Sunday of the New Martyrs: Soviet Persecution of Theists

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, TheMightyKC said:

Out of fear of being politically incorrect, people now say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".  We have freedom of religion here, there's no need to dumb it down or sugar coat it.  I wouldn't be offended if someone wished me a blessed Festivus.

And Kurt did a lot of things in his wayward youth that I might find troubling, but I believe he did come to know and love God.  Just listen to his music-- you can't write things that powerful if you aren't basking in God's love.  Also, a lot of his anti-establishment persona was crafted mostly for the marketing angle.

 

Sorry for straying off topic, can we get back to talking about anti-theism?

*scratch* you mean the Kurt Cobain who wrote/sang:

Quote

Jesus, don’t want me for a sunbeam, sunbeams are not meant for me. Don’t expect me to cry for all the reasons, you had to die. Don’t ever ask your love of me.

I am sure somebody is spinning in his urn right now.

As far as I know Kurt's last fling with a religion was Buddhism. Basking in God's love or being hooked up on smack... Well, I better stop the post at that point, before people start to cast bibles at me.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

There are distinct similarities between current and past societies. Because current societies come from past societies. Ancient societies aren't alien, they're us with a different tech base. If brands, celebrities, advertisements, and bitching about the younger generation and new technology existed in ancient Rome I'm willing to bet that there are more similarities than differences between societies.

And people still believe in a heliocentric universe, and the general progress in the natural sciences and level of common knowledge has not progressed that much either during the last millenia. No, seriously, societies differ quite a bit. Just take that bitching about the younger generation. You were already old when you were in your 40s a few centuries ago. To assume we are basically Romans with I-Phones is a very curious concept.

[Kalbear]

In general people believe what they are taught and what others believe. And what is taught in schools and what others think is radically different than it was 100 years ago.

[sologdin]

Quote

people now say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"

that's kinda an FSMism, aye?

[DireWolfSpirit]

I'll have to comment more later as it's time for my afternoon shift. But for the record, I am one athiest/agnostic who unapoligetically absolutely love the holidays and the entire season from Thanksgiving to New Years. I take great comfort in knowing that many Jews celebrate Hanukkah and many African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa and secular people like me can enjoy the Thanksgiving and lights and family during these months.

For me its the season of giving and I view it as inclusive and have no qualms over sharing our pagan originated holiday with the religious, you are all very welcome.

[Kalbear]

And while it might be beyond verification, what we know is that there is very little record of atheists existing at all historically - at best, we have some skeptics, though the atheists that we do have good records for are ironically from muslim lands. We also have no real history of atheists being persecuted. 

The idea that atheism is some kind of percentage value like the overall percentage of those who exhibit homosexual or bisexual traits is crazy to me. Atheism isn't a genetic behavior like being left handed. It's a learned behavior. If anything, the societies that have the most atheism either have massive antireligious persecution (such as the Soviet Union did) or have more broad education - neither of which occurred to any great deal prior to the 20th century. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

DWS,

I think the holidays should be enjoyed regardless of your beliefs or lack thereof.

Kalbear,

Exactly.  

[karaddin]

Who the fuck cares if there were actual atheists being actively persecuted when the point was that those societies did not tolerate alternative beliefs, not that they were committing a genocide? This is pedantry that Scot started and everyone has just bought into. It wasn't the point.

[DireWolfSpirit]

9 hours ago, Kalbear said:

And while it might be beyond verification, what we know is that there is very little record of atheists existing at all historically - at best, we have some skeptics, though the atheists that we do have good records for are ironically from muslim lands. We also have no real history of atheists being persecuted. 

The idea that atheism is some kind of percentage value like the overall percentage of those who exhibit homosexual or bisexual traits is crazy to me. Atheism isn't a genetic behavior like being left handed. It's a learned behavior. If anything, the societies that have the most atheism either have massive antireligious persecution (such as the Soviet Union did) or have more broad education - neither of which occurred to any great deal prior to the 20th century. 

Atheism is not a learned behavior it's the natural state all humanity is born into. It is lost through indoctrination, which is a learned behavior. You've gotten it exactly backwards.

As far as the number of atheists historically I agree with Scott that it's difficult to quantify. My guess is that a lot of them historically were just referred to as blasphemers, idolaters, pagans, witches and so forth. 

As for no real history of atheist being persecuted, that doesnt seem correct either. Earlier in the thread the link for atheophobia was posted and gives examples of discrimination against atheists. Heres a small snippet of that-

[edit]Historical examples

• Poland, 1689 — Kazimierz Łyszczyński is tortured and then burned at the stake for atheism. A man who owed him money brought him before court for writing "and therefore, there is no God" in the margin of a book. Prosecutors later discovered that he wrote a 265-page treatise called De non existentia Dei, where he argued that God is a construct of the human mind, and it was the primary cause of sentencing him to death. The manuscript was destroyed; only five quotations from the work survived in court documents.^[14]

• Scotland, 1698 — Thomas Aikenhead is executed for reading a book about atheism at Edinburgh University.

• England, 1880 — Charles Bradlaugh is elected to Parliament, but as an atheist is barred from taking his seat as he wishes to affirm rather than swear to God, as is required. Eventually he wins the argument, getting a law passed that allows MPs to affirm.

• Nazi Germany — Adolf Hitler banned atheist and freethought groups and regularly spoke against the "atheistic" or "godless movement."^[15] Indeed, Nazi Germany is a depressingly common example, with Reductio ad Hitlerum (wrongly, and thus ironically) used against atheists to associate them with Nazism.

• Cold War era USA — The association of atheism with "godless communism" became popular during the Red Scare.^[16]

• Chuck Norris wanting to "Tattoo an American flag with the words, "In God We Trust," on the forehead of every atheist" when he is elected President.^[17] Though this appears in a humorous self-deprecating article and may have been a joke.

 

[Kalbear]

From what studies I've read the notion of things happening for a reason is a deeply ingrained part of human evolution. Theism is more natural than atheism.

[TrueMetis]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

From what studies I've read the notion of things happening for a reason is a deeply ingrained part of human evolution. Theism is more natural than atheism.

That's not theism... Things happen for a reason, that doesn't mean god.

[karaddin]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

From what studies I've read the notion of things happening for a reason is a deeply ingrained part of human evolution. Theism is more natural than atheism.

...That's a much larger claim than the first part would seem to support.  

[Kalbear]

The notion of it being not caused by sentient guidance is not a particularly naturalistic view. Point of fact, there exist no societies that we have ever discovered that did not have some kind of God or gods.

At least until now.

There are other factors too - notions of spiritualism and desire to believe in things greater than oneself also appear to have some genetic roots. I'll see if I can find the articles, they're pretty fascinating.

[Kalbear]

From what studies I've read the notion of things happening for a reason is a deeply ingrained part of human evolution. Theism is more natural than atheism.

...That's a much larger claim than the first part would seem to support.  

Sorry, I can't be particularly detailed on the phone, but that was the implication I meant. Humans both appear to want to figure out cause and effect and are happy to assign cause to godlike things - and this appears to be about as universal a trait of human pancultures as there is.

[karaddin]

How would you feel about the statement "heterosexuality is more natural than homosexuality"? Because there are more straight people than gay people, but gay people are just as natural as straight people are.  My atheism is just as an intrinsic part of me as the desire to see some meaning apparently is to some others.

[Disturber of Peace]

Saying a story everyone falls for is good is like saying a virus everyone gets infected with is good.

[briantw]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

From what studies I've read the notion of things happening for a reason is a deeply ingrained part of human evolution. Theism is more natural than atheism.

The moment you can comprehend what death is is the same moment you need there to be some sort of post-death existence.  Hence, religion was born.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

Who the fuck cares if there were actual atheists being actively persecuted when the point was that those societies did not tolerate alternative beliefs, not that they were committing a genocide? This is pedantry that Scot started and everyone has just bought into. It wasn't the point.

Karaddin,

Is it your contention that the deaths at the hands of the Soviets because people professed religious faith is pedantry?  That's what this thread was about initially.  So, I certainly hope not.

The inability to properly measure the number of people in past societies who were athiest is also not pedantry.  It is a serious impediment to proper analysis of such a question.  That it happened is beyond question the degree and frequency with which such oppression occured is definately a question.

[DireWolfSpirit]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The notion of it being not caused by sentient guidance is not a particularly naturalistic view. Point of fact, there exist no societies that we have ever discovered that did not have some kind of God or gods.

At least until now.

There are other factors too - notions of spiritualism and desire to believe in things greater than oneself also appear to have some genetic roots. I'll see if I can find the articles, they're pretty fascinating.

Clever folks can be quite convincing at times. We have many people who buy into various theories, Austrian Economics, the Piltdown Man anthropology, all sorts of study that is later discredited. There's even a window of time where these claims are put forth and haven't been widely challenged yet where the claims seemingly stand up. If there are articles out there like your describing, count me as skeptical that they will stand up to peer review because my pseudoscience meter is blinking at those claims.

There is also the possibility that what was found was solid yet people have spun some shaky conclusions out of those findings. I have been guilty of that with some atheist videos myself. There are those "Jesus=Horus" videos -

^^^ Apparently some of the research and conclusions on that one have been discredited. The thing is with pseudoscience , there will be some mixture of truth and validity and it can sound convincing overall. But when you begin to peel away the layers, examine the claims closely, the holes in the argument are seen.

Anyways i'm quite skeptical we could say we are born theists and to become atheist is learned behavior.

 

[Pebble thats Stubby]

52 minutes ago, briantw said:

The moment you can comprehend what death is is the same moment you need there to be some sort of post-death existence.  Hence, religion was born.

Please don't make your viewpoint the only one thats correct.   There are many people out there including me who are very comfortable that death = we cease to exsist.  Many of us find it a great comfort.   to suggest that we are somehow lacking in our comprehension capabilities is rather insulting.   I don't fear being dead,  I do fear dying - that may hurt and I have a lot of reasons to live.

 

I have no doubt that a lot of people feel the need for there to be something else afterwards so invent an afterlife or find comfort in relligion as a crutch to cling to as a defensce againt non-exsistants.   One could argue if fear of death is your only reason you belive in God then perhaps it is your comprehension that is flawed.

Before someone jumps on me,   I know there are a lot of reason people belive in God(s)  and afterlife ect.  and most of them have nothing to do with the fear of non-existance.  I am not saying your comprehension is flawed for beliving if it is for other reasons than fear of something.