Russian man on trial for 'no God' comment in internet chat

[Jackie]

[abaris]

UGGGGGGGG, Putin never was an atheist, most Russians are not and were never atheists, even under Stalin.

And you know that, how exactly?

Putin is whatever furthers his cause, which is power and money. He's cold as ice and that's probably the only thing that can be said about the man. I'm no expert, but whenever Putin is shown on tv, I try to find some emotion in his face. Can't say I've seen anybody else having such control over their features. Putin displays nothing and even the rare moment when he tries to smile look like an act.

[JuliaL]

Sociopaths are at a competitive advantage in the pursuit of power and influence because they are not restrained by empathic considerations that limit the rest of us.

They cheat.
We are not good enough at enforcing collectively derived rules to keep them them under control.

They do make good despots though.

[Jackie]

UGGGGGGGG, Putin never was an atheist, most Russians are not and were never atheists, even under Stalin.

And you know that, how exactly?

Putin is whatever furthers his cause, which is power and money. He's cold as ice and that's probably the only thing that can be said about the man. I'm no expert, but whenever Putin is shown on tv, I try to find some emotion in his face. Can't say I've seen anybody else having such control over their features. Putin displays nothing and even the rare moment when he tries to smile look like an act.

Cold as ice does not mean you cant be religious and cold. He DOES believe in a god. Just like it is bullshit to claim Hitler was an atheist. You can be religious AND power hungry. Most psychopaths and sociopaths are power hungry theist or not. It is just that Putin IS a believer.

[abaris]

Cold as ice does not mean you cant be religious and cold. He DOES believe in a god. Just like it is bullshit to claim Hitler was an atheist. You can be religious AND power hungry. Most psychopaths and sociopaths are power hungry theist or not. It is just that Putin IS a believer.

As opposed to Hitler, we don't have records of his private conversations and aren't privy to what his immediate entourage had to say.

He may be all of the above, but we don't know. We know the persona and that he's going through the motions. Pleasing the church because it's got power over many people. Pleasing the anti gay nationalists. Everything else is pure speculation, since nobody knows that man, other than that he always knew how to pick the right friends to further his own career.

[Jackie]

[Jackie]

And there is this.  SORRY DOUBLE POST.

[Jackie]

[abaris]

This is no different than what the Church did in supporting Stalin.

OK, that's just outright wrong. They never did support Stalin. They didn't have any reason to support him, since he disowned them and tore down some of their most cherrished churches. Stalin, same as Putin by the way, used some religious and nationalist symbolism during WWII. Especially when it began and he gave his first speech, he appealed to Russia's history and culture.

[Jackie]