people replaced the faith. When rationalism won with religion. Because for Germans, killing of jews was rational (because of economical reasons) but it was against religion. In polish language words Aushwitz (Oświęcim) and Enlightemnt(Oświecenie) sound alike, I think that its not a mistake. Only the secular man, not fearing of hellfire, in the name of man made ideology, could have kill 6 million people in death factories. On the other part of the world, the idol of the progressive world and the left, the one who eradicated religious suspicion from eastern and central Europe, Joseph Stalin, killed dozens millions. Well, thats a price of a progress, as many leftists and atheists were saying.
He wouldn't laugh - he'd curse that he'd been found out. Where else did he learn the mechanics of how to maintain power? If you compare transcripts of the show trials under Stalin with medieval interrogations by the Inquisition, you will see remarkable similarities. Communism became the ideology of worship of the state, and if you want to teach people how to worship, what better tools are there to use than religious ones?
I know that for atheists comparing communism to religion is just another level of your eternal war against religion, but here you all should think twice about the thousands of priests killed by this system, about dozens thousands of simple believers who lost life because of it. I wonder if you ever lived in communistic country, well I have lived. When in 80's communists were killing polish priests they didnt do it in the name of another )marxist) religion, but in name of atheist and eraditication of all religions. It was their aim, to destroy christianity, islam, judaism. If You search for the roots of communism so search in French Revolution, with the first genocide (Vandea). So I will say again, it is immoral and hypocritical for the religious victims of communism that now many atheists link that jacobin and enlightment doctrine with religion. It same as if You link national socialism (another ******* son of enlightment) with judaism.
Atheism is far too simple to be a religion. People believe in it because they admit the strength of a single proposition: "there is no god". Religions need a lot more than that to hoodwink people into believing them.
I think that we should stick to the traditional meanind of the word religion. Christianity, judaism, islam, those are religions. Doctrines, ideologies are not. Communism was not a religion, it was anti religion, as it didnt teach about God, and was against God.
. It was also somewhat wishful thinking though.