Atheists' view on Stalin

Is this a sane person we are talking about? And who says morality comes from a higher being? How do we receive this morality from said higher being? A book? How does a person who is absent morality understand this higher beings morality in the first place? Men can and have justified a great many things including the supposed morality of many Gods as they enslaved, raped, tortured and murdered anyone who opposed them. Show me the moral difference between the worst theist and the worst atheist and how that relates to getting our morality from a higher being.

Perhaps science can answer those questions by revealing that there is no purpose to why we are here and that your direction is your own. I personally don't see the draw in wanting to be the result of someone else’s dream, even if that someone else is a God. Somehow theists have created and clung to the idea that questioning the gift of life is virtuous. I'm alive and so I am grateful that I am, if I wasn't I wouldn't be. The journey is always better than the end which negates the need for a purpose. This of course is often misconstrued as saying that life has no meaning when in fact it simply means that God cannot give it to you. If your life has meaning it’s because you gave it meaning.

It’s not I who is confusing the act of worship and religion, in fact you explained very nicely in the above how for example people do not actually worship money and how it is therefore not a religion at all. You did not provide an example like I asked you to nor did you address the points I made. Life is life and it’s amazing; science, music, art, entertainment, family, friends, literature, I enjoy many things about life and do whatever I can to try and change the things I think need changing but I have no need to worship anything or have blind faith in anything to have a meaningful life or have direction. I honestly don’t even get the argument you are trying to make. I think the problem here is you have no idea what it’s like to be free from the theistic mindset. You need to free your mind.

There is no such thing as evil there is only human nature, a nature that is only a few thousand years removed from living with our animal kin. And in case you are living under a rock, the morality of man is the reason Gods barbaric morality no longer holds sway in the Western world. It was not more Christianity that improved Christianities morality over the last couple hundred years, it was secularism and science.

No that is why the private sector will always be corrupt, not enough regulation by the people, big government will always be corrupted by those who want to maintain the status quo and the peasants who see themselves a kings because they have a house full of (*)(*)(*)(*). We need inspiration, the kind that innovates and challenges us not the kind that tells us to get on our knees and hope it all works out.

 

Society. Family. Friends. Community.

 

if your above all that if all that is under your control who do you answer to?

 

Why does one have to answer to anyone but those I stated?
Is it hard to grasp that one only has to answer to his/her conscience? Developed by life teachings and experiences and social constructs.

 

Stalin lived in a difficult time when atrocities were an every day event is Russia and, in fact, huge atrocities were committed by the Bolsheviks before Uncle Joe came to power. I can't really blame him for being a murderous, paranoid, sociopathic, anti-Trotskyite and anti-Bolshevist, can you? Btw, I really don't know what Stalin's religion was. I do know that he was an Eastern Orthodox seminarian before getting into politics.

 

Probably the same reason Catholics don't praise the Nazis, who were for the most part Catholic.

 

Considering atheism predates Stalin and communism by thousands of years, you clearly have no (*)(*)(*)(*)ing clue what you are talking about.

 

Aww, there is a lot more evidence for your conclusion than just that.

 

So by that logic since serial killers have existed for a long time the more recent ones aren't serial killers.....hmmmm....sure thing chief.

 

There's no option for amoral here. Stalin killed 10 million people in the interests of political advantage. It wasn't moral, it wasn't immoral, it was a useful technique for augmenting and preserving political power. It worked. I don't regard Stalin as having anything more to do with morality than a patch of ice if you slip and break a leg.

 

Every country deals harshly with enemies of the state.

 

"Atheism" is a different word from "communism" though, and it means a different thing. Do you really not see how that works? And you complain about logic, sheesh.

 

I suppose the hard part is differentiating between enemies of the state, and enemies of the head of state. This distinction seems rarely drawn. L'etat c'est moi.

 

...what you just said makes no (*)(*)(*)(*)ing sense.

You claimed Stalin and communism are the "roots" of atheism. I pointed out that is bull(*)(*)(*)(*) because atheism predates either of them.