Poverty and Theism

[Brian37]

China - philosophy is not Buddhist, my wife is from China, its philosophy is atheist, she was taught atheism. Buddhism is the biggest religion yes, but it is not the philosophy that built the dictatorship ... that is atheism ... sorry.

Russia - when communist (at the height of its oppression) was again atheist. Still recovering from that one.

Cuba - don't know much about it.

Germany - irrelevant - an occasional dictator appears - who for the record stated he hated Christianity. See secular sources on Hitler and religion.

Saudi Arabia and Iran - are Muslim not Christian. Their religion teaches violence, and oppression.

Western nations, particularly ones with protestant backgrounds are the freest in the world.

Now lets compare no religious states -North Korea, China, Soviet Union - wow do we see a secular revolution?

KNOCK OFF YOUR BULLSHIT.

None of those countries are religion free. Sorry that bothers you but it is still BULLSHIT to claim whatever oppression was part of their histories, WHICH IS NOT in dispute, means all atheists are evil. FUCK YOU.

If you think we all love dictators moron, then why the fuck are you even on this website? If we as atheists hated all religious people as individuals then why do the admins ALLOW YOU HERE?

Oppression does not equal "atheists". Oppression is geographical and erra time frame. In North Korea I WOULD either have to live in silence along with BUDDHISTS and Christians. If I lived in China SAME FUCKING THING. If you and I were living in Iran or Saudi Arabia  WE WOULD BOTH either have to keep our mouths shut or risk arrest or mob violence. But in the SECULAR PLURALISTIC WEST, Christians ARE NOT persecuted.


You "Christians are persecuted"

Me, "Yes, but where?"

Muslims are also persecuted depending on GEOGRAPHY.

Jews are also persecuted depending on GEOGRAPHY.

BUT SO ARE ATHEISTS, depending on GEOGRAPHY.

Your bible is your book, not mine. I am not required in the west to believe human morality came from a magic baby with super powers. Don't like that? Tough shit, but that does not mean i like dictators. You don't have to go away, but you do need to GROW UP.

[Kitty Galore]

Ok ... what is your morality? What is right and wrong for you? .... states based on atheism have no morality, only that that which is passed down from past generations past. As time progresses there is no moral law under such a system, only survival of the fittest. And how do you survive by following the strongest. An a strong one with no morals is a killer, as Kim is.

Only Jesus teaches "love", i..e "love your enemies" ... Kim teaches what ... nothing ... no morality ... only serve the strongest.

His teachings are a little more complex than that ... but I think you get my drift.

Oh, the morality bit.

I get my morality from having empathy for my fellow man. Simple as that. In don't have to be bribed with an afterlife to be a good person. I feel that Christians have this idea that they can do anything, since they are saved and their sins are forgiven. I believe atheists in general adhere to higher levels of morality than the theist counterparts.

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Yeah, hopey, I hope you realize if you had been born in a mostly Muslim nation, you would most likely be Muslim, or any other country that has a majority of another religion.

[Brian37]

China - philosophy is not Buddhist, my wife is from China, its philosophy is atheist, she was taught atheism. Buddhism is the biggest religion yes, but it is not the philosophy that built the dictatorship ... that is atheism ... sorry.

Russia - when communist (at the height of its oppression) was again atheist. Still recovering from that one.

Cuba - don't know much about it.

Germany - irrelevant - an occasional dictator appears - who for the record stated he hated Christianity. See secular sources on Hitler and religion.

Saudi Arabia and Iran - are Muslim not Christian. Their religion teaches violence, and oppression.

Western nations, particularly ones with protestant backgrounds are the freest in the world.

Now lets compare no religious states -North Korea, China, Soviet Union - wow do we see a secular revolution?

It really bothers you that I won't let you paint all atheists as baby eaters.

Blind worship of a party and or religion ARE EQUALLY AS BAD. 

Now again, I could give a shit less if you don't want to accept that, still your baggage. "atheist love dictators" is a bullshit lie and a slur.

And it still remains none of those countries are 100% religion free. ANY authoritarian state, theocracy or 1 party state doesn't oppress only religion, but ANY DISSENT, and at the same time will ACCEPT the support of loyalists, thus CATHOLIC CUBA.

Hitler convinced a MAJORITY CHRISTIAN NATION to put him in power. Stalin allowed AUTHORIZED Russian Orthodox Christian Churches when he saw Hitler's rise and needed the Christian support politically to fight Hitler. Neither Hitler or Stalin's personal views change the fact they used religious people for support of their power.

In the west Christians ARE NOT persecuted. I have sympathy for ANYONE of any label that lives where they are oppressed, but you are not oppressed. 

NOW FOR THE LAST TIME "ATHEIST does not =evil" 


As far as morality? You really want to go there, because we can and will point out some nasty stores in your old book if you want.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Does poverty equate to under education (ignorance) and therefore religion?

Or maybe that religion might be a desperate grasp as an escape from poverty?

Perhaps. Or maybe people who are poor recognize the need for God more acutely, whereas rich people take their wealth for granted. Humility is a virtue. Pride cometh before the fall.

[Brian37]

Does poverty equate to under education (ignorance) and therefore religion?

Or maybe that religion might be a desperate grasp as an escape from poverty?

Perhaps. Or maybe people who are poor recognize the need for God more acutely, whereas rich people take their wealth for granted. Humility is a virtue. Pride cometh before the fall.

Bullshit....

Labels don't prevent greed nor do labels constitute loyalty to a class.

The assholes whom support the "don't tax the rich" come from the far right republican Christian base, and their voters reside in mostly red states. The majority of Americans hold some sect of Christianity, in both parties and all three classes, the top 1% will also hold some sect of Christianity, and those people as the top earners vote REPUBLICAN  mostely.

Only Christians are capable of valuing empathy and charity? NONSENSE! 

Atheists get slurred no matter what class we are in.

If we point out a rich atheist, they get called greedy.

If we point out middle class or poor atheists, we get called liberal commies.

Now, I DO NOT agree with other atheists here on economics. You'd know that if you had been paying attention to the political threads regarding Trump's run. There are ATHEISTS here on this website who supported him. I am not one of them, I hate that fucker. 

I hate Ayn Rand too, and she was an economic "fuck you I got mine" atheist.

But, I also run into some atheists who think Che, who lead to Castro's Cuba, was a hero and stupidly think you can rid the world of the private sector. Again, I hate Che and the Castro family too.

There are poor Christians and middle class Christians and rich Christians. There are liberal Christians and conservative Christians. But the SAME is true for atheists. We exist in all classes and we are in both parties, we are not a gang. The only thing "atheist" means is "off", outside that, if you want to know an atheist's views on politics or economics, you can only ask the individual, because we are NOT sheep.

[Harry Nevis]

So, atheism is the religion of the Communist State, and religion is banned.

As far as our "philosophy hurting the world",  Fuck off.  The egotism, greed and self-righteousness of your religion
has done more damage to the world than any other.

Are you such a child that you have to pick disputes over words. You know what I mean, and it is true, marxism, communism, have their root in pure atheism. And every such state (that has banned religion, as they do) results in oppression. Just  like YOU trying to ban religion, or should I say push away God. Wake up fool.

I'm childish? I'm sorry, I'm not the one believing in fairy tales. And, if look closer, the oppression started before the banning of religion.  And should we look at the religious oppressive governments?

You know nothing about me, but you know I'm trying to ban religion.  I'm trying to push away an entity I don't believe exists.  You are arrogant, ignorant and full of shit.  Typical American christian.

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Ok ... what is your morality? What is right and wrong for you? .... states based on atheism have no morality, only that that which is passed down from past generations past. As time progresses there is no moral law under such a system, only survival of the fittest. And how do you survive by following the strongest. An a strong one with no morals is a killer, as Kim is.

Only Jesus teaches "love", i..e "love your enemies" ... Kim teaches what ... nothing ... no morality ... only serve the strongest.

His teachings are a little more complex than that ... but I think you get my drift.

Ther are no states based on atheism, moron. Who gives a fuck what either teaches? And if you have to get your morality from a book, which I doubt if you have ever read, you're the one with the morality problem.

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Does poverty equate to under education (ignorance) and therefore religion?

Or maybe that religion might be a desperate grasp as an escape from poverty?

Perhaps. Or maybe people who are poor recognize the need for God more acutely, whereas rich people take their wealth for granted. Humility is a virtue. Pride cometh before the fall.

Then hell will be brimming with american christians.

[Ben Davis]

Hi Hopey, you're labouring under some serious misapprehensions. Since they're resulting in misrepresentations of atheism, and as a consequence, insulting me and those like me, I'd like to pick you up on them. Since I don't know you, I don't know if you're trying to be deliberately insulting so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and addressing you civilly.

Ok ... what is your morality? What is right and wrong for you?

Mine is a morality that seeks to minimise harm and suffering and increase a global sense of community, security, prosperity, joy and hope. I base it on a secular, humanist approach.

.... states based on atheism have no morality, only that that which is passed down from past generations past. As time progresses there is no moral law under such a system, only survival of the fittest. And how do you survive by following the strongest. An a strong one with no morals is a killer, as Kim is.

Well this is simply a misrepresentation of the facts in order to paint an insulting straw-man of atheists. Firstly, nothing can be based on atheism because atheism is nothing. It has no tenets, no articles of faith, it makes no demands nor makes any impressions on value systems. It is simply a singular response to one particular question: I have no belief in any gods. Consequently, states can't be 'based' on atheism. It's utterly impossible. Instead, what DPRK is based on is a mandatory and enforced worship of the state and its heads in the Kim family. This includes a host of supernatural, 'miraculous' acts by Kim Il-sung, his wife and his brother during the Korean war and more by Kim Jong-il. In fact, N.Koreans are taught that dead members of the Kim family still watch over and protect the nation from the after-life! Kim Il-sung is still considered the 'Great Leader' and is Head of State, 'The Eternal President' is his title, despite being dead for 33 years. Kim Jong-il was, and now Kim Jong-un is, only Head of the Party. Further, DPRK's state-decreed ethical system includes many of the 'moral' teachings that you would find in christianity including punishment for adultery and divorce, opposition to homosexuality, legal slavery, sexual puritanism, blasphemy against the state, illegality of other religions... it's a theocracy in all but title and the fact that it's politically communist is almost beside the point.

Only Jesus teaches "love", i..e "love your enemies" ... Kim teaches what ... nothing ... no morality ... only serve the strongest.

You clearly have no real concept of what North Koreans believe in.

His teachings are a little more complex than that ... but I think you get my drift.

...like the utterly immoral 'spare no thought for the morrow'? Maybe table-tipping or tree cursing?

China - philosophy is not Buddhist, my wife is from China, its philosophy is atheist, she was taught atheism. Buddhism is the biggest religion yes, but it is not the philosophy that built the dictatorship ... that is atheism ... sorry.

Absolute rubbish. The Chinese are mainly Buddhist and everyone knows it. Your wife may have been brought up with no religious beliefs but that's not common at all and it's dishonest of you to try and insist that it is.

Russia - when communist (at the height of its oppression) was again atheist. Still recovering from that one.

Cuba - don't know much about it.

Germany - irrelevant - an occasional dictator appears - who for the record stated he hated Christianity. See secular sources on Hitler and religion.

Saudi Arabia and Iran - are Muslim not Christian. Their religion teaches violence, and oppression.

Western nations, particularly ones with protestant backgrounds are the freest in the world.

Now lets compare no religious states -North Korea, China, Soviet Union - wow do we see a secular revolution?

I'll ignore your error with Hitler (he was always a Christian and openly identified as such) and get to the main point: none of those were secular states. If they were, they would not enforce worship of the state. I'll let Christopher Hitchens handle this one:

Now, ok, moving to Marxism, moving to Leninism. Ok, in Russia in 1917, for hundreds of years millions of people have been told the head of the State is a supernatural power. The Czar is not just the head of the Government, not just a king, but he stands between heaven and earth. And this has been inculcated in generations of Russians for hundreds of years. If you're Joseph Stalin, himself a seminarian from Georgia, you shouldn't be in the totalitarianism business if you can't exploit a ready-made reservoir of credulity and servility that's as big as that. It's just waiting for you to capitalize on. So what do you do? Well we'll have an Inquisition, for one thing; we'll have miracles, for another, Lysenko's biology will produce four harvests a year; we'll have harvestry hunts; we'll tell everyone they must be grateful only to the leader for what they get and they must thank him and praise him all the time and that they must be aware all the time of the existence of the counter-revolutionary devil who waits to—you see where I'm going with this.

If (you) or anyone else could come up with an example of a society which had fallen into slavery and bankruptcy and beggary and terror and misery because it had adopted the teachings and the precepts of Spinoza and Einstein and Pierre Bayle and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, then I'd be impressed and that would be a fair test on a level playing field, but you will find no such example.

[WinterHold]

The societies weren't atheistic at first and then got drenched into believe suddenly; most of these societies were theist, and remained theist after certain events that manipulated its culture and history; resulting in a strong shift into religious extremism and harsh explanations to get over the "hunger" of the day. 

Atheism stayed but changed in places like North Korea and China, but the people were drifted into another form of theism -If you want to call Kim and Mao God-.


I wouldn't turn it into a case of theism and atheism; but I would point to the levels of change desperation can force humans into. Desperation can make people believe the unbelievable.

All dictators know it: hunger makes wonders. It even make us hallucinate.

[Brian37]

The societies weren't atheistic at first and then got drenched into believe suddenly; most of these societies were theist, and remained theist after certain events that manipulated its culture and history; resulting in a strong shift into religious extremism and harsh explanations to get over the "hunger" of the day. 

Atheism stayed but changed in places like North Korea and China, but the people were drifted into another form of theism -If you want to call Kim and Mao God-.


I wouldn't turn it into a case of theism and atheism; but I would point to the levels of change desperation can force humans into. Desperation can make people believe the unbelievable.

All dictators know it: hunger makes wonders. It even make us hallucinate.

NO, not exactly. 

Our species had it's oral tradition of religion prior to the first written religions, but even up to today, the majority of our species 7 billion belong to some sort of religion. There is religion in every nation bar none. There are simply more open societies and more closed societies. The more oppressive states like North Korea, or the theocracy of Saudi Arabia or even Stalin's Russia don't ban all religions and will take support form those who blindly obey.

It would be nice in reality if it were not theist vs theist vs atheist, but even theists don't get along even under the same umbrella labels. Religion by worldwide does matter because friend and foe alike have armies and weapons, and because of the potential for war and or worse, a nuclear war, it certainly is my business what people claim because people who act on those claims can and do have power.

[Minimalist]

Six months ago I applied for a job with the government, but was rejected.

They're smarter than I thought!