The endgame of secular utopianism is always the same. It ends in the gulag, the guillotine, and the gas chamber. But the key point to remember is that however it ends, it always ends , because the Gates of Hell cannot and will not prevail.
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Well, I don't know whether there have been secular utopias ever in human history.
But there have been theocratic utopias. And they usually ended in the "holy" inquisition, the torture chamber, the censorship commission, and on the burning stake.
Yeah...no.
What you think of "secularism" is really just well disguised religion.
Naziism...religion.
Stalinism...religion.
Politics in general...religion.
All problems are caused by religious faith...not secular reason. Don't be a stupidass moron vox day.
What the fuck? You never gave us unbelievers a fucking chance! You always killed us before we could gain momentum!
Fuck you bastards, I really hate religion. I try and be tolerant, but you know what, I really hate it.
Quoted in that blog post:
Thirdly, the secular movement is but a variant of the utopian ambitions that have inspired man from the beginning of time.
Did you just use up another bottle of mirror polish? Fine, I'll go the store and get some more.
There's always Aldous Huxley's utopian vision (in Island , his "positive" counterpart to Brave New World ): it ends in sex, drugs, and hippie parrots. It's not quite secular , but it makes religion relatively individual and optional.
The problem here is utopia, not secularism. Utopias never work, as all people have different views of what a utopia is and will never agree on one unanimous utopia.
Almost all countries that still use the barbaric, medieval capital punishment are either religious countries or dictatorships (or both).
This argument is made a lot and is a bit of a strange one. If revolutions are bad in themselves, then the French revolution would never have happened and Europe would still be a network of feudal monarchies. To me, the destructive element in these regimes is simpler; the principle of hierarchical authority. That principle is and was embodied in the christian church, which also performed torture, genocide and mass executions. They only differed in scale and in the specific means employed, which were less efficient.
Sweden and the other highly secular nations would beg to differ with you. Communist dictatorships != atheism. They killed atheists just as readily when they too did not tow the party line. Note "Party", not "faith". Also, your gas chamber remark is disgusting and inaccurate.
Particularly given that Hitler was a Catholic and the Wehrmacht marched with belt buckles reading "Gott Mit Uns", or "God with us". Never forget.
As for the gulag, guillotine and gas chamber remark, I'll leave Vox Day with the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:
"Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in postChristian Europe, and has least support in the churchgoing United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: 'Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.' And when Cranmer asks whether he is sure of that, More replies, 'He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him.' For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence. What a horrible act!"
[It ends in the gulag, the guillotine, and the gas chamber.]
Funny how most of those were used by the religious.
If you're subjected to the gulag, the guillotine and the gas chamber all in the same day, it has been a very bad day, indeed.
I hope the Gates of Hell will not prevail, because then I won't be able to get in when I die.
No! On second thoughts, I think I'll change my mind. I hope the Gates of Hell do prevail, otherwise I'll have to go to heaven. Boring!
I wonder how the heavenly angels play their harps? Their ethereal fingers are not great pluckers as they go right through the ethereal harp strings without making a sound. Unless ethereal ears are able to hear ethereal noise?
Heaven, the land of gas beasts and gas people. Ruled over by a gas God and His gaseous Son who is actually Himself, and is also the Holy Gas as well. Mind you, when you're a gas deity, you might not necessarily be just one entity, you can quite easily be a mixture.
Vox Day is what happens when a parent tells their child that they're the smartest, most specialist person in the whole wide world, and the kid somehow grows up without learning what "hyperbole" means.
Ya know,after I read this I realized I'm far more offended by his history revisionism and abuse of Latin than I am by anything he can spew out of his mouth.Why is that?Is there something wrong with me?I feel I should be offended by his nonsense,but I'm just not.
Silly of me to have missed it earlier. Vox Day is really Vox Dei - God's voice - which sounds exactly the same. A tad blasphemous, perhaps?
As to Utopia, it's a much misused word. It means 'nowhere'.
So nowhere is where we find gulags etc? Nonsense. Even Thomas More, the author of Utopia, lost his head. But I think that Bill Gates has prevailed.
@ DOS ET Al
You raise a few good points. But, as a Catholic, I seriously doubt atheists as a whole want to destroy religion. Those kinds of people exist, but there are few, and can't defend such actions with their faith.
As long as the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, atheists and the religious cannot legally harm each other. As long as Fred Phelps is allowed to continue vomiting his BS, I'm not concerned about oppression by atheists.
"The endgame of secular utopianism is always the same. It ends in the gulag, the guillotine, and the gas chamber."
Whereas the endgame of the religious utopianism also always ends the same: the crusade, the inquisition, the witch-hunt.
@DOS et al
Soviet Union....gluag for believers....Revolutionary France...guillotine...atheist states have just as wonderfull of a history executing believers as the "fundamentalist" nations you atheists hate so much
Gulags existed in the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union was ideologically opposed to religion. It does not follow that people were sent to the gulags for being religious (in fact, they weren't). You know nothing about Communist Russia.
As for France, Maximilien Robespierre actually condemned the atheist belief system he called the "Cult of Reason". You know nothing about the French Revolution.
So even if Russia and France were an indictment of atheism (which they're not, and that is exactly like saying the Crusades are an indictment of Christianity), you'd still be way wrong.
@DOS E(a)T (b)AL(ls):
I'm sorry, but if someone tells me that I'm going to burn in a fire for eternity, then of course I wish them to DIAF.
Eye for an eye and all that. (hmm, I wonder where that comes from?)
As for the OP, he is a mysoginistic rape apologist, and as such doesn't even qualify for any real comment from me.
I don't want a dollar of my taxes spent on any kind of religious institution, monument, or faith-based organization. Sorry for my radical point of view, DOS.
@Goosey
The guillotine probably didn't hurt enough...
I actually agree that secular utopias don't work but not for the same reason you think. Rather it's because utopias in general (secular, religious, whatever) don't ever work. There's a reason why the saying "you can't please everyone" exists and that's the problem: you can't make everyone happy. And all too often what makes one group happy makes another group miserable or dead.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the fantasies of persecution held by these anti-secularist Christians involve powerful, totalitarian states that mete out horrible, inhumanly cruel and unusual punishments for the thought-crimes of belief in and worship of their god?
They acknowledge such acts of persecution as grave injustices and violations of fundamental innate human rights (and would be correct in doing so) yet when you look at their idea of Utopia, the Kingdom of God fully realized on Christ's return to earth (in eschatology sermons, the "Left Behind" books, ect.), it involves a world where "every knee shall bow" and hordes of people being thrown into a lake of fire to writhe in torment for all eternity.
Only in very few forms of religion does religious freedom actually exist.
what is this secular utopianism that you speak of, anyway? secularism only means that their is a division between the state and the church.
actually, there are a few states that embody some form of secular utopiansm. the US, for example(or is their a high council of reverends ruling the country behind the scenes? didnt think so). for even more pleasant places, there are the liberal, secular, peace loving and trhiving Netherlands, and of cours the scandinavian countries, that are officially declared by the UN to be the best place to live in the world.
among the non-secular countries, we have Iran, and some african, middle eastern and south american countries in a non-official way.
so take your pick.
Btw, its spelled populi.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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