Zone1 YHWH(Jehovah)

[alang1216]

Atheism is a negation of a belief. Agnosticism (of which most are atheists in reality) is a belief that the existence of God cannot be known.

So atheism is the belief there is no God? Doesn't everyone negate at least some of the beliefs of others? Some people believe that communism is a good system, I don't think you do but you do bring it up fairly often.

 

[ding]

Don't expect me to defend Marx or communist states. I do note that Sweden has a very high percent of atheists and irreligious and they are hardly militant and seem to treasure their freedom and liberty.

With a Christian heritage no less. Let's give them some time to see how that plays out.

“More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.’”​

​

“Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval...But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.’”​

​

Alexander Solzhenitsyn​

“Templeton Lecture, May 10, 1983,” in The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947-2005, eds. Edward E. Ericson, Jr. and Daniel J. Mahoney (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006), 577​

 

[ding]

So atheism is the belief there is no God? Doesn't everyone negate at least some of the beliefs of others? Some people believe that communism is a good system, I don't think you do but you do bring it up fairly often.

Atheism isn't a belief per se. It's a negation and reaction to a belief. In your case it's the negation and reaction to Christianity which is the dominant religion of the land.

Communism - like atheism - is the negation and reaction to a belief. It's the negation and a reaction to the free market.

See "The Phenomenon of Socialism" for a better understanding of both.

 

[alang1216]

Atheism isn't a belief per se. It's a negation and reaction to a belief. In your case it's the negation and reaction to Christianity which is the dominant religion of the land.

Communism - like atheism - is the negation and reaction to a belief. It's the negation and a reaction to the free market.

See "The Phenomenon of Socialism" for a better understanding of both.

Semantic double-speak. You can just as easily say atheism is the belief that the same natural forces we see today created the universe and everything in it. Then Christianity is the negation of the belief in atheism and the free market is the negation to the belief in communism.

 

[alang1216]

With a Christian heritage no less. Let's give them some time to see how that plays out.

I won't be around but the current trendlines are clear.

“More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.’”​

​

“Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval...But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.’”​

​

Alexander Solzhenitsyn​

“Templeton Lecture, May 10, 1983,” in The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947-2005, eds. Edward E. Ericson, Jr. and Daniel J. Mahoney (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006), 577​

or maybe he'd be more accurate to say the ruling class had forgotten those they ruled.

 

[ding]

Semantic double-speak. You can just as easily say atheism is the belief that the same natural forces we see today created the universe and everything in it. Then Christianity is the negation of the belief in atheism and the free market is the negation to the belief in communism.

You have to start with what is extant; with what exists. You can't claim that light is the absence of darkness or that heat is the absence of cold because darkness and cold don't exist except as the negation of the thing that exists. Not believing in something is not extant. You also have to look to see what existed and what was the reaction to what existed. The free market existed. Communism was a reaction to the "cruelness" of the free market. Just read Marx and you will discover that for yourself.

 

[ding]

I won't be around but the current trendlines are clear.


or maybe he'd be more accurate to say the ruling class had forgotten those they ruled.

They seem clear to you but history is full of turns. I do believe you will see the consequences of atheism/socialism in your lifetime in Europe. But the dominoes will fall in the more populous countries first. You've picked idealized countries with small populations and considerable wealth. They won't be the bellwether of socialism and atheism. The bellwether will be the more populous countries of Europe.

 

[alang1216]

You have to start with what is extant; with what exists. You can't claim that light is the absence of darkness or that heat is the absence of cold because darkness and cold don't exist except as the negation of the thing that exists. Not believing in something is not extant. You also have to look to see what existed and what was the reaction to what existed. The free market existed. Communism was a reaction to the "cruelness" of the free market. Just read Marx and you will discover that for yourself.

Atheism, Christianity, communism and the free market all existed your entire life. So your belief in Christianity is your negation of atheism and your belief in the free market is your negation of communism.

 

[alang1216]

They seem clear to you but history is full of turns. I do believe you will see the consequences of atheism/socialism in your lifetime in Europe. But the dominoes will fall in the more populous countries first. You've picked idealized countries with small populations and considerable wealth. They won't be the bellwether of socialism and atheism. The bellwether will be the more populous countries of Europe.

So far the consequences of atheism/socialism in my lifetime in Europe have been the trend toward peace, freedom, and prosperity. Where it is not, e.g., Russia, the issues are not atheism/socialism but nationalism and authoritarian regimes.

 

[ding]

Atheism, Christianity, communism and the free market all existed your entire life. So your belief in Christianity is your negation of atheism and your belief in the free market is your negation of communism.

It's not about my life. It is what it is.

 

[ding]

So far the consequences of atheism/socialism in my lifetime in Europe have been the trend toward peace, freedom, and prosperity. Where it is not, e.g., Russia, the issues are not atheism/socialism but nationalism and authoritarian regimes.

I wouldn't expect you to see it any other way.

 

[alang1216]

It's not about my life. It is what it is.

Apparently it is only about my life. Whatever.

 

[alang1216]

I wouldn't expect you to see it any other way.

Because that is the right way?

 

[ding]

Apparently it is only about my life. Whatever.

No, it applies to all atheists who are socialist leaning. If you want to understand the basis you'll have to read "The Socialist Phenomenon."

The Socialist Phenomenon

Foreword

It seems that certain things in this world simply cannot be discovered without extensive experience, be it personal or collective. This applies to the present book with its fresh and revealing perspective on the millennia-old trends of socialism. While it makes use of a voluminous literature familiar to specialists throughout the world, there is an undeniable logic in the fact that it emerged from the country that has undergone (and is undergoing) the harshest and most prolonged socialist experience in modern history. Nor is it at all incongruous that within that country this book should not have been produced by a humanist, for scholars in the humanities have been the most methodically crushed of all social strata in the Soviet Union ever since the October Revolution. It was written by a mathematician of world renown: in the Communist world, practitioners of the exact sciences must stand in for their annihilated brethren.

But this circumstance has its compensations. It provides us with a rare opportunity of receiving a systematic analysis of the theory and practice of socialism from the pen of an outstanding mathematical thinker versed in the rigorous methodology of his science. (One can attach particular weight, for instance, to his judgment that Marxism lacks even the climate of scientific inquiry.)

World socialism as a whole, and all the figures associated with it, are shrouded in legend; its contradictions are forgotten or concealed; it does not respond to arguments but continually ignores them--all this stems from the mist of irrationality that surrounds socialism and from its instinctive aversion to scientific analysis, features which the

[vii]

---

author of this volume points out repeatedly and in many contexts. The doctrines of socialism seethe with contradictions, its theories are at constant odds with its practice, yet due to a powerful instinct--also laid bare by Shafarevich--these contradictions do not in the least hinder the unending propaganda of socialism. Indeed, no precise, distinct socialism even exists; instead there is only a vague, rosy notion of something noble and good, of equality, communal ownership, and justice: the advent of these things will bring instant euphoria and a social order beyond reproach.
The twentieth century marks one of the greatest upsurges in the success of socialism, and concomitantly of its repulsive practical manifestations. Yet due to the same passionate irrationality, attempts to examine these results are repelled: they are either ignored completely, or implausibly explained away in terms of certain "Asiatic" or "Russian" aberrations or the personality of a particular dictator, or else they are ascribed to "state capitalism." The present book encompasses vast stretches of time and space. By carefully describing and analyzing dozens of socialist doctrines and numerous states built on socialist principles, the author leaves no room for evasive arguments based on so-called "insignificant exceptions" (allegedly bearing no resemblance to the glorious future). Whether it is the centralization of China in the first millennium B.C., the bloody European experiments of the time of the Reformation, the chilling (though universally esteemed) utopias of European thinkers, the intrigues of Marx and Engels, or the radical Communist measures of the Lenin period (no wit more humane than Stalin's heavy-handed methods)--the author in all his dozens of examples demonstrates the undeviating consistency of the phenomenon under consideration.

Shafarevich has singled out the invariants of socialism, its fundamental and unchanging elements, which depend neither on time nor place, and which, alas, are looming ominously over today's tottering world. If one considers human history in its entirety, socialism can boast of a greater longevity and durability, of wider diffusion and of control over larger masses of people, than can contemporary Western civilization. It is therefore difficult to shake off gloomy presentiments when contemplating that maw into which--before the century is out--we may all plunge: that "Asiatic formation" which Marx hastened to circumvent in his classification, and before which contemporary Marxist thought stands baffled, having discerned its own hideous countenance

[viii]

---

in the mirror of the millennia. It could probably be said that the majority of states in the history of mankind have been "socialist." But it is also true that these were in no sense periods or places of human happiness or creativity.
Shafarevich points out with great precision both the cause and the genesis of the first socialist doctrines, which he characterizes as reactions: Plato as a reaction to Greek culture, and the Gnostics as a reaction to Christianity. They sought to counteract the endeavor of the human spirit to stand erect, and strove to return to the earthbound existence of the primitive states of antiquity. The author also convincingly demonstrates the diametrical opposition between the concepts of man held by religion and by socialism. Socialism seeks to reduce human personality to its most primitive levels and to extinguish the highest, most complex, and "God-like" aspects of human individuality. And even equality itself, that powerful appeal and great promise of socialists throughout the ages, turns out to signify not equality of rights, of opportunities, and of external conditions, but equality qua identity, equality seen as the movement of variety toward uniformity.

Even though, as this book shows, socialism has always successfully avoided truly scientific analyses of its essence, Shafarevich's study challenges present-day theoreticians of socialism to demonstrate their arguments in a businesslike public discussion.

ALEKSANDR I. SOLZHENITSYN

 

[ding]

Because that is the right way?

Because you are blinded by bias and have a need to lash out at Christians.

 

[alang1216]

No, it applies to all atheists who are socialist leaning. If you want to understand the basis you'll have to read "The Socialist Phenomenon."

The Socialist Phenomenon

Foreword

It seems that certain things in this world simply cannot be discovered without extensive experience, be it personal or collective. This applies to the present book with its fresh and revealing perspective on the millennia-old trends of socialism. While it makes use of a voluminous literature familiar to specialists throughout the world, there is an undeniable logic in the fact that it emerged from the country that has undergone (and is undergoing) the harshest and most prolonged socialist experience in modern history. Nor is it at all incongruous that within that country this book should not have been produced by a humanist, for scholars in the humanities have been the most methodically crushed of all social strata in the Soviet Union ever since the October Revolution. It was written by a mathematician of world renown: in the Communist world, practitioners of the exact sciences must stand in for their annihilated brethren.

But this circumstance has its compensations. It provides us with a rare opportunity of receiving a systematic analysis of the theory and practice of socialism from the pen of an outstanding mathematical thinker versed in the rigorous methodology of his science. (One can attach particular weight, for instance, to his judgment that Marxism lacks even the climate of scientific inquiry.)

World socialism as a whole, and all the figures associated with it, are shrouded in legend; its contradictions are forgotten or concealed; it does not respond to arguments but continually ignores them--all this stems from the mist of irrationality that surrounds socialism and from its instinctive aversion to scientific analysis, features which the

[vii]

---

author of this volume points out repeatedly and in many contexts. The doctrines of socialism seethe with contradictions, its theories are at constant odds with its practice, yet due to a powerful instinct--also laid bare by Shafarevich--these contradictions do not in the least hinder the unending propaganda of socialism. Indeed, no precise, distinct socialism even exists; instead there is only a vague, rosy notion of something noble and good, of equality, communal ownership, and justice: the advent of these things will bring instant euphoria and a social order beyond reproach.
The twentieth century marks one of the greatest upsurges in the success of socialism, and concomitantly of its repulsive practical manifestations. Yet due to the same passionate irrationality, attempts to examine these results are repelled: they are either ignored completely, or implausibly explained away in terms of certain "Asiatic" or "Russian" aberrations or the personality of a particular dictator, or else they are ascribed to "state capitalism." The present book encompasses vast stretches of time and space. By carefully describing and analyzing dozens of socialist doctrines and numerous states built on socialist principles, the author leaves no room for evasive arguments based on so-called "insignificant exceptions" (allegedly bearing no resemblance to the glorious future). Whether it is the centralization of China in the first millennium B.C., the bloody European experiments of the time of the Reformation, the chilling (though universally esteemed) utopias of European thinkers, the intrigues of Marx and Engels, or the radical Communist measures of the Lenin period (no wit more humane than Stalin's heavy-handed methods)--the author in all his dozens of examples demonstrates the undeviating consistency of the phenomenon under consideration.

Shafarevich has singled out the invariants of socialism, its fundamental and unchanging elements, which depend neither on time nor place, and which, alas, are looming ominously over today's tottering world. If one considers human history in its entirety, socialism can boast of a greater longevity and durability, of wider diffusion and of control over larger masses of people, than can contemporary Western civilization. It is therefore difficult to shake off gloomy presentiments when contemplating that maw into which--before the century is out--we may all plunge: that "Asiatic formation" which Marx hastened to circumvent in his classification, and before which contemporary Marxist thought stands baffled, having discerned its own hideous countenance

[viii]

---

in the mirror of the millennia. It could probably be said that the majority of states in the history of mankind have been "socialist." But it is also true that these were in no sense periods or places of human happiness or creativity.
Shafarevich points out with great precision both the cause and the genesis of the first socialist doctrines, which he characterizes as reactions: Plato as a reaction to Greek culture, and the Gnostics as a reaction to Christianity. They sought to counteract the endeavor of the human spirit to stand erect, and strove to return to the earthbound existence of the primitive states of antiquity. The author also convincingly demonstrates the diametrical opposition between the concepts of man held by religion and by socialism. Socialism seeks to reduce human personality to its most primitive levels and to extinguish the highest, most complex, and "God-like" aspects of human individuality. And even equality itself, that powerful appeal and great promise of socialists throughout the ages, turns out to signify not equality of rights, of opportunities, and of external conditions, but equality qua identity, equality seen as the movement of variety toward uniformity.

Even though, as this book shows, socialism has always successfully avoided truly scientific analyses of its essence, Shafarevich's study challenges present-day theoreticians of socialism to demonstrate their arguments in a businesslike public discussion.

ALEKSANDR I. SOLZHENITSYN

Sorry, not a fan of Solzhenitsyn and definitely off-topic. I'll only say that every economy is mixed, having elements of capitalism, socialism, AND communism, or it will perish. And that includes the US economy.

 

[alang1216]

Because you are blinded by bias and have a need to lash out at Christians.

And you are not blinded by your bias? And you don't lash out at atheists? Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?

 

[ding]

Sorry, not a fan of Solzhenitsyn and definitely off-topic. I'll only say that every economy is mixed, having elements of capitalism, socialism, AND communism, or it will perish. And that includes the US economy.

And yet history records the linkage between atheism and socialism/communism and their consistent subordination of the dominant religion of the land and time.

Is it off topic? This conversation started when I asked you why it mattered to you that the God of Abraham isn't the source of existence. That is totally consistent with socialism always trying to subordinate the dominant religion of the land. You have an ax to grind with Christianity. It's obvious. Apparently it's the only religion you have an issue with.

 

[ding]

And you are not blinded by your bias? And you don't lash out at atheists? Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?

Am I blinded by my bias? Maybe. Sometimes. But I'll be the first to challenge my fellow believers when I disagree with them. I don't defend the actions of the 200 or so pedophile priests or the superiors who covered it up. I'll be the first to challenge my fellow conservatives when they make ridiculous arguments that make conservationism look bad.

Do I lash out at atheists? Or am I defending God from their unreasonable attacks? I say it's the latter. I'm constantly watching what I say. My good name is important to me.

 

[kjw47]

You're wrong, the bible shows that other gods can be legitimately worshiped without offending YHWH. You obviously don't know your own bible. Does an atheist have to teach you, a Christian, the bible? Amazing.

No it does not say that ever.