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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (56839)	9/4/2002 1:57:38 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 82486

The two most aggressive movements of our time were essentially atheistic, that is, Communism and Nazism (although it was not required to cut ties to a church, the internal ideology was a bastardized Nietzscheanism). Those who entertain the "religion is the source of evil" position counter that their ideologies were substitutes for religion. I counter that the Nazis had very little ideology, except a pseudo- scientific defense of their desire to achieve hegemony, through the elaboration of the argument "Might makes right, and some races are mightier than others". Similarly, the Communists mainly assumed that the mobilization of the masses could impose "proletarian culture" on the rest of society, once the vanguard provided leadership of their nascent impulses toward revolution. Again, "Justice is the will of the stronger", in this case, the vanguard backed by the masses........

To: The Philosopher who wrote (56839)	9/4/2002 2:14:25 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

As a non-Atheist, I couldn't comment. I am what I call a Unist (aka Monist). We, it, us, them are all manifestations of a single process. I look at rituals as memes that may spread despite harm to the individual. These memes live a layer above that of the individual. Individuals have as much to say about their cultural memes as a brain cell 1.63 mm from you left auditory center has to say about what you eat for lunch. It may be a lot, or a little depending upon a series of catalytic events after it is triggered. I think absolutism has more to do with a willingness to die for a cause than relativism. Relativism can have its own set of evils - like allowing people to think they are more deserving than someone else. That's why I'm trying to be a unist - one can't understand the whole by analysis of the parts...