posted April 22, 2013 01:30 AM            

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Originally posted by katatonic:
how has atheism done that, padre? what war has been fought in the name of atheism?

while i would grant that for some atheism is a religion! i cannot recall a single one.

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posted April 22, 2013 02:07 AM            

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Originally posted by Padre35:
Really? Communists, both Maoist and Lennites were not atheistic?

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posted April 22, 2013 02:18 AM            

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Originally posted by doommlord:
was atheist the main cause of communism? was it purpose to enforce atheism and atheism alone to this world? was it boult on religious foundations only?

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Atheism was a central pillar of communism, since C&P's are being used:

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I dream of the day when the last priest is strangled on the guts of the last preacher. —Gus Hall (Chairman, Communist Party U.S.A.)

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posted April 22, 2013 02:41 AM            

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Originally posted by katatonic:

my mother was excommunicated (and ostracized by many of her family) for marrying a divorced noncatholic

my orthodox paternal grandmother refused to recognize my existence, and my younger sister's, because "you only have ONE wife and TWO children"...ie first marriage=forever to the orthodox jew she was...and to marry a gentile! funnily she did not pretend my mother wasn't in the room when visited! but even on her deathbed she refused to believe in we two children.

both my parents rejected their religions, and all religion, for the very reasons in your OP, lexx, that ALL wars have basically been justified by religious differences, whether painted as "saving the infidel" or "destroying the infidel" it is always the INFIDEL on the other side.

and now the christians among us have finally got a MUSLIM terror incident they want us to forget that MOST of our terrorism has come from white americans, and often twisted christian ones at that.

'course the muslim religious freaks are no better, but i would never call them worse either. religious fanatics are fanatics.

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posted April 22, 2013 03:45 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by katatonic:

my mother was excommunicated (and ostracized by many of her family) for marrying a divorced noncatholic

my orthodox paternal grandmother refused to recognize my existence, and my younger sister's, because "you only have ONE wife and TWO children"...ie first marriage=forever to the orthodox jew she was...and to marry a gentile! funnily she did not pretend my mother wasn't in the room when visited! but even on her deathbed she refused to believe in we two children.

both my parents rejected their religions, and all religion, for the very reasons in your OP, lexx, that ALL wars have basically been justified by religious differences, whether painted as "saving the infidel" or "destroying the infidel" it is always the INFIDEL on the other side.

and now the christians among us have finally got a MUSLIM terror incident they want us to forget that MOST of our terrorism has come from white americans, and often twisted christian ones at that.

'course the muslim religious freaks are no better, but i would never call them worse either. religious fanatics are fanatics.

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posted April 22, 2013 06:25 AM            

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Originally posted by katatonic:
how has atheism done that, padre? what war has been fought in the name of atheism?

while i would grant that for some atheism is a religion! i cannot recall a single one.

i would also say that there is good in every religion. as there is good in atheism and humanism. however they all include the need to stick to dogma of a certain kind.

and that dogma is what justifies man's inhumanity to man. except in cases where absolute survival/competition for food is the rationale, but even then, people have historically been convinced to "fight the good fight" for their version of god.

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if we should comment about the faults of all beliefs then we should also study these beliefs.
Communism meant atheism. Do you know how many people died in communists prisons just because they believed in (a) God/deity?
In Russia after the rev ”17 they started an extermination campaign of priests and christian followers, and many churches were destroyed.

I agree with regardes, anything can become a threat if is taken to extreme.
Humanity”s downfall is not religion, it”s ignorance and the habit of acting like cattle, following other”s example without understanding it first.
First we have ideas, like those of Marx, and Engels : ”religion is a fantasy reflex in the human mind” / ”religion is the opium of the masses”. Then we have someone like Lenin and others like him, who took these ideas and put them into practice, using and distorting them according to comunist ideals thus creating a society of zombies.
People think atheism represent intelligence and religion ignorance? Atheism is complete freedom and religion is slavery?

Let me give you an extract of the atheist communist ways in Romania:

----”In communist Romania, the experience of "brainwashing" called ”unmasking cure” has surpassed all human limits, far exceeding the Chinese torturers in practicing morality crushing of young prisoners, especially students. The first person who revealed the case is the former political prisoner of Pitesti Center, Dumitru Baku, who died in the fall of 1997, who presents in detail, in his shattering book - "Pitesti - rehabilitation center for students", published in Madrid in 1958 and republished again after the revolution, in Romania- the used system of general degradation, under the care of a rehabilitated monster, Turcanu. Behold, for instance, one of the criminal methods revealed by the author: "The students were forced to eat "piggishly", that is using only their mouths. The student had to sit on his knees with his hands behind his back, or directly from the floor if that was the order of the rehabilitation chief instructor. From this position, he had to sip the hot liquid from the vessel put in front of him. The "bandits" were not allowed to wash it after eating the content. Cleaning was done with their tongue only, because water was consumed only by those who were already re-educated.
In turn, Virgil Ierunca writes about the Pitesti Prison: 'the delirious imagination of Žurcanu raged especially when having to deal with students who believed in God and tried not to renounce Him. Some were "baptized" in the morning: immerging their head in a bucket of urine and faeces, while others, surrounding and cursing, chanted a blasphemous formula of baptism. This lasted until the liquid was bubbling. As for the theology students, they were forced by Mr Turcan (as he pretended to be called) to perform as priests in the black masses he held, especially on Easter week and the night of the resurrection. The text of Žurcanu's liturgy was, of course, pornographic, paraphrasing a demonic version of the original text. The Holy Mother of God was called "the great ***** " and Jesus an idiot who died on the cross ". The theology student who had the main role of the priest, was stripped naked, then covered with a sheet smeared with feces, and a phallus made of DDT, bread and soap hang on his neck. On Resurrection night of 1950, the inmates on the phase of rehabilitation in Pitesti, "were obliged to pass before such a "priest", to kiss the phallus and say "Christ is risen". (Virgil Ierunca "Pitesti", 1981, pp. 41-42).----

posted April 22, 2013 06:54 AM            

And I see her point. Of course other groups who wish to bypass critical thinking do something similar as religion, especially when their intent is prevent anyone from questioning their unjust powers and acts as they know they have no valid reason for acting that way. Whereas Christians are likely to refer to things like the deeper concept of the indwelling Holy Spirit or whichever part of the Bible is relevant, honest reasoning can also be bypassed with other inexplicable concepts such as the voice of the Ayran blood (as many Nazis like to talk about), and the Soviets (especially under Stalin) was all about Lenin's explanation of dialectics (in which everything stated was done in such a way that it could be changed at a moment's notice to whatever was convenient, and it only worked for the same reason the absurd ideas of Christianity originally worked when it was new: by terror and mass murder). By doing so they put their assertions beyond questioning and keep their absurd ideas from being brought before the bench of reason because it's the only objective way of validating knowledge and rooting out deception--and their intent is to deceive (maybe even themselves along with everyone else).

posted April 22, 2013 10:53 AM            

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Originally posted by jellyfishtry:

What a topic...i think the same bad people will use both religion or aethiesism whatever suits their purpose, as an excuse to cause harm to whoever they decided to do harm to. It's happening all the time these days.

it's about time to move beyond the label, and see what the content that the label doesn't want you to be able to see, really is.

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Exactly, if one's head is on the chopping block, it matters very little to one if it got there due to the Church or the State.

posted April 22, 2013 12:29 PM              

however communism, ANTI religionism, is a relatively new phenomenon in history, less than two hundred years old against a tapestry of religious dogma throughout the ages.

i am not saying people were not persecuted by the communists for clinging to their religions, but the REASON atheism became one of the pillars of communism was because of the perceived effects of religion on people...the willingness to be sacrificed because REAL life takes place in the "hereafter" being seen to undermine reason and humanitarianism

it is really the "ism" that is so destructive, and historically speaking, religion has been the controlling force even more so than the state.

as i said, there is good in every religion, and that includes atheism! man's willingness to be herded by ideology and be controlled by the rules of that ideology is the real problem.

democracy is also used in the same way, as an excuse for taking over those who do not BELIEVE in it.

posted April 22, 2013 04:39 PM            

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however communism, ANTI religionism, is a relatively new phenomenon in history, less than two hundred years old against a tapestry of religious dogma throughout the ages.

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True true. it is the -ism that makes no sense. religion these days has become an excuse to hate on others, and not as the spiritual thing that was intended.

A problem i have are a lot of the verses quoted in the OP here...yet a very famous story of Jesus Christ, is his 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' quote when ...yet the bible the book attributed this highly spiritual being who managed to lift himself above the religions of his time (a message in that itself) is filled with some really cruel things and it makes no sense to me at all to link the two.

Some other 'energy' got in to use this person and his 'achievements' for their own agenda, knowing they can scare people from questioning anything deemed holy.

what did he really mean when he said 'i am the way'

posted April 22, 2013 04:53 PM            

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Originally posted by jellyfishtry:
[B]
What a topic...i think the same bad people will use both religion or aethiesism whatever suits their purpose, as an excuse to cause harm to whoever they decided to do harm to. /B]

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People who wish to control and oppress others will do it with whatever Idea is the most powerful in their culture at the time

Those who hunger for power will seek it wherever it lies.

This has always been true for mankind.

posted April 23, 2013 04:22 AM            

you have no idea what you are talking about
the real reason, communism has adopted atheism and was against christianity was because the people supported each other;
under communists people were divided in fear, they were afraid of their own shadow. This is the goal of a totalitarian society. To control them you need them stupid and fearfull. To control a person you need first to obtain her obedience and strip her of any moral code.
totalitarism meant fear, propaganda and terror, it meant brainwashing
communists didnt give a flying c„1234p about the effects of religion on people )
have you ever read 1984 by orwell?

In 2013 we still live in ignorance. Do you think that it has ended? everyone is preaching about nazism and how terrible it was but & thank god it has ended...but if you search closely you will see that dictatorship is still very spread across the globe: north korea,cuba,china----in 2013...

The crimes of cummunism are not lesser than those of nazism or fascism, yet everyone ignores it, why? do any of you know what happens in north korea right now, in 21st century? the foreign press barely makes it into the country to do a documentary or two, and this only under the most strict control.

”A young woman, in her twenties, was washing clothes in a tributary to the Tumen River (the border between China and North Korea). When packing up the clothes, she dropped what was believed to be a small Bible. The actual words used by the North Korean authorities were “Christianity book” (kiddokyo chaek). Another washer woman reported the girl to the police. According to Interviewee 4, the informer may not have known that the book was a Bible, but all suspicious activity had to be reported to the police. The young woman and her father, looking to be roughly sixty years old, were arrested and held by the local Gukgabowibu police for some three months. During that time, the woman and her father were presumably investigated and interrogated. Apparently, they were deemed guilty of a capital offense. On a summer morning in 1997, the two were taken to a market area near where the Seong Cheon River runs into the Tumen River. The two were accused of trafficking and condemned as traitors to the nation and Kim Jong Il. Interviewee 4 was unaware of any other judicial procedures prior to the announcement of the crime, verdict, and sentence in an extremely brief public “show trial,” which consisted of no more than announcements of the charges and verdict immediately prior to the execution. Teachers and students from elementary (4th grade and up), middle, and high school were assembled, along with persons who had been sent over from the nearby market. Seven police fired three shots each into the two victims, who had been tied to stakes a few meters from the “trial” area. The force of the rifle shots, fired from fifteen meters away, caused blood and brain matter to be blown out of their heads. Interviewee 4 was in the fifth row. She sketched from memory a schematic drawing of the execution scene."
http://www.northkoreanchristians.com/religion-north-korea.html

there are countries that in 2013 live in terror and yet we complain about what the spanish inquisition in the middle ages(for e.g)

posted April 23, 2013 04:33 AM            

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People who wish to control and oppress others will do it with whatever Idea is the most powerful in their culture at the time

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