Re: The Bombings

Dubh Ghall wrote: 
On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:43:21 +0100, Steve Wilson <stevewilson109@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


I think that is a misleading conclusion. You seem to be implying that,
e.g. the Soviet Union was fundamentally evil because it discouraged
religion. I think it far more likely that the USSR would have been
equally evil had it permitted religion and the only reason they forbade
it was to stop public gatherings where resistance could be organised.
(In much the same way that Muslim fundamentalists (are said to) use
their mosques to whip up support for terrorism).


That is purely supposition on your part unless you have evidence to
support it.  The facts speak for themselves; Communism is atheistic and
66.7 million died under the Communist experiment in Russia.  It
contradicts the first posters assertion that we would somehow be far
better off without religion.



That is dishonest. It is inferring that those people died in the name of
atheism.

That is false.

Why so? They died under a regime that wanted to creat a Godless society.

Also, to claim that communism is inherently atheist, is false.

That is news to me.

Communism, is a political/ecconomic system, that has learned from xtianity.

Communism seeks to replace all the assorted gods of the world, with one god:
The State.

I would accept Communism took some of the social justice aspects of
Christianity and created their own ideology out of it.  However to imply
Communism is based on Christianity by saying it learned from
Christianity is a little distorted.  By any stretch of the imagination,
Communism bears no resemblance to Christianity.

Yes I quite agree the state was put in place as a substitute, however
the state is not God in any true meaning of the word. It is just a
necessary but poor human substitute to transcend the individual and
unify them with something other than God. This is the inherent problem
of atheism, it has not been able to find an alternative absolute
reference and must make do with relativism.  The Communist revolution
showed clearly the godless state eventually turns malevolent.


Atheists have no gods, not even the state.

If you insist on using the god term in this reduced manner, what about rationality and the laws of logic? These are good contenders as they are applied universally and no one can gainsay them.

The CCCP never suppressed religion.  All that they did, was to confine it to the
church, and the home.
They also made the state, the head of the church.

uhuh? Why was it illegal to possess a Bible then? I suggest Communism
wanted to suppress what is saw as a dangerous set of beliefs. What
better way to control the Christian church than to make the state its
head and then dictate that its expression should be contained within 4 walls? Actually I think they went further than this as the church felt forced to go underground and continually feared being infiltrated by informants. Why was this necessary if the church was not suppressed?


The CCCP were well aware of the power of religion, and turned it to their own
use.

I agree they certainly tried to control it to suit their own
ends because it refused to die as they had expected.


66.7 million, you claim, were killed under communism, and that may be true, but
they were NOT killed in the name of atheism.
They were killed in the name of Communism, or in the name of,  Joe Stalin.

This figure is not my claim.  It is the estimate made by Alexander
Solzhenitsyn.

They might not have been killed 'in the name of atheism' but they
certainly died as a result of an experiment in creating a Godless society.

BTW, Joe Stalin, or more correctly Joseph David Djugashvili, had a RC, seminary
education.

There is at least one atheist on this newsgroup who had a Christian
upbringing.  Does that mean he is a Christian?  You would have to
stretch credulity to breaking point to suggest Stalin was in any sense
a Christian.

I find it interesting, when reading up on all these "evil atheists" that you
xtians put forward, to make your points, how many of them had religious
upbringing, and/or a religious education.

Did I say atheists are evil? To my knowledge all I have said is that a Godless, i.e. atheist movement resulted in millions of deaths. I have said this in order to point out that removing religion would not solve the problem of violence.

I am aware many atheists try to lead good, law abiding lives
and do not pursue evil as if it were the done thing. I think you have have stereotyped me.

And I do not quite see the relevance of your point. So what if some
atheists had a religious upbringing. They have obviously reacted
against it for whatever reason and embraced atheism, they are no longer
Christian, Muslim or whatever, even if they bring traces of their former beliefs with them and mold them into something else.



Incidentally, you omitted to mention the Nazi holocaust where allegedly
some six million Jews died. There is a case where religion was not
forbidden, but there, unlike in the USSR, the people were solidly
behind the regime.


Yes, how did I manage to overlook that one? Although many Germans were Protestant Lutheran or Catholic, Hitler despised Christianity as weak. He instead utilised the 'death of God' philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche along with evolutionary principles to forward his vision for Germany. 


No.  Hitler considered *modern* xtianity, to be weak, that is all.

Hitler still believed in the xtian god, but he believed in the xtian god, that
sent soldiers out to wipe out the Cathars.

If so, he didn't believe in the God of Christianity but some perversion
of it.

He believed in the xtian god of Constantine, a god that gained conversion at
sword point.

uhuh. Many Christians, including myself, doubt the motives of
Constantine. I think he basically wasn't that bothered about
Christianity as such, but more about the useful unifying element it could provide. It was a surprise to me when I found out, when he presided over the Arian controversy in the 4th century (I think) that he wasn't that fussed which way the argument went, just as long as they reached agreement as to what constituted Christian belief on the matter.

Many in Rome, supported him, the pope, included.


Unfortunately, pragmatism has sometimes reigned in the church.  You
know, 'Looking a gift-horse in the mouth' that kind of thing.


Steve Wilson


Just curious, but why do you always type 'xtian'? Is it a contraction
simply for your own ease or some kind of expression of contempt? I feel
mildly miffed you cannot be bothered to write 'Christian'.



-- Puck Greenman
The spelling, Like any opinion stated here,
is purely my own
#162 BAAWA Knight.

Plonked by Rob Duncan Na bister 500,000 



.

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