The Dangers of Secularism

secular morality is not ungrounded. it's grounded in the idea of being a good person because it's the right thing to do, rather than doing the right thing because otherwise god will send you to hell. but then there was a whole thread on that.

As I've said to others here, you are buying the line of the Marxist diehards who refuse to recognize the flaws in their ideology. Communism didn't work out as Marx predicted, but that's because Marx's theories were bogus, and the ONLY way they EVER work out in reality is the way they worked out in the USSR, by totalitarianism, oppression of the people, murder.

yes well the reason it happened that way in russia is because they forced it to happen and they did it too soon. it was supposed to be long after industrialization. russia wasn't an industrialized nation then really. the main work force was peasant farmers. but the government championed the industry worker and marched the farmers off into siberia.but the main point is that russia wasn't a communist country. it simply wasn't. i ercognize that communism probably wouldn't work on a national level. but that's still not cause to proclaim that it is the source of all religious animosity demonstrated in russia. it had nothing to do with it. if only because russia wasn't communist.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 05-16-2005 09:42 PM

Yes. You either have to be a hardliner Marxist or deceived by Marxist ideology. Again, the kind of state that was realized in Russia and China and now North Korea is the ONLY kind of state that CAN be realized based on Marxism, all its idealistic principles notwithstanding, and again, there are many former Marxists who have acknowledged this fact with great remorse. It is really sad that this disaster of a theory is still being defended even in the teeth of its incredibly bloody track record.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-16-2005 09:50 PM

Yes, again, you are simply passing on hardliner Marxist apologetics. Does the same reasoning hold up then for China and Korea? Anyway your reasoning is what the Marxists come up with who won't admit that it is the theory itself that is the failure, that there is no other way it works out in reality except how it has worked out in Russia, China, N. Korea, and Cuba -- though I'm not exactly sure what is going on in Cuba. It is certainly an oppressive regime however. Former Marxists KNOW that Communism DOES breed totalitarianism of that kind and cannot breed anything else because it is FALSE, it is a FALSE view of humanity and of society, and in order for it to work at all it must be forced on people. It is an artificial inhumane system.Anti-Christianity in Russia couldn't have had any other source than Communism. Christianity was the Russian religion.

or you have to be deceived by hard line conservative reactionaries that are endangered by any encroachment on their capitalist greed power systems.come on - look at the reality and not the false image perpetuated in order to make communism dangerous to the us and thus to help justify the cold war.russia was a totalitarian oligarchy, and that is the source of the "incredibly bloody track record" that is no different from the "incredibly bloody track record" of other dictatorships (like saddam and some other US "allies") as opposed to those of free countries (like france?) in the "good" war against "evil" communism.enjoy.

i quit.

Is that so?
Would you classify Christianity as the "American religion" ?
Don't you think that might dis-enfranchize a lot of deserving people who happen not to share your exact same faith?So what source does anti-Christianity have in America, now that the Communist regime has toppled in the USSR ?Whom are you going to point to and cry "Persecutor of Christians !"Could it be.......the dreaded Darwinists ?This message has been edited by EZscience, 05-16-2005 09:17 PM

Oh wow are you up to your ears in propaganda. I wish I had the energy to try to show you your errors but the very thought wears me out.

Robin,Will Durant in the first vol. of his Story of Civilization, which was published I believe in the 30's, but certainly before WWII, predicted (dare I say prophesied?) that Japan would go to war. And I'll try to recall and recap his reasoning which seemed right on to me. Japan had watched England force opium on China and force China to do it's bidding and it learned the lesson of the western colonial capitalist powers. It was basically if you don't want to be raped then you have to be a rapist. Japan didn't have the raw resources to fuel industrial expansion and so would have to expand and take them.I blame the colonial powers for what happened to China and Japan. Look to what the US is doing in the middle east right now and ask yourself what the consequences of that will be in the future. And much of the problems there now go back to the arrogant British colonial manipulation of the region and now that the US is the Imperial power in the world we are following in their footsteps, and Rome's, and etc. etc. Such is the inevitability of empire until we too bankrupt ourselves with military and foreign spending and then like England, France, etc. ect. settle back and try to make our way while the next empire (China?) plays out the imperial dynamic. Religion or secularism won't changed that.As to Germany many historian point to the very harsh conditions that France imposed at the conclusion of WWI and the fact that Germany was in very bad financial straits. The US at the end of WWII certainly took a different approach with West Germany.I don't believe secularism is all good and religion is all bad. That is an obvious oversimplification. But I think you didn't properly identify the bad stuff that secularism could be charged with.lfen

well take a rest for a couple of days then. work on a new topic proposal to cover this (it is OT here), and then explain how religious communism is possible.enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Uhhhhh... the poster had a point which undercuts what you have just argued here. Secular morality cannot be "grounded" on the idea of being a "good" person because its the "right" thing to do. Because as the poster pointed out there is no grounding for "good" and "right" without another set of premises.The initial premises will end up being subjective and so not applying to everyone. Indeed there are moral systems without "good" (in the sense that you mean it) and without appeals to "right".Religious people can appeal to an objective sense of right and goodness as they are appealing to a set of moral laws by a creator. Now how they know that creator exists, how they know what those laws are for sure, and especially since there are many other religious people claiming something else how one detects the right one from the many, is a valid question.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'm not so sure you can make that claim. The racial motivations were religious in nature. The idea of a pure aryan race was religious in nature.I can buy that Soviet Russia was acting on secular reasons, but NAZI germany (at least the targets of their greatest fury and their greatest aspirations) were spiritual if not religious in nature. That's an interesting concept, but not an accurate one. I believe there was a small trend toward secularism which required some people to switch what they used as their "absolute" when justifying their actions, but it seems odd to claim that there are fewer believers in established religion or that the religious are not the ones bending more toward extremism.The current "culture war" in the US, which has just been spread around the world, is a product of the religious community, not the secular one. Jews seem to be dreaming of a return to several thousand years ago, Xians for a few years later than that, and Muslims a few years later than that, and all are willing to oppress or kill secularists and pagans as well as each other, to achieve that goal.Most secularists I know simply want to live as they did 5-30 years ago, before religion became a fixture in the executive branch, with a live and let live attitude.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This is true. Religion is one way to do this. Well I should point out that not all religions believe in "heaven". This is false. Moral systems do not require religion. They only do so if they want to try and appeal for an objective absolute status, but one does not need to do this in order to have a functioning moral system.However even without moral systems (specifically the kind you are meaning) one can still have a civil society. Secular gov'ts, such as the US gov't based their laws not on moral foundations, but on logical "contractual" concepts of civil rights. I do not need a moral system telling me that it is wrong to murder or to steal to understand I do not want to be murdered or my things stolen. As such I will work to create a system with others whereby we agree not to do these things to each other as they violate our civil rights, and thus our laws will form.If you have a particular problem with sodomy, I'm not sure I can help you with that. I suppose one can find a community where everyone doesn't want it and so create a set of laws for it, but "victimless" crimes are harder to keep up in a secular state.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Just an aside. This is a very strange idea. Many American Presidents have had a strong Christian faith and Christian presence, have in fact called for specifically Christian observances by the nation from the declaration of the religious day of Thanksgiving for instance to calls to fasting and prayer in times of national crisis. The secular trend is what is new. What some think is a greater presence of religion in national life is really the reaction of religion against the more aggressive secularization and explicit anti-religion of the last few decades, most of it enforced not by the executive branch, but the judicial branch usurping the functions of the legislative branch.