Atheism is the Sustaining Ideology of Modern Imperialism

Here's Hitler admiring history's most famous atheist:



quote: Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and publicized his veneration for the philosopher by posing for photographs of himself staring in rapture at the bust of the great man.

quote: Finally there was Nietzsche's prophecy of the coming elite who would rule the world and from whom the superman would spring. In The Will to Power he exclaims: "A daring and ruler race is building itself up.... The aim should be to prepare a transvaluation of values for a particularly strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will. This man and the elite around him will become the 'lords of the earth'." Such rantings from one of Germany's most original minds must have struck a responsive chord in Hitler's littered mind. At any rate he appropriated them for his own--not only the thoughts but the philosopher's penchant for grotesque exaggeration, and often his very words. "Lords of the Earth" is a familiar expression in Mein Kampf.

LINK

 

Supermen, or overmen are people who are able to conquer themselves.

 

Imperialism here is being used very anachronistically. As the West steadily exports the liberal humanist value-system, both the national self-determination and individual human rights memes are gaining more and more influence. You may call the export of such memes "imperialism" - many do, but if that is your attitude, so be it.

I think it's serviceable to look at imperialism and atheism in the bigger picture. Atheism that is not wrapped up with a political/nationalist ideology - i.e., atheism as a product of the liberal ideal of the freedom of individual conscience - has been growing, slowly but steadily, since the 18th century. There is an inverse relationship between the worldwide growth of atheism (which, again is a prime index of the spread of the meme of the freedom of conscience) and the decline of traditional imperial hegemony. Common sense would say that this is hardly a coincidence.

Your thread is missing the forest, for the trees. We live in a great Liberal Age, where all arbitrary authority - from the yoke of traditional imperial depredations, to unaccountable divine authorities - is being thrown off. In the near future, religious belief will be a choice to an extent unimaginable at earlier times in human history. Choice begets competition - and I predict that increasingly, the youth will not be buying what their elders are selling.

 

Of course. When your side takes away rights, wrongfully imprisons, bombs you are doing it for the very best of reasons. Never call it imperialism.

And the West always knows best - bringing enlightenment to the dark-skinned benighted natives.

How bountiful the gifts of atheism to Africa for example.

Recording Ethiopia's Red Terror

quote: In the late 1970s Ethiopia's Marxist military rulers tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands in brutal repressions.

That would be news to all those tortured, bombed, and starved by atheists.

Here are secular leaders lovingly bestowing freedom and individual human rights, spreading the humanist value-system:

Quote from atheist leader Christopher Hitchens: "I do not think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged".

NATO Bombs Kill Scores of Afghan Civilians: Officials

quote: NATO warplanes killed at least 50 civilians, mostly women and children, in bombing in southern Afghanistan during a major Islamic holiday, local leaders said on Thursday.

Israel enlightening Gaza school with (illegal) white phosphorus:



And let's not forget the Soviets. Here's one of millions of victims of Stalin's engineered famine:

Can we throw off the yoke of atheist imperial depradations and unaccountable secular authorities as well?

Atheism has had its day. Nietzsche and Mussolini and Marx and Lenin are the deadest of the DWM. The world won't permit their brutality again. Atheism collides with science. Isn't atheism only embraced by the diseased and decadent residue of aristocratic families? In any fair competition the austere atheist faith always fails. Atheism only metastasizes when aided by Communist terror or the lies of the media bosses.

And look at China: Chinese survey finds religion booming

 

Strawman.

Strawman.

Strawman.

Strawman.

You do not have to be an atheist to hold this opinion. And many atheists would categorically reject it.

Israel enlightening Gaza school with (illegal) white phosphorus:

[/QUOTE]


Take a poll of U.S. atheists, and U.S. Evangelical Christians; just who do you think, is more likley to condemn the offensive use of chemical weapons, and who, do you think, is going to defend it?

Absolutely.

I'd bet you a tidy sum, that we can find a quote of Nietzsche saying the very same thing.

Happytalk.

Wherever the freedom of conscience is exercised, that is a cause for celebration. The problem is, that traditional faith, including the Christian faith, has (let us say) a deeply ambivalent attitude about the freedom of conscience. Christian leaders resisted the secularization begotten by the Enlightenment, but it has to be said that only the most maniacal opponents opponents of the freedom of conscience have a proper grasp of the cultural implications of that freedom. Take Sayyid Qutb, one of the founding fathers of Radical Islamism, who understood that that society which held church and state apart as distinct spheres, was one that embraced godlessness. Atheists recognize that ultimately, Qutb is right: the culture war is an all-or-nothing affair. The freedom of conscience will only be secure, when all avenues of arbitrary authority are shut down.

 

You think religious people support the use of chemical weapons?

I can pretty much tell you, as a professional warrior and religious person mind you, that chemical weapons are pretty much considered criminal by ... humanity.

There is a reason they have not been used seriously since the first world war.

If that is the mark of atheism's morality, not only that it thinks chemical weapons are bad, but that other's think they are good ... WTF?

White Phosporous, BTW, is not a chemical weapon. It is a reactive agent that burns, and quite frankly, when you have enemy Soldier dug into a fortified position, WP works really well on gettinh them out of said position without wasting Soldiers lives to get them out of those positions - unlike chemical or biological weapons, WP's influence is localized and comparatively short termed.

It is legal weapon on the modern battlefield, chemical weapons are not.

All that diatrobe proves is that you are both deeply ignorant and deeply prejudices against religion.

The idea that people's conscience cannot lead them to religion is silly. Stupid even.

Additionally, the world has always been a multi-cultural place. The idea that there is a culture war rather a need for tolerance and repsect is once again a demonstration of flawed intellectual conception.

 

I can pretty much tell you that no Christian would ever use a gun. There is no such thing as a "Christian soldier."

In fact, I would suggest that your religious fanaticism is a direct result of the guilt you feel at the contradiction in your life between what you do and what you think.

If thine own eye offends thee, pluck it out. i.e. pot calling the kettle black.

 

omg........ deliberate ignorance?

First off, if you had read my post, and possibly the OP's you would have seen the reference to his claim that atheists follow a doctrine of social Darwinism. This of course contracts observations, it is typically people on the left who want to pass things such as universal healthcare, it is people on the right who somehow sleep at night thinking that an athlete making $65,000,000 a year needs that money more than a person treating cancer.

Second as for imperialistic behaviors, are you seriously making this argument? Atheism is the absence of belief in a person god. There is no doctrine. A man in the sky telling anyone to invade countries. Just because the leaders of the countries are atheist means absolutely nothing. They are pursuing ideologies of the state rather than using imperialism as some secret means are perpetrating a form of atheism.

As much as you may believe it, there is no vast atheist conspiracy to destroy anyones way or life..... or apple pie.

 

If you are distancing yourself from the "new atheism" movement led by Harris and Hitchens and promoted by the media bosses I applaud you.

I think you'd be surprised how many U.S. Christians are left of center. And why on earth are we only polling Americans? Don't the populations of Africa, Latin America and Asia count? Globally who are more likely to be spoiled upper class males gobbling up the world's resources - atheists or religious people?

Sure, but his solution would be disturbing.

 

Not all atheists are heartless capitalists (many are heartless Communists for example) but a lot of libertarians are not fond of religion just like their sinister leader Ayn Rand.

Why the hell do you believe that atheist leaders are not motivated by their deeply held convictions regarding a matter of fundamental importance?

 

Atheist Ayn Rand is one of the most influential atheist leaders. Her followers seem legion on the internet.

quote about Ayn Rand: She announced that the world was divided between a small minority of Supermen who are productive and "the naked, twisted, mindless figure of the human Incompetent" who, like the Leninists, try to feed off them. He is "mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned." It is evil to show kindness to these "lice": The "only virtue" is "selfishness."

She meant it. Her diaries from that time, while she worked as a receptionist and an extra, lay out the Nietzschean mentality that underpins all her later writings. The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough."

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Seems like always the same pattern with atheists: elitism and the devaluation of the lives of others, self-glorification combined with self-destruction.

 

There's plenty of imperialists of all religions. This thread is a non-starter.

 

Anasi is a typical athiest hater and will make up stories about well known christians/catholics and claim them to be atheists (hitler) anasi forgets that the pope at that time supported hitler

 

True. When you balance it out, religion has caused far more suffering in the world than atheism. But some people are blind to this fact.

 

Rand made the blunder of blaming society for Hickman's crime's instead of Hickman. However, she never once praised his actions of rape and murder, and that is something that needs to be remembered when reading her words.

Atheists are alternatively accused of elitism and collectivism. Which one is it? Are we responsible for the beliefs of Rand or the mutually exclusive beliefs of Lenin?

 

Unfortunately, as the Catholic Church has a doctrine known as teh just war doctrine, and you have avoided every discussion on the application of violence in the real world .... its pretty clear that the only reason your would say that is to attempt to use what little knoweldge you have of someone else's valid faith as weapon against them.

You attempt to injure, but all you really do is expose your own character flaws.

I guess some atheists are just abusive jerks - a point K7 made abundantly clear last night did she not?

Advice you should probably take.

The herd of atheist trolls has slowly been thinning of late. That has allowed actual atheists like yardmeat and Distraff to get in an actual discussion or two. Its even pulling in Modus into actual dicussion rather than scathing flame fests. Keep it up Kmisho.

 

Because, based on the words of Jesus, I am quite sure he would have rejected the idea. No more discussion necessary.

Pot calling the kettle black.

And you. I'm not the Christian. You are. Obey Jesus.

You create a lot of flaming, you know.

 

Atheist Margaret Sanger was an ardent eugenicist who wanted to exterminate the handicapped, the poor, and non-whites.

quote from Sanger: As an advocate of birth control I wish ... to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation.... On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.
"The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda", October 1921, page 5.

another quotes: I accepted one branch of this philosophy, but eugenics without birth control seemed to me a house built upon sands. It could not stand against the furious winds of economic pressure which had buffeted into partial or total helplessness a tremendous proportion of the human race. The eugenists wanted to shift the birth control emphasis from less children for the poor to more children for the rich. We went back of that and sought first to stop the multiplication of the unfit. This appeared the most important and greatest step towards race betterment.
Chapter 30, "Now Is the Time for Converse", pp. 374-375.

The abortion movement has included many racists:

"Above all, society must grasp the grim relationship between unwanted children and the violent rebellion of minority groups."
- Lawrence Lader, co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal
of Abortion Laws. Breeding Ourselves to Death [New York: Ballantine Books, 1971], page 23.

Lawrence Lader was not a marginal figure, he was one of the founders of NARAL!

The recent best-seller Freakonomics made a similar argument.

And check out this article: Pro-Life Advocates Take Justice Ginsburg to Task for Racist Abortion Comments

Planned Parenthood has pushed abortion in minority communities for decades. The result:

 

What you say boils down to this.

So has Christianity. So if we should discard atheism on this basis, we should also discard Christianity by the same token.

If it suddenly became impossible for people to speak fallacies, I might get a decent night's sleep for once.

 

To answer with a definitive yes or no would be a gross generalization, but in my own personal experience, yes. I often distance myself from other Christians because of the above sentiments and other similar ones, but I am bursting at the seams with my own flaws so I have to remember that...

 

I'm saying that atheism has a particularly bad record, in fact a record far worse than any religion. Specifically in my last post I pointed out that the abortion industry has decimated minority communities. Do you agree or disagree?

 

I have to take this as a joke, because there is no way this is serious.

1) Minorities are expected to be in the majority by 2050. 2) More strawmen. Atheism does not own the abortion industry.

 

Communist atheists killed about 94 million in only 80 years! An atheist, Stalin, along with his fellow Christian-hater Hitler started the worst war in human history. And don't forget all the deaths caused by right-wing atheists - a topic I discussed at the start of this thread.

Please also remember that the austere atheist philosophy has never attracted a large number of believers. Under 3% of the world population is atheist. So a small number of atheists are responsible for a tremendous amount of carnage. On a per capita basis atheists are by far the worst murderers in human history.

Thanks to immigration mostly. Within the U.S. the African American population has been decimated by the abortion industry. I'm sure you agree that is awful.

Planned Parenthood, a central element of the abortion industry, was founded by an atheist. NARAL was founded mostly by secular Jews. For example NARAL founder Bernard Nathanson, who was also one of the largest abortion providers in the U.S., was an atheist. (He is now pro-life and has converted to Christianity.) Communists certainly embraced abortion - abortion rates in the Communist countries were stratospheric. I think it is fair to say that religious organizations have provided the most determined opposition to the abortion industry.

 

A few Christians have been manipulated by the media bosses into subservience to Israel and neocon ambitions - this despite the fact that Christians Discriminated Against by Israel. However, most Christians prefer Jesus' message of peace. Many Christian groups have opposed the Iraq War.

statement: 100 Leading Christian Ethicists Oppose Iraq War

quote: On September 13, 2002, US Catholic bishops signed a letter to President Bush stating that any "preemptive, unilateral use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq" could not be justified at the time. They came to this position by evaluating whether an attack against Iraq would satisfy the criteria for a just war as defined by Catholic theology.

US civil-rights leader the Reverend Jesse Jackson condemned the planned invasion, saying in February 2003 that it was not too late to stop the war and that people "must march until there is a declaration of peace and reconciliation."

The Vatican also spoke out against war in Iraq. Archbishop Renato Raffaele Martino, a former U.N. envoy and current prefect of the Council for Justice and Peace, told reporters that war against Iraq was a preventive war and constituted a "war of aggression", and thus did not constitute a just war. The foreign minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, expressed concerns that a war in Iraq would inflame anti-Christian feelings in the Islamic world. On February 8, 2003, Pope John Paul II said "we should never resign ourselves, almost as if war is inevitable." He spoke out again on March 22, 2003, shortly after the invasion began, saying that violence and arms "can never resolve the problems of man."

Both the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and his successor, Rowan Williams, spoke out against war with Iraq.

The executive committee of the World Council of Churches, an organization representing churches with a combined membership of between 350 million and 450 million Christians from over 100 countries, issued a statement in opposition to war with Iraq, stating that "War against Iraq would be immoral, unwise, and in breach of the principles of the United Nations Charter."

Jim Wallis of Sojourners Magazine has argued that, among both evangelical Christians and Catholics, "most major church bodies around the world" opposed the war.

LINK

quote: VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials are unleashing a barrage of condemnations of a possible U.S. military strike on Iraq, calling it immoral, risky and a "crime against peace."

The unwavering stance has made the pope one of the most visible opponents of war in current circumstances, and a rallying point for peace groups and politicians who seize on his words counseling against war.

LINK

 

Here's Hitler admiring history's most famous atheist:



quote: Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and publicized his veneration for the philosopher by posing for photographs of himself staring in rapture at the bust of the great man.

quote: Finally there was Nietzsche's prophecy of the coming elite who would rule the world and from whom the superman would spring. In The Will to Power he exclaims: "A daring and ruler race is building itself up.... The aim should be to prepare a transvaluation of values for a particularly strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will. This man and the elite around him will become the 'lords of the earth'." Such rantings from one of Germany's most original minds must have struck a responsive chord in Hitler's littered mind. At any rate he appropriated them for his own--not only the thoughts but the philosopher's penchant for grotesque exaggeration, and often his very words. "Lords of the Earth" is a familiar expression in Mein Kampf.

LINK