Has religion ever died in the US?

[Samuel]

The Russian populace had been highly religious and highly superstitious for centuries. Consequently when Lenin and later Stalin set up shop, they simply set up an atheistic religion. Impervious to reason, dogmatic, long list of thought crimes, definitely smacks of religion even though it was nominally atheistic. What I should have said is I hadn't heard of a stupid rationalist.

The original revolutionaries were idealists. Perhaps they were stupid though. Why rub it in that all girls fart though.

Except that you are forgeting a whole list of things. For starters, not all the communists were on board the plan- the Mensheviks were opposed to the foundation of a one party state while at the same time embracing Marxism. As for the revolutionaries being idealists, these were people who fought the Russian Civil War. Hardly idealists.

Micheal Shermer probably counts as a stupid rationalist. His approach to religion and atheism is really stupid.

[Patrick Degan]

The Russian populace had been highly religious and highly superstitious for centuries. Consequently when Lenin and later Stalin set up shop, they simply set up an atheistic religion. Impervious to reason, dogmatic, long list of thought crimes, definitely smacks of religion even though it was nominally atheistic. What I should have said is I hadn't heard of a stupid rationalist.

Not correct. Atheism is not a "religion" and was not "set up" as one by the Bolshevik regime. Lenin disestablished the Orthodox Church, but did not actively suppress religion as a matter of principle or of overall State policy, but did act against clerics who actively supported the White cause during the Civil War. Stalin did attempt an outright suppression of religion from 1928-1939 for the same reasons he set about to liquidate the Kulaks —to eliminate any and all ideological challenges to his rule. However, when the Germans invaded in 1941, Stalin restored the Church as a morale booster to the populace, as he was seizing on every patriotic device he could lay his hands on to bolster the resistance against the Nazis. After the war, the Church was pretty much integrated into the fabric of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

[Samuel]

I think he is refering to the nature of the Russian communist party. Of course, its dogma was only mandatory for party members which were a minority of the populance.

[Samurai Rafiki]

Christ, one of the main fucking reasons we thought of ourselves as morally superior (we were, though for far different reasons) during pretty much the entire Cold War was our "inherent belief in almighty god".

Again, late 40's, early 50's this is entirely true. Commies and pinkos were attacked for being godless. However, the rising status of intellectuals, even those McCarthy was grilling, meant that people stopped seeing this as such a deal breaker. The cry may still have been there, but it didn't get anyone fired anymore.

If so, then it seems to me that you're confusing correlation and causation: churches are conservative, therefore every bit of reactionary bullshit that ever happens in America is a church's fault! You're ignoring the possibility of non-religious racism, non-religious sexism, non-religious obsession with "tradition..." all of which are confounding variables in trying to chart religion in America simply by looking at the level of political progress and assuming an inverse relationship between them.

Typically the church has been either the cause or just as often the justification for racism, sexism, etc. So when the church's influence is in decline, these sentiments invariably lose ground.

Speaking for myself, that's all I've ever been saying. Religion doesn't vanish from the American political scene, but it alternates between taking an active role (1980s-today) and taking a relatively passive role (1940s-60s)

I think this leaves out the role that secularism plays. Religion doesn't give up power willingly, or become less influential simply because people stop taking so seriously completely on their own accord. Secularists and atheists are always there pushing, and when it seems to the public like they're making sense, the public becomes less religious. Some stop going to church, many erect a bit of cognitive dissonance, and quite a few migrate from fundamentalist churches to more liberal churches, which has the same effect. When there are more Unitarian Universalists than there are Pentecostals, the power that the religious leaders wield is quite diminished. So again, when religion isn't 'active' or I would say dominant, it's because secularism is.

I have, dumbshit, but I find it amazing that you do not see the basic contradiction in the idea that "secularism had more influence during these times, yet Religion in the end had the power to hijack their social movement and create a period of regression." I'm not just talking about the fundies, I'm talking about all christians. Population count is a measure of influence, and a better one than religious activity at any given time, because such social movements require massive amounts of people to pull off. Just because the religious aren't active in any period of time doesn't mean the that social/cultural influence isn't there. It means they aren't using it, or haven't yet gathered enough momentum to pull off a period of regression.

Then why don't you quote a history book, asshole? Fuck, I'd settle for wikipedia if you'd just look at a source. While you're there, why don't you look up "Great Awakening?"

Obviously you're incapable of grasping nuance. "moar pplz meenz god winz!!" You have to look at a lot of factors to determine the influence of religion besides population. Different denominations have wildly different views, count actual weekly attendance rather than the number of people who would say they're religious, and also you have to consider how seriously they're taking the demands and talking points of their preachers. I have quite liberal friends who go to Evangelical churches and listen to the preacher thunder on about gays and whatnot, but they go there because they consider themselves nominally Christian and it's close, and they have a lot of friends there. They're not taking that quack at the front all that seriously.

Obviously social movements don't require a majority to pull off. They require a sympathetic, or sometimes even apathetic majority, but an active minority is quite sufficient. For instance, Fundamentalist Christians make up only about 30% of the American population, but they wield enormous power, especially in the Bush election cycles. They're noisy, and enough people agree with them just enough that their influence is quite magnified.

Religion didn't have the arbitrary power to hijack the movement. They did it through cunning, by preying on the weaker elements of the movement and appealing to the vast apathetic or sympathetic majority. People at home got tired of seeing dirty hippies and agreeing with them. The novelty wore off. So when you present them with clean cut young people pushing conservative values in the guise of Jesus, they're quite amenable to that position. Fundamentalist religious groups didn't want busing, they didn't want the civil rights act, and they didn't want to see the societal norms regarding women shift. But they did, indicating that the fundies weren't getting their way. Not because they were too occupied to be bothered to fight it- but because the vast apathetic, sympathetic mass was with the courts, with the activists, and with the feminists. So fundamentalism changed its tack, gave up on blocking civil rights and feminism (for the moment) and came back with the new counter-counter culture face. Nuance, fool. I'm doing my best to dumb this down to black and white for you but reality is under no such compulsion.

The role religion takes is immaterial. What is important is the potential power they wield: as long as over half the population regards the tenants of their religion as important they become that much more easily swayed by the pundits and preachers who can tell them the brown people, the commies, the hippies, the pro-abortion scientists, the atheist gays, etc. are the enemy of God and country, which translates into political power thanks to democracy. Yes, there are other factors at work, notably capitalism. Heck, my point about the prohibition era that Samuri guy didn't seem to understand (and to be fair, maybe I didn't communicate as well as I could have) was that there were secular pressures and reasons for its institution. That does not, however, negate the point that there has never been a time at which potential power rested in the hands of the religious forces, both institutional and more importantly social, due to the sheer numbers of people who still consider themselves christian in this country.

They were screaming bloody murder all through the late fifties and sixties about the commies, blacks, hippies, man-hating lesbian feminists and godless secularists, but they still lost ground. No matter how many people show up to church, if in the voting booth and the halls of congress secular interests are winning and religious positions are being pushed back, then that is indicative of the relative power of the two opposing forces.

As for prohibition, the main drive was religious. The only example you gave of a secular push was, just behind the scenes, a Christian movement.

psst! You know how religion sometimes masks its presence behind ostensibly secular fronts? Like advocating "intelligent design" rather than creationism, or "defense of marriage" rather than Leviticus? Yeah, that's not a new trick. They've been doing it for years. They don't always do it, but when they do, it's because the religious excuse isn't resonating with enough of the population. If they said no gay marriage because Leviticus, the argument would be much easier to win. However, defense of marriage- just the slightest veneer of bullshit, is enough to make the argument exponentially more complicated.

Again, though this will probably fly in one ear and out the other, no matter how many people say they're Christian, if the Christian positions lose ground, then the power of religion is comparatively weak, and secularism is comparatively strong.

So you get these waves of back-and-forth, and there's a very real difference in the political climate depending on whether you're on the "back" or the "forth." I wouldn't call it immaterial, though it might be of secondary importance from your point of view.

Indeed, it is of secondary importance (if that) because the religious can find other ways of pursuing their agenda after the legal aspects are tied up. Continuing racism, sexism, and homophobia are excellent examples of this.

Way to let that one sail over your head. When religion is in the "back," social progress is carried forward, and often remains there. Religious Conservatives pushing for Sarah Palin to run for president would have been unheard of in 1900, or even in 1950. But the social movements of the 60's moved the discussion forward, so now religion has to play by the new rules, determined at some point in the past by the secularists. They have to adapt because they've lost ground. They lost ground because the secular position was more influential than theirs.

The Russian populace had been highly religious and highly superstitious for centuries. Consequently when Lenin and later Stalin set up shop, they simply set up an atheistic religion. Impervious to reason, dogmatic, long list of thought crimes, definitely smacks of religion even though it was nominally atheistic. What I should have said is I hadn't heard of a stupid rationalist.

Not correct. Atheism is not a "religion" and was not "set up" as one by the Bolshevik regime. Lenin disestablished the Orthodox Church, but did not actively suppress religion as a matter of principle or of overall State policy, but did act against clerics who actively supported the White cause during the Civil War. Stalin did attempt an outright suppression of religion from 1928-1939 for the same reasons he set about to liquidate the Kulaks —to eliminate any and all ideological challenges to his rule. However, when the Germans invaded in 1941, Stalin restored the Church as a morale booster to the populace, as he was seizing on every patriotic device he could lay his hands on to bolster the resistance against the Nazis. After the war, the Church was pretty much integrated into the fabric of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

I never said atheism was a religion. What I meant was that they made a religion out of communism, but I called it "atheistic" in the most literal sense of the word, because it lacked a god. It did, however, have dogmas, infallible claims, and messianic figures. Just because it didn't have a supernatural doesn't mean that it wasn't quite close enough to a religion to tap into the same impulses in the populace.

[Flagg]

Christ, one of the main fucking reasons we thought of ourselves as morally superior (we were, though for far different reasons) during pretty much the entire Cold War was our "inherent belief in almighty god".

Again, late 40's, early 50's this is entirely true. Commies and pinkos were attacked for being godless. However, the rising status of intellectuals, even those McCarthy was grilling, meant that people stopped seeing this as such a deal breaker. The cry may still have been there, but it didn't get anyone fired anymore.

You're kidding, right? As late as 1988 a Presidential candidate (Bush 41) openly stated matter of factly that you cannot be a 'real' American unless you believe in god.

[Samurai Rafiki]

Christ, one of the main fucking reasons we thought of ourselves as morally superior (we were, though for far different reasons) during pretty much the entire Cold War was our "inherent belief in almighty god".

Again, late 40's, early 50's this is entirely true. Commies and pinkos were attacked for being godless. However, the rising status of intellectuals, even those McCarthy was grilling, meant that people stopped seeing this as such a deal breaker. The cry may still have been there, but it didn't get anyone fired anymore.

You're kidding, right? As late as 1988 a Presidential candidate (Bush 41) openly stated matter of factly that you cannot be a 'real' American unless you believe in god.

The Fundamentalists staged another revival after the upheavals of the sixties. In the seventies, their vote was being actively courted, and in 1980 they elected Reagan. So in the 80's, appeals to religion were more effective. I'm not saying that the power of religion was broken in the mid fifties, what I'm saying is that it waned in the late fifties and early sixties, then began to make a comeback. Early fifties, calling the commies godless was effective. 1963, not so much. 1983, quite a lot more.

[Formless]

Again, late 40's, early 50's this is entirely true. Commies and pinkos were attacked for being godless. However, the rising status of intellectuals, even those McCarthy was grilling, meant that people stopped seeing this as such a deal breaker. The cry may still have been there, but it didn't get anyone fired anymore.

You're kidding, right? As late as 1988 a Presidential candidate (Bush 41) openly stated matter of factly that you cannot be a 'real' American unless you believe in god.

The Fundamentalists staged another revival after the upheavals of the sixties. In the seventies, their vote was being actively courted, and in 1980 they elected Reagan. So in the 80's, appeals to religion were more effective. I'm not saying that the power of religion was broken in the mid fifties, what I'm saying is that it waned in the late fifties and early sixties, then began to make a comeback. Early fifties, calling the commies godless was effective. 1963, not so much. 1983, quite a lot more.

Name one president that wasn't openly christian. You can't, because there isn't a goddamn one. Do you not see why this is a problem for your theory that it was because of some religious revival that Reagan could make such openly religious bigoted statements and NOT because the country has had a longstanding bias towards christianity?

[Formless]

Then why don't you quote a history book, asshole? Fuck, I'd settle for wikipedia if you'd just look at a source. While you're there, why don't you look up "Great Awakening?"

Obviously you're incapable of grasping nuance. "moar pplz meenz god winz!!" You have to look at a lot of factors to determine the influence of religion besides population.

I like how you continue to ignore the point that the religious revivals are a symptom of widespread religion, NOT a cause of it. Very few people choose to join a religion who didn't start with a strong inclination towards said religion or strong community pressures to conform. You are the one simplifying things, not me.

You will notice of course that the First Great Awakining was before the American Revolution. They also were "characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase in interest in religion, a profound sense of guilt and redemption on the part of those affected, a jump in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations." Not a word of that indicates that people weren't already believers to start with, only that the Evangelical tumor specifically got bigger in that time and spawned other tumors. I mean, religious denominations. But you have to already have cancer to have a tumor grow. This supports my theory that a lack of religious activity is a poorer method of measuring religious influence than population statistics.

Different denominations have wildly different views, count actual weekly attendance rather than the number of people who would say they're religious, and also you have to consider how seriously they're taking the demands and talking points of their preachers. I have quite liberal friends who go to Evangelical churches and listen to the preacher thunder on about gays and whatnot, but they go there because they consider themselves nominally Christian and it's close, and they have a lot of friends there. They're not taking that quack at the front all that seriously.

The differences are mostly superficial. The all believe that Jesus Christ was their savior, that there is a Heaven and a Hell where finite crimes and good deeds alike are met with infinite rewards and punishments, that certain behaviors (especially sexual one's) are sins, that you should do your part to recruit members if possible and give money to the church if not, and so on. The different denominations overlap so much that on average there isn't much difference politically between a Baptist and an Evangelical. Try talking to them sometime. You can't tell them apart unless you already know what nuances to look for (or ask them upfront). The only one I can think of that might be easy to distinguish are Catholics due to the distinct terms they use (like the use of the word "priest" or "mass" or other things signifying the church hierarchy), and even that might just be my bias as a former Catholic speaking.

Obviously social movements don't require a majority to pull off. They require a sympathetic, or sometimes even apathetic majority, but an active minority is quite sufficient. For instance, Fundamentalist Christians make up only about 30% of the American population, but they wield enormous power, especially in the Bush election cycles. They're noisy, and enough people agree with them just enough that their influence is quite magnified.

Bullshit on all accounts. Do you know what a social movement is? On a local scale, what you say has more validity: on a national scale, though, the silent majority is far more important. Political changes mean very little if a cultural change cannot be observed.

Religion didn't have the arbitrary power to hijack the movement. They did it through cunning, by preying on the weaker elements of the movement and appealing to the vast apathetic or sympathetic majority.

The majority of whom already believed in their religion, and were preconditioned to listen to the crazies on the far end of the spectrum. You really suck at inductive reasoning, dude.

They were screaming bloody murder all through the late fifties and sixties about the commies, blacks, hippies, man-hating lesbian feminists and godless secularists, but they still lost ground. No matter how many people show up to church, if in the voting booth and the halls of congress secular interests are winning and religious positions are being pushed back, then that is indicative of the relative power of the two opposing forces.

Political progress is not as important as cultural momentum.

As for prohibition, the main drive was religious. The only example you gave of a secular push was, just behind the scenes, a Christian movement.

psst! You know how religion sometimes masks its presence behind ostensibly secular fronts? Like advocating "intelligent design" rather than creationism, or "defense of marriage" rather than Leviticus? Yeah, that's not a new trick. They've been doing it for years. They don't always do it, but when they do, it's because the religious excuse isn't resonating with enough of the population. If they said no gay marriage because Leviticus, the argument would be much easier to win. However, defense of marriage- just the slightest veneer of bullshit, is enough to make the argument exponentially more complicated.

Again, though this will probably fly in one ear and out the other, no matter how many people say they're Christian, if the Christian positions lose ground, then the power of religion is comparatively weak, and secularism is comparatively strong.

If you read their arguments, you might just realize that many of them were secular concerns, such as the correlation between drunkenness and violence in society. Its not so simple that you can boil down the movement into who is running it. Their motives can be multifaceted you know.

Way to let that one sail over your head. When religion is in the "back," social progress is carried forward, and often remains there.

Until the Regressives can find a way to undermine it at a later date by doing a "religious revival" that wouldn't work without an already strong, if silent, population base to work with. Do you not think about the implications of your own arguments before spewing them out, or are you so determined to defend your preconceived notions against all reason that you can't think straight?

[Patrick Degan]

Not correct. Atheism is not a "religion" and was not "set up" as one by the Bolshevik regime. Lenin disestablished the Orthodox Church, but did not actively suppress religion as a matter of principle or of overall State policy, but did act against clerics who actively supported the White cause during the Civil War. Stalin did attempt an outright suppression of religion from 1928-1939 for the same reasons he set about to liquidate the Kulaks —to eliminate any and all ideological challenges to his rule. However, when the Germans invaded in 1941, Stalin restored the Church as a morale booster to the populace, as he was seizing on every patriotic device he could lay his hands on to bolster the resistance against the Nazis. After the war, the Church was pretty much integrated into the fabric of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

I never said atheism was a religion. What I meant was that they made a religion out of communism, but I called it "atheistic" in the most literal sense of the word, because it lacked a god. It did, however, have dogmas, infallible claims, and messianic figures. Just because it didn't have a supernatural doesn't mean that it wasn't quite close enough to a religion to tap into the same impulses in the populace.

Again, you are incorrect. The Communist Party did not proclaim its infallibility (a claim which is refuted simply by example of the formal criticism of Stalin's crimes by Khruschev before the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956), nor did it set up Marx, Lenin or Stalin as "messiahs". As for "dogma", the Party promulgated its political doctrines, but those were not statements based on belief in a supernatural realm with its own rules but an ideological line laid down to direct Party action, and adjustable to suit changing circumstances. Really, do you even understand the difference between political doctrine and religious dogma in the first place?

[Samurai Rafiki]

Name one president that wasn't openly christian. You can't, because there isn't a goddamn one. Do you not see why this is a problem for your theory that it was because of some religious revival that Reagan could make such openly religious bigoted statements and NOT because the country has had a longstanding bias towards christianity?

How about..... Lincoln? Who is pointed out on this very fucking site in Wong's creation theory page along with Jefferson and Washington (deists) along with that very same quote you're referencing. Holy fucking shit. I can understand not reading a history book, but you didn't read the atheism section on this very website? Here's Lincoln again: "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." My, that doesn't sound very Christ-y of him.

I like how you continue to ignore the point that the religious revivals are a symptom of widespread religion, NOT a cause of it. Very few people choose to join a religion who didn't start with a strong inclination towards said religion or strong community pressures to conform. You are the one simplifying things, not me.

How the fuck can a revival occur when there is already widespread religiosity? Check it out buddy: when your mom has a flare-up of herpes, it's because she wasn't having symptoms before, but now she is. She had the disease the entire time, sure, but it wasn't producing any effects. Christianity is the same way. The disease may persist, but in certain periods of US history it doesn't produce any effects. Can't motivate social progress, can't get its goals accomplished, low church attendance, greater attendance at liberal versus fundamentalist churches, etc.

You will notice of course that the First Great Awakining was before the American Revolution.

What the fuck does it matter that the first was before the Revolution? That's like pointing out that your mom got herpes before she was married.

They also were "characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase in interest in religion, a profound sense of guilt and redemption on the part of those affected, a jump in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations." Not a word of that indicates that people weren't already believers to start with, only that the Evangelical tumor specifically got bigger in that time and spawned other tumors. I mean, religious denominations. But you have to already have cancer to have a tumor grow. This supports my theory that a lack of religious activity is a poorer method of measuring religious influence than population statistics.

Your 'theory' is retarded, as are you, since you just quoted pretty much my exact point. "[A] sharp increase in interest in religion." Even if they were already believers, they weren't acting like it. They were acting like secularists, it was pissing the preachers off, and they organized a revolt.

The differences are mostly superficial. The all believe that Jesus Christ was their savior, that there is a Heaven and a Hell where finite crimes and good deeds alike are met with infinite rewards and punishments, that certain behaviors (especially sexual one's) are sins, that you should do your part to recruit members if possible and give money to the church if not, and so on. The different denominations overlap so much that on average there isn't much difference politically between a Baptist and an Evangelical. Try talking to them sometime. You can't tell them apart unless you already know what nuances to look for (or ask them upfront). The only one I can think of that might be easy to distinguish are Catholics due to the distinct terms they use (like the use of the word "priest" or "mass" or other things signifying the church hierarchy), and even that might just be my bias as a former Catholic speaking.

Spoken like an idiot who's never been to more than one church. There are huge differences between sects like those Westboro assholes, Pat Robertson (who's not much better), moving on to Ted Haggert and those megachurches, and other sects like the Unitarian Universalists. Nominally Christian, but barely even theist sometimes. I've been to churches with openly gay preachers, who's members were actually largely secular, if not atheistic. In fact, while almost all churches preach the idea of heaven, the idea of Hell is actually dying off. Bill Maher had a catholic priest say no one believes it in his documentary "Religulous," C.S. Lewis was against the idea, and most college level theologians regard the typical version of Hell that Pat Robertson talks about as absurd. Instead they see it as a place of separation from god where atheists will choose to be sad. No burning or demons or whatnot. So not only do they differ quite markedly in their politics, but dogmatically the differences between Christian denominations can be staggering, and is certainly significant.

But fuck that, eh? They've all got Jesus, so they're all the same, because if they weren't then you'd look like a total fucking dumbass, wouldn't you?

Bullshit on all accounts. Do you know what a social movement is? On a local scale, what you say has more validity: on a national scale, though, the silent majority is far more important. Political changes mean very little if a cultural change cannot be observed.

Do you think that all women were in the suffrage movement? Wrong. Hell, even if all the minorities had been in the civil rights movement they'd have still been a group minority. Actually this quote from you is largely incoherent. How about the feminist movement of the 60's and 70's? They had virtually no political agenda, it was purely a cultural and social movement. It was- and still is- largely demonized, and still is a minority, but they were able to push a lot of societal barriers. They didn't achieve all their goals, but they got some, and managed to piss off the religious right doing it, so high-fives for the bra-burning femi-nazis.

So that's three more examples for my point... and I'd love, but at this point don't really expect, an example for yours. Hmm... beating you over the head with facts... which seem to have no effect... and you produce no facts of your own..... Are you sure you're not a Christian?

Religion didn't have the arbitrary power to hijack the movement. They did it through cunning, by preying on the weaker elements of the movement and appealing to the vast apathetic or sympathetic majority.

The majority of whom already believed in their religion, and were preconditioned to listen to the crazies on the far end of the spectrum. You really suck at inductive reasoning, dude.

You really suck at thinking, dude. Once again, it doesn't matter that the population was nominally Christian, if the fundamentalists couldn't get their agenda through, and the secularists could, then the secularists were more powerful. When the fundies could and the secularists could not, the fundies were more powerful. We've had both states in our country, so obviously the power of religion has been in flux. I don't know how to make this more simple. My dog is rolling his eyes at me over here because, by now, even he gets it.

Political progress is not as important as cultural momentum.

Politicians are ultimately concerned with job security. So you can't have political progress without cultural momentum. You can't have the civil rights act in the culture of the 30's. You can't have suffrage in the culture of 1820. I don't know how these two ideas got partitioned in your mind, but it's really irritating hearing you spout pointless, irrelevant bullshit that doesn't even help your point.

If you read their arguments, you might just realize that many of them were secular concerns, such as the correlation between drunkenness and violence in society. Its not so simple that you can boil down the movement into who is running it. Their motives can be multifaceted you know.

If I go to the creation museum I can find some secular arguments too. They're bullshit veneers for a religious idea, just like those prohibitionist arguments from those Christian nuts.

Way to let that one sail over your head. When religion is in the "back," social progress is carried forward, and often remains there.

Until the Regressives can find a way to undermine it at a later date by doing a "religious revival" that wouldn't work without an already strong, if silent, population base to work with.

Once again, if the revival happens, its because there were no obvious symptoms of the infection, which means that the immune system was (temporarily) winning the fight. The virus then mutates around the immune system and flares up again, and the cycle goes on and on, back and forth, until the virus kills us all or the immune system tears its teeth out permanently.

Do you not think about the implications of your own arguments before spewing them out, or are you so determined to defend your preconceived notions against all reason that you can't think straight?

lol, its funny how what you say is more useful against you than for you.

Not correct. Atheism is not a "religion" and was not "set up" as one by the Bolshevik regime. Lenin disestablished the Orthodox Church, but did not actively suppress religion as a matter of principle or of overall State policy, but did act against clerics who actively supported the White cause during the Civil War. Stalin did attempt an outright suppression of religion from 1928-1939 for the same reasons he set about to liquidate the Kulaks —to eliminate any and all ideological challenges to his rule. However, when the Germans invaded in 1941, Stalin restored the Church as a morale booster to the populace, as he was seizing on every patriotic device he could lay his hands on to bolster the resistance against the Nazis. After the war, the Church was pretty much integrated into the fabric of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

I never said atheism was a religion. What I meant was that they made a religion out of communism, but I called it "atheistic" in the most literal sense of the word, because it lacked a god. It did, however, have dogmas, infallible claims, and messianic figures. Just because it didn't have a supernatural doesn't mean that it wasn't quite close enough to a religion to tap into the same impulses in the populace.

Again, you are incorrect. The Communist Party did not proclaim its infallibility (a claim which is refuted simply by example of the formal criticism of Stalin's crimes by Khruschev before the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956), nor did it set up Marx, Lenin or Stalin as "messiahs". As for "dogma", the Party promulgated its political doctrines, but those were not statements based on belief in a supernatural realm with its own rules but an ideological line laid down to direct Party action, and adjustable to suit changing circumstances. Really, do you even understand the difference between political doctrine and religious dogma in the first place?

Christopher Hitchens puts it better than I have been. "Communist absolutists did not so much negate religion, in societies that they well understood were saturated with faith and superstition, as seek to replace it. the solemn elevation of infallible leaders who were a source of endless bounty and blessing; the permanent search for heretics and schismatics; the mummification of dead leaders as icons and relics; the lurid show trials that elicited incredible confessions by means of torture . . . none of this was very difficult to interpret in traditional terms. Nor was the hysteria during times of plague and famine, when the authorities unleashed a mad search for any culprit but the real one. (The great Doris Lessing once told me that she left the Communist Party when she discovered that Stalin's inquisitors had plundered the museums of Russian Orthodoxy and szarism and reemployed the old instruments of torture.) Nor was the ceaseless invocation of a "Radiant Future," the arrival of which would one day justify all crimes and dissolve all petty doubts." ("God is Not Great" pg 246)

You should also take care to imagine this being said in that almost Churchill-like accent. =P

It's all very well and good to criticize Stalin after he's dead. You could criticize some dead popes too in the middle ages, but causing problems for the current regime was liable to get you turned into a candle. Hitchens is saying, like I should have, that it wasn't the religious doctrines that the totalitarian communists took up, it was the religious niche that they filled. I'm inclined to think that Daniel Dennet would have something salient to say, but I've not yet finished his book.

[Patrick Degan]

Christopher Hitchens puts it better than I have been. "Communist absolutists did not so much negate religion, in societies that they well understood were saturated with faith and superstition, as seek to replace it. the solemn elevation of infallible leaders who were a source of endless bounty and blessing; the permanent search for heretics and schismatics; the mummification of dead leaders as icons and relics; the lurid show trials that elicited incredible confessions by means of torture . . . none of this was very difficult to interpret in traditional terms. Nor was the hysteria during times of plague and famine, when the authorities unleashed a mad search for any culprit but the real one. (The great Doris Lessing once told me that she left the Communist Party when she discovered that Stalin's inquisitors had plundered the museums of Russian Orthodoxy and szarism and reemployed the old instruments of torture.) Nor was the ceaseless invocation of a "Radiant Future," the arrival of which would one day justify all crimes and dissolve all petty doubts." ("God is Not Great" pg 246)

You should also take care to imagine this being said in that almost Churchill-like accent. =P

It's all very well and good to criticize Stalin after he's dead. You could criticize some dead popes too in the middle ages, but causing problems for the current regime was liable to get you turned into a candle. Hitchens is saying, like I should have, that it wasn't the religious doctrines that the totalitarian communists took up, it was the religious niche that they filled. I'm inclined to think that Daniel Dennet would have something salient to say, but I've not yet finished his book.

Nice and poetical of Mr. Hitchens, but not accurate. Also, the criticism of Stalin was more than an analogue to criticising a dead medieval pope but signalled a significant shift away from Stalinist governmental policy which had been in place a mere three years earlier and which was safely made after Stalin's supporters had been purged from the upper levels of the Communist government. Not at all the same thing, actually.

[Samurai Rafiki]

By the way, Brainless. Where the fuck is that history book reference I asked you for? I'm getting sick of refuting Rand-McNally's "American History According to Brainless' Ass."

[Samurai Rafiki]

Christopher Hitchens puts it better than I have been. "Communist absolutists did not so much negate religion, in societies that they well understood were saturated with faith and superstition, as seek to replace it. the solemn elevation of infallible leaders who were a source of endless bounty and blessing; the permanent search for heretics and schismatics; the mummification of dead leaders as icons and relics; the lurid show trials that elicited incredible confessions by means of torture . . . none of this was very difficult to interpret in traditional terms. Nor was the hysteria during times of plague and famine, when the authorities unleashed a mad search for any culprit but the real one. (The great Doris Lessing once told me that she left the Communist Party when she discovered that Stalin's inquisitors had plundered the museums of Russian Orthodoxy and szarism and reemployed the old instruments of torture.) Nor was the ceaseless invocation of a "Radiant Future," the arrival of which would one day justify all crimes and dissolve all petty doubts." ("God is Not Great" pg 246)

You should also take care to imagine this being said in that almost Churchill-like accent. =P

It's all very well and good to criticize Stalin after he's dead. You could criticize some dead popes too in the middle ages, but causing problems for the current regime was liable to get you turned into a candle. Hitchens is saying, like I should have, that it wasn't the religious doctrines that the totalitarian communists took up, it was the religious niche that they filled. I'm inclined to think that Daniel Dennet would have something salient to say, but I've not yet finished his book.

Nice and poetical of Mr. Hitchens, but not accurate. Also, the criticism of Stalin was more than an analogue to criticising a dead medieval pope but signalled a significant shift away from Stalinist governmental policy which had been in place a mere three years earlier and which was safely made after Stalin's supporters had been purged from the upper levels of the Communist government. Not at all the same thing, actually.

What is your specific disagreement with Mr. Hitchens? I was referencing him when this tangent really started to get off the ground- parroting his point more than anything. It's an argument I've used when theists point to Russia as an atheistic state, and if there's a problem with it, I'd like to know.

In any case, this tangent began with a poorly handled insult to Brainless on my part, a point which I conceded as ill-considered. Except for the specific arguments against Christopher Hitchens' analysis, I'll concede points of this tangent. I would be most embarrassed if this topic had to be split once again. =P

That doesn't include anything related to you, Formless. You're still an idiot.

[Formless]

Name one president that wasn't openly christian. You can't, because there isn't a goddamn one. Do you not see why this is a problem for your theory that it was because of some religious revival that Reagan could make such openly religious bigoted statements and NOT because the country has had a longstanding bias towards christianity?

How about..... Lincoln? Who is pointed out on this very fucking site in Wong's creation theory page along with Jefferson and Washington (deists) along with that very same quote you're referencing. Holy fucking shit. I can understand not reading a history book, but you didn't read the atheism section on this very website? Here's Lincoln again: "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." My, that doesn't sound very Christ-y of him.

Sorry, let me rephrase-- name one who wasn't publicly christian. Again, you can't. Yes, that's not the same thing as them actually being christian, but it tells you something about how fucked up the system is that non-believers cannot get into the position without lying about their faith.

I like how you continue to ignore the point that the religious revivals are a symptom of widespread religion, NOT a cause of it. Very few people choose to join a religion who didn't start with a strong inclination towards said religion or strong community pressures to conform. You are the one simplifying things, not me.

How the fuck can a revival occur when there is already widespread religiosity?

People weren't going to church as much before. They start going to church more often again. The writers of the history books are christians and call this a "revival" to satisfy their biased view of history. That does NOT mean that the people weren't christian beforehand, it means that they weren't active enough to be considered religious by the arbitrary standards imposed by the people who coined the term "great awakening." Even the name Great Awakening tells you exactly what kind of theological bias we're dealing with here.

Moron.

You will notice of course that the First Great Awakining was before the American Revolution.

What the fuck does it matter that the first was before the Revolution? That's like pointing out that your mom got herpes before she was married.

Because we're talking about American History. Pay attention. If there is barely a single generation separating the first "great awakening" and the revolution, where did all those believers go to? They didn't stop believing. Hell, if you look at the pamphlet "Common Sense" it refers to the king of England as a Pharaoh-- a subtle reference to the bible that most people wouldn't get nowadays, but which was a grave accusation at the time. This isn't like the Declaration of Independence, which was supposed to be read by the King and the elite, this was written for the people as a pro-revolutionary propaganda. This was a time where if you were familiar with any literature you were familiar with the bible, and people were expected to know it cover to cover so allusions like the ones in Common Sense were unmistakable. Compare that to today where almost no one reads it even if they claim to be christian.

Your 'theory' is retarded, as are you, since you just quoted pretty much my exact point. "[A] sharp increase in interest in religion." Even if they were already believers, they weren't acting like it. They were acting like secularists, it was pissing the preachers off, and they organized a revolt.

Only by the arbitrary standard of religiousness set by the people who decided to slap the label "great awakening" would you call these people "not religious." By our modern standards they were downright puritanical in many places. Again, do you know absolutely nothing about American history that you didn't glean from a single book?

The differences are mostly superficial. The all believe that Jesus Christ was their savior, that there is a Heaven and a Hell where finite crimes and good deeds alike are met with infinite rewards and punishments, that certain behaviors (especially sexual one's) are sins, that you should do your part to recruit members if possible and give money to the church if not, and so on. The different denominations overlap so much that on average there isn't much difference politically between a Baptist and an Evangelical. Try talking to them sometime. You can't tell them apart unless you already know what nuances to look for (or ask them upfront). The only one I can think of that might be easy to distinguish are Catholics due to the distinct terms they use (like the use of the word "priest" or "mass" or other things signifying the church hierarchy), and even that might just be my bias as a former Catholic speaking.

Spoken like an idiot who's never been to more than one church. There are huge differences between sects like those Westboro assholes, Pat Robertson (who's not much better), moving on to Ted Haggert and those megachurches, and other sects like the Unitarian Universalists. Nominally Christian, but barely even theist sometimes. I've been to churches with openly gay preachers, who's members were actually largely secular, if not atheistic. In fact, while almost all churches preach the idea of heaven, the idea of Hell is actually dying off. Bill Maher had a catholic priest say no one believes it in his documentary "Religulous," C.S. Lewis was against the idea, and most college level theologians regard the typical version of Hell that Pat Robertson talks about as absurd. Instead they see it as a place of separation from god where atheists will choose to be sad. No burning or demons or whatnot. So not only do they differ quite markedly in their politics, but dogmatically the differences between Christian denominations can be staggering, and is certainly significant.

But fuck that, eh? They've all got Jesus, so they're all the same, because if they weren't then you'd look like a total fucking dumbass, wouldn't you?

Learn to read, asshole. I didn't deny that there weren't extremists or say the differences weren't there, I said that they are so unnoticeable to the untrained eye as to be insignificant save perhaps for the Catholics and Mormons due to their hierarchical structures. That's why no one really distinguishes which sects are responsible at the national level for being anti-abortionists, racists or homophobes-- they all are to one degree or another.

Do you think that all women were in the suffrage movement? Wrong. Hell, even if all the minorities had been in the civil rights movement they'd have still been a group minority. Actually this quote from you is largely incoherent. How about the feminist movement of the 60's and 70's? They had virtually no political agenda, it was purely a cultural and social movement. It was- and still is- largely demonized, and still is a minority, but they were able to push a lot of societal barriers. They didn't achieve all their goals, but they got some, and managed to piss off the religious right doing it, so high-fives for the bra-burning femi-nazis.

And yet, sexism is alive and well, it just can't take as visible of forms. Arguably this is a worse situation, because it gives people the illusion that it no longer matters. The same is true of racism-- people underestimate its effects all the time.

So that's three more examples for my point... and I'd love, but at this point don't really expect, an example for yours. Hmm... beating you over the head with facts... which seem to have no effect... and you produce no facts of your own..... Are you sure you're not a Christian?

You don't have to be christian to recognize the continuing effect it has on society. But if I were, you would think I would be painting that effect in a positive light...

Religion didn't have the arbitrary power to hijack the movement. They did it through cunning, by preying on the weaker elements of the movement and appealing to the vast apathetic or sympathetic majority.

The majority of whom already believed in their religion, and were preconditioned to listen to the crazies on the far end of the spectrum. You really suck at inductive reasoning, dude.

You really suck at thinking, dude. Once again, it doesn't matter that the population was nominally Christian, if the fundamentalists couldn't get their agenda through, and the secularists could, then the secularists were more powerful. When the fundies could and the secularists could not, the fundies were more powerful. We've had both states in our country, so obviously the power of religion has been in flux. I don't know how to make this more simple. My dog is rolling his eyes at me over here because, by now, even he gets it.

Its irrelevant to the point. You're obviously incapable of distinguishing between causes and effects.

Political progress is not as important as cultural momentum.

Politicians are ultimately concerned with job security. So you can't have political progress without cultural momentum.

No, you can't have political progress without money. Ever been to N&P? The opinions of the nation rarely ever effect what the politicians are actually going to do.

You can't have the civil rights act in the culture of the 30's. You can't have suffrage in the culture of 1820. I don't know how these two ideas got partitioned in your mind, but it's really irritating hearing you spout pointless, irrelevant bullshit that doesn't even help your point.

Because that "irrelevant bullshit" just happens to explain the apparent shifts between "secular" power and "religious" power during periods of time that just so happen to be less than one generation apart.

If I go to the creation museum I can find some secular arguments too. They're bullshit veneers for a religious idea, just like those prohibitionist arguments from those Christian nuts.

And yet they are there, they still exist (see: incidents of drunk driving) and they are the one's that happen to be the most convincing to political leaders (at least in theory).

Once again, if the revival happens, its because there were no obvious symptoms of the infection, which means that the immune system was (temporarily) winning the fight. The virus then mutates around the immune system and flares up again, and the cycle goes on and on, back and forth, until the virus kills us all or the immune system tears its teeth out permanently.

Show me how secularism behaves even remotely like an immune system. I'm not seeing the analogy.

By the way, Brainless. Where the fuck is that history book reference I asked you for? I'm getting sick of refuting Rand-McNally's "American History According to Brainless' Ass."

*yawn* I'm not the one making controversial claims. You are. Trying to shift the burden of proof is a classic debate tactic of the dishonest, Samurai Retard.

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

EDIT: NM, I sounded too much like I was playing moderator.

[Imperial Overlord]

At the risk of coming across as playing moderator here, why do some many arguments on these forums involve the trading of insults? People call each other "moron", "asshole", "idiot", etc., all the time here. Is this kind of uncivility really called for?

See the bit at the top about "mocking stupid people"? That's why it's hear. This place can be rough. That said, while you're allowed to flame the hell out of people, you're not allowed to ignore their arguments and a flame doesn't constitute an argument in and of itself. So "you're such a fucking moron and here's why" is an acceptable post because it includes an argument while "I refuse to listen to such mean people" isn't because it refuses to address points.

[Patrick Degan]

Christopher Hitchens puts it better than I have been. "Communist absolutists did not so much negate religion, in societies that they well understood were saturated with faith and superstition, as seek to replace it. the solemn elevation of infallible leaders who were a source of endless bounty and blessing; the permanent search for heretics and schismatics; the mummification of dead leaders as icons and relics; the lurid show trials that elicited incredible confessions by means of torture . . . none of this was very difficult to interpret in traditional terms. Nor was the hysteria during times of plague and famine, when the authorities unleashed a mad search for any culprit but the real one. (The great Doris Lessing once told me that she left the Communist Party when she discovered that Stalin's inquisitors had plundered the museums of Russian Orthodoxy and szarism and reemployed the old instruments of torture.) Nor was the ceaseless invocation of a "Radiant Future," the arrival of which would one day justify all crimes and dissolve all petty doubts." ("God is Not Great" pg 246)

You should also take care to imagine this being said in that almost Churchill-like accent. =P

It's all very well and good to criticize Stalin after he's dead. You could criticize some dead popes too in the middle ages, but causing problems for the current regime was liable to get you turned into a candle. Hitchens is saying, like I should have, that it wasn't the religious doctrines that the totalitarian communists took up, it was the religious niche that they filled. I'm inclined to think that Daniel Dennet would have something salient to say, but I've not yet finished his book.

Nice and poetical of Mr. Hitchens, but not accurate. Also, the criticism of Stalin was more than an analogue to criticising a dead medieval pope but signalled a significant shift away from Stalinist governmental policy which had been in place a mere three years earlier and which was safely made after Stalin's supporters had been purged from the upper levels of the Communist government. Not at all the same thing, actually.

What is your specific disagreement with Mr. Hitchens? I was referencing him when this tangent really started to get off the ground- parroting his point more than anything. It's an argument I've used when theists point to Russia as an atheistic state, and if there's a problem with it, I'd like to know.

I think it is more a matter that Hitchens is generalising. The more apropos parallel with Stalinism in history is not the religious persecutions so much as the French Reign of Terror, in which a political revolution inverted upon itself and began literally to consume its own children.

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

Couldn't the issue of whether or not religion in the US is weaker than in past generations simply be resolved by looking at recent trends in church attendance or the percentage of Americans who report to be non-religious?

[Mystikal]

Protestant Christianity has been a massive part of the American Culture for a long goddamn time. This means that its influence, like it or not, has been responsible for many things, good and bad. Slavery gone? Some Christians thought it was wrong. It lasted so long? Some used Christianity to try to justify it. MAjor reason we have been a rather generous nation in helping out disaster struck countries? Because whether or not you beleive and follow Christianity, you found many things it spoke of and supported to not be that bad, one of those things had to do with charity. Why have we both pleaed for and ignored that plight of the poor? Some celebrate charity more than the old God helps those who help themsleves and some go the other way around.


Protestant Christianity, for all its fault and indeed in spite of them, has accomplished some major good and has been a major force in shaping the country of the USA. A lot of Athiest claim that Christianity has had not influence on them, but they know a lot of the morals they hold dear are either because they learned it form Christianity or because they rejected it. Mostly a mix of both. When people say that this country was built of Christian values, they aren;t neccessarily speaking about the Constitution, they are speaking about the culture. And in a lot of ways, Protestant Christianity has been the largest and most indentifiable part of that. Whether a part of it, for it or against, your feelings on God have a lot to do with what particualr American Culture you are a part of.


Hmmm, This site seems to make me want to put a lot of effort into my post....