Confronting Militant Atheism

 

I think part of the problem between your arguement and mine is that our definition differs slightly. I view athiest meaning a definition of a person who don't have a belief in something supernatural, and nothing more then that. And I'd describe a political doctrine like Communism as pushing a secular idea or being secularly motivated. Why? Because I see no kinship with other athiest and don't think their should be a reason to group us. All of us have different ideas unless following a common doctrine, which Atheism doesn't have.

Actually I have used throughoutly the term "militant atheism" (in Communism it was called "scientific atheism"). All atheists have in common that belief you have just mentioned. A part of them believe that this belief is undoubtely right and all rational human beings must have it. And here the problems start.

Indoctrination was by far not effective. It worked though and generated the political oligarchy. Education of the people is something bad?!? Free acces to education up to the highest levels? Sure, the party was entangled with every aspect of the life so any work must have been "wraped up" so that the authorities don't get sensitive. Like if other societies work otherwise.

Handling the economy was not a strong point of the communists, I agree with you. But what does that has to do with atheism, I don't know.

And I don't remind to have said that genocide is justified. Do you?

And crimes were not commited in the name of atheism. There were episodes which were only about atheism and religious belief. You can say they were part of a larger plan of the Communist authorities but nothing can change there were crimes and abuses commited for the single reason their victims were not atheists.

Here we go again. You do have an obsession. Those victims were not non-atheists they were anti communists, enemy of the state, etc. There is no single case in which the religion all by itself is the reason for a persecution. Only associated with so called "anti-communist" activities. So indeed, a person who declares that he believes and thus he cannot accept communism would certainly be slammed. And those who just say openly that they believe will be persecuted, too. If one "behaves" on the other hand, he has no trouble from the authorities. I went to church many times as a child, in my grandparents village. I never went in my hometown. My parents, both christians, were also teachers. They were not supposed to be seen in a church. So they went to church, but not at home.

You make a huge mistake if you think communism as equal to atheism. I've said at least twice, once to you, once to SearchAndDestroy that atheism is one of the values of Communism.

But you keep on mistaking one for another.[/quote]

 

Religion was defined as an instrument to control the people by a few.

No. What people get controlled by a hermit?[/quote] Don't ask silly questions. You know what religion is in communist ideology, don't you? And, many concur on this oppinion. Religion is indeed a mass handling tool.

There are no extremist atheists, that's an invention. Sure, there was no Holocaust, no genocide in Rwanda, Elvis lives, etc.

Bring a documented example of atheist extremism. The Holocaust has more to do with religion than with atheism. As for Rwanda and Elvis, maybe you know something I don't

Priests, intellectuals (atheists among them) were killed by the communists not because their religion but because their oposition to the regime. And communists were also zapping eachother in the struggle for power. Sure, the Communists killed many people, including Communists, including atheists. But what you fail to realize is that among their deeds the Communists launched campains against the religious, against the non-atheists, where the victims fell simply for their belief. I repeat, I provided scholarly sources to back this up. Without alternative sources, you'll be simply in denial.

Then I'm living in denial. Your "scholarly sources" are contested. The report you called in is, I repeat, a worthy document. But it's not complete. It is focused only on retrieving data regarding "the dark side". It has its value, its a good thing but it's not a representation of what life was in Romania by then. And, unfortunately, it is designed to be used for propaganda, so inherently, I look upon only trying to avoid extremes. And, BTW, what campaign was launched against non-atheists?

And I do know of churches that have been razed to build blocks. Were people lived. And with decent costs. How many people lived in People's House (largest administrative building in Europe, second largest administrative building in the world) for which 2 neighbourhoods where demolished, with some ~20 churches/synagogues and some tens of thousands of homes? Spare me of the naivities of the Communist nostalgy!

Spare yourself of it. I'm not nostalgic, I hated those times. But a fact is a fact. There were more houses, decent ones ane affordable, built for people in those times. I'm living the hardship of nowadays when buying a two room minuscule apartment is 60000 euro. Your example is an exception. And indeed it's a megalomaniac dream(nightmare) but the fact is that building places to live was something those nasty communists/atheists were doing.

Since I lived and live here I don't need them And what's your competency in describing the Church as functional? I also lived that period, my grand-father was even a priest, but I am not bringing testimonies from my experience, I resume myself to scholarship.   Haven't you heard of the scandals related to the cooperations of the religious leaders with the Security?  You obviously haven't read neither the report, nor the link I provided, where the infiltration of the Church was one of the main objectives of their anti-religious campaign. What's more interesting that this proves the Church was not functional. It's so easy to have opinions, but it's so hard to have an argument.

Actually it proves that the communists were right: The Church is a good mass handling tool. It worked fine and it still does its job. Especially when it comes to convince someone that personal testimony is worthless since sholarship says otherwise. Why do you fear atheists/atheism, Chilbudios? Maybe because they also provide scholarship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And not only in this context, for instance, Richard Dawkins, in his books characterizes himself as atheist and at the same time writes materials and expressed his wish in converting people to his belief. In one interview he even said he'd like the atheists to estabilish a political view of their own for the better of the world (or something like that, if I'll find that interview I'll give you the exact quote).

I never liked that guy. He seems to be creating a doctrine then if he wants to start a group with a common view. And that group may fall under the catagory of athiest, but it won't represent us by large.

What I'm saying is that when I discuss Christianity, I don't talk of all believers, because they have different doctrines. Shamanism and Christianity are very different in most cases and the most they have incommon is that they share the view point of a supernatural being that oversees them. And in this case, one may have more supernatural beings. So you can't discuss them both.

 

Though I will admit I'm on a personal crusade to prove that athiest can't be catagorized in one group when it comes to point of views. I don't feel any kinship with other athiests. Their view points are there's and mine are mine. I honestly wish a new definition can be created to describe someone that doesn't believe in a supernatural being, because athiest have such a bad name now. As an example, in the US Athiests are looked on as the most dangerous of people. They are the smallest minority I believe and I'm sure most people have never met one and if they had, they probably never knew or would know.

You were saying (and insisting, though with less self-confidence: "There were indeed some dubious blocks [...] but some not all") about a decent life in Communist apartments and the "good" brought by Communists giving people places to live in. Let me give you few scholarly excerpts about such cases.

 

On systematization:

In 1988, Ceauşescu declared the programme of urban systematization will succesfully end in 1990. If by then the demolitions were performed rather in the Old Kingdom cities, generally with no urban infrastructure, in the phase from the late 1980 massive destructions started even in relatively well-conserved historical cities like  Sighişoara or Sibiu.
In the same speech, the president of Romania decreed the generalized and accelerated application of rural systematization, discussed since 1967 and legalized in 1974.
[...]
The final phase of this programme, presented in 1988, was designed in three stages running until 2000 (1990-1995-2000). The programme prescribed the radical change of the entire rural habitat, where still 48.1% of the population lived. In this last phase, Ceauşescu mentioned the destruction of 7-8,000 villages from the ~13,000 existent ones. The inhabitants of the destroyed villages should have been moved to the existent ones which in turn would have been rebuilt with blocks and collective buildings, thus the inhabited land area would have been minimal. Among these "new villages", 558 were designated to be transformed into "agro-industrial" centers. Several such centers and systematized villages were raised around Bucharest, in the Agrarian Sector Ilfov, where the operation started in 1985 and in Giurgiu district. In these areas, several settlements were razed from the map: Buda, Dimieni, Vlădiceasca, Ordoreanu, Coteni, Podul Ilfovului. Even according to the official press presenting them for a success, most new built apartments had no modern facitilies: no running water, no sewerage, the common toilets were in the yard, there was a single kitchen per floor. Actually the peasants forced to live in these buildings were constrained to much inferior living conditions compared to what they had before. Worse was that losing the houses and the economic independence they still had (land in use, stables, vegetable gardens, etc.), they lost their own identity: their ancestral environment and their traditional community. (Vladimir Tismăneanu et al., Final Report, 2006, pp. 613-614, my translation)

 

On the living conditions in the apartments (especially in the '80s):

 

In 16 February 1987, a numerous group of students from Iaşi manifested against the lack of heat, electricity and potable water from student hostels. Tereza Culianu-Petrescu remembers that the protestermanifested: "We need light to study and water to wash ourselves!". (Vladimir Tismăneanu et al., Final Report, 2006, p. 371, n. 33, my translation)

 

the Party leadership and mainly Nicolae Ceauşescu decreed with serious consequences in the daily life of Romanian citizens: an artificial, state-organized poverty, the drastic reduction of the gas consumption and forcing the population to live in unbearable conditions, sometimes under 10 degrees Celsius. To paraphrase the title of an essay of the dissident writer Dorin Tudoran, Romania in those years was dominated by hunger, cold and fear. (Vladimir Tismăneanu et al., Final Report, 2006, p. 424, my translation)

 

but not only this report you don't like says it, let's check what others have to say about this:

 

new cuts in electricity and gas consumption norms were anounced in November 1987. In January 1988, when Ceauşescu turned seventy, Romania was dominated by malaise, anguish and deep frustration. (Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons: A political history of Romanian Communism, 2003, p. 227)

 

A moment of epiphany during my fieldwork in the disastrous mid-1980s when Romania was about the last socialist country anyone would want to be in, led me to wonder at the root of the fascination. with the endnote That winter was an unusually cold one [...] heat was cut back in all apartment buildings, electricity was likewise curtailed [...] these policies made life in Romania fairly nasty. (Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and what comes next?, 1996, p. 8)

 

Ceauşescu [...] destroyed individual privacy, keeping people busy with work and desperate hunts for food, clothing, and all the other basic necessities. Later he deprived Romanians of heat, electricity, and water. Orwell's narratives seem naive compared to what Romania endured. (Lidia Vianu, Censorship in Romania, 1998, p. VIII)

 

Toward the end of his regime, despite evident problems, including the shortage of raw materials, Ceauşescu stubbornly persisted with his centralized, heavy-industrial model. Romania's external debt was eliminated, with a concomitant increase in popular misery. During Ceauşescu last years food was rationed and cities regularly went without electricity and gas. (Bernard A. Cook, Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia, 2001, p. 657)

 

and what was left behind the Communist "standards of decent living":

 

While the West has been modernized rapidly and profoundly in the course of the last half-century, Communism has left  behind an unexpectedly large number of areas which have scarcely been touched by modernity, despite its intense industrialization programme (or perhaps precisely because of this programme, which resulted in an artificial industrial sector unable to bring the rest of the society along with it). [...] Outside the capital and a few large cities, hot water is a rarity in blocks of flats. (Lucian Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe, 2001, p. 181)

 

I think someone should warn all these scholars that they should re-edit their works with a major correction: all Romania but Cezar's small home town was in misery.

 

Now on your other aberrant claims:

 

There were no social issues in Romania handled better by that regime for the simple reason that regime was quasi-indiferent to the plight of the people (it only attempted to avoid revolts, nothing more). The Romanian post-Communist regime is infinitely better. You were complaining about high prices for houses - how comes is so hard to find a house then in a large Romanian city today, especially in Bucharest? Do you know the basic principle of request and offer? That's why prices are high, Cezar, because people still buy. If you are poor, go to some isolated country side, with ~1-2,000 euro you can still get an adobe and some 1-2 hectares around it - a garden, a small orchard, a yard, stables, etc.

 

Communists were militant atheists, period. Your sophisms only betray dogmatism. I've already provided sources (the book of mrs. Knox, the Final Report) stating it as clearly as possible (e.g. about USSR: The regime dedicated a large amount of energy to eradicating religion: an estimated 6 million people were involved in the atheist propaganda in the early 1970s. - a regime investing a large effort in atheist propaganda how can be called???). I'm not sure to what point serves that they were also communists beside atheists, since we talk about atheist propaganda and persecution against religion. And yes, it was total war, it was the international pressure and the control they needed over masses - a radical, massive and visible measure would have created turmoil, which stopped them. Richard Felix Staar said it best in his Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 4th ed., 1982, p. 217: As in other communist-ruled lands, the churches in Romania are allowed to exist as a temporary evil.)

 

Of course Eliade does not negate the fact that religion can be a tool, but he says the religion is not a tool, is not defined to be a tool. Anything can be used as a tool, including atheism (as proven in this thread).

 

That Church was dysfunctional is so obvious that your comments only indicate that your grudge against religion is rather irrational hate than an argumented stance. Let me try it again: by confession to a priest you could get secret police file. As a priest by teaching in your parish about some evanghelical values you could get imprisoned. Let's go back to Starr, as he dedicates a small chapter to this issue (pp. 217-219): The communist regime assumed control of all the churches in 1945 and 1948. This was achieved by arrogating to the government all authority over finances, property, and high-level administration; placing in key positions clergy who were subservient to the ruling party and severing ties with church organizations in foreign countries. [...] During 1962 the Holy See announced that of the fourteen Catholic archbishops and bishops in Romania, all but one were under arrest. Three years later it was reported that four of the five Catholic bishops remaining in the country had died in prison.

religion, in practice it is systematically repressed. [...] Religious groups frequently protest against the regime's stringent control over their activities, but do not have the influence of the Catholic church in Poland or the cohesion of the Czechoslovak priests and, therefore, yield to the regime tactics. In October 1980, five Protestants were arrested for smuggling Romanian- and Russian-language bibles into the country. There were reports that two of them had died, one by suicide and the other after a beating by security police. Again, I ask you, what is functional in all these?

 

Though philosophically atheism is composed from one single belief, in practice most atheists (if not all) share several common beliefs. For instance, you cannot be atheist and claim the Bible is literally true (thus, automatically, atheism means the Bible is literally false). Beyond that there are operative ways to divide this amorphous crowd of atheists. For instance, some believe all people should share their belief (as the only reasonable belief to have), some don't. Thus, we can have a common body of beliefs shared by those which were labeled here as "militant atheists", a body of beliefs which amounts to a doctrine and which can be dangerous (as I have tried to point out). Not even all Christians (not even all those from one Christian branch) do not share the same beliefs, yet we can find such a body of beliefs and group them together.

 

 

 

I've heard what you said at "Europa Libera" in 1987

I've said nothing public before 1989, so it couldn't be me. But whoever he/she was, it doesn't prove any point, as you cannot prove your testimony is reliable (see the paragraph above). The incompatibility between that quote and "Romania in those years was dominated by hunger, cold and fear" and "Romania was about the last socialist country anyone would want to be in" is so obvious and the latter testimonies are supporting each other that is a huge burden of proof for those asserting the contrary.

 

I haven't noticed your hate of the ex-regime so far in this discussion, only a slippery discourse - "it was bad, but not that bad". You agreed there were atrocities but you weren't outraged by them (those subhuman living conditions were labeled as "dubious"), you looked to find a "good" side of them (living with decent costs) - maybe I'm trusting too much what you have said so far, please redefine your position if so.

 

I also haven't said that being an atheist leads one to be a communist, only that in Communism regimes there was a strong militant atheist movement (organizations, campaigns, propaganda, etc.). Eventually we can add that being a communist-by-the-book (after the writings of Marx and Lenin) requires atheism as one of the beliefs. However there are lots of atheists which are not communists, are a lot of atheists which are not even struggling to impose their beliefs. But I was not talking about them.

 

On Church I think I proved quite clearly what was the situation. Your misunderstandings do not count as arguments.

 

It seems that the conclusion should be that there are militant atheists but ther is no militant atheism.

Your conclusion, perhaps. It's so outstretched I don't even wonder what was the reasoning behind it.

 

Militant atheism is all for the better. Ideally it will convince people that it is possible to live a fulfilling life without building it on ideas that, even if commendable, are almost certainly false.

 

Oh come now, Reginmund.

 

If the "proper deductive method" (in which specific manner, I wonder?) is "the very basis for all knowledge", then what of conclusions derived from inductive reasoning? Once again the question arises, albeit in a different context: generals or particulars?

 

-Akolouthos