The Russian Communists Were Not Motivated By Atheism

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Introduction: This debate has a very specific resolution, and therefore a quite simple object for the Con. Were the Russian Communists motivated by atheism? Motivated is defined as "to provide with a motive or motives; incite; impel. " In other words, were the Russian Communists driven to move forward (impel) using atheism? The answer is, very simply, an overwhelming YES. Pro has been trying to prove that the Russian Communists were not motivated as a RESULT of atheism. I never disagreed. On the contrary, I argued that they USED atheism to motivate others into following their political ideology. Pro has been misinterpreting my remarks throughout this entire debate as a result of ignoring this simple argument. So again, while I don't advocate that Communism exists because of atheism (in other words, I don't think that being an atheist will make someone Communist), I think it's quite clear based on both Pro's evidence and mine that atheism was used to propel the masses into accepting Communism. In other words, the resolution has been negated: they most certainly were motivated by atheism (even if atheism was not the cause behind their uprising). Rebuttal: 1. Re: Lenin was very wedded to Marxist ideas and wanted to preserve them and not distort them. Throughout the debate, Pro has consistently repeated that it was Marxism - not atheism - that influenced the Communists. What Pro failed to mention is that Marx was an atheist who promoted atheist ideals. Moreover, Marx explicitly promoted something called THEORETIC ATHEISM which is the consequence of three postulates: (1) metaphysical or dialectical materialism which considers matter as the supreme and unique cause of everything; (2) historical materialism, according to which the economic factor is the principal and decisive factor; (3) absolute humanism, which sets man at the summit of the cosmos: man is the supreme being [1]. In other words, Pro's meager citation of materialism as being the sole motivating factor is blatantly false. Marx was an avid atheist who not only believed that there was no afterlife, but that the belief in any deity was an abomination: "For us religion does not constitute the foundation, but only the phenomenon of worldly limitation. For this reason, we explain the religious subjection of free citizens with their earthly subjection. We affirm that they will suppress their religious limitation as soon as they have suppressed their earthly limits" [2]. 2. Communist Goals Pro asks, "If it was purely atheism, as my opponent alleges, one would think they would brutally attack religion and never let up but this isn't the case by far. " First of all, I never "alleged" that it was purely atheism which motivated the Communists. This is a blatant straw man (committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position) on Pro's part. Again, what I said was that atheism was used to MOTIVATE or propel Communism - NOT that atheism was the goal of the Communists. The Communists did not give a hoot about the religion of their people, so long as their political ideology could be sustained. That's why they allowed Pro-Communist churches to exist. I never argued against that reality. Pro's continuous straw man arguments (i. e. when he said that I argued Communism exists "because of atheism" which I did NOT) is abusive. Rather, once more it seems I have to explain (since Pro has obviously missed the point) that it's clear an atheist ideology was used to motivate people into succumbing to Communist ideals. Pro's very own source cites: "Marxists were convinced that religion - especially Christianity - was a pillar upholding capitalism, and weakening this pillar would hasten the collapse of capitalist remnants. " In other words, promoting atheism would help to achieve Communism. .. meaning the Communists used atheism to motivate the masses. .. meaning the resolution has been negated. 3. Re: The basis of Communism, as even quoted by Lenin, was materialism, not atheism. This is actually a false statement which I have clarified earlier in the round. In fact materialism was one aspect of what led to Marx's theoretical atheism. 4. Re: [Russian Communists] promoted atheism *because* of their socialist ideology. .. Clearly, the ideology came first. Yep! This is what I have been advocating all along. Although it's obviously wrong to state that the Communist ideology "came first" (I think we're all intelligent enough to realize that atheism existed long before Communism), I agree with my opponent that the atheist ideology was used to support the Communist one. In other words, the Communists used atheism to MOTIVATE the masses, i. e. I have won this debate. 5. Re: Is atheism the principal factor in democide, such as that committed by. .. Stalin, Mao, and Hitler? Once more, I have never argued in favor of these these claims. I myself am an atheist with libertarian ideals; I am not ignorant enough to think that it was a lack of a belief in a deity that resulted in the brutal impacts of the "Big Three. " Pro points out that Dr. Rudolph Rummel continues, "Whether a church, atheists, or agnostics have that power is incidental -- it is having the power that is a condition of democide. " I completely agree. Here we can see where the discrepancy between my opponent and I lies: He is arguing that the negative impacts of Communism or totalitarianism have nothing to do with atheism, whereas I am arguing that although atheism doesn't equate to these negative impacts, that atheism CAN be used to promote those ideals the same way almost ANYTHING can be used to promote those ideals. The fact of the matter is that the resolution is specific using Communist Russia, whom I have proven did, in fact, promote Communism via atheism. 6. Re: She has also not shown why atheism was promoted; not for atheism's sake, but ideology. Why would I be trying to show that atheism was promoted for the sake of atheism? Clearly atheism was promoted for the sake of the Communist ideology. Again, the resolution has been negated. Conclusion: Basically what Pro has been trying to convey throughout this debate is the Cause and Effect fallacy. In other words, just because A and B regularly occur together doesn't mean that A causes B or vice versa. The problem is that I never appealed to this fallacy. I never argued that they were the cause for one another; simply that one MOTIVATED the other or was used to propel the other. That was my burden in terms of negating the resolution, and I have effectively stated my case. "The most notable spread of atheism was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the Marxist-Leninists to power. For the first time in history, atheism thus became the official ideology of a state" [3]. Communists were motivated by Marxists who were motivated by atheism. A lack of belief in a deity is not why people became Marxist or Communist; however, atheism was used to explain why these two political ideologies were preferable: they put the tangible State (man) above an intangible god. Sources: [1] . http://www.ewtn.com... [2] K. Marx. "La Questione Ebraica. " Rome: 1966. Pp. 81-82 [3] . http://investigatingatheism.info...