Gorbachev Dispels 'Closet Christian' Rumors; Says He is Atheist

"Gorbachev, the last communist leader of the Soviet Union, confronted speculations that he had been a closeted Christian during an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax. "Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies – I can't use any other word – about my secret Catholicism, citing my visit to the Sacro Convento friary, where the remains of St. Francis of Assisi lie," Gorbachev said, according to an Interfax article posted Friday. "To sum up and avoid any misunderstandings, let me say that I have been and remain an atheist,” he stated."

Christian Post/Interfax, Mar. 24 2008

Good for Gorbie!

Don't worry, plenty of other Communists were Christians.
Christian proletars of the world, unite with this shirt today!

Catholic Church blamed for high abortion rate

"Who carries the greatest responsibility for the deaths of unborn children in this country? I accuse the leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, His Eminence Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor. I charge that he is partly to blame for our abnormally high abortion rate.

[...]

A study published in the Lancet shows that between 1995 and 2003, the global rate of induced abortions fell from 35 per 1,000 women each year to 29. This period coincides with the rise of the "globalised secular culture" the Pope laments. When the figures are broken down, it becomes clear that, apart from the former Soviet Union, abortion is highest in conservative and religious societies. In largely secular western Europe, the average rate is 12 abortions per 1,000 women. In the more religious southern European countries, the average rate is 18. In the US, where church attendance is still higher, there are 23 abortions for every 1,000 women, the highest level in the rich world. In central and South America, where the Catholic church holds greatest sway, the rates are 25 and 33 respectively. In the very conservative societies of east Africa, it's 39. One abnormal outlier is the UK: our rate is six points higher than that of our western European neighbours.

[...]

When the Pope tells bishops in Kenya - the global centre of this crisis - that they should defend traditional family values "at all costs" against agencies offering safe abortions, or when he travels to Brazil to denounce its contraceptive programme, he condemns women to death."

George Monbiot, Guardian, February 26 2008

Genocide and Atheism

Two blog posts that go through some of the points related to this common and completely ridiculous idea:

"Atheism is responsible for the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th Century. Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot killed millions of people in the name of atheism. Atheism is the cause of the most repressive, murderous regimes in history."

[...]

"Atheism is not a movement. No government or country effectuates policy in the name of atheism. Atheism is not even a a proper "ism". It has no guidelines, rules, tenets, or practices. It has no rituals, dogma, holy books or scripture. It cannot replace religion, because it is merely the vacuum created when religion disappears from one's personal beliefs.

[...]

Atheism in Stalin's Russia, then, was a mere tool used by Stalin, for the greater good of the state, imposed on the structure of society. It's effect was to strip away the power of the church to oppose his power. It was not a mere lack of belief in gods. Stalin could care less about the individual beliefs of the peasant, his focus was on destroying organized religion".

[...]

I challenge anyone to go through [the communists' (etc)] writings, or the writings of their biographers, and find any references to genocide on the grounds of a belief in god.

[...]

However, [the theist accusers] would still reason that while the killings perpetrated by these leaders were not done specifically in the furtherance of atheism, it is still because of their atheism that their moral depravity reached the depths witnessed by the entire world. But this still leads to logical fallacy. The world has never experienced a government conceived entirely on the notions of Hume, Spinoza, Paine, Jefferson, Einstein and other free thinkers. [...] But such an experiment has never been done, so it's impossible for the theist to argue that the result would be a negative one."

Regarding biographies and writings, I may add that if it's something the Soviet Union was not renowned for, it was interesting books on Atheism. (Ever heard of one?) I suppose it's because communism had too many similarities to religion, so lengthy criticism of religion would be counterproductive, while simply suppressing religious enemies would business as usual.

And as for the experiment with Hume and Spinoza etc. it is quite clear that the North European secular countries are in relevant fields far better places to live than deeply religious countries. So we don't need an experiment to see what is best from a religious nation and a non-religious nation.

See also this post:

Religions more safe in 'secular' nations, U.S. nun says

For British historian Robert Service, communism is a religion.

"British historian Robert Service, in Comrades: a world history of communism, goes further [than Hitchens]. For Service, communism is a religion, a "secular credo" complete with millenarian overtones (apocalypse followed by paradise), an emphasis on scriptural exegesis (each communist party "was a synod of hair-splitting political discussion") and a theory of historical inevitability that looks suspiciously like a doctrine of predestination. Marx and Engels, Service suggests, enthusiastically encouraged devotion, with the consequence that they were "treated as prophets whose every word had to be treasured"."

The Sydney Morning Herald, August 25, 2007

Western subversions of Muslim progress

"I shall address the internal structure of Islamic totalism as a major hurdle to democratisation, economic growth and progress in some future essay, but here I want to shed light on the way the west has consistently promoted reactionary Islamism, subverted progressive nationalist regimes, and thus controlled the destinies of the Muslim world by tying them down to a medieval mindset.

[...]

The second Western attack on Muslim modernisation was when King Amanullah of Afghanistan initiated an impressive programme to modernise his country. Industrialisation, modern education, liberation of women and many other such ideas were in the pipeline but the British in India recruited the most reactionary Mullah of Afghanistan, Mullah Shore Bazar, and a notorious bandit, Baccha Sakka, to launch a counter-revolution. They succeeded in overthrowing King Amanullah who was sent into exile in 1929.

The third assault on Muslim modernity was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran in 1953 because he had nationalised the Anglo-Iran Oil Company. The British and American intelligence services joined ranks and with the help of reactionary sections of the Iranian clergy masterminded the agitation that brought to an end the Mossadeq era.

[...]

Chronologically speaking it was not Wahabism that set in motion forces that undermined modernising processes in the Muslim world; it was Khomeini's reactionary revolution that initiated it. The Saudis reacted violently to Khomeini's bid to capture the leadership of the Muslim world. Their rivalry drove Muslim societies more and more towards extremism."

Ishtiaq Ahmed, The News, 28.07.2007

Faith-based initatives in foreign policy.

Lenin warns against "bald Atheist propaganda"

In the struggle for World Atheism we are sometimes met with the age old communist strawman. Most likely it is a result from McCarthy-era propaganda that was produced with a largely Christian USA in mind. But it is looking more and more stupid in European countries where Atheism quickly is becoming the norm without there being any gulags. (It would be inappropriate to mention Guantanamo here, because they don't have to work.)

Anyway, strawman and McCarthyism aside, here's a very interesting comment by Lenin himself:

"It is the duty of a Marxist to place the success of the strike movement above everything else, vigorously to counteract the division of the workers in this struggle into atheists and Christians, vigorously to oppose any such division. Atheist propaganda in such circumstances may be both unnecessary and harmful—not from the philistine fear of scaring away the backward sections, of losing a seat in the elections, and so on, but out of consideration for the real progress of the class struggle, which in the conditions of modern capitalist society will convert Christian workers to Social-Democracy and to atheism a hundred times better than bald atheist propaganda."

V. I. Lenin, The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion, Proletary, No. 45, May 13 (26), 1900. (The text was provided by Marxists.org)

Is this news? Not to anyone with a minimum of knowledge about communism, but for people with less than minimum - people who swallow the bald evangelical propaganda that "Atheism equals Communism" - it is most likely big news. Lenin was still an Atheist (feel free to read the entire text), just that he was more into Communism:

"Why does religion retain its hold on the backward sections of the town proletariat, on broad sections of the semi-proletariat, and on the mass of the peasantry? Because of the ignorance of the people, replies the bourgeois progressist, the radical or the bourgeois materialist. And so: "Down with religion and long live atheism; the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!" The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois uplifters."

Not being a communist I shall continue to indulge myself in bald atheist propaganda - contrary to Lenin's advice! Atheists of the world unite!

Btw. if you want to search the archives at marxists.org (they have a lot) just use Google like this: site:marxists.org/archive/lenin/ bald

[Classic] "The Reagan Doctrine" by Isaac Asimov

"Some time ago, Ronald Reagan pointed out that one couldn't trust the Soviet government because the Soviets didn't believe in God or in an afterlife and therefore had no reason to behave honorably, but would be willing to lie and cheat and do all sorts of wicked things to aid their cause.

[...]

Yet there are puzzles. Consider Iran. The Iranians are a god-fearing people and believe in an afterlife, and this is certainly true of the mullahs and ayatollahs who comprise their government. And yet we are reluctant to trust them for some reason. President Reagan himself has referred to the Iranian leaders as "barbarians.""

Isaac Asimov, The Austin American-Statesman, May 10, 1981

A great read on the matter of "Why you can't trust Theists" I mean "Atheists".