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Still not most of the time the Soviet Union existed.
Yes, I left out the facts where collaborators and suspected collaborators (including the religious) were persecuted.
Did you read the link you posted?
This link four more times?
One must also remember that religious persecution was just a part of a general persecution against any internal threat to Soviet power, from the military (who lost 50% of the number of people in two years than the religious community did during the whole period of the Soviet Union), poets, writers, actors, artists.
Poland is not the Soviet Union.
Of course, Poland is not the Soviet Union - it was a comparison. Really, you couldn't get?
"Religious persecution was just a part of a general persecution against any internal threat."
I'm not discussing why the religious were persecution, I'm stating there was religious persecution.
Religious persecution was more than the number of people who killed for their religious beliefs - it's also the number of people who renounced their religion for fear of losing custody of their children, losing their jobs, losing educational opportunities, losing housing, etc. The government used the fear of losing what was needed to live as a means of shutting down religious beliefs.
So what other disagreements are there? What unnecessary controversies, violence and wars could have been avoided?
Please give examples of how science could have done better?
Really? There are so many. How about the disagreement hinging around a woman's right to choose? Talk about disagreement. Or even birth control. Gay rights. Just for starters...
You think all that violence and war resulting from the many Crusades were necessary? The current conflict between Israelis and Palestinians?
Again: SIX: Man's ability to theorize is a faculty that allows Man to advance toward greater awareness and understanding of universal truth. The theoretical guides Man to further scientific discovery. However, when conjecture about the supernatural leads to faith and religious inculcation rather facts, reason and logic, great harm can and does come to Man instead. This is because the great majority of people still today cannot accept the confines of science. Instead conjecture is continuously promoted as truth ultimately to the point of creating profound divisions between people resulting in great conflict, violence and war still raging to this day; the Crusades, Protestants v Catholics, Jews v Muslims, Shiites v Sunnis.
I had trouble understanding your first comment about this sixth Truth, but I tried to address it anyway. Please have another look if you care to better understand what I'm getting at here. You don't see any connection between all these conflicting issues revolving around different faiths and the violence that has resulted and still goes on today?
Of course, Poland is not the Soviet Union - it was a comparison. Really, you couldn't get?
"Religious persecution was just a part of a general persecution against any internal threat."
I'm not discussing why the religious were persecution, I'm stating there was religious persecution.
Religious persecution was more than the number of people who killed for their religious beliefs - it's also the number of people who renounced their religion for fear of losing custody of their children, losing their jobs, losing educational opportunities, losing housing, etc. The government used the fear of losing what was needed to live as a means of shutting down religious beliefs.
Even aside from religious persecution specifically as you describe it here, there are the many ways "push has come to shove" not simply because of "innocents" being killed simply because of their religious beliefs. Are you also not familiar with the history of the United States? "Manifest Destiny" for example? Or the many other similar histories of violence not at all as innocent as you seem wanting to believe about religion generally speaking?
You have a point, but only to a point and a small one at that as compared to the bigger picture I am referring to here...
Even aside from religious persecution specifically as you describe it here, there are the many ways "push has come to shove" not simply because of "innocents" being killed simply because of their religious beliefs. Are you also not familiar with the history of the United States? "Manifest Destiny" for example? Or the many other similar histories of violence not at all as innocent as you seem wanting to believe about religion generally speaking?
You have a point, but only to a point and a small one at that as compared to the bigger picture I am referring to here...
When you scrape away the veneer of religion, these wars are tribal wars. "Manifest Destiny" was European tribes against native American tribes. A scientifically advanced society attacking a less mechanically advanced society. It was the European guns which helped "Manifest Destiny" to reach its goals.
Look at the French Revolution.
Quote:
The Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution
“Every sensible man, every honorable man must hold the Christian religion in horror.â€
-Voltaire
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.â€
-Diderot
“Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness and kept him in ignorance of the real duties of true interests. It is only by dispelling these clouds and phantoms of religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason and Morality. Religion diverts us from the causes of evil, and from the remedies which nature prescribes; far from curing, it only aggravates, multiplies and perpetuates them.â€
-Baron de Holbach
The program of dechristianization waged against the Christian people of France increased in intensity with the enactment of the Law of 17 September 1793, also known as the Law of Suspects. It was used to carry out more actively the following measures: 1) all priests and all persons protecting them are liable to death on the spot, 2 )the destruction of all crosses, bells and other external signs of worship, 3) the destruction of statues, plaques, and iconography from places of worship.1 In 1793, the Christian calendar was replaced with one reckoning from the date of the Revolution and the festivals of Liberty, Reason, and the Supreme Being were officially established. During the two-year Reign of Terror, anti-clericalism became more violent than any other in history.
The whole point of the guillotine as a new technology:
Quote:
One of the most recognizable and terrifying symbols of the French Revolution is the guillotine. Named for Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the man who created it, the guillotine was developed as a way to execute people in a more humane way.
Dr. Guillotin was disturbed by the brutal beheadings that were taking place in his country as a form of capital punishment. Up until the late 1700s, those sentenced to death by decapitation had their heads cut off by swords or axes.
Guillotin believed that a machine could be created which would swiftly and effectively decapitate people, sparing them suffering or mangling during their death. Thus, in 1789, the guillotine was born, a tall mechanism that featured a sharp, heavy blade positioned at the top and a kneeling area for people to stick their head through at the bottom. Once the blade came down, the execution was complete.
Despite Dr. Guillotin’s initial goal of creating a humane form of execution, the guillotine was used to kill thousands of people during the Reign of Terror. Among them were members of the bourgeoisie, aristocrats, peasants, foreigners, and sympathizers of the revolution.
When you scrape away the veneer of religion, these wars are tribal wars. "Manifest Destiny" was European tribes against native American tribes. A scientifically advanced society attacking a less mechanically advanced society. It was the European guns which helped "Manifest Destiny" to reach its goals.
The best numbers found is during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794), about 40,000 people were executed or murdered.
I am very sorry, but having read so much history along these lines (including a good deal about the French Revolution in fact) and having "scraped away the veneer of religion" in more than a few ways, there is no way I can separate what these people believed about their god and their religion in no uncertain terms. That additionally they lined up with so many other people in their "tribe" who believed the same thing does not in any way excuse or minimize the influence of religion in these many cases. Of course the Europeans and all the other "tribes," if that's what you want to call them, were just as bad if not worse when it comes to all that was done "in the name of God."
Yes of course people tend to be tribal. This human characteristic is one that serves most religions extremely well. Call it what you will, there is just no extracting religion from these histories in any case. Religion and these histories are interwoven to the point of making attempts like yours, to "scrape away the veneer of religion," something like trying to scrape the veneer off a brick and suggest there is anything else there but still the brick.
I am very sorry, but having read so much history along these lines (including a good deal about the French Revolution in fact) and having "scraped away the veneer of religion" in more than a few ways, there is no way I can separate what these people believed about their god and their religion in no uncertain terms. That additionally they lined up with so many other people in their "tribe" who believed the same thing does not in any way excuse or minimize the influence of religion in these many cases. Of course the Europeans and all the other "tribes," if that's what you want to call them, were just as bad if not worse when it comes to all that was done "in the name of God."
Yes of course people tend to be tribal. This human characteristic is one that serves most religions extremely well. Call it what you will, there is just no extracting religion from these histories in any case. Religion and these histories are interwoven to the point of making attempts like yours, to "scrape away the veneer of religion," something like trying to scrape the veneer off a brick and suggest there is anything else there but still the brick.
Unlike today, the Catholic Church was deeply engrained in the "politics" of past eras. One need look no further than Cardinal Richelieu to see a prime example.
I am very sorry, but having read so much history along these lines (including a good deal about the French Revolution in fact) and having "scraped away the veneer of religion" in more than a few ways, there is no way I can separate what these people believed about their god and their religion in no uncertain terms. That additionally they lined up with so many other people in their "tribe" who believed the same thing does not in any way excuse or minimize the influence of religion in these many cases. Of course the Europeans and all the other "tribes," if that's what you want to call them, were just as bad if not worse when it comes to all that was done "in the name of God."
Yes of course people tend to be tribal. This human characteristic is one that serves most religions extremely well. Call it what you will, there is just no extracting religion from these histories in any case. Religion and these histories are interwoven to the point of making attempts like yours, to "scrape away the veneer of religion," something like trying to scrape the veneer off a brick and suggest there is anything else there but still the brick.
I agree that religions have played a major role in these political matters (even today) but I see the role as "cover" for much more pragmatic (and less "honorable") goals. As you suggest, LearnMe, the motives are related more to our basic nature and instincts, than God, IMO. Religions have retained our primitive ancestors' very primitive and barbaric imaginings and misunderstandings of God as if they were Holy Writ! I find that astounding and quite inexplicable in this day and age.
Unlike today, the Catholic Church was deeply engrained in the "politics" of past eras. One need look no further than Cardinal Richelieu to see a prime example.
I have found that reading the history of the Mormon religion and/or how the Mormon religion played a part in that part of American history to be a very good microcosmic look at this relationship between religion and the history of man more generally speaking. One that can be compared to all the other similar histories involving religion that can in no way be ignored, dismissed or misrepresented as other than profoundly influential.
No more a "veneer" than the many rings of a tree is just veneer to the tree itself...
Yes of course people tend to be tribal. This human characteristic is one that serves most religions extremely well. Call it what you will, there is just no extracting religion from these histories in any case. Religion and these histories are interwoven to the point of making attempts like yours, to "scrape away the veneer of religion," something like trying to scrape the veneer off a brick and suggest there is anything else there but still the brick.
It depends on the context.
For instance, religion was a huge factor for the Puritans in Boston. However, religion was not a factor for the Dutch who settled in NY. The Dutch were more tolerate of other religions. As a result, religious minorities settled in New Amsterdam.
Were the colonies relationships with Native Americans and Africans better with the Dutch vs. Puritans? How much of a factor was religion?
If you are proposing a theory, you should be able to test it. Has there been a society where science replaced religion? Were people treated better or worse? Was it more of the same?
I will give you points for what is happening in Gaza now. It is beyond the pale - we are complicit in genocide and the world is watching and will hold us responsible.
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