Whoa. Why haven't I heard about this? Nonbelievers kicked out?!

[knitter4democracy]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-change_atheist_bd06apr06,1,4016432.story

This is so very seriously wrong and actually kind of scary. The whole thing sounds like it came straight out of 1984 or Handmaid's Tale.

[Cheap_Trick]

1. yeah, this idiot made KO's Worst Person in the World list

How much violence and war has been waged in the name of atheism?

edited for spelling

[Warpy]

3. The official atheism of the Communist party

was extremely tough on cathedrals in Russia and all sorts of Buddhist and Taoist temples in China, as well as the religious people working within them. However, such people weren't routinely rounded up and butchered, as much as theists would like to pretend that they were. They were sent to do what the state considered more useful work than maintaining cathedrals and temples and serving the people who believed in the philosophies within.

It didn't work, of course, because the believers never let go. They couldn't, any more than atheists can suddenly declare themselves believers unless lip service is saving their lives or livelihoods. Temples have been renovated in China and the monks are back; cathedrals have been rehabilitated in Russia and the priests are back.

Whether or not turning monks and priests into ditch diggers and water carriers was violence against them by a state that desperately needed ditch diggers and water carriers is moot. They were routinely humiliated as they were turned into laborers but their labor was too necessary to have gotten most of them murdered. Most of the physical violence was done to the buildings, themselves, stripped of gold leaf and turned into warehouses for many years.

(Cambodia was something completely different, not business as usual for official atheism or revolution or communism or anything else. It was madness)

Official atheism works just about as well as theocracy does, which means not at all and for the same reason. It's turning out that belief or the lack of it are hard wired. We can change about as easily as we can change our eye color.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. But that was violence perpetrated in the name of Communism, not atheism

Atheists do not form up crusades against fidels ("people with belief," as the opposite of infidel, "person without belief.") Atheists do not call jihad. Atheists do not and have never started religious wars in the name of atheism.

That people like Stalin, Mao and Paul Pot were atheists is not relevant. These people committed their actions in the name of Communism and with the intent of furthering Communist ideals. You may as well blame nationalized healthcare or unionization for those same actions.

[crawfish]

16. It was violence committed in the name of POWER and WEALTH...

The same as when so-called "Christian" regimes commit similar violence. The power-grabbers use whatever tools available to accomplish their goals.

No, atheism wasn't the force behind the atrocities committed by atheist regimes. Anti-religious thought, however, was one of many justifications behind the maltreatment of religious people.

The only thing that the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia of these regimes prove is that an atheist leadership is no more principled or moral than a religious one.

Here's a question: has atheism ever been a rallying point behind social reform on a national scale? Outside of being anti-religious, what good does it do?

[knitter4democracy]

6. Um, they weren't just made into ditch diggers in the USSR.

Having been there and talked with people and studied this a bit, there's more to the story than just saying the clergy were turned into ditch diggers. The grandmother of the family I stayed with told me the story of how Stalin's men came in the middle of the night and took her dad, a priest, away only to have him die in the gulags. According to the best research from the files since the end of the Soviet Union, only 10% survived their time in the gulag. The KGB's own files tell stories of nuns raped, priests crucified on the holy doors in front of their church's altar, and worse. Stalin was known for having Orthodox cemetaries dug up and plowed with salt.

The churches weren't given back until very, very late in the Soviet times, and most churches weren't reclaimed until after the fall of the Soviet Union. Where I studied, in Nizhni Novgorod, a city of 3 million, they were given back three churches and one seminary--out of 15 churches and three seminaries before the Soviets took over. One monastery on an island in the Volga was given back in deplorable condition--the main church had been used as a granary until the roof caved in, and the main building with the kitchen and small chapel had been used as a hunting lodge until it was so dilapidated that it wasn't usable anymore. Priceless icons had been painted over, others used as firewood, and the graves had been plowed under to make a garden at one point.

In the rural oblasts, priests often were able to keep the churches open but were forbidden to baptize or teach children at all. A lot went underground, and icons were hidden under mattresses and families would pray and light candles in secret. In the cities, priests and other members of the clergy were rounded up and sent to the gulags to die, though many were killed in their churches instead.

It was done in the name of the State and atheism, but things were the worst under Stalin, so he's the one most of the faithful blame.

[Warpy]

10. What were they doing when they were sent to the gulags?

They were doing hard physical labor. Did they live through it? Sadly, most did not. Iron fist collectivism coupled with bad weather and poor harvests caused wholesale starvation. Priests were often targets of abuse because their god had let everybody down.

As for the flashy stories about crucifixions on church doors, I'm terribly sorry, but these are the stories that pop up all over the world about every single revolution and are generally disproven. Always take atrocity stories with a pound of salt until bodies are produced.

As for your story about the underground worship, it rather proves my point that institutional atheism is as big a failure as institutional religion simply because we are hard wired to be either believers or unbelievers.

The destruction of the churches was done in the name of the state which could ill afford an idle wealthy class. The aristocracy were murdered. The priests were put to useful work.

[knitter4democracy]

11. The hard physical labor was pointless, though.

Build a wall in the middle of a Siberian winter. Tear it down. Build it up again. Sure, some build entire cities and roads in the middle of the Siberian wasteland, but many did pointless stuff merely as a way to break them down entirely.

The stories of the crucifixions were in the papers because a commission finally got access to the KGB files from Stalin's time and were trying to work up actual numbers. It was made up of government officials and private historians who'd already done as much research as they could with what was already available. It was in the Moscow Times after first getting into some of the other local press.

I think you're right about being hard-wired. That seems to be true in my experience: someone can't be forced to believe in something that they just can't.

[Warpy]

12. Was it?

They cut timber, they built viable cities, they mined, and they basically developed much of Siberia into an economy instead of a wasteland inhabited by a few hardy nomads.

They were given busy work in winter to make them to tired to rebel.

[knitter4democracy]

14. Wow. I've never heard anyone put a positive spin on the gulags.

I'm not sure I'm reading it right.

There already were cities in Siberia, and there already were gulags there and up north. The Soviets just borrowed the idea and expanded on it. By many estimates, 20 million died in the Purges, so it's not like it was a good thing. That many lives lost just don't make any of it okay.

[skepticscott]

13. It was done in the name of political power and control

Stalin actually supported the Russian church during the war because he thought he needed their help to stay in power, and he did the same with writers and artists, then when it was over, he went back to his old ways of suppressing anything that might undermine his political (not religious) authority. Read a biography or two of Stalin and you'll find that atheism was not much of a motivating force in what he did.

[knitter4democracy]

15. Stalin, no. He may have been atheist, but that wasn't why he did anything.

He did it all for power and control, you're right. The only reason Stalin brought back the Patriarch was to control the believers and get them on his side. That's it. It's well-known that the patriarchs and most bishops (if not all of them) were KGB agents as well and expected to inform on priests, other clergy, and laypeople.

Lenin always said it was more about the atheism, since the dismantling of the Church started under his rule. Khrushchev hated the Church and closed more churches than anyone else, including Stalin. Then again, he was more than a little nuts, too.

[Lennon]

2. Its Dangerous For Children To Know Atheism Exists

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x168215

Audio
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/files/DAVIS.mp3

:)

[davidinalameda]

4. she did apologize later

but that doesn't excuse her behavior

[knitter4democracy]

7. How can an apology be enough?

She tried to silence a man during his testimony simply because of his nonbelief? She'll have to do more than apologize.

[trotsky]

8. Initially I was glad to hear she apologized.

But she only apologized to Sherman. She offended all non-believing Americans.

[knitter4democracy]

9. That's even worse.

Really, I mean, she offended an entire group, but she won't care about them enough to issue a real apology and then do something to make up for it, like hold a hearing on how to deal with issues of church and state.