The Dangers of Secularism

Theoretically, so they say, but in actual fact, actual practice, religion is persecuted in Communist societies. Belief in God tends to set a person's allegiance above the State and leads to independence of mind -- at least Christian belief does -- which is not tolerable in Communist regimes as they have to micromanage everybody and can't tolerate personal freedom. This was true of the USSR and it's true of Communist China and of North Korea. Socialism can be somewhat domesticated but even then it leads to more control over the individual than is consistent with the concepts freedom and equality that were hammered out in the history of the West.

Yes, all the ones I named. It is only Marxist hardliners who insist they haven't "yet achieved" genuine Communism. The fact is that they are THE expression of Communism, the only kind that has ever made it into actual practice and many honest ex-Marxists or at least ex-hardliners have admitted this. Only head-in-the-sand denial maintains the fiction. Unfortunately it usually takes a massive reality check like experiencing it up close and personal in the murder of personal friends and the like for the ideologues to wake up. Totalitarianism, Tyranny and Murder IS Communism.

Religion as such or are you talking about sectarian conflicts or pseudoreligions? Communism explicitly persecutes religion, particularly Christians and Jews. The KGB sent officers to brutalize little old ladies in house churches, and Communist China imprisons pastors and ordinary Christians who evangelize. Christians in North Korea are subjected to incredible brutality in their prisons. So are others of course, other religions and "enemies of the state" but Christianity is specifically treated as an enemy of the state. They have achieved a bloody totalitarianism, which is what Communism always results in. Your view is the view of Marxist hardliners who hold to the Marxist ideology against all the evidence that it is a bankrupt theory that leads only to tyranny and brutality. The term Communism specifically refers to a system based on Marxism. If you want to talk about communes or even generic socialism you are talking about something else. Some communes work for a while but most don't last long. There are many different versions of "socialism" however. Not so. Some forms of government are better than others. In the West the idea of Rule by Law, the balance of powers and the like, is supposed to minimize the influence of individual people in power and it has worked ingeniously despite the fact that clever people know how to abuse it, but no system is perfect. That is a long long debate. The separation was to benefit and encourage religion, specifically the Christian religion, not eliminate it. Madison who was the strongest proponent of separation of church from state specificially argued that it was necessary for the preservation of uncorrupted religion and a healthy nation. Actually it turns out it does, but that too is a long discussion.

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. 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.

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.

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.