In debunking atheism and using the tu quoque or "you too!" argument to point fingers in the opposite direction whenever religious atrocities are raised, defenders of theism often bring up the notion that some of the most destructive and genocidal ideologies in history, Communism, Nazism and "Pol Potery," were "atheistic," because their leaders were "atheists."
In my book The Gospel According to Acharya S, I delve briefly into these subjects, raising a few facts and conclusions that may not be widely known - but should be, because of these anti-atheist arguments. Here is a pertinent excerpt from The Gospel, also included in an Examiner article, "Is atheism the answer, Part 3?", which is the source for the last two paragraphs of commentary here. (All facts in the following excerpt are carefully cited in The Gospel from reliable sources.)
Were Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot atheists?
Theists hold up Communism and Nazism, along with the regime of the Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot, as evidence of murderous "atheist" tyrannies that have caused the deaths of tens of millions. While it may be true that Communism portrayed itself as "godless," it did not wage war in the name of atheism, nor were its founders and leaders raised as atheists. They were, in fact, preponderantly Jewish and Christian. Communist Manifesto writer Karl Marx was born a Jew, the grandson of two rabbis, and was converted to Christianity at age 6. Leon Trotsky, whose real name was Lev Bronstein, was born and raised a Jew but later declared himself "an internationalist."
Josef Stalin's "very religious" mother named him after St. Joseph, and wanted him to become a priest. Stalin himself supposedly claimed that his father had been a priest, and he was purportedly "damaged by violence" while being "raised in a poor priest-ridden household." As a youth, Stalin spent five years in a Greek Orthodox seminary, after which he purportedly renounced his religion. In his later years, Stalin apparently embraced Christianity once more. As Stalin biographer Edvard Radinsky remarks, "During his mysterious retreat [of June 1941] the ex-seminarist had decided to involve the aid of the God he had rejected." Radinsky likewise chronicles a number of religious comrades in Stalin's immediate circle. It is evident that, whether for good or bad, religion played a significant role in Stalin's life.
Adolf Hitler was raised a Catholic, and in a speech in 1922 he remarked, "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter..." In his autobiography Mein Kampf (1.2), Hitler stated:
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Throughout his life, Hitler invoked God and "the Lord," demonstrating his religious, not atheistic, nature. Pol Pot was raised a Buddhist and Catholic. In this regard, Dr. Ian Harris, a Reader in Religious Studies at the University College of St. Martin, relates: "In one of his early writings Pol Pot wrote approvingly that the 'democratic regime will bring back the Buddhist moralism because our great leader Buddha was the first to have taught [democracy].'" Although in comparison to the Abrahamic religions its history is far less violent, Buddhism has not been entirely devoid of atrocity in its spread and practice.
If we are to insist—as many people have done, including numerous theists and atheists alike—that religious human abuse is the cause of atheistic reaction against religion, we need look no further, it would seem, than to Josef Stalin's religiously abusive childhood to discover from where much of his rage appeared to emanate. His atheistic reaction therefore would be caused by religion. Hitler, who was also fascinated by mysticism, could not be deemed an "atheist" by any scientific standard, and Pol Pot also was not raised an atheist in a vacuum devoid of religion but was obviously affected and motivated by it.
If atheism is frequently but a reaction against human abuse by religion, then in itself such disbelief may not be the cause of malfeasance.
Sources & Further Reading
The Gospel According to Acharya S
Is atheism the answer, Part 3?"
Was Hitler Christian, Pagan or Atheist?
What is a mythicist?
Comments (52)
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|2010-04-27 20:47:46 StevenWell, 2 things. As much as I hate Christianity (that creed of slaves), I will defend even my worst enemies from false accusations. Second, there's a point that needs mention.
1) If Hitler was a Christian, how do you explain the Nuremberg Project?
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/endC.htm.
(PS: Don't worry. There's still plenty of massacres to blame Christians for.) As for what faith Hitler or any of the Nazi party leaders and members actually were, it gets confusing; some felt like using the German churches as political tools, some liked atheism and others still wanted to return to pre-Christian Norse/Germanic paganism. The Nazi party really had no consensus on this.
And btw, Mein Kampf is meant for public consumption, and it not necessarily what Hitler believes. In private he referred to Christianity as "Bolshevism in a tinsel of metaphysics" (see Table Talk--apparently someone made a book of all the conversations he had with his generals/advisers etc at Berchtesgaden during the War) This is 1924. He's still trying get out of Landsberg Prison at this point. He's not showing his true hand just yet, or they'd keep him there.
2) How did Hitler and Stalin portray themselves? In a Messianic way, of course. That Germany and Russia were Christian paves the way for the "one great leader" who has come to "save the country." In Germany, Goebbels even claimed "God has not manifested himself in Jesus Christ, but in Adolf Hitler". And of course the Jews were the devil. As for the Marxists, has anyone noticed the May Day Parades feature crowds carrying ICONS of Lenin, Marx and Stalin, as if they were gods? While Marxism may be very different than Christianity, to the frankly disinterested Russian, it still feels like the Russian Orthodox church with a few new gods to replace the old.
In short, while Hitler was not a Christian, he would have found his work impossible if Christianity never existed.
I don't see why it's so important if Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc were atheists. We see massacres and butchery whether the authorities are religious are not. The real problem is statism; where there is greater centralization and love of intrusive government, there is problem. Personally I'm a Deist, but I think Athiests following the US Constitution would work fine.
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I suspect that the strain in Cambodia is of the atheistic variety. Too often in the U.S. religion is equated with gods, when there's a huge variety of ungodly superstition out there.
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|2010-04-17 20:53:28 Arhata - Stalin - AtehistAll of them were too preoccupied to think about matter such as this.
They DID NOT experience any respectable experience of any kind. Dogs with a diabolical gift for hell.
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|2010-04-17 21:32:31 Lochness - ideas, not God, the problemIt's not God, who, if He exists is ineffable and beyond the knowledge of humans, that is the cause of the atrocities committed by religious and non-religious people.
The real cause of atrocity is the elevation of an idea and an ideology above the rights of a human being.
Catholic persecution of pagans, protestants, and jews was of the religious against the religious. Thus, it was about the dominance of an idea, and an ideology backed by brute force and violence.
Communism, as an ideology, acted with violence against all other ideologies that stood in competition with it. Christians, bhuddists, capitalists- all were violently suppressed in Communist nations.
Where protestants assumed political power during the reformation, the protestant state acted violently towards witches (pagan), and catholics, as well as against other protestant sects that did not adgere to a proclaimed creed (ideology), such as anabaptists.
Thus we can see that the ascendancy of an ideology to political power without the safeguard of a commitment to the freedom of conscience, leads to persecution of any competing ideology. It matters not if the ideology is based on a mystical perception of reality (religious), or whether it is a materialistic outlook. ideology and political power has proven a fatal combination in most cases.
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|2010-04-17 21:57:43 AnonymousThe majority of people int he world had a religion, especially pre liberal 1960's or so. Implying that religion is the cause of all that is wrong in the world is like saying government is the cause of all suffering in the world.
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|2010-04-17 22:01:27 Erika - in search of truth in educationWell I like the article as well. I knew that Hitler was a confirmed
Christian and was hand in glove with the Catholic hierarchy in Europe.
I am not as well versed in Pol Pot nor Stalin though I knew Stalin had a Christian upbringing. I think the main point of the article is how atheists are tainted by the theists as having created some of the worst war criminals in the 20th century. I think EDUCATION is key here. The theists do not want to examine the FACTS that led to these men being so outrageously abusive to humanity and their own people.
We need to keep educating people as to the truth so they will not make these obnoxious blanket statements that really make the theists look oh so pious. It's still this ignorance masquerading as truth that
we have to fight against time and time again. The agenda is simple. Find a group, point a finger, make statements that they are bad, wrong, evil, immoral. Meanwhile the group that does that is
just as complicit in the actions they rail against in the first place.
It's textbook psych 101 disinformation.
Please people, when you hear something, do some research.
Don't just accept anything anyone tells you at face value. Educate
yourself, look at the facts, examine both sides. Then make up your mind. Blindless devotion is what caused these holocausts
of WWII, Soviet Stalinism, and The Killing Fields to begin with.
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|2010-04-17 22:09:48 john - BeliefsIt makes sense that religions would have influenced these monsters. All religions by their very nature are exclusive and allow thoughts of marginalizing those who are not members of their club. Even aetheism is a belief and thus not a truth. So even aethists need to free themselves of their religion and allow choices for themselves. We are all one.
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|2011-08-25 06:49:40 Jan - On BeliefsAthism is as much a belief as not collecting postage stamps is a hobby.
And I have never heard anyone claim that atheism is a truth whatever that means.
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|2010-04-17 22:12:31 Anthony - AtheismWow.........if there is any doubt about Communism being Atheistic I'm sure it is with the doubters.........
No, Christians were not Communists. Jews were...........
Anybody really doubting that??
And how about A. Pike? And his 'we'll let loose on the world the Atheists and the Nihilists?'.
Yes, many people have been murdered in the name of God.
None of these murderers were of God.
Atheism is showing this really religious fervor in denying God. Religious, because in a scientific sense, God can be proven nor disproven.
Nonetheless you have the Atheists literally preaching God does not exist.
If you cannot cope with God, stick to Agnosticism. That is at least plausible. Religious Atheism is just childish.
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Childish is the belief in any known Gods. There is nothing more immature than to believe in God. I am an atheist towards all known earthly religions. I can be agnostic towards any unknown being that might have God like powers. Go crawl back in your closet you mental midget.
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|2010-04-17 22:33:11 Kenny Breaz - Were Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot atheists?Just because a person was born to religious parents or a church or synagogue doesn't mean they stay with that religion forever. Hitler may have attended the Catholic Church, but many biographers have delved into Hitler's deep involvement with the occult.
Karl Marx was certainly not a Christian as the author incorrectly suggests. Marx stated that religion was the opium of the masses. Marx was never a Christian.
Pol Pot never practiced any form of religion in his adult years, but certainly murdered many thousands of religious leaders during his evill and Godless reign.
Trotsky stated "Marxism is saturated with the optimism of progress, and that alone, by the way, makes it irreconcilably opposed to religion."
It's time atheist come to terms with the evil of their religion and stop trying to push the blame for the world's troubles, past and present, on others. Communism was based on atheism and the communist leaders stated that fact. Communists leaders knew that without a moral compass and a belief in the judgment hereafter, killing would come more easily.
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|2010-04-17 20:55:42 Acharya SI'm sorry, but I don't just make things up. As I stated above: All facts in the following excerpt are carefully cited...from reliable sources.
According to Joseph Telushkin, Marx was a Christian convert at the age of six, just as I stated. The same was related by Hendrik Marinus Ruitenbeek and several other authors.
Simply saying "no" does not disprove this contention. We can be skeptical of other of your claims as well.
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In response to Kenny Breaz, it is indeed true that Hitler was a Catholic and he admitted and professed such proudly many times in his speeches and in his book Mein Kemp. Kenny is obviously in denial. Po Pot (Saloth Sar) was a Buddhist and many consider Buddhism to be secular since the Buddhist religion does NOT recognize a deity (Supreme Being or God ) as is the case of Christianity, Islam, etc. Stalin attended a seminary in his youth at age 15 then later in his adult life and declared he would start his own religion) . Stalin purged those who posed a threat to his regieme just like Pol Pot. The USSR citizens and government officials acknowledged that in the years preceeding his death when Stalin had made a major conversion to religion that he was indeed the most ruthless. Chair Mao was originally a follower of Buddhism and later converted to Taoism ( which many Christians consider to be a heathen or heretical religion which is also a misnomer, and was in no way secular ). I have heard people say that Sadaam hussein was a secular Muslim ( there is no such thing----you can't be secular which means non -religious and be one who practices Islam which is a religion which believes in the god called Allah ). Another blatant lie spread by Christians to confuse the issue and cover up for their hidieous religious attrocities . The most evil tyrant that ever existed is the Christian God that gave us hurricanes, plagues, tornados, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, blizzards, etc etc . Wake up people and face reality !!!!!!
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|2010-04-17 23:00:03 Peter"No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."
- George H.W. Bush, when he was candidate for president
"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land - for Jesus Christ - to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect life & godliness. It is dominion we're after not just a voice. It is dominion we're after not just influence. It is dominion we're after not just equal time. It is dominion we're after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to do."
- George Grant, "changing of the guard" pg 50-51
"Our goal, as Christians, is to dominate society"
- Pat Robertson
"Christianity & Democracy are inevitably enemies"
- R.J. Rushdoony "Independent Republic" pg 122, 1964
"The church should be a disciplined charging army Christians, like slaves & solders ask no questions. We are fighting a holy war"
- Jerry Falwell
"Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."
- D. James Kennedy
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... We need believing people."
- Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933.
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|2010-04-17 23:30:04 WOLF - Belief Systems and Social Perception StructuresBelief Systems and Social Perception Structures
http://www.trufax.org/general/beliefsystems.html
Logic and Fallacies | Influence and Persuasion | Suppression of Sound Ideas
Belief: Whatever an individual is willing to accept without direct verification by experience or without the support of evidence, resulting in assumption which is taken as a basis for action or non-action.
Beliefs are tools for social conditioning, rather than expressions of inner realization or universal truth.
Ideology: Vague term for the embodiment of beliefs in abstract ideas that can drive human behavior to pathological extremes.
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|2010-04-17 23:56:23 bob klinckHitler had a definition of "God" and "Lord" which was different from what is being implied in this article.
If you want to know his views on religion, look at the TABLE TALK: "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity. Bolshevism practices a lie of the same nature, when it claims to bring liberty to men, whereas in reality it seeks only to enslave them. In the ancient world, the relations between men and gods were founded on an instinctive respect. It was a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance. Christianity was the first creed in the world to exterminate its adversaries in the name of love. Its keynote is intolerance."
"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of human failure."
"To make death easier for people, the Church holds out to them the bait of a better world. We, for our part, confine ourselves to asking man to fashion his life worthily. For this, it is sufficient for him to conform to the laws of nature. Let's seek inspiration in these principles, and in the long run we'll triumph over religion."
"...there will never be any possibility of National Socialism's setting out to ape religion by establishing a form of worship. Its one ambition must be scientifically to construct a doctrine that is nothing more than a homage to reason."
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|2010-04-18 00:39:27 JenThank you for writing this very much needed article. I've just been through Easter here in Sydney where just about every Christian leader publicly fulminated against atheists and suggested they were the cause of many of the world's problems. On reading about leaders like Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot though, I see it's their religious upbringing that shaped their basic outlook and made them (or Stalin and Hitler at least) into the monstrous people they were.
We could go further and see how the Roman Catholic Church collaborated with Franco's government in Spain from the 1940's to 1975, and with the military governments in Argentina and Chile during the 1970's, and how many people in those governments were fervent Catholics. As for Communism, there may be evidence that churches in Communist countries collaborated with the regime where it suited both church and government to work together to distract the public's attention away from food and other shortages and to encourage nationalism.
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|2010-04-18 00:46:33 JH ChrestosWithout religion how the hell would we get a good war off the ground. What could these tyrants use to convince a young man, with everything to live for, to go and perhaps die in a war that he doesn't even understand. Would they use our love of chocolate to convince us to go kill people we don't know? "Go to war young man or no more Snickers bars for you." Of course not. This war is for god and country" "God is on our side", "Allah will reward you with 72 virgins" etc...
Also, never forget that it was Jews that Hitler murdered, not plumbers. Religious people love to forget that little detail.
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NO PEACE ON EARTH
According to the Bible, we are the descendants of a cold-blooded murderer (Cain), and an incestuous mother (Eve). As we all know, the man without a navel (Adam) did not have any daughters.
With such a dark, and evil, legacy, it is not surprising that violence, wars, injustice, and cruelty, have been with us since the creation of the Human Race. The annals of our planet show that long periods of peace have been very scarce.
However, we cannot put all the blame on our progenitors for creating a “bipedal jungle”.
Wars are a necessary evil for the greedy capitalists, and the unethical nations who have land-stealing aspirations. In other words, war is good for business and an excuse for land-theft.
Everything destroyed in a war (except human life), must be replaced. Big business does all the restoration work, pocketing billions of dollars for their effort. That is why big business, and greedy capitalists, will never kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Major wars, civil wars, and armed conflicts are often funded by capitalists who stand to benefit from the misery of others.
The protagonists of World War 2 (including Hitler), were funded by Jewish bankers.
The same Jewish bankers also benefited when the economically devastated nations needed enormous loans to rebuild their ruined nations.
Multi-billion dollar businesses make huge profits when humans are slaughtering each other and destroying their cities, and towns, with conventional and nuclear weapons.
Wars are often created to control vital strategic commodities (e.g. oil and gas); and establish essential military bases (e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan).
War is also used as an excuse to steal land from vulnerable small nations (e.g. Palestine).
War is a bonanza for manufacturers of Battleships, Aircraft carriers, planes, helicopters, tanks, rockets, ammunition, bombs, torpedoes, etc. The Armaments Industry is a TRILLION DOLLAR global business. When you have trillions of dollars at your disposal, you can afford to buy, and bribe, as many politicians as you want.
The main beneficiaries of the “2008 GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS” were the Jewish Bankers.
There are no prizes for guessing who created the crisis.
The affected nations have obtained huge loans from the Jewish I.M.F (International monetary fund) and the Jewish WORLD BANK at inflated interest rates.
Were the greedy Jewish bankers punished for creating a crippling recession? On the contrary, they were rewarded with generous “STIMULUS PACKAGES” amounting to BILLIONS of taxpayers’ dollars.
So much for Obama’s famous slogan: “YES WE CAN!”
It is no coincidence that the recent Global Financial Crisis (GFC 2) emanated from the Zionist Capital of the World (the USA). The previous Global Financial Crisis (GFC 1) occurred in 1929.
The epicentre of the first GFC (which became a depression) was in the USA. There are no prizes for guessing who created the two GFCs.
The gullible “GOYIM” (Gentiles) have been duped once again by the crafty Jews!
If the Gentiles do not wake up, we will have a third Global Financial Crisis in the not too distant future.
As a pragmatist, and a realist, I can categorically state that wars will never cease. The perpetual slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, will continue until Homo Sapiens (Latin for “wise man”) becomes extinct in a Global Nuclear Holocaust. Unfortunately, that is the sad truth.
Len Giles
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|2010-04-18 06:40:03 big guy - hitler catholicHitler's parents were devout Roman Catholics, what does thiis mean? who knows but obviosly the church at the high military level have established everthing from the inquisition to the CIA to the majority of false flag attacks...........Titanic,9/11,JFK, to the medical/psychiatric inquisition and more. So It wouldn't exactly suprise me but to say these dictators are athiest and thats it would be undermining history itself
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|2010-04-18 07:24:13 Bill - Myth: Religion Caused Most WarsIt is absolutely laughable that religion is the ultimate root cause of all wars.
War is, and always has been, about land and resources, and identity (patriotism/nationalism, religion, race, etc.) has been infused into this and used by the elite and powerful who control the wars to build support for the wars.
Ever taken anthropology 101??
Why do primitive societies and tribes war with neighbouring tribes? Over Jesus ???? Over their Sun God????
Was WW1 or Vietnam, or Korea or the Congo about religion?
Above, someone argues that Hitler's evil war was rooted in his hatred of the Jews, and therefore WW2 was based on religion. Anyone with even a basic understanding of that war understands that Hitler suffered from an irrational fear of not having enough land for the expansionist exploitation of the "master race". Expansionism and resource/land grabs were the consistent and constant core themes of his writings, speeches, and policies. He thought this could only be accomplished through war and annexing neighbouring countries. He didn't attack Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France to get Jews, he attacked them simply for land, resources, and greater power.
I absolutely detest the simpleton, idiotic statement that sooooo many people now spout: "Religion has caused so much war". Stop and think about that for a moment - think of all the wars in all of mankind's entire history.
The main reason I hate this is that it takes people's analysis away from the real causes of war, and hence moves us away from real solutions.
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|2010-04-18 15:48:33 josephine public - Just one of several factorsIt is not laughable. Religion has been used throughout the history of the world to manipulate people to kill others. The Crusades provide evidence of this, as do many other wars that followed. People in positions of power understood that they could use peoples' fear of hell and ignorance of Science to their advantage, and they did just that. Religion has long been used to gain control of land, but religion and the fear it invokes was used to take the land and brainwash the people.
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|2011-09-10 00:41:03 naughteeagreed, religion is great for keeping your flock under the thumb and easy to manipulate. it has been used to motivate your group to kill others (strangely), however one of the main reasons for conflict, historically would have to be competition for resources.
water is the next big one (oh and fish).
it is never as simple as a slogan i'm afraid.
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I also would like to add the defense.
Germany was 90%+ Christian/Catholic Christian at the time of WWII. It was not atheists manning the gas chambers. It was not atheists being cruel and sadistic to the Jews. It was "CHRISTIANS!" The reason for such a population to be able to do such atrocities. Was they were in the belief Jews killed their fictitious deity.
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|2010-04-18 14:19:55 Stalin was a JewStalin was a JEW.
Stalin was born, Iosif Djugashvili. Iosif is Joseph.
Do you know what Djugashvili translates as? Try pronouncing the word.
"Djuga" means Judah. "Shvili" means son.
Djugashvili means son of Judah.
Stalin had three wives, all of whom were Jews.
But I guess this doesn't mean that Stalin was a Jew, only that he had a fetish for big noses, right?
Stalin named his first son Jacob (Yakov).
One of Stalin's wives was Rosa Kaganovich the sister of the murderous Jew, Lazar Kaganovich, who deliberately starved some 6 million Ukrainians to death.
Stalin spoke Yiddish at home.
The first Jewish homeland, Birobidjan, was set up by Stalin and company. The "national" language was Yiddish. The Jewish homeland, Birobidjan, was mainly paid for by Americans Jews, another Stalin, American Jew, joint project.
Before Djugashvili called himself "Stalin," he used the pseudonym "Kochba." You know who Kochba was?
Kochba was the mad Jew who lead a revolt against the Romans in 132-135 AD. The revolt was harshly put down by Severus (from whom comes the term severe).
All but one member of Stalin's Politbureau were Jews, and who knows, probably even Bubov was a (secret) Jew.
Stalin tore down Churches, or had them converted to museums, etc, but only made the appearance of persecuting the Jews.
Of the 54,000 Russian Orthodox churches in existence prior to World War I, only a few hundred remained. Of the 1,500 synagogues in existence prior to World War I, 1,103 were still legally operating in 1926 and the number of synagogues in the large cities increased with Jewish immigration to these areas.
But none of this could possibly mean Stalin was a Jew, could it?
By the way, the first law passed after the Communists seized power in Russia made being anti-Jew a crime punishable by death. Izvestia, July 27, 1918.
But none of this could possibly mean the commies were all Jews, could it?
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|2011-04-27 21:24:05 Boab - Stalin JesuitHow could Stalin possibly be a jew? He killed more jews that Hitler. Josef Stalin was a devout Catholic.
Josef was born to influential Catholic parents Vissarion "Beso" Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina "Keke" Geladze. His father Beso was a successful and relatively wealthy local businessman. However, in later biographies, he is variously described as poor, dirt poor and a violent alcoholic.
Whatever the real truth, Josef was accepted into the Catholic Cappuchin run school at Gori. He graduated in 1892 first in his class and at the age of 14 he was accepted to enter the "Orthodox" Seminary of Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia), a Jesuit institution to be trained as a Jesuit priest.
Stalin did Romes's work. He destroyed the Russian Orthodox church, the enemy of the vatican, under the smokescreen of godless communism.
ALL ISMS are created to distort the human psyche in order to re-constitute politics in their favour. Fascism is national socialism. Communism is International socialism.
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This is a red-herring. A very old red-herring. It has already been very clearly illustrated that religion had nothing to do with the nationalistic behaviors of these criminals.
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So you think that the Christian beliefs and values had nothing to do with them being able to sleep at night? Wake up and go to the camp for a fun day of starve, mutilate and gas some Jews? They thought Jews were sub-human. They were OK, because of religious indoctrination. The Catholic Church blamed/hated the Jews. That is why a whole nation committed those heinous crimes. A whole nation of Christians. That is not a red herring. Get a clue apologist melon head.
If Christians had real morals and values. None of that would have happened. None!
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|2010-04-18 16:44:21 John - Get real"Master Race; God's Chosen People; Mohamed is the only prophet; The Just Society; In God We Trust" etc, etc, etc.... These are all very similar in concept and are examples of beliefs that separate us. These are primative tribal beliefs that we all have practiced forever. Man has continually created his gods in his own image in order to justify exclusivity. Except for the anti-semitic rantings of a few, the insights offered by this site are enlightening.
Beliefs including religions are not bad, but they limit us when we begin to accept them as universal truths. Aethism is also a belief.
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|2010-04-18 18:23:34 Lloyd G. - This is a weak argumentStalin might have gotten 'mystical' in the early days of WW II, when the Germans were racing across the western USSR -- I suspect most atheists would be grasping at whatever straws, totems and lucky rabbits' feet were available under such stress -- but he remained steadfastly atheistic in public. I doubt that someone who was secretly religious would have been so viciously anti-religion in practice. But people do funny things.
As for Marx and Trotsky, their Jewishness is an ethnic identifier. Nothing more.
Hitler was what would now be called a pagan/pantheist. He liked the old Nordic religion. Christianity, of course, was a Judaic trick foisted on gullible Aryans.
As for Pol Pot and his Buddhism, one often hears that Buddhism is not really a religion, but rather a conglomeration of practical ideas for living. Sort of like Confucist thought (which Mao and co. tried to eradicate in China).
People have done horrible things in the name of religion. There is no denying that. Whatever their personal beliefs, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot convinced others to commit mass murder in the name of 'scientific atheism'.
It's worth mentioning here that Christopher Hitchens lent his voice as a militant atheist to chorus calling for war against Iraq. He remains unrepentant, despite the fact that no WMD were found. Why? Because of his hatred for Islam. Ironically, Saddam's Iraq was one of the most secular of Muslim countries. Now it is much less so.
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|2010-04-18 20:44:46 Acharya SWhat is a "weak argument?" What follows your first statement?
It is perfectly logical to suggest that someone who is anti-religion may have been badly abused by it. Heck, people try to throw that in my face all the time - but it isn't true in my case.
Just recently someone who claimed to have been raped repeatedly by priests was ranting about how he wanted to kill all priests, nuns, imams and the like - anyone who was religious.
What if Stalin was likewise abused by priests? There is evidence that he was, although I don't know about the sexual abuse part, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Again, many people are rabidly anti-religion because it has abused them. It's a very strong argument, in reality.
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|2010-04-18 21:05:27 Lloyd G.So Stalin was rabidly anti-religion because of religion. Even when Stalin was burning down churches and hunting down the faithful, it was religion's fault. Nice circular thought there. When atheists commit crimes, they aren't culpable, I guess.
For the record: I am an atheist. I just happen to think that any human institution will have abuses -- even institutions run by 'free thinkers'.
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|2010-04-19 04:41:30 Acharya SIt's really not difficult to understand - I suspect you are being willfully dismissive rather than uncomprehending.
I mentioned someone who was out for blood against religious people because he was abused by religious people. Like I say, not too difficult to understand.
Your subsequent supposition based on your original erroneous one is likewise fallacious.
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|2010-04-18 18:40:33 KlaatuThere is a great chapter in the book The Christian Delusion that deals with this very subject. If we look at Martin Luther's 7 point plan which maps out how to eliminate the Jews, it is an the exact road map used by the Nazi's. Hitler references Christianity many times as his religion... read Mein Kampf. Hitler was a continuation of the Jew hating Christianity invented and carried out for hundreds of years.
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|2010-04-18 18:52:24 dlazerous - BlindnessCommunism as practiced by Mao, Stalin etc.. and written by Marx had no room for religion or religious freedom. Religion was the "opiate of society" an addiction that Communists believed people needed freeing from. Atheism was part and parcel of Communist ideology and application of these ideals in a world with many believers was going to cause conflict. The presence of devoted, uncooperative believers in Communist countries could be resolved in a number of ways, many of them violent. That Communist countries took to murdering, torturing and expelling religious individuals on behalf of Communist ideology, which included atheism, is not surprising.
Atheism is not the moral bastion of freedom, civility and enlightened thinking it desperately wants to be seen as, there are those who have engaged in fairly loathsome activities to promote it as part of a larger political philosophy. Intolerance comes in many flavors and some of the recent Atheist vitriol I've seen directed at otherwise decent, law abiding citizenry and fellow human beings because of their religious convictions has driven that home. Most any ideology, secular or religious can be used to justify violence or simple bigotry against the "enemy", whoever that may be, it would seem the biggest flaw in these ideologies are the humans who practice them.
Bill is closer to the truth, I think, in the true causes of war. Natural resources, wealth, paranoia and personal ambition have driven the leaders of men to sacrifice their countrymen for the expansionist cause, regardless of the practiced faith of choice. Religion, to these men, is simply a useful tool, propaganda, to manipulate the populace. A peasant may not be moved to take arms against a neighbor simply to fill his lord's coffers or expand his lord's holdings, but if he is told (by both church and political leadership) that his neighbor is an ungodly monster who does not share his values and would slit his throat as soon as say hello, he will sacrifice his life to see his family and friends kept safe. As it goes in war, the "enemy" is defeated and his land claimed on behalf of whatever authority financed the conflict and the peasant is none the wiser as to the true reasoning behind the madness. There was nothing Holy about the war despite receiving the church's blessing and promotion, and the moral/religious justifications were a smokescreen to create a motivated, compliant, fearful population who would kill and risk being killed on a politician's greedy whim.
Authority with that goes eternally unquestioned is the dangerous factor in all social hierarchies, and unfortunately this cancer will appear in whatever social medium is available. The only prevention is an informed and vigilant populace, atheist and believer alike.
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Wow - Sooo intellectual. Imagine if you just spent 2 seconds looking up the definition of atheism. Do you get it? Are you retarded? Can you imply anything beyond we do not believe in a supernatural retard maker?
Religion places their morals above ours. Look at all the freedoms religion is willing to trample now. That is why we point at their infractions. They spread lies that atheists have no morals and eat babies. Do you understand now?
Yep I am sick of religious tards.
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|2010-04-18 20:48:21 Wait a minute - Balance people, balance,I find this rise in militant atheism both very understandable and extremely disquieting. I expect it to grow by leaps and bounds as conditions on planet earth continue to worsen. Surely we have al lfelt it, the drive to spit at the ground when contemplating the idea that any compassionate, loving deity could've created THIS
But then what good does it do to shout down non believers of the atheist creed as 'mental midgets' and the like? you start to sound like the very dogmatic fundies you so despise. Swinging to the other extreme of the spectrum isn't any answer.
And you have no right to judge my belief in something More- how many of you have been to the deepest darkest recesses of the soul & seriously despaired over the lack of meaning in such a brutal world?
i dont blame people for their atheistis beliefs, but neither do I blame the faithful for holding out for something More. It doesnt make them, us- weak, insane; itsa justifiable response to an insane world.
I could never go fully atheistic, the idea of man as god is too terrifying to behold, personaly.
God is beyond our puny human classifications & arguments
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|2010-04-19 00:38:55 john - New ideasHow about contemplating something nothing at all like religions vs aetheism. We seem to be in a circular argument re. gods vs no gods.
There are other ideas which great thinkers thru-out history have hinted at which negate both concepts but open the door to a third reality. Where all is one consciousness, where we are all connected, where we have unconditional free-will, where no tempramental deity is pulling strings to manipulate us, where there is no right or wrong, good or evil, where there is no judgement. This concept would apply if we individually and collectively create our own realities. Quantum physics is all about this concept. Where our future outcomes in life are based on mathematical probabilities given our current activities and behaviours. Don't like your world...change it...you have choices. Your choices expand exponentially when you put aside religious and aethiest beliefs and look for limitless solutions based on truths...not beliefs.
We don't know if there is an afterlife, however intuitively we all suspect there is more than our objective reality. It's early in the game, let's not give up on the potential for a spiritual aspect within all of us. Aethiests believe in nothing, while the religious hang on to their tired and boring dogma which no longer works for them. Whats the difference? There is a shift in progress which some have noticed. Get on with the search for truths not beliefs.
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Non-believers of the atheist creed? What the f**k is that? Non-believers of the no belief in God creed? Is that what you said? WTF!
Balance is when they start critically thinking about those beliefs. Balance happens when one side(religious) stop being bat sh*t crazy. That is when balance happens.
We have been nice long enough. It is about time fu**ing idiots get called fu**ing idiots. Maybe they will decide to educate themselves or hide in their closet with their delusional religion.
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|2010-04-19 05:43:13 Anonymous - Ask them yourself...Were Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot atheists?
Why not ask them yourself? This reporter did, thanks to a special machine called a 'Psychopomp' which allows you to speak with the dead.
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStampCollector#p/u/18/LZr-JZYctvA
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|2010-04-19 12:19:57 Amy - Thank you!!Thanks for addressing this issue Acharya!!!
I have been arguing for years about this, even with atheists. Sadly, most just can't make the connections. Patriarchal religions do endorse harsh punishments and extreme oppression for children. Study after study proves that spankings, harsh punishments, and over controlling parents do more damage to children than anything else.
Shoot, not too long ago yahoo had an article about the dangers of spanking and that children who are spanked have a higher chance of being aggressive adults. Even CNN has an article on it.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/16/spanking.children.parenting/index .html
IT IS NEVER OK TO HIT A CHILD!!!(Or your pets for that matter!) It will create monsters. I'm not saying that everyone who was oppressed, spanked, or even abused will become a monster,(that just shows how good natured humans really are!) but you can bet your sweet a** that it is the main factor.
You know, this past Sun. I laid on the couch all day with a nasty cold watching ID,(investigate Discovery) about serial killers and children that kill, and I couldn't help but notice that every single one of them had some type of abusive religious upbringing.
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|2010-04-19 12:33:26 big lack of logic - big lack of logicThe fact that Marx was baptised at age of 6 years is completly irelevant. He was a child at that age ad he do wat ever his parents want him to do.
But what Marx do at age 30 is complete diferent, it his choice an only his.
Search on goole "Marx satanism",
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/marx.htm
Lesson: befor accept any conclusion make at least a breaf search on google.
An Hitler was a politician. He lie aboat everything for power. Do you have proofs that he realy practice and belive cristianity? I think not. He just was full of lies in public like any politician, but how he was in private? Any proof? I think not.
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|2010-04-19 13:44:32 Anonymous - Red HerringStalin and Pol Pot committed atrocities mainly out of over-zealous nationalism.
Hitler was a Catholic! He even attempted to enter Catholic theological seminary. But that is not what drove his genocides.
Either way it is a red herring.
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Equating religions with the character of their namesake gods is flaming stupid, with the possible exception of Islam, because Allah "cannot be known." To say that Stalin returned to the God he rejected when he got religious again is simply idiotic.
Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, George W. Bush, etc., all hurt people because they wanted to. The result reveals the reason for human behavior; even Jesus said that. Those men killed millions because they wanted to kill millions.
When people like that are developing, you MAY be able to persuade them to take a different road. Striking them with a stick between the shoulder blades would reach deep into the hindbrain with a persuasive message, but most of you have no stomach for rebuking evil and requiring that people who are considering doing evil stop thinking it, stop doing it, and change their ways.
Until then, you will be blessed with Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, Maos, Ws, and Obamas (just wait; he's more bloodthirsty than all his predecessors).
Wisdom is the tree of life to those who embrace her, and wisdom tells us that when you TRAIN up a child in the way s/he should go, s/he will not depart from it.
Wisdom also tells us that a fool is someone who, among other things, hurts random people. Wisdom also tells us that a rod is for the backs of fools.
Start listening to wisdom, and your history will be less bloody and futile.
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|2010-04-21 21:19:43 Gene - I'm going with my prev. statementThey were (TRANSHUMANISTS) and 1 of the 3 mentioned was a MASON, Hitler actually abolished Masonry and yes was a "spiritualist? his own words" as well a militarist. Pol Pot was also a Transhumanist he wanted what all COMMUNIST?SOCIALISTCOMMUNITARIANS want a robotic acting knee jerk run and hide sheeple with my hand out, please can I have some more, post free- add your own adjective. Religion was the very first GOVERNMENT, then came gods chosen, now gods son left his seed and now we have again DEMIgods to deal with.
All of "their?"" rhetoric is utter bull, and to give an old saying new life "I wouldn't piss down their throats if there guts were on fire!" This comes, from perspective from my Grandmother" another one " she said was they aren't worth the powder and lead it will take to blow them to HELL!" I guess thats were my "piss and vinegar" comes from a little Irish/Indian woman named Anne Mae.
Independence is our best weapon, become mentally and physically independent and the rest is, a minor nuisance to you, including people!
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|2010-10-25 06:34:52 John - Historical revisionism?There are a great number of Atheists who come from a religious background and they're not driven to commit atrocities as a result. Rather then engaging in historical revisionism, I think it more useful to look at the history of Communism around the world and in almost every case is devolves into barbarity. Being an Atheist doesn't automatically protect against dogmatic ideology.
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|2010-11-11 02:36:06 MikeK - The front porchYes atheist "believe" that if they open the door the front porch will be there, but if one day they opened that door and it wasn't there, they would change their belief without a 2nd thought.
The faithful would open the door not see a porch and proclaim they are blind and a "belief" the porch is still there.
The subject is belief in faith, not just belief.
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|2011-02-23 18:02:13 Nikodem Drab - Thir religionFrom what I know Pol Pot was a buddhistic monk when he was young.
Stalin was propably an atheist but he was studying religion for 5 years.
Hitler was saying that he was killing Jews for God becaese Jews do not believe in Jesus.
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|2011-04-27 18:49:17 Anonymous - Stalin was Jesuit!Hitler, Mussolini, General Franco, and Stalin were all Roman Catholics. Stalin did for Rome what Hitler did and maintain their programme of killing jews. Stalin was a RC priest and also a jesuit. Hitler was said to have styled his SS on the Jesuit model.
The Roman church is outwardly holy and pius, but inwardly rotten. Pope Pius the 12th brought Hitler to power by bringing the Catholic Centrum party to vote for Hitler as was instructed to the priests.
Franco paid a glowing tribute to Hitler in magasine El Pais, when he 'mourned the death of Hitler as a great servant to the church of Rome.
The second world war was an attempt by the Vatican to win back its Holy Roman Empire. We have had 1700 years of bloodshed, torture and evil from the church of Rome. They destroyed the gnostic creeds of christianity. They destroyed Ireland when Pope Adrian 4th gave Catholic monarch Henry 2nd the overlordship of the Island so that Rome could tax the Irish.
They are responsible for the trouble in Palestine. As it was their programme of ant-semitism that left the jews after the war with no home, then they put them where the globalists wanted - a foot hold in the middle East, controlled by Zionist America. The church of Rome has billions of dollars and owns so much property and assets in America alone. America was doomed after the civil war, when the church of Rome and the European bankers infiltrated it and destroyed it as a free and prosperous nation.
All this bullsh*te about Hitler and Stalin being atheist is a smokescreen. The evidence on Hitler's past is concrete. Where does the current Pope come from? southern Germany, one of the biggest catholic areas in Europe. Austria is just an extension of south Germany where Hitler was from.
We are heading towards an increasingly centralised world where fewer people are taking control of the world's assets. The church of Rome is NOT religious, but political and power mad; the religion is just a means to their ends. People need to wake up and smell the coffee and think for themselves. We keep hearing politicians talk of the New World Order. That is what we will get unless we start to shake of the manipulation of religion, especially the most dangerous one - The Church of Rome.
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It is a valid question to raise: were Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot a result of religious conditioning and abuse? The answer appears to be yes.