Atheist Calls for Destruction of Churches!

[laconicsax]

Oh, wait...it wasn't an atheist, it was the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia

http://rt.com/news/peninsula-saudi-grand-mufti-701/

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia has said that all churches in the Arabian Peninsula must be destroyed. The statement prompted anger and dismay from Christians throughout the Middle East.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah made the controversial statement in a response to a question from a Kuwaiti NGO delegation. A Kuwaiti parliamentarian had called for a ban on the construction of new churches in February, but so far the initiative has not been passed into law. The NGO, called the Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage, asked the Sheikh to clarify what Islamic law says on the matter.

The Grand Mufti, who is the highest official of religious law in Saudi Arabia, as well as the head of the Supreme Council of Islamic Scholars, cited the Prophet Mohammed, who said the Arabian Peninsula is to exist under only one religion.

The Sheikh went on to conclude that it was therefore necessary for Kuwait, being a part of the Arabian Peninsula, to destroy all churches on its territory.

[1ProudAtheist]

1. This Is A Great Idea

For Saudi, and it should be studied as a possible solution to the political divide in this country. Religion has become too important for people involved in them to realize the hate and destruction that they are causing.........at least I hope that they don't realize it.

[dimbear]

2. These tiffs could all be settled amicably if every 4 years the various deities got together

and engaged in a contest of whatever, moving mountains or bringing plagues or something.

The God Games. Would sell out, too! Great for the economy.....

[humblebum]

3. Atheists have done so in the past, so it really wasn't so

outlandish of an idea.

[intaglio]

4. Any source for this statement?

to quote Wikipedia - Citation needed

[humblebum]

5. Well.

"The ATHEIST’S HANDBOOK was published in Moscow in 1959 in conjunction with Khrushchev’s campaign to eliminate the remaining traces of religion in the U.S.S.R.." Thousands of religious structures were either destroyed, or converted to other uses.

The Atheist’s Handbook, [Sputnik Ateista], (Moscow, USSR: Gos. Izd. Politicheskoi Literatury, 1961), reproduced in English by U.S. Joint Publications Research Service (Washington, DC), 117.

[intaglio]

6. Oh my, how shocking

come on, you can do better than that; a handbook published with the consent of the (nominally) anti-Christian government of the USSR?

Make me laugh more. Go on find another, I need a good laugh.

What about the destruction of Churches supported by that notorious totalitarian Henry VIII? or the terrible state imposed religion of Lord Protector Cromwell? What of the terrible massacres of Christians in mediaeval Japan - because the Jesuits made little secret of how they wanted to destroy the Japanese faiths.

[humblebum]

7. Um? You asked. I provided the evidence and a source.

And I don't believe that Henry and Cromwell were atheists.

(Nominally) anti-Christian government of the USSR? Now I'm LOL.

[intaglio]

8. Nominally

Stalin re-established the Orthodox faith then he and others used it ruthlessly to oppress other faiths.

My point was that the "Christians" banned by the USSR were attempting to overthrow the USSR, in the same way Jesuits were attempting to overthrow the influence non-Christian faiths had on Japanese life.

Contrast the Christian destructions instigated by those famous Christians Henry and Cromwell.

[humblebum]

9. I'm not sure where you got your information, but your "facts" are a bit

skewed to say the least. I never mentioned Stalin. However, Stalin established 'Scientific Atheism' to replace state religion in the USSR. And he certainly did not use the Orthodox Church to oppress other faiths. The PRIMARY target of state atheist sponsored organizations was the Orthodox Church, in addition to others.

[intaglio]

10. During WWII

Stalin allowed the Orthodox Church to re-establish, firstly to minimise internal dissent and secondly to give a defense against the Nazi propaganda that they would defend faiths. This is why there were officially recognised Orthodox patriarchs within the USSR during the time of Communist hegemony. Orthodox clergy had to be approved by the Communist Party and were subject to high levels of scrutiny. This is established history.

The Pentecostalist and Baptist Churches were very active in attempting to proselytise the USSR especially in the Cold War. This was done with the covert support of the CIA because the forbidden faiths were breeding grounds for useful spies or people who might be blackmailed. Orthodox clergy were expected to report such activity but needed little encouragement due to the antipathy they held to people they regarded as incomers and heretics. Pentecostalists and Baptists who were discovered were usually prosecuted as spies.

Officially atheism was state policy but in practise it was not.

[humblebum]

11. Your "established history" is a very skewed version indeed and

your knowledge of the subject is very incomplete. It is true that Stalin relaxed the persecution of religion during WWII. But, that was a rare event and far from the norm. And to say that "Officially atheism was state policy but in practise it was not" is a gross misstatement.

It's difficult to even know where to start describing the situation that existed over a period of 75 years or so, However, to illustrate how officially atheism was both the policy and the practice of the state consider:

"The Orthodox church suffered terribly in the 1930s, and many of its members were killed or sent to labor camps. In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to less than 500. 1929 was a watershed year in which Soviet policy brought much new legislation in place that would form the basis for the harsh anti-religious persecution in the following decade."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40973100/Persecution-of-Christians-in-the-Soviet-Union-The-Anti-Religious-Campaigns

There were also 96,000 local chapters of the League of Militant Atheists across a country that spanned 11 time zones. And all were charged with carrying out the dissemination of state atheist propaganda and openly attacking religion.

The repression of religion occurred throughout the Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev eras and beyond through the late 1980s. After WWII, it was back to business and the assault on religion increased dramatically during the Khrushchev years.

[intaglio]

18. A link to Scrbd - no attribution, no author

My how - err - trustworthy

Try another link or a bit more searching

Glenn E. Curtis, ed. Russia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1996.

In 1939 the government significantly relaxed some restrictions on religious practice, a change that the Orthodox Church met with an attitude of cooperation. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the government reluctantly solicited church support as it called upon every traditional patriotic value that might resonate with the Soviet people. According to witnesses, active church support of the national war effort drew many otherwise alienated individuals to the Soviet cause. Beginning in 1942, to promote this alliance, the government ended its prohibition of official contact between clergy and foreign representatives. It also permitted the traditional celebration of Easter and temporarily ended the stigmatization of religiosity as an impediment to social advancement.

The general cultural liberalization that followed Stalin's death in 1953 brought a natural curiosity about the Russian past that especially caught the interest of younger generations; the ceremonies and art forms of the Russian Orthodox Church, an inseparable part of that past, attracted particular attention, to the dismay of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev regimes. Historian James Billington has pointed out that in that period religious belief was a form of generational rebellion by children against doctrinaire communist parents.

The actual history was that there was a mass persecution of the Church during the "White Russian War" because the Patriarchate and clergy supported the White Russian aristocrats, their European allies and the US enablers. After the Bolshevik victory, the Patriarch Tikhon anathematised the Communist Government and so the Patriarch - but not the Metropolitans - was abolished. In 1939, before the Great Patriotic War, Stalin began the process of re-establishing the Patriarchate and completed the process in a rush at the beginning of that war. The new Patriarch was Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky.

In the 15 or so years following the restablishment the few hundred Orthodox churches grew rapidly to more than 20,000 until Kruschev (in 1957) decided that the church was becoming too influential and began to reduce its influence. Even during this campaign the number of churches never dropped below 6,000. It is in this climate that the 1959 manifesto, that you so proudly displayed as evidence, was produced. The Patriarchate was not again abolished and began to modernise itself, throwing off such nonsensical medieval doctrine such as necessary suffering and subjugation to (hereditary) temporal lords. It is noticeable that after Kruschev the Patriarch was sometimes lauded by the Communist government.

[humblebum]

19. Nice try, but there are 124 citations at the end of the article.

You seem to focusing on the WWII era and immediately after. Over a period of about 75 years, official persecutions rose and fell. However, you seem to be trying to rationalize and white wash arguably the most intensive oppressive eras in human history.

You are displaying a very limited knowledge of the history. The Five-Year plan to establish atheism. The Komsomol churches and holidays,"Bezboznik" newspaper and periodical, and several books that have been written about the period:

“Godless Communists”:Atheism and Society in the Soviet Union by Husband
Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless by Peris
The Black Book of Communism by Courtois, et al
Death by Government by R J Rummel
William Henry Chamberlin's works - primary source
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago

etc., etc., etc.

[intaglio]

26. So? Anyone can make citations. Climate deniers and the religiously obtuse amongst them

Don't believe me? check out Christopher Monckton's screeds or William Lane Craig's apologia.

Who authored the article and who or what was the reason for commissioning that article?

Scribd is self published central and exercises little editorial control over its content. So, give the original publisher and the original author for as far as I know you could be the author and published it to support your own posts.

[humblebum]

27. In that case you might want to check out some of those sources. That's why

they are there. And, that certainly isn't the only work that I referenced. Many more than yourself.

[intaglio]

28. It is the primary source you referenced

Unattributed.

So we have an unattributed source probably cherrypicking sources or using sources from the same echo chamber. This is the same false academic gloss that people like David Irving or the Discovery Institute indulge in to present their fantasies.

Essentially, you do not know the author, you do not know the provenance and have selected your source to support your limited and inaccurate knowledge of the period.

Goodbye

[humblebum]

29. At least I was able to give a substantial body of sources, unlike yourself.

Your avoidance is all too obvious. BTW, where did I claim that the article was a primary source?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkodyssey/376765112/

[Deep13]

15. Again, you essentialize atheism and effectively use Stalin as a stand in for the group.

Hardly any of the atheists who exist now and are expressing criticism of religion are Bolshevik communists. I am not aware of any that would destroy other people's religious temples. As a practical matter, it makes people who have no particular sympathy to religion defensive of whatever tradition they were raised in. Put another way, the veil worn by some Muslim women was never defended as being synonymous with Islam until Westerners attacked it.

I've explained ad nausea why it is unfair and misleading to compare skeptical atheists with those who have faith in communism, but I guess some people just need someone to hate; an "other" against which one defines himself.

Right now, the only people calling for wholesale iconoclasm are religious extremists.

[humblebum]

17. I never said,

any of the atheists who exist now and are expressing criticism of religion are Bolshevik communists. Only that it happened. However, concerning "the only people calling for wholesale iconoclasm are religious extremists" - it is happening in Tibet today and certain atheists have made some very belligerent statements, some accompanied by actions.

Also, it was far from being only Stalin involved. The movement was widespread over decades and many countries.

[Goblinmonger]

12. There are none so blind as will not see.

As an atheist, I have met some wonderful Christians and some awful atheists.

But, ...

There is group of vocally theist among and around the DU theists who are some of the worst people I have ever known myself to meet. Insipid acrimonious secretively-agenda-ed disingenuous ideologues who would not figure out how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.

[humblebum]

13. I agree, there really are none so blind as will not see. nt

[Goblinmonger]

14. I apologize for that post, actually.

Just running a little experiment from another thread.

[humblebum]

16. Me too. And that's understandable. We all do it. nt

[kwassa]

20. Here is a video link showing the Bolsheviks destroying Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in 1931

It was rebuilt in 1995, and I visited it in 2002. It is huge, and quite beautiful.

They were going to build a massive people's palace on the spot, but the foundations alone started to slip into the river. It was instead converted to the world's largest outdoor swimming pool.

[laconicsax]

21. Yes, and?

Thank you for the red herring. Let me know if you have anything relevant to the OP.

[kwassa]

22. Red herring? Sounds like an atheist fish.

edit to add:

Your OP was pointless.

As others in this thread have pointed out, atheists have destroyed many churches, whether you like it or not. It is simply history.

I thought a video illustration of such a historic event worthy. And it is.

[laconicsax]

23. I see you have nothing to offer that's relevant to the OP.

Did you even read it?

[kwassa]

24. Yes I read it. Did your OP say anything? Nope.

You attempt to claim moral high ground for atheists, which is, of course, a massive joke.

[laconicsax]

25. You must have missed this part:

Oh, wait...it wasn't an atheist, it was the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia

http://rt.com/news/peninsula-saudi-grand-mufti-701/

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia has said that all churches in the Arabian Peninsula must be destroyed. The statement prompted anger and dismay from Christians throughout the Middle East.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah made the controversial statement in a response to a question from a Kuwaiti NGO delegation. A Kuwaiti parliamentarian had called for a ban on the construction of new churches in February, but so far the initiative has not been passed into law. The NGO, called the Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage, asked the Sheikh to clarify what Islamic law says on the matter.

The Grand Mufti, who is the highest official of religious law in Saudi Arabia, as well as the head of the Supreme Council of Islamic Scholars, cited the Prophet Mohammed, who said the Arabian Peninsula is to exist under only one religion.

The Sheikh went on to conclude that it was therefore necessary for Kuwait, being a part of the Arabian Peninsula, to destroy all churches on its territory

Now, do you have anything relevant to say in regards to this? If not, what are you doing in this thread?

[kwassa]

30. how young are you?

I know you are a teen.

That is fine.

But your OP title, and switch of subject, avoids the fact that the premise IN YOUR TITLE is actually true.

Atheists have called for destruction of churches.

And you attempt to duck the premise you set with your own title.

How wildly hypocritical.

[2ndAmForComputers]

31. You know he is a teen? How?

[laconicsax]

33. I'm curious too, especially since I'm not.

[kwassa]

36. from past discussions

If you are no longer a teen, you are not much beyond it.

[cleanhippie]

37. If we are to use passed conversations to judge one anothers age, you must be a toddler.

[laconicsax]

39. I'm trying to feel offended, but you're too damn funny.

I think cleanhippie nailed it--I should take your assertions as a compliment.

[laconicsax]

34. So you can only comment on what you thought the OP was about.

Can't say I'm surprised.

BTW: The title is only true if you ignore the verb tense.

[2ndAmForComputers]

32. After reading the comments here, I feel the need to state one obvious, undeniable fact:

Red-baiting is a behavior that's much more closely associated with one particular end of the political spectrum than with the other.

That is all.

[kwassa]

35. so, why are you doing it?

You are doing a bit of reverse red-baiting. If we discuss a connection of Communism and atheism, you are saying we must be right-wingers, rather than stating a historical fact. Communists are atheists, and persecuted religious believers within their countries. Are we to ignore this part of history, because as progressives it is not nice to speak ill of atheists?

[2ndAmForComputers]

38. Do you disagree the fact I stated is a fact?