Atheism - Joseph Stalin’s Godless 5-year plan of 1928

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I see that you’re relying solely on anecdotal evidence and, perhaps, confirmation bias to support your stance.

Stereotypes and generalizations about groups of people often diverge significantly from reality and are rooted in prejudice. Ethnocentrism is not solely an American thing.

On a different note, atheism does not necessitate cynicism. Many have a neutral worldview although there’s a lot of diversity as far as personal outlook is concerned since atheism is not an ideology. When it comes to people, I tend to believe that most are good.

I think I agree with most of what you've said there. I would differ over the idea that atheism as such is necessarily any more cynical than religiosity. I think the key factor may be the intensity of the group's (or individual's) particular ideology. I'm happy with most ideologies as long as the adherents view it as just their personal favourite, no better overall than anybody else's ideology. I think it gets more dangerous when they get too proud of it and they shun those who aren't on quite the same wavelength. People who think they've got their hands on the objective truth about how everybody should live - either through fundamentalist religion, intense Marxism or whatever - become a threat to everybody else.

I see religion as doing both good and harm, and so I'd rather governments be neutral towards it than see it as overall beneficial or dangerous. Otherwise government can end up persecuting and discriminating against atheists, just as they used to do in the UK. I've read some of the justifications the government had for that, and the scary thing is that they made sense within their own frame of reference. Law was based on Christianity, so they logically considered atheism to be a threat to the stability and fabric of the nation. Marx saw the Church as highly instrumental in the oppression of the working class, and so it was deemed logical to eliminate it along with the ruling class.

Not sure if you know this or not, blitzkrieg, but Stalin actually did reduce the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church during World War 2 (your post pointed out that the purges ended in '39, though I'm not sure if you knew the reason). Stalin's motivation was mostly to use the church to help keep Russia unified during a time of crisis.

I've heard that atheists in intensely religious communities tend to be more strident about atheism, partially as a reaction to their own surroundings. I'm not sure if the reverse is also true.

Personally, I'm an agnostic. I don't know whether or not there are any gods. Generally, I don't act as if any deities exist (in the sense that I do not make any religious observations) but I won't claim to be certain as to their nonexistence. The idea of a deity doesn't offer much reassurance to me; the love often seems to come with a lot of strings attached. But I understand that others do cherish this kind of belief. I welcome people to believe what they want, so long as they respect my skepticism.

In my mind, my belief that there is a God is based on hope and faith, which is what a lot of Christians go on rather than simply observing the way things are or the 'how' of science to explain things. I also wonder 'why' as well as 'how', although I am aware some atheists believe that there is no reason for anything - existence itself being an example that this line of thought could be applied to.

My view that atheism is cynical is to do with the fact that a lot of atheists refuse to believe things without evidence, in some cases where evidence is not something that would necessarily be present due to the nature of what is supposed to be provable.

I think being tolerant of other people's views, religious, atheist or whichever - is important as you imply.



I think when religion doesn't work or it becomes extreme and interferes with normal thought or behaviour - it can do harm. On a societal level, personally I think it does good and even on an individual level it can have benefits for mental health (the placebo effect as medical scientists would say).



Interesting! I haven't really looked into atheist oppression(s), though I am sure it went on as you describe.



Yeah. I tend not to agree with Marx, but I understand his viewpoint in general in that respect.

Interesting. I think if the purges ended in 1939, it would of been because there were almost no churches left at that point, but also because priorities might have changed due to a world war being a pressing issue as you describe?



I can imagine that to be true about atheists. I haven't really met many Christians who are particularly strident, though I am sure they exist.



I respect your skepticism, Minder.

I like hope a lot because in me, when I have none, I'm usually depressed. But other times it can be more a case of "now I've given up all hope, I feel much better." I think that happens when I've been exhausting myself chasing something that I can't catch.

For a long time, I thought faith was simply the act of pretending you know something you don't know. But then I began to see faith as having 2 forms - cognitive and behavioural. When I was first being taught Christianity, I was scared by the notion that I'd not go to Heaven unless I had faith, because even as a small child I couldn't honestly pretend my strong skepticism didn't exist. I still can't. That's cognitive faith. I was relieved when we got to Mark 2:4-5. That's behavioural faith. I do that every day. I don't know that the things I try will work, and sometimes I'm pretty sure they won't, but sometimes I'll give an idea a whirl if I don't see any great downside. Thomas also gave me some relief, as he demanded strong evidence but rather than being rejected, evidence was supplied and he was even canonised. Yet when a modern atheist demands the same thing, he's called cynical.

Not that I discount the value of cognitive faith. Placebos sometimes work wonders, and I've heard of people being hypnotised into performing astonishing feats, presumably because they'd hitherto been holding themselves back with an illusion that they couldn't do this or that. Many of us are probably guilty of underestimating our abilities in some respects, without ever suspecting we're needlessly limiting ourselves. So I probably have that kind of cognitive, unconscious faith about some things, but for me it seems impossible to consciously turn it on and off.


My feeling is that life just happened, and that the only meaning or purpose to it is what the individual chooses. So my chosen purposes are to make myself as happy as possible for as long as possible, and luckily for everybody else, I enjoy making people happy and easing their suffering, though I don't claim to be especially skilled at that.


Interesting you say "refuse." That suggests somebody is asking them to believe things. I suppose in my case I might give them the benefit of the doubt if I didn't feel it was too risky. It would depend on who's asking, what they're asking, and if they'd already earned my trust. Rigorous theoretical science doesn't take things on faith. Its upside is that its conclusions are remarkably robust and reliable, its feet aren't made of clay, so it's very powerful. Its downside is that it can take a great deal of painstaking work to get there. Don't know that scientific rigour is cynical, I think it's just awake to the dangers of sloppy thinking. Many theists are also good scientists. I don't yet understand how they do that.


Yes it's the evangelical ones on both sides who worry me.


I've heard quite a few secular people say that they're OK with religious groups "as long as they keep it to themselves." I agree with them. I'm sure there are benefits to some aspects of religion. Humans are unfortunately capable of anticipating their own deaths, which can create terrible pain and anxiety because of our strong survival instinct as individuals and as a group. Spiritualist churches contain mostly old people who must get great comfort from hearing that they will live after they die and that their deceased loved ones are happily waiting to meet them again on the other side. A blue placebo pill may alleviate pain and anxiety. In both cases they may be swallowing BS, but there are times when truth does more harm than good. It's disturbing to think that heaven
may be something they made up to stop us all going mad.


I'll try to post a link after this. WrongPlanet tends to disallow my posts when they contain both quotes and links.


This elimination thing seems to have been taken to mean mass murder, when I'd much prefer it to mean removing the power and wealth of the church and the elite rather than slaughtering them. But even Stalin was probably trapped. Once you've had your revolution, there are a lot of angry ex-leaders who will do their utmost to get their power and wealth back, and if they succeed, they'll probably kill you. Sometimes I think that proper Christianity and Socialism are just too good for humans.

This is a history of blasphemy law and tells how religionists treated atheists in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy ... ed_Kingdom

Mercifully, they moved little by little from heartbreaking persecution to live-and-let-live. Some still say they've gone too far.

I guess in the USA it was rather different, the thing being founded by people who went there to escape persecution in the first place. I gather there are now (and perhaps always have been) fundamentalists who would move things back to the way it used to be. Ironic. Are they a real threat or not?

When the Nazis attacked, it was pretty much all hands on deck to defend the Soviet Union. Stalin had killed off a fair number of his own military officers in the purges, which made things much harder for him. The Winter War with Finland didn't help, either.



Here I'll define "strident" as someone who doesn't respect the rights of non-Christians to believe what they believe. I have met some, more online than in-person. I live in a pretty secular part of the States, so even the more strident ones here tend to be less vocal since they won't get much support.

Nearly all of the strident atheists I've met were online.



Appreciated!