Sure, buddy. Whatever floats your boat.
Can you bold the part where I said that? It seems pretty clearly that oppression in the name of Lenin or Marx or Mao fits pretty well into my statement. Many atheists are Atheists, capital A. It is it own religion. I’m an atheist with a lower case a. Pray or don’t pray to whoever you want to, believe or don’t believer whatever you want to, marry or don’t marry who you want to, eat or don’t eat who you want to, but leave the rest of us out of it. In return, I’ll do the same. It’s a pretty basic concept, but I can’t find anywhere that seems to have gotten it right.
^I think the term is Anti-theist (as opposed to Atheist with a capital A).
That is the term, I was just being clear in my position. There are dogmatic atheist, and for them, I prefer capitalizing the term, the same way you would Jew or Muslim. One describes, while the other defines, if that makes sense.
You should do what I do and go by “agnostic.” You avoid being lumped in with asshats like Richard Dawkins.
He is right on the first part.
No he isn’t. The USSR shut down churches and engaged in a multi-decade, systematic attack on all religions while promoting atheism. They succeeding in shutting down nearly 9 of every 10 churches and they specifically targeted the Russian Orthodox Church that he claimed the leaders (all of whom were avowed atheists) were inseparable from.
They can shut down whatever they want, but the culture and ethos of the Russian people who ran the Soviet Union is firmly rooted in the Russian Orthodox church, and Soviet actions were always in pursuit of the the strategic interests of those people.
Why else is the former KGB chief a major backer of the Church right now?
Yes he is. People still found way to quietly engage in the religious activities in an “underground” sort of way. I was taken in a different city to get baptized so my parents wouldn’t lose their jobs. I had to hide the cross I was wearing in school, especially when changing to phys ed classes, but I never ever took it off. People were still going to cemetery for religious holidays just not on the days of the actual holidays, so they wouldn’t get arrested etc.
Yes and Jews managed to live and thrive in Europe through the middle ages. Does that therefore mean that Europe was actually Jewish and not “Christian” throughout that time and that it’s leaders were not “Christian” just because some non-Christians existed there?
The USSR was not only led by atheists, but atheism was a state mandate. Churches were systematically destroyed and schools were required to promote atheism (like today in the US, religion was prohibited). The State used extensive anti-religious propaganda in its efforts as well. They executed well over 1,000 priests and imprisoned many more in order to prevent them from preaching.
He is wrong. The USSR was an atheist state. This is a fact disputed only by atheists who want to distance themselves from the many millions who died by communist hands over the past century.
@inkybinky This is simply not a good argument.
If you look at the statistics of governments that killed the most of their citizens, what is a better determinant, religion or political institutions? The reason the USSR killed so many people was because they were communist. All communist countries in the 20th century killed a lot of people.
The reason why the USSR was an athiest government was because it was communist, not the other way around. Communists in the 19th century were all about smashing entrenched interests. Religious institutions had money, which needed to be taken, and provided services for the poor, which needed to be co-opted by the state. Lenin & Stalin were the 20th century result of 19th century ideas.
Further, just because a government professes to be athiest, doesn’t say anything about the people. Something like 70% of the population, even today, is Russian Orthodox. Probably was even higher when the USSR was killing a bunch of people.