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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott Bergquist who wrote (15548)	6/12/2003 4:02:04 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Certainly Stalin was deified by the soviet propaganda machine. However, the truth is that he was hated by millions--millions whom nevertheless swore devotion and love...because that is a normal human method of dealing with the terror of extermination when one is in the reach of the tentacles of madness wielded by one utterly ruthless and contemptuous of humanity. Terror and looming death attract a devotional response in many. They may also come to identify with the tyrant's ideals and dogmas. Many religious cult leaders also exercise a warped power over emotionally vulnerable and needy people by pretending to be a mediator to God and pretending to hold their eternal destiny in their hands. In both cases (the absolute power of life and death under ruthless totalitarianism, and the absolute power over eternal life and eternal torture)...the tyrant uses terror and hope to foster a sense of devotion and obedience. All leaders of ruthless power have enjoyed a following that can be compared to religious fervor. From the beginning we have feared the thunder and the lightning and we have supplicated to bring it to our side and to spare us our miserable lives. Thus also with the earthly tyrant who strikes swift and without mercy to withhold the sun and the rain; and who is terrible in his sudden whims and rages. Such a one must be adored and exalted...or he must be destroyed. If you challenge his megalomaniacal authority by suggesting he is less than next to God...then one of you must die. Supreme dictators will tolerate only utter loyalty. Those who survived against Stalin did so by hiding outside of the country, and this too proved futile in many cases as witness Trotsky. "Now why would "God" have fingernails" To scratch??