[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Oh, come on. A little theocracy never hurt anybody. [/quote]
Yeah! Atheist states are far kinder…[/quote]
Where is that, Russia? China? Two societies that definitely forced the religion of Communism down their citizens throats. The very essence of theocracy. [/quote]
Check your facts. Atheism was in fact state policy of the Soviet Union. It saw religion as a threat to the state and was to be eliminated in as much as it could be.
Communism is much less a religion than atheism. It’s simple a failed political philosophy. [/quote]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Oh, come on. A little theocracy never hurt anybody. [/quote]
Yeah! Atheist states are far kinder…[/quote]
Where is that, Russia? China? Two societies that definitely forced the religion of Communism down their citizens throats. The very essence of theocracy. [/quote]
Check your facts. Atheism was in fact state policy of the Soviet Union. It saw religion as a threat to the state and was to be eliminated in as much as it could be.
Communism is much less a religion than atheism. It’s simple a failed political philosophy. [/quote]
Pat, all true theocracies attempt to hold a monopoly on the Truth, view any other other belief system as a threat to the authority of the state, and attempt to repress practioners of any other religion by branding them infidels and heretics. The Soviet version of the Muslim shahada would be “there is no god but the State, and Lenin is its Prophet”.
Communism as enumerated by Marx and Engels was an economic/political philosophy, but in the hands of demagogues like Lenin and Stalin and Mao became an unquestionable dogma. These demagogues were the infallible Apostles of the State: question their ex cathedra pronouncements and you are a heretic. Reject the first commandment of the State (“thou shalt not have no other economic/political philosophy before me”) and you are an infidel. In either case, you would be marginalized and eradicated.
Lenin’s corpse was worshipped by throngs of True Believers with no less ardor than an idol of Baal or image of Christ on the Cross, and the Red Army’s war’s of conquest were carried out with no less religious fervor than any jihad or Crusade.
The State was god. Russia and China were theocracies. Period.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Oh, come on. A little theocracy never hurt anybody. [/quote]
Yeah! Atheist states are far kinder…[/quote]
Where is that, Russia? China? Two societies that definitely forced the religion of Communism down their citizens throats. The very essence of theocracy. [/quote]
Check your facts. Atheism was in fact state policy of the Soviet Union. It saw religion as a threat to the state and was to be eliminated in as much as it could be.
Communism is much less a religion than atheism. It’s simple a failed political philosophy. [/quote]
Pat, all true theocracies attempt to hold a monopoly on the Truth, view any other other belief system as a threat to the authority of the state, and attempts to repress practioners of any other religion by branding them infidels and heretics. The Soviet version of the Muslim shahada would be “there is no god but the State, and Lenin is its Prophet”.
Communism as enumerated by Marx and Engels was an economic/political philosophy, but in the hands of demagogues like Lenin and Stalin and Mao became an unquestionable dogma. These demagogues were the infallible Apostles of the State: question their will and you are a heretic. Reject the first commandment of the State (“thou shalt not have no other economic/political philosophy before me”) and you are an infidel. In either case, you would be marginalized and eradicated.
Lenin’s corpse was worshipped by throngs of True Believers with no less ardor than is the image of Christ on the Cross, and the Red Army’s war’s of conquest were carried out with no less religious fervor than any jihad or Crusade.
The State was god. Russia and China were theocracies. Period.
[/quote]
Atheism is an absence of belief in deities. That’s it. Deities are supernatural beings. After that, anything is fair game.
And every demagogue, from Darius to Caesar to Hirohito to Mao, has demanded to be worshipped, in some cases literally, as a god. Deities don’t have to be supernatural: animists worship deities that are entirely natural, and a pagan may worship personifications of natural forces and celestial bodies. As has been said ad nauseam, a monotheist is simply an atheist who is willing to make one exception.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
And every demagogue, from Darius to Caesar to Hirohito to Mao, has demanded to be worshipped, in some cases literally, as a god. Deities don’t have to be supernatural: animists worship deities that are entirely natural, and a pagan may worship personifications of natural forces and celestial bodies. As has been said ad nauseam, a monotheist is simply an atheist who is willing to make one exception. [/quote]
I’m sorry, it sounds too much like apologetics for atheism.
Again, atheism is a disbelief in dieties.
Funny enough, in a way, you’re attempting to excommunicate atheists from the fold, though they still hold to that defining tenet. Are there dogmas and tenets to atheism besides what defines it? Could you share those? Is there a council or pope-like figure to defend them?
Either there are dogmas and tenets besides “Thou shall have no gods,” or there aren’t.
If so, I’d like to see them. And I’d like to know what bishops of atheism (to borrow your view) compiled them so that offenders may be ‘excommunicated’ from atheism.
If not…That is, nothing but the one defining tenet above, then anything else is fair game.
I mean, Justin Bieber can have people flock to him, even while he spitting on them from a balcony above. Doesn’t mean they think he’s a supernatural being.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
And every demagogue, from Darius to Caesar to Hirohito to Mao, has demanded to be worshipped, in some cases literally, as a god. Deities don’t have to be supernatural: animists worship deities that are entirely natural, and a pagan may worship personifications of natural forces and celestial bodies. As has been said ad nauseam, a monotheist is simply an atheist who is willing to make one exception. [/quote]
I’m sorry, it sounds too much like apologetics for atheism.
Again, atheism is a disbelief in dieties.
Funny enough, in away, you’re attempting to excommunicate atheists from the fold, though they still hold to that defining tenet. Are there dogmas and tenets to atheism besides what defines it? Could you share those? Is there a council or pope-like figure to defend them?[/quote]
Inasmuch as I am not an atheist, I would not presume to speak for them. If you are interested in the dogmas and tenets of atheism, I refer you to the writings of the Four Horsemen of Bigflamer’s avatar: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Dennet and Sam Harris. They can explain what they believe and more importantly what they don’t, far better than I could.
My contention is that idolatry is not synonymous with atheism: you can reject belief in the Abrahamic God, but if you create your own god from clay, metal, wood, or economic/political philosophy, and worship it as the only acceptible source of truth, then you are no atheist. If you establish a state based on the worship of this god, then you have a theocracy.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I refer you to the writings of the Four Horsemen of Bigflamer’s avatar: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Dennet and Sam Harris. They can explain what they believe and more importantly what they don’t, far better than I could. [/quote]
There’s only one thing I need to know. Which is their disbelief in deities.
If they attach other qualifiers, then–borrowing your view–they’ve made themselves into apostles of atheistic sects.
For instance, if they say atheists must be benign…Or, atheists can not be despotic, installing and maintaining oppressive political/economic philosophies…Then they are adding, well morals, tenets, commandments, or what have you. Claiming an authority to say who is in ‘communion’ or ‘excommunicated’ from atheism. Looking at it from your view that is.
…A fundamental aspect of science is that truth is unknowable. Moreover, even if there is a/the truth and it is knowable; the vicious, random, and ad hoc nature of evolution kinda precludes the notion that we’ve somehow evolved to know it. And the belief that we evolved to know or somehow find the truth is pretty profoundly religious in and of itself…
[/quote]
Indeed.[/quote]
I could buy some truths are unknowable , It is the truth that the sun has risen everyday in our lives and it has set every evening
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Guns are made. Then the right to bear them, with little to no oversight, held as if an ultimate truth. Is that idolatry?[/quote]
Depends. If your adulation of firearms elevates to the point that you are worshipping them, then yes. Many warrior societies believed that their weapons were imbued with supernatural powers.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I refer you to the writings of the Four Horsemen of Bigflamer’s avatar: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Dennet and Sam Harris. They can explain what they believe and more importantly what they don’t, far better than I could. [/quote]
There’s only one thing I need to know. Which is their disbelief in deities.
If they attach other qualifiers, then–borrowing your view–they’ve made themselves into apostles of atheistic sects.
For instance, if they say atheists must be benign…Or, atheists can not be despotic, installing and maintaining oppressive political/economic philosophies…Then they are adding, well morals, tenets, commandments, or what have you. Claiming an authority to say who is in ‘communion’ or ‘excommunicated’ from atheism. Looking at it from your view that is.
[/quote]
I doubt if atheist A would presume to tell atheist B that his method of disbelief is the orthodox method, and that atheist B’s method of disbelief is mistaken, any more than a person who doesn’t collect stamps makes it his business what kind of stamps other non-stamp collectors don’t collect, or the ways in which his non-collection of stamps impacts other aspects of his life. Further, those who don’t collect stamps don’t elevate a person who collects the least stamps to a position of authority, nor do they bear any acrimony toward others who have chosen not to collect coins.
