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Atheist or Agnostic against Socialism?

Started by rubberducky, May 19, 2009, 01:48:36 AM

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rubberducky

Do you have to be a Communist or Socialist in order to be an Atheist or an Agnostic? Can you be an Atheist and anti-Socialist at the same time?

I despise religions. I wouldn't touch the Bible or Koran with a 10 foot pole. But I don't like Socialism or Communism either. I think Socialism/Communism and Religions are 2 sides of the same coin. Both ideologies are very controlling. Neither one allows you to develop your own individual identity. Everything has to be wrapped around God, the Church, or in the case of Socialism, the society as a whole.

Will

Atheist describes what you are not. You can be a Rand loving, free market anarchocapitalist if you'd like. You can be a Marx loving, equality for all communist, too. Atheist simply means one that disbelieves the existence of gods.

Socialism and communism are for those that value equality. Capitalism and aharchocapitalism are for those that value freedom. Most people tend to settle in the middle, not wishing to sacrifice too much freedom or too much equality for the other. With too much freedom comes corruption and with too much equality individual accomplishment isn't recognized.
I want bad people to look forward to and celebrate the day I die, because if they don't, I'm not living up to my potential.

Tanker

Socialism and atheism are in no way mutualy exclusive. Socialism is a form a government (not dependant on atheism) and atheism is simply the disbelief in any religion or higher power. While some communist governments have tried to enforce atheism they did so in the name of power not as a prereqsite for communism to work. Many religious people believe in a communist form of government while many atheists believe in a democratic or other type of government.

Saying someone must be a communist because they are an atheist makes as much sense as saying if you like the color green you must like to eat every green colored food too. They are very very periferaly connected but for one to be true does not require they other to be true also.
"I'd rather die the go to heaven" - William Murderface Murderface  Murderface-

I've been in fox holes, I'm still an atheist -Me-

God is a cake, and we all know what the cake is.

(my spelling, grammer, and punctuation suck, I know, but regardless of how much I read they haven't improved much since grade school. It's actually a bit of a family joke.

Tom62

I agree with Will. We have for example four people in our family who are an atheist. Note: there might be more atheists in my family, but they haven't come out of the closet yet. Of those four, my oldest brother, my uncle and I are definitively not socialists. Only my father is a (moderate) socialist. On the other hand I know several family members, who are socialists and are also religious. My wife and I share the same political views, but we disagree about religion. With other words believing or not believing in the supernatural has nothing to do with politics.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

thiolsulfate

What the heck?

One is a belief structure for gods and deities, the other is an economic model. I do not see how they are either inclusive or exclusive to each other.

Heretical Rants

Again, rights based in property.


Socialism to any degree, unless all parties involved volunteer completely, is robbery and thus violates human rights, making it evil.
Quote from: "Will"Rand loving, free market anarchocapitalist

Bah.  We have the military, the lawmakers, the courts, the jails, and the police.  Minimalist, but hardly anarchy...

Will

Quote from: "Heretical Rants"Socialism to any degree, unless all parties involved volunteer completely, is robbery and thus violates human rights, making it evil.
I couldn't disagree more. Robbery implies deception or a lack of consent. We consent as a part of the agreement of being citizens. I'm sorry you don't like taxes, but you reap the rewards every moment of every day thus justifying them. If you don't want to be taxed, you should stop reaping the rewards.

Taxes are the fee by which we purchase and maintain civilization.
I want bad people to look forward to and celebrate the day I die, because if they don't, I'm not living up to my potential.

Heretical Rants

Quote from: "Will"
Quote from: "Heretical Rants"Socialism to any degree, unless all parties involved volunteer completely, is robbery and thus violates human rights, making it evil.
I couldn't disagree more. Robbery implies deception or a lack of consent.

Taxes are the fee by which we purchase and maintain civilization.
Please notice the qualifier:  You are attacking a straw man.
In fact, if you and a bunch of friends wanted to go live in your own little communist society, and I tried to stop you, I would be the one violating your rights.

Furthermore, I haven't said anything about taxes on this forum until this post.

We can still trade certain values to purchase what you call "civilization."  



I consider civilization simply to be any successful social structure.  Arbitrarily manufactured paper money, forced charity such as wellfare, building codes in a house that only the builder will be living in and thus his error will not risk anyone else, government controlled auto industries, and many of the public utilities, are not necessary for civilization.  They may even hinder it.

I'm fairly happy with our current system in the USA(most are worse), but the way it is set up it can be exploited.  For example, my cousin does not need financial assistance from the government, but she gets it anyway.

QuoteTaxes

I never said that some taxes were not necessary.  We have to pay for the services that the government actually should provide.

Gas tax pays for the roads, for example, but even this might be taken care of via supply and demand.

The people that use the roads (by which I mean basically everyone :P ) should pay for them more directly, I think.  People who use large amounts of gasoline for purposes other than transportation on public land are paying for more than their share of the country's infrastructure.



None of these are generally considered socialist, and I don't oppose them as strongly as I oppose other things.