The population of the Earth increases exponentially.
Athiesm, Punishment and Killing
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
The population of the Earth increases exponentially.
You're describing a lot of beliefs there. As an example you mention "distributing pamphlets about the evils of religion" which clearly hints at a belief that religion is evil. That is not atheism - and while sure, many atheists might believe religion is evil, (as do many theists), believing that religion is evil is not atheism.
There are millions of atheists that do not think religion is evil, and sure, there are some that do. Their belief is not atheism.
It is very much like it - worship, but not for gods.
From what I have read of the Soviet propaganda it appears to focus on atheism as a scientific belief, rather than any god-king promotion.
http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/exhibitions/godlesscommunists/antireligious_periodicals.htm
What promotion are you referring to?
Bells
Staff member
Unless of course, the lack of belief itself is a belief. The term lack of belief assumes a void where nothing exists. What is the status of atheists in this regard?
What do you suppose those atheists who were shooting 1000 people a day were thinking of?
Nazi's were not atheists, nor was Hitler. On the contrary, he attempted to stamp out atheism by banning 'freethought' organisations.
I was referring to the communists, they did not take pictures.
I realised after I saw spideys comment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_graves_in_the_Soviet_Union
That's the anti-religious movement, something more than atheism. These people had concerns about the effects of religion on the Socialist Revolution. Since I'm a Democrat, and religion doesn't conflict with my preferred method of government, why should I care what you believe? I might make some posters like that too, they do no harm. The point is, the Socialist Revolution was the ideology responsible for the deaths of so many political prisoners. The semantic issue is, you don't call the revolution a religion. It was very much like a religion in China.
Yes, which when directed at all theists and engaged in the promotion of a godless society, requires an atheist at the helm.
And it was repeated in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, etc.
India too is a Socialist country, except that we're religious. Nehru was a great admirer of Marxism, did you know?
We even have a couple of Marxist states except the people following the socialist systems are religious.
Technically yes, the head of a Godless society should be an atheist, but atheism by itself doesn't cause persecution of religious people. It's only in relation to the ideology, one could say, the religion, of Socialism, that it could be any threat to the well-being of theistic people.
Thats just semantics.
Socialism minus atheism, or communism minus atheism does not appear to have the same effects.
India is a country with a constitution based on both socialist and democratic principles.
Socialist Party(India)
We have currently two Marxist states. West Bengal and Kerala. Tripura and Tamil Nadu have alliances in power which contain the communist factions
Communist Party of India
Yeah, I have a socialist book club, we never murder each other...
I guess it depends on what country your in and what disclosure/privacy laws are active. I have never been called upon in a job application to reveal past convictions details.
If the Authorities in your nation where smart they would see to it that such demands where illegal. The last thing an authority should want is a released prisoner who cannot find a job. Maintaining prisoners in the Prison system is a cost burden to the nation and anything that could be done to avoid former criminals re-offending is well worth putting into effect.
There are employers like child-minding providers that could have access to a data base held by the authorities of released sex offenders. No point taking a risk in such a sensitive area.
I think Authorities should even provide a job to released prisoners for a year as a way to help get them into a working habit and also help them achieve a state of normalcy and confidence in the outside community.
But i guess maybe their is a profit motive when a penal system is run by private profit making co-operations. I guess the more offenders the more people in prison and the greater the return to shareholders of business that run jails... maybe they might wish to actively discourage such positive policies by giving a few well places donations and whispering into the right persons ears. LOL Or maybe i am a bit to cynical about how this world is actually run.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Yeah, the Americans suppressed their Shinto Buddhism, pretty much like the Chinese are doing in Tibet today (minus the two nukes).
So are they polythiests? Or areligious?
Barry Flannery
Registered Member
S.A.M
You cannot blame the atrocities commited by Stalin on his atheism.
This is like saying Stalin was evil because he had a moustache, so did Hitler and so did Saddam Hussein, moustaches are the truth root of all evil!
Barry
You cannot blame the atrocities commited by Stalin on his atheism.
This is like saying Stalin was evil because he had a moustache, so did Hitler and so did Saddam Hussein, moustaches are the truth root of all evil!
Barry
No I blame it on his desire to promote atheism at the expense of theists' lives and freedoms.
Besides everyone knows that moustaches are a sign of pure evil.
Where did you read that? I'd like to know the history.
Pre-WWII the Japanese themselves promoted Shintoism and tried to suppress Buddhism as part of a Japanese-Nationalist initiative (Buddhism was foreign and was aggressively attacked). However, the Shinto don't perform many services for the community - namely funerals. They do perform weddings. So there was no one to perform the funinral rites. It must havd pissed off enough Shinto monks and priests that they themselves complained that performing funerals was not part of their traditions anymore and that the co-religious arrangement between Shinto and Buddhist was what was best for Japanese people. On advice of Shinto, Buddhism was soon reinstated.
Note: If Americans in any way tried to legally or militarily suppress or even coerce the conversion of Japanese out of their indigenous beliefs I find that morally repugnant. They should have respected the Japanese native superstitions and supported them - not tried to manipulate or coerce the Japanese to give up their beliefs. Religious beleif is an important part of identity and culture.
ANY form of legal discrimination based on personal beleif is f*cking evil -
Wouldn't you agree SAM?
I do not think that too many Japanese are polytheists. But actually some may be. The thing is, as the world opens up and people become more educated things like beleif in sea-daddies (Poseidon) and forest-daddies (Tapio) and sky-daddies (Allah) and mountain-daddies (Tmolus) slowly fade-away naturally.
That said, most Japanese that I know of are superstitious. They tend to have some sort of beleif in oni - local demons or ghosts. Also, if they are genetically inclined to be religious they usually become Buddhists. Or so I have noticed anyway.
Even in "Atheist" China when I meet Chinese they'll laugh out loud at the prospect of beleif in God (they're taught starting in grade 0 there are no Gods) but still believe in "lucky numbers" or even "luck" and not see that this is kind of the same type of irrationality.
Meh, I've come to accept it's partly genetic.
Michael
They had to devalue the Japanese Emperor for the occupation to succeed. So they abolished Shinto as a state religion and disarmed the Japanese armed forces.
Basically they destroyed the basis of Japanese religion. They also attempted to dimantle Japanese zaibatsu or the economic conglomerate which define Japanese economy and were associated with the Japanese Empire. However they were less successful in that.
I guess it would be equivalent to the Lama declaring he was not a reincarnation of the Buddha under Chinese military force.
Basically they destroyed the basis of Japanese religion. They also attempted to dimantle Japanese zaibatsu or the economic conglomerate which define Japanese economy and were associated with the Japanese Empire. However they were less successful in that.
I guess it would be equivalent to the Lama declaring he was not a reincarnation of the Buddha under Chinese military force.