by cantleave 97 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
The difference being that an atheistic government would try to suppress all religions and promote atheism - which in fact the Russian and Chinese communists did.
So too in Cuba. It was the proverbial last straw for my own family. My father, still a boy at the time, was coming into an age where soon he would begin military service, and that also came with the state sponsored atheist indoctrination. There was an atheist inquisition in the country.
And once again, BTS - the Casto Atheistic Communists proved to have a horrible record over civil rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism#Cuba
Originally more tolerant of religion, after the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Cuba began arresting many believers and shutting down religious schools, its prisons since the 1960s being filled with clergy. [67] In 1961 The Cuban government confiscated the Catholic schools, including the Jesuit school Fidel Castro had attended. In 1965 it exiled two hundred priests. [68]
The Communist Party of Cuba defines one of its aims as "the gradual overcoming of religious beliefs by materialistic scientific propaganda and the cultural advancement of the workers." [59] From 1976 to 1992, the Constitution of Cuba contained a clause stating that the "socialist state...bases its activity on, and educates the people in, the scientific materialist concept of the universe [atheism]".
Yeah, I know what you're saying, but you like to ignore that the CHURCH controlled finance and politics in Russia, for example. The abolition of religion was about money and control.
The campaigns against homosexuals are very similar to those in the USA. I guess we shall 'conveniently' leave that out of the discussion. meh!
tal
From the same Wiki link, lest we cherry-pick our quotes:
In 1992, the Communist Party of Cuba has allowed religious believers to join. [59] Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has amended its statutes to declare itself a "secular state" rather than atheistic.
Pope John Paul II visited Cuba January 21–25, 1998, the first time a pope had visited Cuba and the first time since the Communist Revolution of 1959 that a papal visit was welcome. [69] The main reason for the visit was not to call the Communist government to task, but to carry out a pastoral visit to the Catholic community and to deliver a message of evangelization. [70] In his farewell statement to the pope at the airport Fidel Castro thanked the pope for visiting the "last bastion of Communism." [68]
USSR. 1922 issue of the Bezbozhnik(The Godless) magazine. By 1934, 28% of Eastern Orthodox churches, 42% of Muslim mosques and 52% of Jewish synagogues were shut down in the USSR. [47]State atheism in the Soviet Union was known as "gosateizm", [48] and was based on the ideology of Marxism–Leninism . As the founder of the Soviet state Vladimir Lenin put it:
Religion is the opiate of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class. [49]
Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and, ultimately, the elimination of religion. Within about a year of the revolution the state expropriated all church property, including the churches themselves, and in the period from 1922 to 1926, 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and more than 1,200 priests were killed (a much greater number was subjected to persecution). [50]
From the late 1920s to the late 1930s, such organizations as the League of the Militant Godless ridiculed all religions and harassed believers. Anti-religious and atheistic propaganda was implemented into every portion of soviet life, in schools, communist organizations (such as the Young Pioneer Organization), and the media.
From the same Wiki link, lest we cherry-pick our quotes:
There is no cherry picking. What I quoted is to lend evidence to my statement about the way things were on the island in the 1960s. I am well aware that there has been some moderation since the fall of the Soviet empire.
Yup, from one form of control (religion) to another (dictatorship).
Fanaticism and lust for power - hmmm, sounds eerily similar to fundy capitalists.
Wait! LOL. First, there is no such thing as 'atheistic' values. Atheism does not come with a set of values. Second, I'm not about 'atheist rights' I'm about human rights. I seriously don't care, on a personal level, what you believe as long as you are not imposing it on others. I don't condone a government that would enforce atheism any more than I would condone a government that would enforce religion. That said, unless there is some atheist push-back, the Chrisitan right in this country could eventually corrupt our government so much, discard the Constitution, and encroach on human rights. It won't be enough to believe in a god, but it will have to be the 'right' god.
I am for a secular government. I don't think we should give tax breaks to churches for money they use to perpetuate their faith, although I think tax breaks may be nice for true and secular charity. Why should government support the perpetuation of a religion anyway? Feed the hungry. Okay. Noble. Get a tax break. Preach to the poor---that's your business. Tax the money.
Simply not believing in gods or fairies does not automatically translate into wanting to suppress religion. Religion somehow thinks that if it is not given political power, it is being suppressed. That if the person who disagrees with them today will be the person who jails them tomorrow. That's ridiculous. Atheists can behave poorly, but they aren't breaking any ethics of atheism. Atheism doesn't have a set of ethics. They can behave very well, but they are not upholding the ethics of atheism. But a person CAN shoot a little girl in the face, stone a homosexual, blow up a clinic, shoot an abortion doctor, dumb down the kids, and absolutely be upholding their ethical code.
Wait! LOL. First, there is no such thing as 'atheistic' values. Atheism does not come with a set of values.
Which is why atheists never acheive any sort of coherent social structure without adopting some set of values that is not itself atheism. We've beat the atheistic governments drum here for a while, but atheists only acheived power by adopting a worldview such as Marxism, which in my opinion functioned as a sort of a-theistic state quasi-religion. Humanism and nationalism can function in this role as well. Objectivsim too. Some atheists even retain traditional religion, along with its values. I know a few.
