Right. So... They believe that their God is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, merciful and benevolent. Except they're not sure enough to trust him/them with their lives. Ordinary guys in the trenches have more confidence in their comrades, children in parents and spouses in each other. Hm. — Vera Mont
But some leftist atheists during and just after the war came to believe that there was something in the secularized culture of modern Europe that allowed totalitarianism to happen. European antisemitism at the time of the Nazis had become scientific in character (we now know that it was pseudo-scientific, of course). It took up the older religious tradition of antisemitism and ran with it in a racialist direction, so it was motivated and justified differently than it had been in previous centuries. So some pessimistic atheist social theorists blamed the very historical evolution of which the loss of religion's social importance was a central feature. From this point of view, it is something in the progress of secularization that led to totalitarianism and genocide (the instrumentalization of reason and all that). In other words, religion was being lost, and without anything to take its place, bad things happen. — Jamal
Me, I certainly wouldn’t say that atheism or secularism necessarily result in totalitarianism. The minimal point I suppose is that society can end up in oppression, war, and violence whether it’s religious or not, and therefore that these evils have other causes. The idea that it's all caused by religion is no better than a conspiracy theory. — Jamal
There's an old critique of A C Grayling which seems to agree with Un's view of this, its emphasis being that 'militant atheism' in a sense needs religious texts to be rendered literally, to make its literalist critique possible: — mcdoodle
Yes, that's a good mission statement. Perhaps even a good contribution to 'general guidelines' for establishing a palatable secular morality that's 'fair and just,' for all stakeholders, and, what I especially like about such statements from 'HUMANS' is that imo, such demonstrates NO IRREFUTABLE NEED for the divine source of moral guidelines/dictates that theists claim, humans need, to escape a 'guaranteed!' return to purely instinct driven, feral behaviour, devoid of any palatable morality.There's no question that in a world packed with various forms of religious fundamentalism, which can significantly damage a culture and disrupt the world - from Trump's evangelicals, to Modi's Hindu nationalists (and let's not forget Islam) - these ideas are worth resisting, debunking, challenging. Just as the ideas of secular dictators are also worth debunking and challenging. — Tom Storm
No, It's not, it's yet another example of a human's wish to kill off any competition to their own rise to god status, in the minds of their followers. How many dictators believe and promote a cult of their own personality? EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, past and present imo. Hitler is just one of the modern examples. Alexander the butcher was no different. Hitler manipulated religion, yes, such always does. If the nazis won, then I agree that they would not have tolerated dictates from ANY religious organisation that 'competed' with nazi dictates about how people MUST live and WHO will be allowed to live.This is an example of an atheist dogma, certainly an example of the enforced secularism and not a religious evil. — Hanover
Excellent point! I defend the right of individuals to hold any religious faith that suits them, and to congregate and commune with like-minded individuals, but when dogma arrogates to itself the right to trespass on the political realm it deserves to be critiqued and resisted, and hopefully, put back in its place. — Janus
(b) (which seems to be where universeness is coming from) is usually just a defence against those militant theists who claim that atheism is inherently evil. I think (b) is fair enough. — Jamal
Me, I certainly wouldn’t say that atheism or secularism necessarily result in totalitarianism. The minimal point I suppose is that society can end up in oppression, war, and violence whether it’s religious or not, and therefore that these evils have other causes. The idea that it's all caused by religion is no better than a conspiracy theory. — Jamal
We wait impatiently for those extra options that increased longevity and robustness might offer us! AND f*** off theism! stop holding us back!!!!! — universeness
This seemed to be further supported by the existence of another of the world’s most brutal and totalitarian regimes, one which was atheist and which engaged in the persecution of religion, namely Stalin's government of the Soviet Union. — Jamal
BUT, this is a religious position! All totalitarian, cult of personality, autocratic control level of a large mass of people, are IDENTICAL imo, to the rule of a king or a messiah who claims to have gods sanction, (the so called, divine right of kings) to BE what they/he/she/hesh wants to be, ie, YOUR GOD! — universeness
The USSR, and China are just another two failed attempts to 'get it correct.' — universeness
WE MUST TRY TRY TRY and then ......... TRY AGAIN! Until we succeed, on a global scale. — universeness
Let's first focus on eliminating the ongoing repercussions of the last failed attempts before we start rolling out the next five year plan. — Hanover
If you can't offer an example of an atheistic leader who is evil even in the hypothetical because definitionaly their exercise of power is "religious" in an essential way, this is all tautological. I'll stop offering counter examples to disprove your argument so that you can tell me there are no married bachelors. — Hanover
Oh we have many many millions of years, not 5 more years (Hear D. Bowie below).
So how about a 100 year or thousand year or ...... year plan?
We just have to avoid extinction events and causing such ourselves. — universeness
"either the ball is green, or the ball is not green" is always true, regardless of the colour of the ball.
I don't care about your concern with logical tautologies. In REAL human life, ALL totalitarian dictators past and present are god wannabees, and you holding up an irrelevant shiney from propositional logic, in a futile attempt to dilute from the observed behaviour I am referring to, is part of why I claimed earlier that your theism manifests in you at times, in rather sinister ways. — universeness
In other words, religion was being lost, and without anything to take its place, bad things happen. — Jamal
No, logic can be abused and used out of context, just as you sometimes do.. I'll try to avoid it. — Hanover
“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console our selves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has so far possessed, has bled to death under our knife, who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What purifications, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history so far!” — Hanover
So yeah, in some ways it hasn't gone very well so far, despite N's optimism. — Jamal
This is a new feature of dogmatism that hasn't been mentioned yet: dogmatism as a tendency to protect a belief. Maybe to combine two theories put forward, yours and Wayfarer 's -- dogmatism is a tendency in human beings to protect the regular form of an accepted principle. And dogma is whatever is being protected. — Moliere
(We can speculate on religion in the area if the Nazis hadn't lost; I'm guessing (pure conjecture on my part) that there'd have been some moves toward occultism or Germanic paganism of sorts.) — jorndoe
European antisemitism at the time of the Nazis had become scientific in character (it was pseudo-scientific, of course). It took up the older religious tradition of antisemitism and ran with it in a racialist direction, so it was motivated and justified differently than it had been in previous centuries. — Jamal
Our faith in people is put in place by some solid evidence; they haven't failed us in the past and so on, but with a god who is unknowable there is no past experience to draw upon. — Janus
You seem to accent the negatives more than you accent the positive achievements of humankind.
Are you another pessimist? — universeness
The optimist cannot despair, but neither can he know genuine hope, since he disavows the conditions that make it essential. — Terry Eagleton, Hope Without Optimism
I realize that you've had a long dialogue about this already. Perhaps you're bored with it. But if I'm right that psychopathic behaviour is part of the human condition, removing religion may reduce the opportunities, but won't cure the problem. Those personalities will just find other ways to wreak havoc on the rest of us. I'm not saying there's nothing we can do about them, just that it's will be a continuous battle. Remember the slogan that freedom is not a place you arrive at and relax. It always needs defending.I DO NOT claim that all horrors humans face are caused by religion BUT I DO list it in the top 5 of the biggest barriers to human ability to individually 'be all you can be!' whilst we still have the very short lives we do. — universeness
It depends on your god.Does that logic work as a 'theism'? — Paine
I'm always in favour of people and dogs (and I've nothing against cats, rabbits and horses).I detached from the god, but kept the people and dogs. — Vera Mont
I'm always in favour of people and dogs (and I've nothing against cats, rabbits and horses). — Ludwig V
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