Stalin - Relevance of his Atheism?

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Wrong question. If you are trying to argue unquestioning devotion is the basis of all religion then the correct question would be, "When was the last time you questioned your religious organisation or denomination and decided that it was wrong?" In that case my answer would be, "This morning."

No, that is the question you would like me to ask because you can say "Oh I question that all the time!"

The problem (from your point of view) is that I'm asking the one question you know the only truthful answer is "I never question", that being when was the last time you question God or came to the conclusion he was wrong. The very nature of your religious faith is that God can't be wrong, you can't get any more unquestioning. The possibility that God is wrong is an oxymoron in your religion.

It is all very well to claim you question the flawed interpretation of men, but you don't question what you consider to be the source.

PDN wrote: »

Are you seriously attempting to argue that unquestioning devotion is the basis of Quakerism or Buddhism (the liberal Asiaprod variety, not the ones who attack churches)?

Well I don't know about Buddhism (can Buddha be wrong or mistaken?) but it is for Quakerism, and all religions that believe in a supreme supernatural authority.

As I said, when was the last time you questioned God?

PDN wrote: »

Given the double entendre inherent in the phrase 'abusing yourself' I am hoping you meant that I am rather abusive myself.

Er ... sure ...

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

For many of us this means continually questioning what we are told about God, and continually questioning our own interpretations and understandings of God.

When you do your questioning do you ever find yourself wondering if the Great Flood really was the actions of a loving God, or whether the massacre of the innocent Egyptian babies on the orders of God was perhaps something closer to the actions of a genocidal dictator than that of a loving, heavenly father? Or is your first principle that God does no wrong?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

No, that is the question you would like me to ask because you can say "Oh I question that all the time!"

The problem (from your point of view) is that I'm asking the one question you know the only truthful answer is "I never question", that being when was the last time you question God or came to the conclusion he was wrong. The very nature of your religious faith is that God can't be wrong, you can't get any more unquestioning. The possibility that God is wrong is an oxymoron in your religion.

It is all very well to claim you question the flawed interpretation of men, but you don't question what you consider to be the source.

But by reducing the phrase 'unquestioning devotion' to apply to an oxymoron you are removing it of any meaning or relevance in this thread. You are also stripping the phrase of its normal meaning and therefore (either intentionally or unintentionally) creating a false impression by the way you use it.

but it is for Quakerism, and all religions that believe in a supreme supernatural authority.

I remember sitting in a Quaker meeting once where they were discussing whether you have to believe in God to be a Quaker. The consensus of opinion was that such belief was not necessary.

As I said, when was the last time you questioned God?

I question Him nearly every day.

PDN

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

When you do your questioning do you ever find yourself wondering if the Great Flood really was the actions of a loving God, or whether the massacre of the innocent Egyptian babies on the orders of God was perhaps something closer to the actions of a genocidal dictator than that of a loving, heavenly father? Or is your first principle that God does no wrong?

Like most Christians I know, I have often wondered about those things. In the end I come to the conclusion, based on what I know of God, that God is indeed good and that there are many things I do not understand.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

But by reducing the phrase 'unquestioning devotion' to apply to an oxymoron you are removing it of any meaning or relevance in this thread.

I'm not reducing the phrase "unquestioning devotion" to an oxymoron, your religion is reducing the concept of a wrong god to an oxymoron, yet you claim you, and your religion, are not unquestioning. The very nature of your religion is unquestioning, it is written in stone (literally) that you cannot nor should ever want to, question the authority of God because the authority of God cannot ever be wrong. In fact, judging by discussions on the Christianity forum, members of your religion believe right and wrong are concepts defined by God in the first place.

Of course because you actually believe, sincerely, that God is an authority that cannot be wrong (and as such neither can the Bible, his holy book, the expression of that authority, simply human interpretation of it) you no doubt don't see the problem in doing so.

So by no means do I expect you to agree with me. The best I would hope is that you simply understand my point.

The problem with religion (and all systems like this, including Hitler or Stalin, both non-religious movements) isn't the issue of how humans attempt to interpret the wishes of the supreme authority, the problem is the belief in a supreme authority in the first place.

PDN wrote: »

I question Him nearly every day.

Well no offence but based on your previous posts on the authority of God I find that rather difficult to believe. I'm sure you ask questions, but that isn't the same thing as questioning.

To question someone's judgement or authority requires that one accept the possibility that the other person can be incorrect. The very purpose of the questioning being to get the person to justify his position to your satisfaction, to convince you that he is in fact correct.

Do you accept the possibility that God can be wrong?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm not reducing the phrase "unquestioning devotion" to an oxymoron, your religion is reducing the concept of a wrong god to an oxymoron, yet you claim you, and your religion, are not unquestioning. The very nature of your religion is unquestioning, it is written in stone (literally) that you cannot nor should ever want to, question the authority of God because the authority of God cannot ever be wrong. In fact, judging by discussions on the Christianity forum, members of your religion believe right and wrong are concepts defined by God in the first place.

Of course because you actually believe, sincerely, that God is an authority that cannot be wrong (and as such neither can the Bible, his holy book, the expression of that authority, simply human interpretation of it) you no doubt don't see the problem in doing so.

So by no means do I expect you to agree with me. The best I would hope is that you simply understand my point.

No, I don't understand your point because it descends into meaningless semantics that are unrelated to the issue under discussion.

"Unquestioning devotion", in any meaningful use of language, would refer to an individual or group who follow a set of instructions or propositions without question. By pushing the "unquestioning devotion" back one stage to God (even where there is much questioning as to who God is or what He actually has said or may want) then that mindless adherence to any instructions or propositions is effectively removed.

Galileo had an unquestioning devotion to believe what was actually true about the physical universe. That unquestioning devotion led him to challenge the existing scientific orthodoxy of his day (as formulated by Aristotle and propagated by the Church). To equate Galileo's unquestioning devotion to truth (whatever that might turn out to be) with the Inquisition's unquestioning devotion to the dictates of Rome (which were quite clearly defined) would just be playing silly word games.

Take the following two people.
1. A Quaker's believes that God (if He exists) is almost certainly good and right (even though the Quaker freely admits that he hasn't much of a clue what God is like and therefore is open to all sorts of possibilities).
2. A Stalinist firmly believes that Stalin is absolutely correct and therefore accepts every public pronouncement of Stalin as an infallible guide to how one should behave and think.

Now, if your desire is to score points in an argument then you can insist that both of those people display "unquestioning devotion". If so, then I am happy to let you think you have won something. However, if you really want to discuss the relevance of Stalin to our debates then surely you can see that only an ass would equate the two positions. One of them is, in real terms, unquestioning, but the other obviously has a worldview that allows for a lot of questioning and freedom of thought.

Well no offence but based on your previous posts on the authority of God I find that rather difficult to believe. I'm sure you ask questions, but that isn't the same thing as questioning.

No offence taken. Why would I get offended because an atheist finds it hard to believe something that is true?

ques·tion·ing /ˈkwɛstʃənɪŋ/ Pronunciation[kwes-chuh-ning]
–adjective
1. indicating or implying a question: a questioning tone in her voice.
2. characterized by or indicating intellectual curiosity; inquiring: an alert and questioning mind.
–noun
3. an inquiry or interrogation.
(from dictionary.com)

Do you accept the possibility that God can be wrong?

No, because if He were wrong then He would not be God. You might as well ask if the tallest person in the world might actually be shorter than somebody else. (Of course we might be mistaken as to the identity of the tallest person in the world - but it is logically impossible for the tallest person in the world to be shorter than another person).

So, I do not accept the possibility that God can be wrong.

However, I do accept that I may be mistaken as to who God is.
I accept that I may be mistaken in my understanding of what God wants.
I accept that I may be mistaken in my belief that the Bible is God's revelation.
I accept that I may be mistaken in my interpretation of the Bible.
I accept that I may be mistaken in the ways in which my behaviour are a logical outcome of my interpretation of the Bible.

If you want to call that "unquestioning devotion" then I see little point in carrying on this discussion since you will obviously have decided, like Humpty Dumpty, that "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." (from Through the Looking Glass).

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

"Unquestioning devotion", in any meaningful use of language, would refer to an individual or group who follow a set of instructions or propositions without question. By pushing the "unquestioning devotion" back one stage to God (even where there is much questioning as to who God is or what He actually has said or may want) then that mindless adherence to any instructions or propositions is effectively removed.

Look, will you stop inserting things to try and fit around my point. Who said anything about "mindless adherence"

I accept fully that you genuinely believe, in all honestly, that God exists and cannot be wrong. That fact that you haven't mindless arrived at that conclusion shouldn't be surprising nor is it particularly relevant to the point. I'm pretty sure the people who followed, unquestioningly, Stalin or Marx or Hitler arrived at the conclusion that it was the rational, correct, thing to do, in a very non-mindless fashion.

Do you think that some how because you have (or believe you have) rationally determined God can never be wrong that you therefore don't follow him unquestioningly? That because you question "Can God be wrong?" and came the conclusion that he can't (how exactly did you do this?) that you therefore don't fit into what I'm discussing?

PDN wrote: »

Take the following two people.
1. A Quaker's believes that God (if He exists) is almost certainly good and right (even though the Quaker freely admits that he hasn't much of a clue what God is like and therefore is open to all sorts of possibilities).
2. A Stalinist firmly believes that Stalin is absolutely correct and therefore accepts every public pronouncement of Stalin as an infallible guide to how one should behave and think.

Now, if your desire is to score points in an argument then you can insist that both of those people display "unquestioning devotion".

It is not about scoring points, they both do have unquestioning devotion, one to God and one to Stalin/The Party/doctrine of communism.

The issue you seem to be having is that you think one of these is justified (because you believe God exists and is the supreme authority in the universe who can never be wrong) and the other is madness (because Stalin was simply a crazy Ukrainian, and Communism is a flawed doctrine).

If you flip the two around you end up in the same position (God is a delusion invented by men, he isn't the supreme authority and the men dictating his orders can and are wrong - Stalin is the great, wise, leader of the Party who always puts the best interests of the people ahead of anything else and who is the only one who can implement Marx's theories, which are the only sensible correct method to ensure equal prosperity in great Russia)

This has been my original point all along. It is unquestioning devotion. The unquestioning part is the dangerous part. Its fine if everyone is being manipulated into do good things. The bad bit is when people are manipulated, using the exact same system, into doing bad things because they will not or cannot question the authority that they have been lead to believe is supreme and above question.

PDN wrote: »

However, if you really want to discuss the relevance of Stalin to our debates then surely you can see that only an ass would equate the two positions.

Well then I'm an ass. I've always equated the two positions. The only reason you don't is that you believe one of them is actually correct.

PDN wrote: »

One of them is, in real terms, unquestioning, but the other obviously has a worldview that allows for a lot of questioning and freedom of thought.

As soon as you come up with a way that a genuine Christian questions the authority of God let me know....

PDN wrote: »

No, because if He were wrong then He would not be God.

Nail on the frigging head.

He cannot be wrong if he exists. If he exists he cannot be wrong.

What conclusion is left? To believe he is wrong is to believe he doesn't even exist in the first place. And how many believers can make that jump?

Everlasting love? Puff, gone. Eternal heaven? Puff, gone. Moral system? Puff, gone. Entire belief system, often the only one person has known? Puff, gone.

Now I'm not saying that a believer has never looked at something in the Bible, or any other holy book, and gone "That is wrong, God is wrong, therefore he must not exist" (I'm sure that some in this forum have done that), but that is an awfully hard jump for someone to make. And if the history of this type of thing (including non-religious examples such as Hitler or Stalin) demonstrates it is that people will carry out, while rationalizing, the bad rather than make the leap that accept that the authority they put belief in is in fact wrong.

PDN wrote: »

So, I do not accept the possibility that God can be wrong.

However, I do accept that I may be mistaken as to who God is.

That isn't the issue (you know that isn't the issue).

That is just some kind of clause you think means you aren't unquestioning. Anyone could equally say that they question who Stalin was, but when they decided he was who he claimed to be, they followed him unquestioningly. It is a rather meaningless statement to the point at hand which is following Stalin unquestioningly in the first place. Saying "I was sure it was Stalin" is pointless.

If you genuinely believe that something is an instruction from God you will do it. You will do it even if you don't agree with it. You will do it even if you don't understand it. You will do it even if you believe yourself that it is wrong (though you may quickly rationalise that you yourself are in fact wrong), because in this situation the only alternative left open to you is that God does not exist

If God exists he cannot be wrong. To be wrong he must not exist. Which is an unacceptable leap for most believers and I'm pretty sure it is an unacceptable leap for you.

It all goes back to the quote

For good men to do bad things it takes religion

They do the bad things not because they believe they are bad but because they believe they are good. Why do they believe they are good? Because a higher authority, one that they place absolutely faith in, has told them so.

PDN

Dades wrote: »

Hey PDN, congrats on your new role as shepherd!

The downside is that now I have to read all the new posts in both the Creationism thread and the Once Saved Always Saved thread.

Dades

PDN wrote: »

The downside is that now I have to read all the new posts in both the Creationism thread and the Once Saved Always Saved thread.

Rather you than me!

Asiaprod

Dades wrote: »

Rather you than me!

I am now working on getting you in there:D