6 ms·

? how do you explain the relative stability of largely secular nations then?

ceilingcorner 6y ago
The two most destructive regimes of the twentieth century were explicitly secular. The stability of modern Western Europe is more of a historical consequence of Pax Americana and the Cold War than secularism.
- julianlam 6y ago
  ... and what exactly are these two destructive regimes?
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Do I really need to point that out? Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. If one wants to play "edgy contrarian" and argue that the United States was somehow worse than either of those, well...the U.S. is technically secular too.
    - adrian_b 6y ago
      Believing that the communist countries were not religious countries is a common fallacy of the Westerners. In reality communism was a religion and more precisely a variant of the Christian religion, but this fact was disguised by changing the names of all things related to the Christian religion. Just a few of the correspondences between Christianity and Communism (shown as traditional word => communist word for the same concept): Christian => atheist Pagan => Christian Prophets => Marx, Engels & Lenin Holy Scriptures => the published works of Marx, Engels & Lenin Christian martyrs => communist illegalists Pope => general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Cardinals/patriarchs => general secretaries of communist parties Priests => members of the communist parties having functions in the party hierarchy Religious teaching in schools => Political teaching in schools Priest of a military unit => Political second-in-command of a military unit Heretics => oppositionists to the party leadership Happy life in the afterlife => happy life in the future truly communist society Holy Inquisition => Committee for State Security ... and so on. Writing a complete dictionary about all the words used by Christianity with their replacements in Communism would take a very long time. While the communist vocabulary looks very different, the meanings are exactly the same as in Christianity. All the communist countries were not countries free of religion, but on the contrary, they were countries were a monotheistic-like religion was intermingled with all the administrative & government institutions and where all the other religions were aggressively persecuted, including the true atheists or agnostics (i.e. not the communist atheists, which was the code name for the believers in the communist religion). The claim that the communist countries were not religious was just propaganda, they were countries where there was no separation between the religion and the state. Likewise false was the claim that the communist countries had a different economic system, in reality their economic system was an extreme form of capitalism, where everything was dominated by monopolies.
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        It's not that you are wrong, per se, because communism is indeed descended from a Christian culture and full of many Christian ideas. Overall, it functioned as a quasi-religious system. However, the Soviets actively rooted every religion during their rule, especially Orthodox Christianity. So if we are to consider Soviet communism a form of Christianity, it's unclear how useful this actually is.
        adrian_b 6y ago
        Your counter-argument does not work. It actually provides one more similarity between Communism and the various variants of Christianity and it makes stronger my analogy. Yes the communists persecuted the other religions, inclusive by imprisoning and/or killing many Catholic priests and many Orthodox priests. However, this is exactly what was previously done by some kinds of Christians against other kinds of Christians, e.g. during the many conflicts between Protestants and Catholics and between Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Some people downvoted me, but this also just validates my affirmation that most Westerners are not aware of these facts and they do not understand Communism. I have grown in a country occupied by communists, so I know from direct experience how Communism works, not from the fantastic depictions typical for the Western movies or novels. When I was in school, there was nothing that I hated more than the mandatory classes of communist religion, the so-called Political teachings. Also, due to the stupidity of one of my colleagues, a teacher discovered that I had a Bible and, because of that, I was almost expelled from High School a short time before the final exam, but I was very lucky due to some special circumstances and I could avoid the expulsion. Many years later, after communism failed, I believed that the new generations of students will escape my fate and they will no longer waste time with the mandatory religion classes. Unfortunately, my hope was wrong, because the mandatory Political teachings classes were not deleted from the curriculum, but they were replaced by mandatory Christian religion classes. So nothing has changed, when the Communist religion was mandatory, I had almost lost my career because it was supposed that I might be Christian, but if I were a student today, I would have similar problems if I would attempt to criticize in school the Christian religion, for exactly the same reasons that were applicable to Communism.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  Not sure whether you intended this or not, but your statement could be extended to imply that secular societies become destructive ones? Which would be quite a stretch - there are many secular stable countries and many unstable, highly religious ones as well.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    No, that isn't what my comment says and it's not what I intended. Please, read what I actually wrote.
    - 0_____0 6y ago
      Fair enough.
brobdingnagians 6y ago
Depends on how you define secular. Most secular states are simply neutral and promote plurality of culture and religion, i.e. allowing choice. The other type of secular state is one which is openly hostile to religion. The US is becoming openly hostile to religion, as many of the comments in this thread evidence, which is distinct from neutrality. I agree with religious freedom as such, with everyone being on equal standing. If you define secularism as the USSR or China, I would disagree with their long term stability, or even with liking their regimes.
- tootie 6y ago
  How about church membership
  - prophesi 6y ago
    Funnily enough, one of the most secular countries, Sweden, has a 50%+ church membership. But it's an anomaly; church membership is still a good litmus test for secularity everywhere else.
    - ur-whale 6y ago
      > Sweden, has a 50%+ church membership. Could it be that in Sweden, you get some sort of tax rebate or discounts at supermarkets if you are officially registered with some religion?
      - meheleventyone 6y ago
        If it’s anything like Iceland people get auto-registered as members. Much better to look at things like church attendance rates.
- Arainach 6y ago
  The evidence doesn't support your claim. The least religious countries are among the most stable and most peaceful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun... Their crime and imprisonment rates are far below those of the US. Even on an individual level, the presence of non-religious individuals is assocated with a series of positive societal effects: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227616923_Atheism_Secularity_and_Well-Being_How_the_Findings_of_Social_Science_Counter_Negative_Stereotypes_and_Assumptions https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227616923_Atheism_S... Religion isn't necessary for public morality, and as America has shown, is often actively harmful. America is full of people who assume that they are good people BECAUSE they go to church rather than because of their acts. By and large, these are generally not good people. Instead, they're among the most judgmental and least helpful members of society. To paraphrase Gandhi, "I like your Christ, not your Christians". The religious in modern society can't even be bothered to read the Cliff Notes of their own book, otherwise they'd be focused on helping the poor and remembering that rich people have trouble getting to heaven rather than going around promoting guns, no taxes, and slashing social safety nets.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
People wonder if they are only temporarily stable, since the only subset groups that are reproducing at replacement rates are the religious.
- gbrown 6y ago
  Religion isn't a genetically inherited.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Cultural inheritance...
    - gbrown 6y ago
      It’s not binary is the point.

The two most destructive regimes of the twentieth century were explicitly secular. The stability of modern Western Europe is more of a historical consequence of Pax Americana and the Cold War than secularism.

julianlam 6y ago
... and what exactly are these two destructive regimes?
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Do I really need to point that out? Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. If one wants to play "edgy contrarian" and argue that the United States was somehow worse than either of those, well...the U.S. is technically secular too.
  - adrian_b 6y ago
    Believing that the communist countries were not religious countries is a common fallacy of the Westerners. In reality communism was a religion and more precisely a variant of the Christian religion, but this fact was disguised by changing the names of all things related to the Christian religion. Just a few of the correspondences between Christianity and Communism (shown as traditional word => communist word for the same concept): Christian => atheist Pagan => Christian Prophets => Marx, Engels & Lenin Holy Scriptures => the published works of Marx, Engels & Lenin Christian martyrs => communist illegalists Pope => general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Cardinals/patriarchs => general secretaries of communist parties Priests => members of the communist parties having functions in the party hierarchy Religious teaching in schools => Political teaching in schools Priest of a military unit => Political second-in-command of a military unit Heretics => oppositionists to the party leadership Happy life in the afterlife => happy life in the future truly communist society Holy Inquisition => Committee for State Security ... and so on. Writing a complete dictionary about all the words used by Christianity with their replacements in Communism would take a very long time. While the communist vocabulary looks very different, the meanings are exactly the same as in Christianity. All the communist countries were not countries free of religion, but on the contrary, they were countries were a monotheistic-like religion was intermingled with all the administrative & government institutions and where all the other religions were aggressively persecuted, including the true atheists or agnostics (i.e. not the communist atheists, which was the code name for the believers in the communist religion). The claim that the communist countries were not religious was just propaganda, they were countries where there was no separation between the religion and the state. Likewise false was the claim that the communist countries had a different economic system, in reality their economic system was an extreme form of capitalism, where everything was dominated by monopolies.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      It's not that you are wrong, per se, because communism is indeed descended from a Christian culture and full of many Christian ideas. Overall, it functioned as a quasi-religious system. However, the Soviets actively rooted every religion during their rule, especially Orthodox Christianity. So if we are to consider Soviet communism a form of Christianity, it's unclear how useful this actually is.
      - adrian_b 6y ago
        Your counter-argument does not work. It actually provides one more similarity between Communism and the various variants of Christianity and it makes stronger my analogy. Yes the communists persecuted the other religions, inclusive by imprisoning and/or killing many Catholic priests and many Orthodox priests. However, this is exactly what was previously done by some kinds of Christians against other kinds of Christians, e.g. during the many conflicts between Protestants and Catholics and between Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Some people downvoted me, but this also just validates my affirmation that most Westerners are not aware of these facts and they do not understand Communism. I have grown in a country occupied by communists, so I know from direct experience how Communism works, not from the fantastic depictions typical for the Western movies or novels. When I was in school, there was nothing that I hated more than the mandatory classes of communist religion, the so-called Political teachings. Also, due to the stupidity of one of my colleagues, a teacher discovered that I had a Bible and, because of that, I was almost expelled from High School a short time before the final exam, but I was very lucky due to some special circumstances and I could avoid the expulsion. Many years later, after communism failed, I believed that the new generations of students will escape my fate and they will no longer waste time with the mandatory religion classes. Unfortunately, my hope was wrong, because the mandatory Political teachings classes were not deleted from the curriculum, but they were replaced by mandatory Christian religion classes. So nothing has changed, when the Communist religion was mandatory, I had almost lost my career because it was supposed that I might be Christian, but if I were a student today, I would have similar problems if I would attempt to criticize in school the Christian religion, for exactly the same reasons that were applicable to Communism.
0_____0 6y ago
Not sure whether you intended this or not, but your statement could be extended to imply that secular societies become destructive ones? Which would be quite a stretch - there are many secular stable countries and many unstable, highly religious ones as well.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  No, that isn't what my comment says and it's not what I intended. Please, read what I actually wrote.
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    Fair enough.

brobdingnagians 6y ago

Depends on how you define secular. Most secular states are simply neutral and promote plurality of culture and religion, i.e. allowing choice. The other type of secular state is one which is openly hostile to religion. The US is becoming openly hostile to religion, as many of the comments in this thread evidence, which is distinct from neutrality. I agree with religious freedom as such, with everyone being on equal standing. If you define secularism as the USSR or China, I would disagree with their long term stability, or even with liking their regimes.

tootie 6y ago
How about church membership
- prophesi 6y ago
  Funnily enough, one of the most secular countries, Sweden, has a 50%+ church membership. But it's an anomaly; church membership is still a good litmus test for secularity everywhere else.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    > Sweden, has a 50%+ church membership. Could it be that in Sweden, you get some sort of tax rebate or discounts at supermarkets if you are officially registered with some religion?
    - meheleventyone 6y ago
      If it’s anything like Iceland people get auto-registered as members. Much better to look at things like church attendance rates.
Arainach 6y ago
The evidence doesn't support your claim. The least religious countries are among the most stable and most peaceful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun... Their crime and imprisonment rates are far below those of the US. Even on an individual level, the presence of non-religious individuals is assocated with a series of positive societal effects: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227616923_Atheism_Secularity_and_Well-Being_How_the_Findings_of_Social_Science_Counter_Negative_Stereotypes_and_Assumptions https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227616923_Atheism_S... Religion isn't necessary for public morality, and as America has shown, is often actively harmful. America is full of people who assume that they are good people BECAUSE they go to church rather than because of their acts. By and large, these are generally not good people. Instead, they're among the most judgmental and least helpful members of society. To paraphrase Gandhi, "I like your Christ, not your Christians". The religious in modern society can't even be bothered to read the Cliff Notes of their own book, otherwise they'd be focused on helping the poor and remembering that rich people have trouble getting to heaven rather than going around promoting guns, no taxes, and slashing social safety nets.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

People wonder if they are only temporarily stable, since the only subset groups that are reproducing at replacement rates are the religious.

gbrown 6y ago
Religion isn't a genetically inherited.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Cultural inheritance...
  - gbrown 6y ago
    It’s not binary is the point.