RE: Can you ever believe that there is no God
April 23, 2013 at 6:54 pm
(This post was last modified: April 23, 2013 at 7:11 pm by Simon Moon.)
(April 23, 2013 at 6:40 pm)Dawud Wrote: IThat's why I do t want to argue about Stalin - people are closed I their minds to even the possibility that some crazy B-might start a campaign to eradicate belief in God from a population.
You might have missed this wonderful post (or ignored it most likely) by apophenia on one of your other many threads. Please read it and learn:
apophenia Wrote: Regarding Stalin, and the Communists in general. First, in addition to being a tu quoque argument to excuse religious evils, and not connecting with the behavior of atheists generally, it shows a remarkable ignorance of history. The communists persecuted religion because according to communist philosophy, religion hindered and impeded the development of the ideal communist state, and therefore to engage in religious practice was a crime against the proletariat. Just as in the previous example of atheists reacting to theism, communists were reacting to what they perceived to be a threat to the good of society, namely religion. It was a reaction to what they saw as the harmful effects of religion, though those harmful effects were defined considerably differently than contemporary atheists define them, and than those outside Marxist, socialist politics might have defined them. They weren't promoting atheism for atheism's sake. So your whole point is botched by the particulars. More than that, however, I will agree with you that there are extremes in combating religion which are not justified by the potential fruits; however, I would evaluate the justifiability of a reaction to religion on the merits of the individual case, not based on a stereotyped response that reacting to religion negatively is always wrong, nor that atheism in some sense 'causes' any unjustifiable reactions.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.