Rhian. True, Soviets were Atheist in name, however their ways were dogmatic and top down...probably more important than the specifics of their faith.
Christians believe a whole range of things from "God hates Fags" through to "God made me rich, proof I'm more worth than the poor" through to genuine understanding of Jesus message of love. Bush thought God told him to invade Iraq!
Belief in God is no guarantee of belief in Good.

Rhian, Thursday, 17 February 2011 3:22:28 PM

North Korea has a cult of religious personality centred on Kim Il Jong - Defectors have been quoted as saying that North Korean schools deify both father and son.

Russia specifically invoked religion in ww2 - Stalin re-opened churches after had a religious experience in a retreat - he had been a seminarian before being expelled. He believed in a God of nature throughout his life.

ozandy,
>>True, Soviets were Atheist in name, however their ways were dogmatic and top down...probably more important than the specifics of their faith. <<

True, Nazis were German in name, however their ways were dogmatic and top down...probably more important than the specifics of their faith.

(True, the Inquisitors were Christian in name, etc.)

The vast majority of Germans accept that the Nazis were genuinely German, which, of course, does not mean that one cannot be a genuine German while condemning the Nazi version of being German.

Why, on the other hand, are there so many atheists who cannot accept that Communist atheism was what it claimed to be, namely a kind of atheism. Indeed, "scientific atheism" was the name of one of the subjects where they taught us their ideology (the same as Nazis did not shy away from the word "German" when teaching theirs) without trying to rename this atheism into a kind of religion or anti-theism (although with hindsight I agree that the latter would be a better description of the Communist version of atheism).

There were atheists who persecuted those whose world-view they disagreed with; there are still many, who like to call these world-views "delusional" although hopefully they do not intend to persecute them, the way the Soviets did, if/when they gain power. This, naturally, does not imply that ALL atheist are like that.

There are many respectable world-views compatible with atheism, but I think their adherents would make their position more credible if they did not try to explain away the persecution and injustices committed in the name of atheism. We, Christians know that, since for many years we tried to explain away injustices and cruelties done in the name of Christianity.

Neither belief in a Reality, irreducible to the material world, nor belief in the reducibility of all Reality to the material world makes you good or bad per se.

McReal,
>>North Korea has a cult of religious personality centred on Kim Il Jong<<
and Hawking spoke of the "mind of God". Are therefore Hawking and Kim il Jong religious?

This article should have been entitled: Inane ideas and the god-shaped hole!

George.
There are no acts committed "in the name of" Atheism as that description only describes what some folk *do not* believe!
Sure there are evil acts done by atheists...but to assume there is only one brand of atheism is of course naive...not to mention disrespectful!
I do not deny that atheists are capable of evil...they are human after all. What I dislike is the assumption that religion somehow grants virtue when all the evidence points the other way!
Atheists are regularly attacked be religious folk on a assumption that Man cannot be good without fear, so they need a Great Lord to master them. Most atheists believe Good can be innate, and is worth following without fantasy rewards and punishments in an improbable afterlife.
When you see the world as it is, religion looks *very* silly...I guess some disrespect creeps both ways too!

"When you see the world as it is"...is a bit flippant and comes across as arrogant. I should say:
"When you study the world in detail with no preconceptions...when you build a body of knowledge based on facts and experiment, when you have this knowledge confirmed by engineering and real-world feats, and all the knowledge complements and forms a larger, most beautiful structure." In other words when one understands enough real world trades, skills and fields of knowledge, including history...then religions...pretty much all of them excepting a few, look very silly.