Atheism is Dead Continues to Beat a Dead Horse: Communism & Atheism Revisited

UPDATE: I had responded to the author at his blog but thus far he has failed to respond. I had responded with a few comments on January 25, 2010 and to date have not heard back from the author. The author has since begun moving all of his blog posts to a new website he has ironically named True Freethinker. At the original Atheism is Dead post I had responded to, the article has been deleted and replaced with a message that says ”Please note that this essay will now be housed in True Freethinker at this link”. When you click on it it takes you to a webpage that says,

The 404 Atheist Page

You have reached a page that we believe does not exist.

We've imported a ton of pages from several different blogs and we're working on migrating everything to TrueFreeThinker.com.

We would appreciate your patience and faith that we will get this fixed.

At the current time I’m unable to find a single post referring to Mariano’s horrible Atheism article and my rebuttal. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s trying to hide the huge errors he had made, which I pointed out. Who knows. Perhaps he is revising the article addressing my comments and it will be available at a later date. Only time will tell. Until then, my response has been ignored and his posts about me have vanished (the same has happened at a former host of his articles, All Time Truths, which is why the below link doesn’t work anymore). Just like a theist to duck and hide when you blow their arguments out of the water.

- July 4, 2010

UPDATE #2: Well, it looks like when you click on the above link the page is no longer missing, but it doesn’t even link to the original blog post. No longer does it discuss anything about the criticism of his article and his (might I add, poor) attempts at a rebuttal, but it simply links to each section of his original Atheism article at Creation Ministries International. - August 4, 2010

Update # 3: Mariano has finally posted each of his original rebuttals at his new blog (updated links have been included in each part of my refutation) but has thus far ignored the rebuttals I had posted at his Atheism is Dead blog. - August 18, 2010



I'd say I've pretty much demolished most arguments theists use to link Communism to atheism, or to argue that it was a lack of morality grounded in theism (or the theory of evolution) which caused these atrocities in Russia and elsewhere. But some people just refuse to admit their immense incompetence regarding this subject.

In a previous post I had explained how Atheism is Dead blog author Mariano had posted a grossly error ridden article about atheism over at Creation Ministries International, which I had commented about, though my comment was never posted to the article. Now, Mariano has decided to attempt to refute my brief arguments against his article (I had given links to more in depth rebuttals) at his blog [the updated link is here], as well as at www.alltimetruths.com. Of course, this isn't the first time I have gone back and forth with this particular apologist about this particular topic. He failed to prove his case last time, so let's see how he does this time, shall we?

I will reproduce the entire post in regular font below. When Mariano quotes me I will place it in italics. My responses shall be in bold.


“believing something does not exist
implies that entity actually does exist”
—the Arizona Atheist


We now continue considering comments that were made about my Creation Ministries International atheism essay via comments posted to Apologetics 315, RichardDawkins.net’s forum, Free Republic, the essay itself and a special section for the Arizona Atheist who posted a comment to the essay itself and subsequently posted on it at his blog.

Arizona Atheist

The Arizona Atheist wrote a comment to the essay itself and subsequently went on to post further comments on his blog. The comment to the essay was as follows:

I must say this article is one of the most ignorant pieces of propaganda I’ve read in a while…To point out just one in countless errors, the author completely failed to show the link between atheism and communism. The author clearly doesn’t understand either, or else he wouldn’t have made such a huge error.But you all go ahead and accept this hugely error ridden propaganda piece because the facts are what they are, despite the apologetic hype.

In part, CMI wrote the following to the Arizona Atheist:

Please note the opening caveat at the beginning of the section:

“With regards to the correlation between atheism and Communism; it would be fallaciously simplistic to claim that atheism is the only motivating factor behind Communism and yet, it is certainly a major factor and the very premise upon which Communist ideology was built.”

Taking that caveat into account and considering the testimony from so many of the major players in communism of the importance of atheism to their political agenda, I fail to see how you could claim that: “… the author completely failed to show the link between atheism and communism”.It seems that you did not actually read the section you criticize. If you did actually read it, considering how much evidence the author produced, I don’t see how you could ever be convinced of the connection, which is patently clear.

Hereafter the Arizona Atheist posted to his blog stating, “Despite christian apologists' desperate attempts to connect atheism to communism, not one person has been successful, even a Ph.D. in Russian History.”He then introduces me as “the absurd Atheism is Dead blogger Mariano” and swiftly disregards the caveat which was pointed out to him,

I do not care if the author didn't intend to solely blame atheism; that's not the point. The point is that it wasn't a factor at all, and the author damn sure didn't give any facts to back that up.

Well, he may have a point as within the essay’s section entitled Atheism and Communism I only quoted Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Emilian Yaroslavsky, Frederick Engles, Time Magazine, the Marxist Robert M. Young, the Troskyite Denzil Dean Harber (aka Paul Dixon), Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, et al. (also see Atheist and Darwinist Communists).

Well, it is not that I did not “give any facts to back that up” but that the Arizona Atheist is the sort of atheist that seeks to re-write history in order to protect atheism from even the appearance of not being perfectly pure and blameless. The bottom line that that atheists such as the Arizona Atheist engage upon a very odd and self-servingly convenient sort of “logic” which runs thusly:

1) Atheist Communists stated that they were establishing their various Communist regimes upon atheism.
2) Such atheists are to be excommunicated from atheism.
3) This is because such atheists were acting more like “religious” people than like atheists (as if there was some sort of standard for atheists).
4) Therefore, “religion” is to be blamed for the atrocities committed by atheist Communists who stated that they were establishing their various Communist regimes upon atheism in the most secular and bloodies century in human history.

First of all, he didn't provide any quotes that support his claim because either the quotes he uses are not addressing atheism, but evolution, and two, the quotes he uses of many of the people he cites is not discussing atheism either! If only Mariano had actually done some real research into the ideology of the Communists, instead of using quotes out of context, he would see how strong my arguments actually are.

Second, where did I even say that Communism should be blamed on religion? That's because I didn't. He is simply putting words in my mouth and attributing to me what others have said.

Moreover, he complains that when the atheist Communists make reference to materialism, Darwinism, evolution, etc. they cannot be said to be making reference to atheism because they are not synonymous. However, since when they make such references they provide their own context which defines how they meant the terms to be understood. Thus, it is readily discernable that in their minds they were synonymous then they are to be taken as such.
To reiterate: it is no argument to claim that in general terms materialism, Darwinism, evolution, etc. are not synonymous with atheism when the specific personages to which we are referring did consider them synonymous within their own context.

And how does Mariano know they were referring to atheism? Did he provide any evidence to that effect? Of course not. Again, if he would do some actual research about Communism he could better understand what the quotes he used were referring to.

As for the quotes about evolution, that's speaking about the supposed role the theory of evolution had in Marxism, not atheism, which Mariano foolishly tries to claim are synonymous. They are not because of the fact that millions of theists believe in theistic evolution and the fact that a Deistic god could have created the laws through which evolution works, as many actually believe. Evolution clearly is not atheistic by any means, though that is not the stance I, and many others, take because it's not logical and has no facts to back it up. But my point should be clear, there is nothing about evolution in and of itself that makes it atheistic.

This really is enough to discredit the Arizona Atheist’s every criticism. Yet, as he goes on to write; more and more desperate attempts to sever the direct link between atheism and Communism are made, his attempts become more and more desperate and his “logic” falls away into well-within-the-box-atheist-group-think. He actually makes the valiant effort to consider the fact that I provided evidence to back up my caveated contention even whilst failing to see that his criticism of each one is answered within the quotes themselves. Thus, let us be extra fair and consider this issue in more detail.

This is enough to discredit all of my criticism??? He obviously failed to see that I cited my more in depth rebuttal several times throughout my post because I had gone into more detail there already and didn't want to waste time on Mariano's silly arguments. Even more importantly even though he obviously read that more in depth piece he failed to address one thing I said in it, even though he used a quote from it at the top of his post - out of context by the way.

Since all of the quotes are within my essay and the Arizona Atheist reproduces them all I will only quote his statements and the relevant portion of the quotation from the Communist atheist which answers his statement to begin with.

In responding to a statement by Karl Marx, he writes, “Now, just how is atheism related to evolution?”

Well, if he really has not been paying attention for the past century and a half all he has to do is read Richard Dawkins’ new book (see here, here, here and here). Note that Marx’s statement explains how Marx considered atheism to be related to evolution and Communism, “Darwin’s book of Natural Selection…contains the basis in natural history for our view…a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” Do you see the problem (for the Arizona Atheist)? Since Marx was an atheist, Darwinism provided the basis upon which to understand natural history and so he applied this concept to class struggle. Thus, he related atheism to evolution.To a Leon Trotsky quote and a Vladimir Lenin quote he writes, “Again, materialism is not synonymous with atheism! They are not the same thing!” Here is the ongoing problem (for the Arizona Atheist); he generically denies that materialism is synonymous with atheism (without evidence) but that is simply irrelevant since when Leon Trotsky wrote of materialism he himself defined what he himself meant by it, he himself defined his own terms as he himself wrote, “We call our dialectic, materialist, since its roots are neither in heaven nor in the depths of our ‘free will’, but in objective reality, in nature.” Thus, according to Trotsky’s own context and definition of what he meant when he used the term; materialism is rooted in nature and specifically denies heavenly roots.

Once again, he claims that I fail to provide any evidence when I in fact do. Perhaps he was looking at an earlier version of my article. About a week before Mariano's post was posted I added more to that particular statement. But essentially, atheism is not synonymous with materialism because atheism simply denotes someone as having a lack of belief in god/s, not with supernatural events in general. It is true that myself, Richard Dawkins, and a host of other atheists do deny the existence of the supernatural but that is only because when one is sceptical of the claims of religion, one often becomes sceptical of other claims of the supernatural, though I have known atheists who believe in ghosts and other supernatural events, so obviously materialism is not synonymous with atheism. They are not one and the same, unlike what this ignorant apologist claims. As another example, take Buddhists, who are in many cases atheists - their religion (depending on the sect) does not contain any beliefs about any gods, and yet they still believe in reincarnation, an obviously immaterial belief.

As far as Marx's supposed quote about natural selection being the basis to understand history it's obvious that Mariano doesn't understand what Marx is referring to: Dialectical materialism, which is the belief that history follows the path of class struggle. This was simply Marx trying to find a legit scientific theory to confirm his flawed (pseudo) scientific theory about history. Because Darwin's theory of natural selection spoke of a struggle in nature, Marx felt this was a theory he could use to give credence to his belief in the class struggle. He wasn't referring to atheism at all.

To quote the Socialist and Marxist Anton Pannekoek from his 1909 work Marxism And Darwinism, Chapter 5:

"As soon as Darwinism made its appearance, the proletarian vanguard, the Socialists, hailed the Darwinian theory, because in Darwinism they saw a corroboration and completion of their own theory; not as some superficial opponents believe, that they wanted to base Socialism upon Darwinism but in the sense that the Darwinian discovery, – that even in the apparently stagnant organic world there is a continuous development – is a glorious corroboration and completion of the Marxian theory of social development." (emphasis mine)

As for the quote of Trotsky he is simply speaking of materialism, though Mariano once again fails to show how Trotsky was referring to atheism. It's obvious that Mariano is simply reading what he wants into these quotes and fails to provide one ounce of actual evidence proving his own (wrong) interpretation.

Vladimir Lenin wrote, “Social-Democracy bases its whole world-outlook on scientific socialism, i.e., Marxism” and Marxism relied on the God-free theory of Darwinian Natural Selection. Lenin goes on to state that “The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism…a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion.”

Lenin also notes that Frederick Engels wrote an “an indictment of the materialist and atheist Dühring for not being a consistent materialist and for leaving loopholes for religion and religious philosophy” emphasizing that “Marxism is materialism” which was viewed as rooted in nature and specifically denied heavenly roots.

To re-reiterate, that in general “materialism is not synonymous with atheism!” is irrelevant to the fact that according to the context and definition of these atheists Communists it is. In fact, Lenin went on to note that the Materialistic/Darwinian/Atheistic Marxism upon which Communism was premised is “relentlessly hostile to religion” and “it applies the materialist philosophy.”
In responding to another quote from Lenin the Arizona Atheists writes, “As I've explained elsewhere, the reason the Communists persecuted religious believers (though they were by far not the only group targeted) was because of their Communist ideology.”
This is quite right; atheists Communists persecuted religious believers because of their Communist ideology. But do you see the problem (for the Arizona Atheist)? Atheists Communists persecuted religious believers because of their Communist ideology: which was premised upon atheism. What Lenin had stated is that “Engels frequently condemned the efforts of people who desired … to introduce into the programme of the workers’ party an explicit proclamation of atheism, in the sense of declaring war on religion” because this would merely “revive interest in religion and to prevent it from really dying out.”

Once again, Mariano is incorrect. He has taken the quotes and attached his own distorted meaning to them. Yes, Marxism was a godless ideology but that was only a feature of the ideology. It was not it's basis. The Communists wanted to promote "atheism" because they felt religion caused man to become too involved in the supposed next life in heaven to come and not feel compelled to work now towards a better life on earth; which meant the creation of a socialist society. To quote Lenin:

Economic slavery is the true source of the religious humbugging of man...The proletariat of today takes the side of socialism, which enlists science in the battle against the fog of religion and frees the workers from their belief in life after death by welding them together to fight in the present for a better life on Earth [emphasis mine]

- Lenin, Socialism and Religion, 1905

Here is another quote of Lenin's explaining how the reason for the eradication of religion was due to the need to help the class struggle along:

The combating of religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching...It must be linked up with the concrete practice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion...It means that Social Democracy's atheist propaganda must be subordinated to its basic task - the development of the class struggle of the exploited masses against the exploiters. [emphasis in original]

This idea of creating a socialist society was the underlying premise of Marxism. From Bukharin and Preobrazhensky's The ABC of Communism:

"The proletariat is fighting solely on behalf of the new social order. Whatever helps in the struggle is good; whatever hinders, is bad." (Chapter 3)

It's obvious the Communists wanted to create this classless society no matter what, even murder millions to attain it. One of the main aspects of this was the abolition of private property. As Nicholas Churchich stated in his Marxism and Morality:

"For Trotsky…deceit, violence and murder, if they serve the proletarian political ends are perfectly ‘moral’ and should be employed without hesitation."

As for the quote above of Lenin, saying that, "The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism…a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion" Mariano failed to cite the following in the same document, explaining the ideological roots of their hostility to religion: "Marxism has always regarded all modern religions and churches, and each and every religious organisation, as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class." (Lenin - The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion) This quote left out of Mariano's discussion is almost identical to the quotes I've provided above, explaining why the Communists were hostile to religion. It hindered their progress in establishing socialism and they believed religion exploited man. This has nothing to do with atheism.

It's also obvious that Mariano hasn't a clue about the quotes he is citing because one of them above by Lenin says how Engles "condemned the efforts of people who desired … to introduce into the programme of the workers’ party an explicit proclamation of atheism..."

Here it's explicitly saying that one of the founders of Communism didn't want atheism taught! In complete contradiction to what Mariano says - how atheism was the underlying concept in Communist ideology, yet here is one of it's principal adherents saying otherwise! Why did Engles say this? Because religion was one stumbling block to the socialist society they were after and the Communists argued over various ways to achieve their goals of getting rid of religion. But this was to better push their ideology, not atheism! In fact, Engles even "condemn[ed] [...] [the] idea that religion should be prohibited in socialist society." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm)

This is excellent evidence that Mariano is simply quote mining and truly doesn't understand the quotes he cites, nor what they actually mean in context. It seems if the Communists say anything about atheism, materialism, or evolution, that's good enough for him and never bothers to see what they mean in context and in relation to their ideology.

I discussed this specific issue further in From Zeitgeist to Poltergeist, Part 11 of 13.

It's clear that Mariano hasn't got a clue about Communist ideology nor Marxism. He has once again failed to prove that atheism was a factor in the Communist ideology at all (aside from it being a godless ideology), or that it in any way influenced the Communists.

Please Click the Following Links to Read the Rest of the Exchange:

Atheism is Dead Continues to Beat a Dead Horse: Communism & Atheism Revisited, Part 2

Atheism is Dead Continues to Beat a Dead Horse: Communism & Atheism Revisited, Part 3

Atheism is Dead Continues to Beat a Dead Horse: Communism & Atheism Revisited, Part 4