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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
Originally Posted by Monetpenny
Very interesting, Monetpenny, but would you go on to clarify what you mean by a religion? Do you mean an irrational set of beliefs / world view?
Or would you consider any world view that incudes ethics of any kind to be religious ?
Most communists would subscribe to a science-based view of the world.
I agree the question is astonishingly vague.
In Ireland "religious" may have stronger and more specific connotations than in many of the other countries polled.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
It is not easy to say a set of beliefs are not a religion.
Scientology is a legally recognised tax-exempt religion in several western countries.
Personally I consider it a load of nonsense but compared to other religions it is pretty much the same thing. It is a bunch of faith professionals who are using a series of fabricated stories to take money from the weak. The only difference is the scientology stories are much more modern & were fabricated more recently & they have updated the biblical floods, chariots & strong men with magic hair with 75million year old space ships & hydrogen bombs & thetans.
It is true that Communism adopted some elements of science but they also combined this with science denial.
For instance Marx promoted the later disproved belief that many human characteristics we now know to be inherited through genetics were caused by environmental factors. When scientists in 1930s Russia pointed this fact out, Stalin reacted by throwing the scientists into the gulag just like the Church imprisoned Galileo.
Just like fundamentalist Christians who promote creation science, Stalin backed a charlatan named Lysenko who came up with a completely false science of genetics that fit squarely with Communist dogma and then banned the teaching of genetics because it contradicted Communist dogma.
Communist regimes also had their holy books in the form of the writings of Marx, Lenin & Mao.
Like Christianity & Islam, Communism promises a paradise to the faithful. The only difference is that whilst Christian/Muslim heaven is after death Communist heaven is always at some unspecified time in the future & when it is not attained it is because the faithful didn't work hard enough & the faithful are severely punished.
Communism is not an example of what a society is like when religion is removed, but is more akin to a society that has religion forcibly imposed on it much like medieval Europe & some current Islamic states.
The citizen has his basic freedoms removed.
He is told what to do & think & if he deviates from what is outlined in the doctrine of the faith he is severely punished.
Something that is common to Communism, Nazism, Christianity & Islam is anti-Semitism & gay oppression.
I think there is a deliberate misunderstanding of atheism & non-religious as there is a significant propaganda war being waged by Christians.
It is very important for them to point out the evils of atheism & they are quick to point out that atheists are responsible for the greatest human massacres in the 20th century.
They even include Hitler's Nazis as atheists, despite Hitler being raised a Catholic, singing in the church choir & contemplating joining the priesthood.
Whilst most of the massacres were carried out by atheists, the interesting thing is that all of them had quite religious upbringings.
Stalin studied in a seminary & was only kicked out because he couldn't pay his tuition fees.
Kim Il Sung was raised in a Presbyterian family, his maternal grandfather was a Protestant minister, his parents were active in the religious community & his father went to missionary school & was an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
Pol Pot attended a Catholic school.
Fidel Castro was baptized Catholic & attended 3 Catholic schools.
The exceptions who didn't have a christian upbringing are Mao who was raised a Buddhist & later studied Confucianism & Ho Chi Minh who was also raised in Confucianism & his father was a Confucian scholar & teacher.
None of these mass murderers were raised non-religious atheists.
History has repeatedly shown us what happens when a religion, whether it is theist or atheist, is universally imposed on a society therefore it is a very fine thing that we are losing our religiosity.
We just have to be vigilant that it isn’t replaced by another form of theist or atheist religion.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
Very interesting post monetpenny. Indeed the line between a moral or belief system and a ''religion'' is a very blurred one.
Id just like to point out that including fidel castro in that list of mass murderers is a load of codswallop. And maybe it was their catholic upbringings that made all those leaders reject it in later life.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
Fidel was only included as if he was omitted you can be sure that the 'faithful' informed by US propaganda would point out that he should have been included & he is in the atheist mass murderer group we are warned about by Christians.
But there are others.
Mengistu's grandmother became a nun later in life which indicates that religion ran deep in his family.
Khorloogiin Choibalsan trained as a Lamaist monk.
Although Mussolini's father was a non-religious Socialist his mother was a devout Catholic & he was baptised late in life & sent to a Salesian College Boarding School (I was as well), but he was expelled for his very bad behaviour.
Whatever about atheism & mass murder there does appear to be a link between mass murder & a religious upbringing and/or a desire to lead a religious vocation.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
And Stalin was a graduate of a seminary school in Tbilisi- a good enough pupil that the religious order who ran the school bought him out of a Tsarist jail. Hitler's mother was a fanatical catholic as well- wanted little Adolf to be a priest.
That would be some interesting paper- the occurrence of religious fervour in the maternal parents of totalitarian dictators....
Think National. Act Local. Oh- and superstition is just the dark matter of human history.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
It is easy to see that scientology is nothing to do with science
Marxism, as developed by Marx and Engels, explicitly stated that it was founded only on science.It is true that Communism adopted some elements of science but they also combined this with science denial.
I'm not sure what exactly you have in mind here (I would be interested to read it), but Marx's view of science was that it was an iterative process in which knowledge is deepened and errors rectified by research and by testing results in practice. He would not have been at all surprised by this.For instance Marx promoted the later disproved belief that many human characteristics we now know to be inherited through genetics were caused by environmental factors.
Stalin was not a Marxist of course - although he would be considered a communist by most.When scientists in 1930s Russia pointed this fact out, Stalin reacted by throwing the scientists into the gulag just like the Church imprisoned Galileo.
Ah yes, I remember reading about this. But I've never read anything in terms of genetics that refutes Marxism. Marx read and admired Darwin - he sent a copy of Capital to Darwin and Darwin sent a friendly letter back, saying that they both were on the track of seeking the truth through science.Just like fundamentalist Christians who promote creation science, Stalin backed a charlatan named Lysenko who came up with a completely false science of genetics that fit squarely with Communist dogma and then banned the teaching of genetics because it contradicted Communist dogma.
Sorry, but the idea that the writings of Lenin and Marx are "holy books" doesn't stand up at all. The attitude that some people had to them may have been quasi religious, in that they idolised them without understanding them, does not in any way mean that the texts were religous.Communist regimes also had their holy books in the form of the writings of Marx, Lenin & Mao.
Unlike Christianity and Islam, communism proposed that it was possible for humans to have a better life on earth than exists under the present economic system. Stakhanovism is not Marxism.Like Christianity & Islam, Communism promises a paradise to the faithful. The only difference is that whilst Christian/Muslim heaven is after death Communist heaven is always at some unspecified time in the future & when it is not attained it is because the faithful didn't work hard enough & the faithful are severely punished.
Stretching it hereCommunism is not an example of what a society is like when religion is removed, but is more akin to a society that has religion forcibly imposed on it much like medieval Europe & some current Islamic states.
The citizen has his basic freedoms removed.
He is told what to do & think & if he deviates from what is outlined in the doctrine of the faith he is severely punished.
Something that is common to Communism, Nazism, Christianity & Islam is anti-Semitism & gay oppression.Any repressive regime is religious, even if it is anti-religious ? I don't think so and I don't see the logic in that assertion. You are, in fairness to you, equating communism with the Russian and Eastern European workers states and their regimes, and it is understandable that people do this. But of the ideologies you've listed, only Nazism is anti-semitic. The other groups may have been tainted to some extent by anti-semitism here or there, but no more so than was general in society at large of the time. The same with gay oppression and oppression of women.
Stalin was a trainee priest as well. I don't think he ever grasped Marxist materialism.I think there is a deliberate misunderstanding of atheism & non-religious as there is a significant propaganda war being waged by Christians.
It is very important for them to point out the evils of atheism & they are quick to point out that atheists are responsible for the greatest human massacres in the 20th century.
If you look at the slaughter carried out in the 20th century, why let off the British fire bombing Dresden, the deaths in the trenches of WW1, the bombing of Japanese cities with nuclear bombs, the slaughter of about 1 million Indonesian communists with US backing, and so and and so on ?
Millions died of starvation in Russia before the workers states, and in China. I think you are being a tad selective. It was a century of mass slaughter.
It's an interesting idea, but I'm not convinced that these are "religions without gods." Buddhism is, perhaps.They even include Hitler's Nazis as atheists, despite Hitler being raised a Catholic, singing in the church choir & contemplating joining the priesthood.
Whilst most of the massacres were carried out by atheists, the interesting thing is that all of them had quite religious upbringings.
Stalin studied in a seminary & was only kicked out because he couldn't pay his tuition fees.
Kim Il Sung was raised in a Presbyterian family, his maternal grandfather was a Protestant minister, his parents were active in the religious community & his father went to missionary school & was an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
Pol Pot attended a Catholic school.
Fidel Castro was baptized Catholic & attended 3 Catholic schools.
The exceptions who didn't have a christian upbringing are Mao who was raised a Buddhist & later studied Confucianism & Ho Chi Minh who was also raised in Confucianism & his father was a Confucian scholar & teacher.
None of these mass murderers were raised non-religious atheists.
History has repeatedly shown us what happens when a religion, whether it is theist or atheist, is universally imposed on a society therefore it is a very fine thing that we are losing our religiosity.
We just have to be vigilant that it isn’t replaced by another form of theist or atheist religion.
Last edited by C. Flower; 14-08-2012 at 12:37 PM.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
We've had many types of religions.
We've had polytheist religions.
We have monotheist religions (Islam & Judaism)
We have a hybrid monotheist/polytheist religion (Christianity is monotheist in name only, in practise it is a polytheist religion).
And we have atheist religions.
Buddhism, Jainism & Confucianism.
Neither Jainism nor Confucianism has a deity.
But they are recognised as religions.
I was merely pointing out that there is no necessity for a 'movement' to have a deity for it to be considered a religion, which is the reason theists give for dismissing the notion that Communism is a religion.
Communism is often considered a political ideology, but Christianity & Islam are also political ideologies as well as being religions.
Christianity is also scientific in that it promotes the ‘science of creationism’.
Just because a movement utilises science it doesn’t mean that the science it relies on is true or that the movement is not religious.
There are many examples of official Stalinist oppression of Jews, the Night of the Murdered Poets being but one.
Also, Jewish persecution was widespread throughout medieval Europe.
Anti-Semitism was not the preserve of the Nazis nor was it isolated public disapproval.
The same applies to homosexuality.
Ancient polytheist superstitions did not persecute homosexual activity so it is not as if all religions forbade homosexuality.
In fact in pre-christian Celtic traditions it was quite common for warriors to offer their bed to travelling warriors & it was considered a grave insult to the host if the visitor did not accept the offer.
I may have erred when I described Lenin & Marx as holy books & should have more accurately reported that they were revered by the faithful as holy books.
But we don't know what the original writers of the gospels had in mind when they were written.
Perhaps they were just recording some dramatic bed-time tales that are now perceived as religious truths.
Also, I’m not saying that “Any repressive regime is religious, even if it is anti-religious ?”Communism was repressive of other political ideologies/religions in much the same way that current Islamic states are repressive of alternative religions/political ideologies & medieval European states were repressive of religions/political ideologies that ran contrary to the official state religion/regime.
They are only oppressive of religions/political ideologies that conflict their own beliefs.
There have indeed been many atrocities committed by people other than communists.
But what is being done is that Christians are airbrushing those from history & highlighting the massacres of atheists.
A teacher training college in Ireland had a multi-choice question in its final exam paper that asked:
“Atheists have been responsible for the bloodiest human massacres in the 20th Century.”
You were given the option of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ & the correct answer was ‘yes’.
Christians want to portray atheism as evil & there is an abundance of material on the web highlighting this belief.
I’m merely pointing out that atheism does not necessarily mean non-religious and whilst no side wants to have the likes of Stalin, Hitler et al aligned to their faction, I believe that Stalin & Hitler would sit more comfortably amongst the religious sect rather than the non-religious group.
The most bizarre attempt at rebranding a group atheist is that of the Nazis.
The Nazis were religious & most were Catholic.
The Nazis stole religious artefacts including the holy lance (the Viennese version) & held it in Nuremburg throughout WWII. If they had no interest in religion then why did they actively pursue such religious relics & retain them?
Himmler's mother was a devout Roman Catholic & his family was conservative Roman Catholic.
Hermann Göring was also brought up as a Christian.
Rudolf Hess joined the Thule Society.
.... & let us not forget our own de Valera.
He was turned down for the priesthood twice.
Probably due to his suspected illegitimacy.
Hitler's father was illegitimate which might have been enough for church authorities to exclude him from the priesthood.
I wonder what the Catholic church would have been like if Hitler & De Valera had been accepted into the priesthood?
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
I'd say that a better definition might that if you are setting out on a career path of becoming a totalitarian dictator your toolbox should include the use of mystique in creating a super-icon and religion is helpful in that regard.
Most of the repressive conquerors in history have taken the time to seek the endorsement of priests and had to be able to say 'Gott mitt uns' to get the plebs on the military bus to the front line.
Stalin may not have used religion but he certainly used the apparatus of religion- the iconography, the aura of superhumanity and definitely the advertising techniques.
Think National. Act Local. Oh- and superstition is just the dark matter of human history.
Senior Member
Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
Just to complicate things further, it is also possible to be a non-religious non-atheist!
Deists like myself would belong in that category.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
Richardbouvet
Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 410
Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
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Just to complicate things further, it is also possible to be a non-religious non-atheist!
Deists like myself would belong in that category.
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I don't see why not.
There are people who believe in a god but don't have any religious observances.
But a non-atheist would be a theist.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
Monetpenny - I suppose this comes down to definitions. Some would say that a religion is a cult or belief system centred on worship of a god or gods. But I think the distinction between belief systems that are irrational and philosophies / world views based on science and rationality is an important distinction.I was merely pointing out that there is no necessity for a 'movement' to have a deity for it to be considered a religion, which is the reason theists give for dismissing the notion that Communism is a religion.
Marx was actively atheist and anti-religion. Marx might have said that Stalin's compromises with religion were a reflection of the objective conditions in Russia, where most of the population were still poor semi-literate or illiterate peasants, with no experience of science or technology.
I agree with you that there is no basis for assumptions that religious people are any better behaved than atheists.
Do you remember Mine Bean ui Chribín ?
She died recently.
A very Christian woman, she is best remembered for having gone to Court to prevent the children in the Roscommon incest case being taken in to care.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...321982042.html
The relation between ethics are religion are a minefield. Institutional religion is more about power relations than about anything else.
Senior Member
Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
There are degrees of "theist." Classical deists would not, for example, believe that the Supreme Being intervenes in human affairs, such as via miracles or prophets, and some would say that such a being has no interest whatever in humanity.
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Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
What is your god or gods like, Richard B ?
Senior Member
Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
I don't really want to get into a discussion of deism. I was only making the point that it is possible to be non-religious and non-atheist just as it seems possible to be religious and atheist.
However, here is quite a good link:
http://www.deism.com/
Senior Member
Re: Ireland in "Top Ten" Countries for Atheisim - Less than 50% say they are "religious" - Red C Poll
How can there be a degree of theism? Its like saying there are degrees of bicyclism- when you are either a bicyclist or not.
"Can you ride a bike?"
"To a degree"....
"Do you believe there is a god?"
"Partly".
Whut?
Think National. Act Local. Oh- and superstition is just the dark matter of human history.
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