2007-10-20 05:41:01 · 19 answers · asked by Eartha Q 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
No need to get defensive..i am only asking the question.
2007-10-20 06:00:57 · update #1
Bajingo ..I didn't know that athiests are actually Anti-God
2007-10-20 21:53:07 · update #2
You ask a good question. Athiests, would not want to claim them as part of their group. Some athiests believe it is religious people who cause all the problems of the world. That the moral efforts, of religious or spiritual people, don't work to any degree. They tend to forget, that some nonbelievers, can be quite bad characters.
2007-10-20 05:50:02 · answer #1 · answered by astrogoodwin 7 · 2⤊ 3⤋
Yes. Stalin and Pol Pot were Communist dictators. There is no evidence that either believed in God, and their actions demonstrated a rejection of human rights.
Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, claimed religion as the "opiate of the masses," an addictive drug that makes poor people happy and discourages them from fighting for the communist revolution. Under a regime of atheism, dictators like Stalin and Pol Pot showed their rejection of human rights by killing people by the millions without conscience or compunction.
Since rights, for atheists, are mere human inventions, humans are free to discard them when they become burdensome. Stalin and Pol Pot left them in the mass graves.
Cheers,
Bruce
2007-10-20 16:01:15 · answer #2 · answered by Bruce 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't know. Stalin was in training to be a Jesuit Priest when he became a revolutionary instead. Pol Pot might have been a marxist buddhist.
Even if they were not religious they had their causes and higher powers.
Stalin had communism and the complete restructuring of the econopmy and society in Russia as his "God".
Pol Pot had the great communist revolution of Cambodia as his Higher Ideal (God).
Both were working for their ideal of a "Greater Good", a "Higher Cause"
Both were willing to sacrifice however many people it took on the altars of their faiths to achieve this. Pol Pot in the Killing Fields, Stalin in the Purges.
So I would not class them or Hitler with atheists who simply don't believe in Gods.
2007-10-20 12:56:27 · answer #3 · answered by Y!A-FOOL 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Yes, they were atheists. Just remember religion really doesn't make the person, It's what you do with it. Stalin and Pol Pot were also egotistical power hungry maniacs who used politics to get what they wanted, not atheism. There is good and bad in every group of people.
2007-10-20 12:47:12 · answer #4 · answered by punch 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Yes, they were atheists (more correctly 'anti-theists*) to suit their goal, which was to stamp out all obstacles (including religious) to their statist political agenda. Fundamentalists would be a more accurate description. Stalin reinstated the Church after Hitler invaded, because he thought it would help. So really, they were primarily power crazy fundamentalists. It would be equally specious to call Hitler 'Christian', even though he said:
"... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work."
(Mein Kampf)
It is important to remember that ALL that so-called 'atheism' is, is a lack of belief or disbelief in deities. It is not a 'group' or ideology, political or otherwise. It is just a name given to people who don't believe in deities.
*Anti-theists should be a term that is correctly used in it's palce. There are also many religionists who could more CORRECTLY be called 'anti-Christian, anti-Muslim, anti-Jew etc, as these individuals spend so much time trying to dig dirt, quote-mine, cherry-pick and propagandize their 'foes', that their own religion takes a back seat so that single-minded, obssessive bigotry can do the driving......
2007-10-20 12:44:26 · answer #5 · answered by Bajingo 6 · 5⤊ 0⤋
Stalin was, but he did what he did for the greater good idea called "Communism" as opposed to the greater good idea called "Religion." As for Pol Pot, I don't know, I haven't done any research on him/her.
2007-10-20 13:03:48 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, I would say Stalin was atheist, he was quoted saying, "You know, they are fooling us, there is no God... all this talk about God is sheer nonsense."
I am not sure about Pol Pot.... I know he made efforts to eradicate Buddhism.
EDIT
The only thing I could find out is that he was raised in a very Buddhist area.
Their biggest issue wasn't their religion (or lack of), it was their dedication to communism and their sociopathic personalities, severe paranoia and delusions of their own godhood.
2007-10-20 12:46:55 · answer #7 · answered by Sister blue eyes 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋
Yes. Both were anti-religion. They believed that religion was for the weak and uneducated and therefore considered the lack of religion to be strong.
2007-10-20 18:48:30 · answer #8 · answered by Bookworm 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Stop beating around the Bush.
YES!
2007-10-20 12:49:37 · answer #9 · answered by Fatima 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
They may very well have been. However, they killed people for political gain, not in the name of "no beliefs in any gods."
Comparing that to the crusades and the witch burnings, those killings were done specifically in the name of the christian god.
2007-10-20 12:44:59 · answer #10 · answered by CC 7 · 4⤊ 1⤋