Binadub, you'd be better off having this conversation with your dog. About the same ability to engage the conversation, but the dog will at least listen to what you have to say.
Tsk tsk. Didn't you learn not to interrupt as a child?
I Believe Catholicism And Its Trappings Are Silly, Strange & Weird!!!
by minimus 306 Replies latest jw friends
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binadub
EP:
Is it your view that faith in God or a supreme intelligent creator exists outside of religion?
I am sure some people that are not part of an organized religion have faith in such things.
So is it your view that only organized religion was banned in the countries that have been identified as atheist?
(Which might be the case, I don't know.) -
binadub
EP again (fwiw):
I don't know if you place value on definitions in Wikipedia, but this from them on the term "State Atheism" (references omitted):
State atheism may refer to a government's anti-clericalism, which opposes religious institutional power and influence in all aspects of public and political life, including the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen. State promotion of atheism as a public norm was first practiced during a brief period in Revolutionary France. Since then, such a policy was repeated only in Revolutionary Mexico and some communist states. The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism, in which social success largely required individuals to profess atheism, stay away from churches and even vandalize them; this attitude was especially militant during the middle Stalinist era from 1929-1939. The Soviet Union attempted to suppress public religious expression over wide areas of its influence, including places such as central Asia.
(Underline mine).
So I'm not sure why you say it had nothing to do with atheism.
~Binadub
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EntirelyPossible
So is it your view that only organized religion was banned in the countries that have been identified as atheist?
No.
So I'm not sure why you say it had nothing to do with atheism.
Read my above posts if you would like to know.
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binadub
Okay--don't have time like some here for this forum, so I guess I'll go with the secular evidence that indicates you're mistaken.
According to Wikipedia, Russia did demand atheism, meaning the persecution did have to do with "atheism." -
Berengaria
I haven't read the entire thread here. After many years on the site, this conversation has been had many times.
I don't know if you place value on definitions in Wikipedia, but this from them on the term "State Atheism" (references omitted):
State atheism may refer to a government's anti-clericalism, which opposes religious institutional power and influence in all aspects of public and political life, including the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen. State promotion of atheism as a public norm was first practiced during a brief period in Revolutionary France. Since then, such a policy was repeated only in Revolutionary Mexico and some communist states. The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism, in which social success largely required individuals to profess atheism, stay away from churches and even vandalize them; this attitude was especially militant during the middle Stalinist era from 1929-1939. The Soviet Union attempted to suppress public religious expression over wide areas of its influence, including places such as central Asia.
(Underline mine).
So I'm not sure why you say it had nothing to do with atheism.
~Binadub
Because it had nothing to do with atheism. There is one simple reason that the governments mentioned demanded atheism. They also abolished labor unions. People gathering together for any reason is a source of strength, pure and simple.
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binadub
Berengaria:
Because it had nothing to do with atheism. There is one simple reason that the governments mentioned demanded atheism. They also abolished labor unions. People gathering together for any reason is a source of strength, pure and simple.
That doesn't seem to jive with the Wikipedia article clearly stating that Russia "... required individuals to profess atheism...".
Understand, I have no personal belief investment in whether Russia persecuted religion or not, but to say it had nothing to do with atheism when people were required to profess atheism seems like it did as a matter of historical fact have something to do with atheism, pure and simple.
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Berengaria
And what reason did they have for abolishing labor unions?
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EntirelyPossible
Okay--don't have time like some here for this forum, so I guess I'll go with the secular evidence that indicates you're mistaken.
By all means. It's your brain to use or not, as you see fit.
I will give you a hint that you are not grasping that claiming atheism of the sort I practice is simply because I find no valid reason to beleive in God. The kind of state atheism you are referring to is to quash all competition to the state, to make people dependent on it, to make it their mother and manipulate and control them. It has nothing to do with "We don't beleive in God and if you do, we will kill you because we really hate Jesus."
Atheism is a tool, in that sense, just like Jesus was on the flip side of the enslaving a murdering people. Atheism as a personal choice is not that at all.
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Berengaria
Go Flash!