Freethought & Rationalism Archive

thentian · 07-22-2008, 11:25 AM

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Originally Posted by Noe Sandoval

Quote:

Originally Posted by thentian

The best way to learn about religious persecution in the Soviet Union is to simply read about the history of the Orthodox Church. Wikipedia has a good article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Church

The total number of clergy put to death were about 100 000 during the bolshevik and stalinist eras. That is certainly a horrifying number, but nowhere near the number of 40 million so often toted by theists. I strongly suspect that number is reached by adding together numbers of deaths in the various purges and including the huge number of people who died of hunger after the early failed agricultural reforms (collectivisation).

It is certainly not unjustified to say that the clergy was persecuted "in the name of atheism", but it is likely that the real motive was to confiscate the property of the church in order to improve the goverments rather bad economic situation.

Soviet history never fails to disturb. Thanks for the research.

So about as many clergy were executed by the state as witches burnt at the stake. And for property of all things. Disturbing coincidence. Unfortunately it seems that the 40 million statistic will continue to be used by people like Dinesh D'Souza and Rabbi Shmuley, while their listeners eat it up. I don't think that number is ever going away no matter how many times we refute it

.

Also note the distribution of the killings; about 1300 in the bolshevik period (Lenin), 95000 during Stalin, and none afterwards (Khruschev/Breschnev). So nearly all of it can be blamed on one person, Joseph Stalin. It is also worth noting that at no point was the church actually forbidden.

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AFAIC, the catholics are the largest christian group in china, so I looked for information on them, and it turns out that the church is still alive there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese...ic_Association

In 1957, the goverment established the CPCA (Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association) to exercise state supervision over mainland China's Catholics.

"Officially, religious organizations in mainland China today must be Government-recognized and approved, though many unofficial unregistered organizations do in fact exist. The Government of China wants no organization in mainland China owing allegiance to "foreign influence", in this case, the Pope. Critics of the CPCA argue that it was created precisely to establish state control over Catholicism in mainland China."

Aha! The communist party is paranoid about "foreign influence". No surprise there, really.

This catholic site has more about the history:

http://ncregister.com/site/article/3095/

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After their coming to power in 1949, the Chinese communists first attempted to suppress the Church altogether, in the manner of communists elsewhere. Not long after though, they introduced a more clever, and divisive, maneuver: They created their own Catholic association — the so-called “patriotic church.”

In the “patriotic church,” Catholics were largely free to practice as they wished, but the role of the Pope was put in question. The Chinese communists accepted him as a spiritual leader, but rejected his authority to govern the Church in China as an unacceptable “foreign” interference in Chinese sovereignty. The critical point of conflict came over the appointment of bishops, as the Chinese state appointed bishops for the patriotic church without a papal mandate — a serious violation of canon law and grounds for schism.

As a result, a deep division opened in the Chinese Catholic community, now estimated to be at least 12 million.

Many bishops and priests became members of the patriotic church, and many bishops were consecrated without a papal mandate, believing that such state interference could be tolerated in order to preserve the possibility of preaching the Gospel. Others chose to remain underground, seeing the necessary accommodation as a betrayal of the Catholic faith.

The underground Church has been persecuted, with many of her bishops and priests jailed.

In recent years though, the situation in China has changed.

In some areas, religious liberty has been granted in practice, if not in law, even to underground Catholics

It looks to me as if the persecution of christians in china has been slightly exaggerated....

dr lazer blast · 07-22-2008, 01:28 PM

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Originally Posted by ModernHeretic

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

Its not guilt by association. If you take a small glance at history, you will see that christian dictators haven't come close to the numbers set up by stalin and the other atheists, which implies that atheism has something to do with it.

Also it has nothing to do with the number of religious people killed, but the number of total people killed. The 20 million killed by stalin are religious, intellectuals, whatever, but the point is the evidence shows that atheist rules kill more of their citizens, A LOT MORE of their citizens than religious leaders do.

This may be true of Marxist countries such as the Soviet Union, but what about western democracies such as France, England, and Sweden where many/most people are atheists?

While it may certainly be true that Stalin killed a lot of people, I hardly think this demonstrates that atheism leads to killing people. Personally, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to kill people because of what you don't believe. Rather, I would argue that Stalin killed a lot of people partly because he was a Marxist, and partly because he was a paranoid authoritarian dictator.

Does france have an atheist dictator leading the country? does england and sweden have an atheist dictator leading the country? no they do not. Like I said history gives you the evidence. Not one single christian dictator has even come close the the numbers put up by stalin. Furthermore blaming it on marxism is actually hurting your case considering the famous quote by Vladimir lenin

"Atheism is a material and inseparable part of Marxism"

dr lazer blast · 07-22-2008, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noe Sandoval

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

Its not guilt by association. If you take a small glance at history, you will see that christian dictators haven't come close to the numbers set up by stalin and the other atheists, which implies that atheism has something to do with it.

Also it has nothing to do with the number of religious people killed, but the number of total people killed. The 20 million killed by stalin are religious, intellectuals, whatever, but the point is the evidence shows that atheist rules kill more of their citizens, A LOT MORE of their citizens than religious leaders do.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to attribute the deaths to Stalinism and Maoism? The philosophy the communism must be violently established and violently protected from criticism?

Other points have been brought up in this thread as well, such as the fact the the post-World War II population was significantly larger than the population of previous times. Added to this the Soviet Union had a far more advanced collection of tools at its disposal.

by attributing the deaths to stalinism and maoism you are ignoring the fact that they were both atheists and both of them dictators. Stalinism came from stalin the atheist and maoism came from mao the atheist. Furthermore you are ignoring the fact that under both of these men, millions of deaths occured, you are also ignoring the fact that christian dictators have failed to produce death tolls as high as atheist ones.

Noe Sandoval · 07-22-2008, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

by attributing the deaths to stalinism and maoism you are ignoring the fact that they were both atheists and both of them dictators. Stalinism came from stalin the atheist and maoism came from mao the atheist.

Both Stalin and Hitler had mustaches, does that mean mustaches are immoral? (hair stylists DON'T COMMENT!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

Furthermore you are ignoring the fact that under both of these men, millions of deaths occured, you are also ignoring the fact that christian dictators have failed to produce death tolls as high as atheist ones.

To the contrary, your point about the numbers has been addressed by a number of posts in this thread which I alluded to earlier:

Quote:

Other points have been brought up in this thread as well, such as the fact the the post-World War II population was significantly larger than the population of previous times. Added to this the Soviet Union had a far more advanced collection of tools at its disposal.

Regardless, Stalinists being better at creating massacres than Christian dictators certainly doesn't make the latter more moral. For example, look at the Lords Resistance Army. They may not have killed as many people as Mao that doesn't make them more moral.

dr lazer blast · 07-22-2008, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noe Sandoval

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

by attributing the deaths to stalinism and maoism you are ignoring the fact that they were both atheists and both of them dictators. Stalinism came from stalin the atheist and maoism came from mao the atheist.

Both Stalin and Hitler had mustaches, does that mean mustaches are immoral? (hair stylists DON'T COMMENT!)

*sigh*
What are you even talking about?

you are trying to take the blame off of the individuals and put it on the political system, that cannot be done considering the fact that the political system came from the individuals.

Quote:

Other points have been brought up in this thread as well, such as the fact the the post-World War II population was significantly larger than the population of previous times. Added to this the Soviet Union had a far more advanced collection of tools at its disposal.

what does population have to do with anything? can you please make that point more clear.
Advanced technology has nothing to do with it if one looks at the death toll of technologically challenged killers like Chang Hsien-chung who killed like 37 million people and ghengis khan.

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Regardless, Stalinists being better at creating massacres than Christian dictators certainly doesn't make the latter more moral. For example, look at the Lords Resistance Army. They may not have killed as many people as Mao that doesn't make them more moral.

Nice strawman, I was never making a case for one being more moral than the other. I simply stated that the christian dictators vs atheist dictators, atheists win hands down by a landslide of about 30 million dead bodies.

GenesisNemesis · 07-22-2008, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

Nice strawman, I was never making a case for one being more moral than the other. I simply stated that the christian dictators vs atheist dictators, atheists win hands down by a landslide of about 30 million dead bodies.

Not atheists, but communists. Sure, they were atheists, but there is no connection between atheism and 30 million dead bodies. If there were, they would've exclaimed "I don't believe in God, therefore I can do whatever I want, so I might as well kill 30 million people!"

You do realize how ridiculous your assertions are, I hope?

dr lazer blast · 07-22-2008, 02:20 PM

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Originally Posted by GenesisNemesis

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

Nice strawman, I was never making a case for one being more moral than the other. I simply stated that the christian dictators vs atheist dictators, atheists win hands down by a landslide of about 30 million dead bodies.

Not atheists, but communists. Sure, they were atheists, but there is no connection between atheism and 30 million dead bodies. If there were, they would've exclaimed "I don't believe in God, therefore I can do whatever I want!"

Theres a huge connection Genesis which is why Vladimir Lenin (the famous marxists) said the following

"Atheism is a material and inseparable part of Marxism"

you do realize how ridiculous your rebuttals are. You are basically gonig against all evidence which is contradicting your atheist position.

GenesisNemesis · 07-22-2008, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

"Atheism is a material and inseparable part of Marxism"

But atheism by no means caused the deaths of millions of people, radical Marxists/communists did. There is no "code of atheism" saying we have to kill 30 million people.

dr lazer blast · 07-22-2008, 02:23 PM

another thing about the advanced technology. Stalin wasn't the only one with access to the advanced technology so was the rest ofthe modern world, and yet noone but stalin killed that many people.

dr lazer blast · 07-22-2008, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GenesisNemesis

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr lazer blast

"Atheism is a material and inseparable part of Marxism"

But atheism by no means caused the deaths of millions of people, radical Marxists/communists did. There is no "code of atheism" saying we have to kill 30 million people.

what you fail to realize genisis, is the combiniation of atheism and absolte power is responsible for those deaths, the same cannot be said for christianity and absolute power being responsible for that many deaths.

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07-22-2008, 02:23 PM	#49
dr lazer blast Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: charleston sc Posts: 1,622	another thing about the advanced technology. Stalin wasn't the only one with access to the advanced technology so was the rest ofthe modern world, and yet noone but stalin killed that many people.

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