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vincentML -> RE: Why do people think it's ok to strawman an atheist? (7/7/2010 2:55:32 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tazzygirl
So i can understand your position better, im going to ask you a question. Please feel free to correct what you believe i have wrong.
If a man declares himself religious, then goes on a mass murder spree, religion is the cause. But if a man denies any religion, and goes on a mass murdering spree, he is just a man killing, or his previous religious leanings come more into play than the denial he has for said religion.
In other words, a religious man kills because or religion, and an atheist kills because of the religion he once had?
I think your example is too simplistic (not you, Tazzy, your example) If a single man in some urban setting proclaimed himself an atheist (in a suicide note maybe) and set about going from church to church to synagogue killing worshippers there is imo a demented connection. On the other extreme, an unaided man hears the vengeful, wrathful voice of God and obediently sets off to a meeting of Atheists and commits mass murder then again imo there is a demented connection. I use the term demented connection because I don't know of any cases where this occurred in either extreme, and the killer would not be considered insane.
So, NO. Your statement does not reflect what I was saying or what I intended to say. I regret leaving you with that impression. I said Stalin's atheism is beside the point. I will try to explain my meaning. Keep in mind please that I was replying to remarks made by tnai and I objected to what I viewed as the tired old strawman of conflating a political dictatorship in the process of consolidating power with a humanist philosophy.
Pol Pot, I don't know. Stalin and Hitler I know a bit and I think I can say without embarrassing myself that their motivations were political and not religious.
I take this position not withstanding the fact that Stalin continued an official State policy of Atheism after Lenin and purged the Russian Orthodox Church, killing many priests. But wrapped around that program were much greater purges of hundreds of thousands of "enemies of the state" NOT identified for their religious affiliation, who were killed, relocated, or starved in far greater numbers than were the religious. Stalin was an indiscriminate murderer.
My contention is that Stalin's principle motivation for the mass killing was consolidation of political empire. The Orthodox Church and other church organizations were potential sources of counter-revolution. During World War II Stalin permitted a reactivation of religious organizations as a tool for wartime patriotism and at the end of the war turned against them again when he no longer needed them. My point is that he was first and foremost motivated by whatever expedient would promote and secure his power.
Was he an atheist? Probably. Was he an atheist who killed? Undoubtedly. Was atheism the motivation for his killing? I don't think so. I think he killed and destroyed organizations out of expediency. I believe his motivation was political and revolutionary. I submit that state atheism was a political convenience to keep organized groups at bay.
quote:
In other words, a religious man kills because or religion, and an atheist kills because of the religion he once had?
Not at all what I am saying. Stalin used atheism as a tool of convenience to amass power. In a similar fashion Constantine used Christianity as a tool of political convenience. I agree with Moon, Stalin was a political pragmatist and maybe imo a bit of a megalomaniac.
tnai is guilty of the old hackneyed, worn out, faulty syllogism: The man was an atheist. The man committed atrocities. Atheism is responsible for the atrocities.
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