Why do Communists tend to to be Atheist?

<cough> Liberation theology<cough>

realitykeeper wrote: »

Communism and Atheism tend to go hand in hand. Why is that? A leftist I know explained his opinion on the matter saying that humanity does not need God and humans can find the answers they needs through science.

realitykeeper wrote: »

Am I wrong?

In a word, yes. Well, at least you're mostly wrong.


At a very basic level you're making a fallacious argument, specifically the fallacy of questionable cause. Just because communism and atheism are sometimes associated doesn't mean that there is necessarily a causal connection. It's the same kind of flawed thinking as the people who claim that evolution leads to atheism or that evolution is inherently atheistic. In fact Aron Ra devoted an entire video (and subsequently chapter) to this idea in his Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism series.



As mikhail explained it makes a difference what flavour of communism you're talking about and in the case of Marxism, its unsurprising that communism borne out of an anti-religious idea would end up atheistic in nature.

realitykeeper wrote: »

For example, Communism tends to fail and it only lasts when people do not have a democratic voice. This is because Communism contains in-built errors. Instead of everyone working hard for the good of everyone else, everyone tries to do as little as possible and hope the next guy will do all the work. Or, because they do not trust him to do his share. Christianity tends to be absent in Communist societies, and as mentioned, Communism tends to fail so there may be a connection there.

You're multiply wrong here.



First, Soviet communism failed but the Communist party of China is still in existence, it's still the ruling party, it's been going for 98 years and it currently has 90 million members. So, you might find it more enlightening to ask why Soviet communism in particular failed as opposed to communism in general.


In an old episode of the Uncommon Knowledge program the late Christopher Hitchens gives an insight into the rise and fall of Soviet communism:

"Until 1917, millions of Russians had been told for…hundreds of years that the czar is the head of the church – which he was, the Russian Orthodox Church. That the leader of the country should be something a little more than human. Not a god, but a little more. He’s not divine, but a holy father
If you’re Josef Stalin, you shouldn’t be in the dictatorship business if you don’t know how to exploit an inheritance like that: millions of credulous, servile people.
And what does he do? Lysenko’s biology – miracles, we can have three harvests a year if we believe in Lysenko’s biology. Inquisition, heresy hunt, orthodoxy. Everything comes from the top and must be thanked for, and groveled for. A complete replication of the preceding theocracy."




Second, you're skirting around this idea that communism is either inherently atheistic or leads to atheism and that as such, without the stabilising influence of Christianity any such society is doomed to fail. As it turns out, you're wrong on both counts.



Dealing with your second point first, you're trying, very subtly I might add, to imply that having Christianity might have prevented communism from failing had it been incorporated. This idea is obviously wrong. There are plenty of societies where Christianity has either never played a significant role or no longer plays a significant role and yet are in no danger of collapsing. Japan, for example.



The other point is one that many Christians have made over the years, specifically that a communist society built as it is on atheism is always going to lead to oppression, genocide, famine and eventual societal collapse because something something no morals something something, rant rant Hitler Stalin, or so the argument usually goes. However, as Christopher Hitchens points out:

"For your argument to have…any force at all, you’d have to point to a society that adopted the teachings of Lucretius, Spinoza, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Albert Einstein…and then fell into famine, dictatorship, torture and genocide. And you won’t, I think, be able to point to such. "

realitykeeper wrote: »

But according to Proverbs 3:5-6 we should ...

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Another fundamental truth is that trust is a good thing and of course faith and trust are strongly connected. A lot of people tend to think it is a good idea not to trust and these people may have had a lot of bad experiences in their lives but I still say trust is vital if humanity is to survive. Trust should not simply be about eliminating risk and therefore the reason for trust. It is important that people take the risk of trusting each other even if that is not the streetwise thing to do. If you do not trust, you will never find out who is trustworthy and who is not.

Perhaps you should read a bit more of Proverbs, specifically chapter 14:

"The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps."

You should learn from this sage advice, trusting without reservation is the path to gullibility, to being taken advantage of. Rather than Proverbs 3:5, you should follow the old Russian proverb, trust but verify.

Praise be!

realitykeeper wrote: »

Everyone knows China is only claiming to still be Communist. If there was any doubt, they could perhaps keep up a pretense to being Communist but even a pretense is out of the question. China is capitalist and therefore it is a benign fascist dictatorship which benefits most of it`s people and oppresses those it considers subversive.

That said, not every country that claims to be a democracy is a democracy. In fact most countries with "democratic" in the name are not democracies. The former GDR was one example.

Bannasidhe has already dealt with this point so I would direct you to their rather excellent response.


I would simply like to add that Soviet communism wasn't any more or less communist than China because, like China, Soviet Russia substituted the nation for the people so that it was the nation who owned everything and any actual control by the people was only in theory. But if you'd really like to know to what extent China is actually communist I'm sure pauldla could provide some valuable insights.

realitykeeper wrote: »

You learned of that proverb from one of my former posts. Am I right?

Nope, you're wrong again. I'm old enough to remember Ronald Reagan's use of the term in the 80s although the phrase was more recently brought to mind by the fantastic HBO Chernobyl series. In fact, that series offers some idea of what Soviet Russia was really like and whether it was really a communist nation.

realitykeeper wrote: »

I`ve heard that one before. Everytime Communism fails, people say that wasn`t real Communism.

Oddly enough, people say that about Christianity as well.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Toe the line

I just wanted to say that in the Undemocratic Republic of Desiato, the mouth-breathers who post "tow the line" on internet forums will be summarily executed.

Harsh, but fair, I think you'll find.

Also it's always hilarious to see a christian deploy the "no true Scotsman" fallacy...

realitykeeper wrote: »

I bunch them all together.

im a proud lefty, ive never considered myself a communist or socialist for that matter, so maybe....