Re: OT: Godless Commie Agnostics and Atheists Put on Notice

"Bob T."

My final opinion is that a common belief system is the glue that holds a
society together. Most of the people are below average. If their
"faith"
is shaken, they can no longer be a coherent force in preserving the
strength
of the group.

Good post, Pickle. Communism is often compared to religions as a
belief system. I wonder why communism seems to work better as a
belief system in China after failing so badly in Russia and Eastern
Europe.

I don't think we mean the same thing when we talk about "religion" or
"belief system" or "communism" when we get into these discussions, Bob, and
it causes a lot of problems.

You seem to want to make "communism" the "religion" part of the discussion
as it has developed in my part of this thread. I do not think that is a
reasonable thing to do. You may think that is what I was talking about, but
it misses the point entirely.

The economic system in China today is called communism, but it is not
vaguely related to what most people (IMO) mean when they use the word. The
official "religion" of China (and I am talking about the People's Republic)
between the late 40's and the late 70's was atheism ... to use both words a
little loosely. After the failure of the Cultural Revolution, the old
"religions" were allowed out of the closet ... I doubt that they went
anywhere during those few decades. When I was there in 1984, shortly before
the Reagan visit, I saw many of the temples and churches that were destroyed
.... the Jade Buddha Temple was one that Mao reportedly protected. I was
surprised to learn that most of the mosques were not destroyed by the wild
kids roaming and killing and burning. (I was told, but have no references,
that the Buddhist monks were passive and allowed themselves to be killed and
their temples looted and burned ... but the guys at the mosques had big
swords and when the kids arrived, they decided to go on down the block to
another Buddhist temple.)

Neither the "religious" part nor the economic part of "communism" works.
What the Chinese have today is neither communism nor atheism ... whether
their civilization will continue to endure, it will not be for lack of
religiosity or aggression (they remain at present strong in their general
commitment to a core of moral and ethical beliefs). But that is just my
opinion, YMMV.


.

Relevant Pages

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