youngterrier wrote:JoltinJoe wrote:
To what? That you think the Soviet Union was "anti-theistic" and not atheistic, and an "anti-theistic" government is itself a theocracy?
No need for a rebuttal. You'll rebut yourself in about 15 years.
ok so you admit defeat victory is mine
edit: seriously, how can you deny the actions of Communist Governments being anti-theistic?
The "I'm smarter than you" argument doesn't work very well when no facts support your position, but apparently that's just the way you roll
First of all, there is no clear consensus on what the word "anti-theist" means. I suppose in the sense you use it, the Soviet Union was anti-theist.
But the Soviet Union was also atheistic (a term which has an established meaning) in that it openly embraced, on a state-wide basis, the conviction that there was no God. "Atheism" is the word which Lenin used throughout his writings to describe his workers' utopia. If Lenin called his state an atheistic state, I think I'm on pretty solid grounds by calling it an atheistic state too.
My objection is really to your claim that the Soviet Union, and like "anti-theist" states, are really theocracies in that the centralized state becomes the "God" to whom devotion of the masses is required.
"Theocracy" is a term which also has a fixed meaning in the realm of political philosophy. Generally speaking, a theocracy results from claims by the sovereign: (i) that it rules by the will of God and (ii) that it enforces the will of God through its civil law.
The European monarchies in the Middle Ages also claimed that they ruled by the will of God ("Divine Right"), but properly speaking were not theocracies in that the monarchs did not claim (necessarily) to be enforcing the will of God through its laws.
What the European monarchies and theocracies share in common, however, is the belief that even the sovereign must answer to God. This point is raised, for example, in Shakespeare's
Henry V, in that memorable discussion over the king's culpability before God for sending troops into battle in an unjust war.
This concept of the sovereign's culpability before God for unjust actions was completely lacking in the Soviet Union model of government, in China, and in Cambodia too. So they cannot be called theocracies. In fact, it is fair to observe that it was the sovereign's lack of concern for his own soul that enabled these governments to become the most brutal killing machines we have ever known. God help us if we ever see another collective atheistic state again.
No, the Soviet Union was not a theocracy. I apologize for my prior snippy response.
