What is it? Does it exist in any meaningful way? Or is the attribution little more than a desperate instance of tu quoque?
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Atheist Terrorism
- Thread starter Jayhawker Soule
- Start date
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I think the latter, as "atheistic terrorism" would require far more than a mere atheist being violent. That violence would have to be explicitly done in the name of atheism. I've never heard of that before.
I had to look up quoque... So thanks. I have not seen any atheism terrorism, but I wont say that its not possible. I would say the closest we saw was in the ussr but that was state terrorism.
dust1n
Zindīq
I'm sure some atheist somewhere has attempted violent actions in hopes of changing political realities regarding religion at some point. I suspect these are probably incredibly rare, considering in general that atheists are relatively rare.
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
Could the Communist Chinese treatment of Tibetan Buddhism be considered atheist terrorism? Maoist and Marxist thinking tends to treat religion as a threat to its political idealism, and the Cultural Revolution involved religious persecution that involved tactics that fall within the range of terrorism.
Wirey
Fartist
That's governmental, though. It's based on fear of effect on a political system, not the effect on a belief system. To me, I'd say no.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
That would be state terrorism since it is not driven by atheist ideology. Personally, I would even use the word terrorism to describe it, but rather severe oppression and genocide.
Why? People make non-explicit connections between crime and a person happening to be a member of group X or having characteristic Y all the time. Why on earth should atheists get special treatment here? We can't ever allow individuals to be considered responsible for what they do. It always has to be the fault of some other thing or some other part of who they are!
Wirey
Fartist
Why? People make non-explicit connections between crime and a person happening to be a member of group X or having characteristic Y all the time. Why on earth should atheists get special treatment here? We can't ever allow individuals to be considered responsible for what they do. It always has to be the fault of some other thing or some other part of who they are!
If you keep making sense I'm reporting you!
In fairness, I'm not a believer in holding individuals responsible while ignoring that all "individuals" are essentially a product of the entire Weave. Ignoring context is idiocy, but so too is obsessing on one sliver of context so completely that it is transformed into a ritual sacrifice for all evils.
Now, I need to find me a tasty sandwich...
What about the anti-religious violence of Spain's Red Terror, perhaps motivated by such Stalinist front groups as The League of Militant Atheists proclaiming ...
There can be no doubt that the fact that the new state of the USSR led by the communist party, with a program permeated by the spirit of militant atheism, gives the reason why this state is successfully surmounting the great difficulties that stand in its way - that neither "heavenly powers" nor the exhortations of all the priests in all the world can prevent its attaining its aims it has set itself.
and ...
It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept... If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done.
How is a program of terror "permeated by the spirit of militant atheism" not "atheistic terrorism"?
It is a fairly meaningless concept. Atheism means you don't believe in god. So it makes no sense to say someone commit acts of terrorism for something they don't believe in.
The thing to keep in mind, is that whilst Richard Dawkins and Joesph Stalin are both atheists, they represent completely different philosophical approaches to the problem.
Dawkins argues that the existence of god is implusible because of the logical inconsistencies of religious texts or that there is not sufficient evidence to reasonably come to the conclusion that god exists. He cannot however say that the existence of god is impossible. The reason for this is that he treats science as a method for investigating phenenomea and uses naturalistic explanations; he does not assume all explanations are naturalistic as this would contradict the tradition of free thought in science. His atheism represents a 'negative' one in which he rejects religious views, without consciously trying to replace religion with an alternative worldview.
This does not remotely describe Stalin. Stalin was a materialist, and this is- to all intents and purposes- a dogma (unless you believe it is true
). Science was not a method, but an ideology in which everything had to be explianed by natural causes. God was by definition impossible. not only that, religion was a threat to this materialist worldview and is thought of as it's greatest enemy, i.e. "the opium of the people." This is because they believed that only a materialist philosophy could give them practical knowledge of the world and therefore the power to change it, whereas religious belief holds to the idea that there are things which are beyond our control and unknowable. When Communists killed religious people, they killed because of their anti-theism of their ideology, not their atheism.The question as to why someone commits acts of terrorism, whether they be by individuals or government, centres on where someone gains the moral authority to do so. We can talk about religious terrorism, because such people argue that god gives them the right to kill people. But we cannot talk about atheist terrorism, as atheism does not ential a moral authority to do something like that; in itself it's authority is based on reason, science (and is politically often 'liberal'). atheism is- in this sense- subordinate to other moral authorities.
When Stalin etc, killed people it wasn't because he was an atheist, but because he was a communist- he felt that communism represented the realisation of a higher power or 'law of history' which entitled him to kill anyone who got in his way. Atheism was an instrument for the building of communism and was subordinate to it as it gave a 'scientific' understanding of society which could be consciously planned by the state and (supposedly) for the people; in itself atheism did not give stalin the in his eyes the right to kill people, but his belief in communism did.
Anarchists in the Spainish civil war were invoved in some very violent attacks on the clergy and on the church- but again, it wasn't because they were atheists, but because they believed that religion was the enemy of individual liberty and freedom- the belief in freedom was the reason they killed, not their atheism.
Deathbydefault
Apistevist Asexual Atheist
An atheist that is a terrorist is much highly more likely than anyone being a terrorist because they are atheist.
Actually how would that really even work?
"Imma blow up a church because religion is horrible!"
I guess that's how they'd be.
But a radical atheist is not the representative for atheism, to my knowledge.
Just as a radical Muslim is not the representative for all Muslims...
Or radical Jews for all Jews...
Or radical Christians for all Christians...
I mean if someone would want to classify my whole group for some of them being idiots I can easily do the same back.
Example...
"I, as a Christian think because a few atheists produced hate speech all atheists are bad!"
Response....
"I, as an atheist, believe that the Westboro Baptist church is a bunch of homophobes so all Christians are homophobes!"
Not too fair is it?
Peace.
Actually how would that really even work?
"Imma blow up a church because religion is horrible!"
I guess that's how they'd be.
But a radical atheist is not the representative for atheism, to my knowledge.
Just as a radical Muslim is not the representative for all Muslims...
Or radical Jews for all Jews...
Or radical Christians for all Christians...
I mean if someone would want to classify my whole group for some of them being idiots I can easily do the same back.
Example...
"I, as a Christian think because a few atheists produced hate speech all atheists are bad!"
Response....
"I, as an atheist, believe that the Westboro Baptist church is a bunch of homophobes so all Christians are homophobes!"
Not too fair is it?
Peace.
Glaurung
Denizen of Niflheim
The notion of extreme atheism in of itself is as incoherent as the idea of extreme theism, as there is no such thing atheism or theism decontextualised from wider philosophical/ideological beliefs. What we have are various ideologies which stress atheism as a core principle, which can take virulent forms leading to extremism. It's not the atheism or theism of themselves, but the various extreme ideologies which happen to be atheistic or theistic or whatever else.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
League of Militant Atheists, 1932-34.
I'm not going there. It's a childish argument that pops up ad nauseam and never ceases to underwhelm, but you're certainly welcome to it.
The 'New Atheists' have pretty much said that Communists weren't "real atheists". I find the fact that Christopher Hitchens, himself was a Marxist in his youth, desperately trying to pass off the "well, Stain was trained as a preist" line as dishonest and cowardly. There is a video of Sam Harris explaining why communists aren't 'real atheists' and I am still seething with rage just thinking about it. Such........ ignorance. ahhh!
So I have great contempt for the "not real atheists" line. It's a disgrace. Communists were atheists- but they killed because theyre vision of a 'better' society had no religious people in it. Communists killed religious people because they thought they were the unwitting servants of the capitalist class so atheism was a means, not an ends for them. that's my argument.
You're more than welcome to say otherwise as it's a fairly weak distinction.