The Collisions Of The "Isms" - Religion - Nairaland
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| The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:23pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
The 20th century was an era of colliding isms from the arts (surrealism, expressionism, and minimalism) to politics (Fascism, Communism, and Zionism) to philosophy (existentialism, relativism, and post-modernism). Atheism is no exception, playing a much larger role in politics and culture in the 20th century. And like any ism released into the wild, the results are mixed. As Ethical Culture demonstrated, it was no more difficult to behave ethically without belief in God than with it, but atheism also doesn’t guarantee good behavior any more than religion does. Absolute power corrupts absolutely applies no matter what a person’s worldview is, and the 20th century includes tragic examples of corruption and immorality in positions of unchecked power, both by atheists (such as Mao Zedong in China, Joseph Stalin in the USSR, and Pol Pot in Cambodia) and theists (such as Adolf Hitler in Germany,Francisco Franco in Spain, and Idi Amin Dada in Uganda). The century also had some good news. An atheist committed to nonviolence led a newly independent nation, and atheists and theists alike worked together to build a global infrastructure of peace and to improve the human condition. This Thread explores the highs and lows (and even some of the middles) of atheism in the 20th century, from the violent and immoral suppression of religion by Stalin to the courageous support of human rights, equality, and religious freedom by pioneering atheists and humanists including Corliss Lamont and Goparaju Ramachandra Rao (more commonly known as Gora) [/b] |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:26pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
Clashing at the National Levels: Atheism and Religion Governments telling individuals what they can and can’t believe is a bad idea, a violation of human rights so fundamental that the United Nations includes freedom of thought, conscience, and religion in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But several governments in the 20th century responded to centuries of religious domination by forcing atheism in its place, entirely missing the lessons of history. These Posts look at some atheists who abused power at the national level. 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:28pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
Encountering violence and intolerance in the Soviet Union Like many revolutions, the October Revolution that created the Soviet Union in 1917 swept a new group into power whose first order of business was to destroy any hint of the previous one. Everything to do with the old Russia was suddenly,and simply,bad. Religion was high on the list of what the Bolsheviks considered bad influences from the past. The new Soviet Union was officially atheistic, and religion was targeted for complete elimination. Religion is the opium of the people said Vladimir Lenin, and is used by the cultural elites to exploit and stupefy the people. This saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:32pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
Declaring the right to freedom of belief worldwide In 1948, after some of the worst decades ever for human rights, the United Nations established a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 is a simple and clear declaration of the right to believe and think freely: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. By using the phrase religion or belief, the UN makes it clear that this freedom includes all worldviews, not just religious ones. 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:44pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
Missing Marx’s meaning: The “opium of the people [b] Marx’s statement that religion is the opium of the people is often misunderstood as a simple condemnation of religion. In fact, he said something much more interesting and complex. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions he wrote. It is the opium of the people. Medicinal opium was a common pain reliever during the 19th century. As long as the human condition included so much suffering, people would retreat into religion to blunt that pain. That was his point. He didn’t think that retreat into numbness was a good thing, but his call wasn’t to strip people of their medicine; rather, to end the suffering that made that medicine necessary in the first place. Marx was unfortunately dead by this time otherwise I picture him smacking Lenin silly, because Lenin had almost completely missed Marx’s point about the opium of the people. A few years later, Stalin put the antireligious drive into brutal high gear, confiscating religious property, harassing the faithful, and teaching official atheism in state schools. In one four-year period, more than 1,200 bishops and priests of the Russian Orthodox Church were rounded up and executed as enemies of the state. [/b] 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:48pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
Provoking the Cristero Rebellion in Mexico Most people in the global North think of the global South as 100 percent religious. Although Christianity does have a strong hold on the South, including Catholicism in the former colonies of Spain and Portugal, a healthy presence of doubt actually exists there as well, and it sometimes reaches the open air or even into the halls of power. Just as in other places and times, the presence of the Catholic Church in Mexico was as much political as religious, and resentment about its power and influence started to boil over in the early 20th century, especially concerning progress in human rights and individual social freedoms. In 1917, after nearly a decade of civil war, Mexico ratified a new Constitution. It was an impressive one for human rights, including mandatory and free education, free speech, individual religious freedom, and clear rights for the accused. But those in power wanted to curtail the huge political influence of the Catholic Church, which had found its way into nearly every aspect of Mexican life. The new Constitution included a massive backlash against the Church. Education was now to be completely secular in public and private schools. The Church had no official legal status in the country anymore, and the government seized all church property. Priests couldn’t own property or hold public office. Worship services were to be held only in church buildings, and the government was now in control of the number and location of priests throughout the country. The harsher of these restrictions were largely ignored until 1924, when an atheist named Plutarco Calles was elected president of Mexico. Under his leadership, the government enforced the restrictions and created strong penalties. Priests wearing their clerical garb in public were fined 500 pesos (more than $4,000 today). Any priest criticizing the government received up to five years behind bars. Church property was seized, all monasteries, convents, and religious schools closed, and all foreign priests deported. Chihuahua enacted a law allowing just one priest for the whole state, which is a little bigger than Great Britain. By 1934, the number of priests in Mexico had been reduced from 4,500 to 334, and more than half of the Mexican states had no priest at all. [/b] 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:55pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
Understanding Hitler’s beliefs [b] Nobody wants Hitler on his team, which makes sense. If there’s anything most people today can agree on, it’s that Adolf Hitler represents the worst kind of human being. So ever since he breathed his last stinking breath, the battle’s been on to "prove" that his beliefs lined up with the other side, Christians calling him an atheist, and atheists calling him a Christian. His inconsistent statements don’t help matters. Early in his career, he praised Christianity at every opportunity and identified with it directly. 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 he wrote in Mein Kampf. My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter he said in a speech in Munich. Many historians argue that he was just using religious imagery and identity to appeal to a religious country, using the long, sad history of Christian anti-Semitism to stir the hatred that boiled below the surface. Such an interpretation is plausible as well. And some sources had him raging against the Christian church as "weak" in the final months of his life. Of course criticizing the church isn’t the same as being an atheist, and no statement of religious unbelief has ever surfaced from Hitler. On the contrary, he associated atheism with the communist enemies of Germany and wanted it wiped from the face of the Earth. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement he says in a speech in 1933, and we have stamped it out. Still, amazingly, the myth persists that Hitler was himself an atheist. But Christians can take heart in one thing even though he never denied the existence of a god, some evidence suggests that Hitler wasn’t any kind of mainstream Christian in his last years either. He seemed to have become a believer in what he calls "the Lawgiver" or "Providence" a supernatural force that he thought guided the struggle between races of humanity and would ensure the victory of the Aryan people in the end. picture "the Lawgiver" smacking his imaginary forehead in utter disbelief at such human nonsense. Most historians now agree that the Calles government had overreached, and the response was predictable. A peasant revolt known as the Cristero Rebellion raged against the government for more than two years. In 1934, a new president rolled back the penalties Calles put in place, and an uneasy truce was restored between God and country in Mexico. [/b] 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 11:01pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
Examining the horrors of a Cultural Revolution [b] In China Chinese history just boggles my mind. I’m sure the Westernness of my brain doesn’t help, but China seems like a complicated collision of kingdoms and dynasties and philosophies rising and falling and merging and splitting over the course of more than 4,000 years. It’s completely fascinating, but I just can’t wrap my head around it. Even when it comes down to a single era, like the Cultural Revolution of the 20th century, the complexity stuns me, but that period is important to this discussion. The Qing Dynasty,the last of the ruling dynasties of China, collapsed in 1911 and was replaced by the Republic of China, a chaotic era in which feuding warlords fought for control of the central government, finally erupting into 23 years of civil war. The Communist Party of China won in 1949. Like the Community Party in the Soviet Union, this government was officially atheistic. In 1966, the Communist Party of Mao Zedong (also spelled Mao Tse-tung) announced the beginning of a Cultural Revolution to finish the political revolution and thrust China forward into a supposedly shiny future. It didn’t quite work out that way, partly because it was crammed with contradictions. "Four Great Rights" were granted to the people, including freedom of speech and association. But in the same breath, certain ideas were forbidden, including anything that sounded like the pre-revolutionary days, including what was called the "Four Olds" Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. These "Olds" did include some real obstacles to human progress, though few people today would argue that the benefits gained for Chinese society were worth the horrific costs that followed. The Party saw religion as one of the ways the "Four Olds" were carried forward the main enemies of progress. Mao created a terrifying paramilitary movement called the Red Guards young people full of revolutionary certainties who became Mao’s proxies in every school and village, spying on parents, teachers, and friends to catch and report any pre-revolutionary ideas or actions, including religious ones. Mao issued an order forbidding the police to interfere with the actions of the Red Guard. Temples and churches were closed or destroyed, and religion was portrayed as a "bourgeois" tool of foreign elements who were opposed to China’s best interests. Clergy and monks of all faiths were rounded up and detained in "re-education camps." Thousands of people were tortured or killed. Like Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s Cultural Revolution underlined the point that no worldview can be trusted with absolute power, and that enforced atheism is every bit as bad, both in principle and in practice, as enforced religion. [/b] 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 11:06pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
[size=13pt]This Is How We Deal With Truth & Facts!! Just Cause Am An Atheist Doesn't Mean I Will Have To Lie About Things LIES Are One Of The Reason The World Is As It Is Now Mainly From Our Theist Friends, Well We Just Hope One Day It Stops!!![/size] 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by blessedvisky(m): 12:11am On Aug 09, 2016 |
AmenRa1: Hi it's me again. Remember what I told you in the other thread? ? Well, I'll remind you if you've forgotten OK then. So you know you're just gonna live a life filled with hate and frustration without any hope of salvation?? Can you see you've started displaying this?. No one accused you yet you started saying you don't lie.  . How do we even know that's not a lie in itself  |
| Re: The Collisions Of The "Isms" by Nobody: 10:26am On Aug 09, 2016 |
blessedvisky:the person m passing that msg to knows him or herself U might be new on this forum so U would never understand so now go back to what U are doing Cause am sure U didn't even read anything to have and understand of what I wrote Christians & Hypocrisy |
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