| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Sound of Trumpet" |
| Date: |
01 Jul 2006 10:37:50 AM |
| Object: |
The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-172.htm
STALIN'S BRUTAL FAITH
by Paul G. Humber
Some have the mistaken notion that faith and religion are linked
inseparably with the confession of a supreme being, but many exercise
faith in self and other human beings--to the exclusion of the divine.
This, too, is religion. Whatever serves as one's basic system of
beliefs about his or her place and role in the universe is certainly a
faith, a religion.
Joseph Stalin, though an atheist, was a believer. His was a faith
resulting in tremendous brutality--nevertheless, a faith! What was
this faith? Was it uniquely Stalin's? Also, how brutal was it? The
purpose of this article is to offer some answers to these questions
and to add insights of the eminent authority on Russia's soul, Nobel
laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
STALIN'S FAITH--WHAT WAS IT?
Often an individual's faith is firmly attached to a book of some kind.
Muslims have the Koran; Hindus, their Veda; and Christians, the Bible.
Writings of Confucius, Buddha, and indeed, Mao Tse-Tung, serve similar
purposes for other groups. In Stalin's case, the writings of Marx,
Engels, and Lenin incited him, but to stop here would be premature.
There is one man-book amalgam which may have been even more
determinative for Stalin, especially during his youthful,
impressionable years.
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
To document this, appeal is made first to a book published in Moscow
entitled, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin. It was written during
Stalin's "glory," and was designed to set him in a positive light.
Note in the selection cited, that faith in Darwin and his "book"
contrasts markedly with faith in a supreme being:
At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiastical school,
Comrade Stalin developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments.
He began to read Darwin and became an atheist.
G. Glurdjidze, a boyhood friend of Stalin's, relates:
"I began to speak of God, Joseph heard me out, and after a moment's
silence, said:
"'You know, they are fooling us, there is no God. . . .'
"I was astonished at these words, I had never heard anything like it
before.
"'How can you say such things, Soso?' I exclaimed.
"'I'll lend you a book to read; it will show you that the world and
all living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all
this talk about God is sheer nonsense,' Joseph said.
"'What book is that?' I enquired.
"'Darwin. You must read it,' Joseph impressed on me" 1
A few pages later, another individual--also reflecting on Stalin's
youthful pursuits, added the following:
". . .in order to disabuse the minds of our seminary students of the
myth that the world was created in six days, we had to acquaint
ourselves with the geological origin and age of the earth, and be able
to prove them in argument; we had to familiarize ourselves with
Darwin's teachings."1
HAD MARX, ENGELS, AND LENIN SHARED THE SAME FAITH?
It has already been stated that Stalin was influenced by the writings
of these men. Did this dilute the effect of Darwin on him, or were
these men also affected by the same British naturalist? The answer to
the second question must be affirmative. Conway Zirkle, Professor of
Botany at the University of Pennsylvania, published a book in 1959
entitled, Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene, in which
he cites comments made in correspondence between Engels and Marx. As
early as December 12, 1859 (only months after The Origin of Species
was published), Friedrich Engels wrote to Karl Marx, "Darwin, whom I
am just now reading, is splendid." [2] About a year later (December
19, 1860), Marx, the Father of Communism, responded, "During my time
of trial, these last few weeks, I have read all sorts of things. Among
others, Darwin's book of Natural Selection. Although it is developed
in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis
in natural history for our view." 2 To one Ferdinand Lassalle, he
wrote (January 16, 1861), "Darwin's book is very important and serves
me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history."
[2] Zirkle also indicated that Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to
Darwin. 2 Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould, an intense and modern spokesman
for evolution, corroborates this by reporting that he saw Darwin's
copy of Marx's first volume inscribed by Marx--describing himself as a
"sincere admirer" of the English naturalist. 3
Ruis credits Vladimir Lenin with the following commentary on Darwin:
Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species
bear no relation to one another, except by chance, and that they were
created by God, and hence immutable. 4
HOW BRUTAL WAS STALIN'S FAITH?
The 20th century has been one of tyranny and mass genocide. One needs
only to remember the two million Cambodians slaughtered under Pol Pot,
the six million Jews exterminated by Adolf Hitler, and the 20 million
helpless lives aborted in America. Leading the list of atrocities,
however, might well be the millions of Russian people eliminated under
Stalin's murderous rule.
Harrison E. Salisbury of The New York Times, described the Soviet
system of prison camps as "a whole continent of terror. . . . Compared
with those who brought about the hundreds of thousands of executions
and the millions of deaths in the Soviet terror system, the Czars seem
almost benign. . . . Our minds boggle at the thought of a
systematized, routine evil, under which three or four or more million
men and women were sentenced each year to forced labor and eternal
exile--and in a manner so casual that the prisoners often were not
even told what their sentences were. . . ." 5
SOLZHENITZYN'S INSIGHTS
In 1983, Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for
Literature, gave an address in London in which he attempted to explain
why so much evil had befallen his people:
Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a
number of old people offer the following explanation for the great
disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's
why all this has happened."
Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of
our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books,
collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already
contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away
the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to
formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous
revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could
not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God;
that's why all this has happened." 6
But has Solzhenitsyn considered any relationship involving Soviet
oppression, Stalin's terror, and Darwin's theories on origin? In his
towering book, The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn recounts an
incident which apparently took place in 1937-38 at a district Party
conference meeting in Moscow Province. The secretary (replacing an
arrested one) was paying tribute to Comrade Stalin. The group,
including the new secretary, was standing and applauding their
esteemed Leader. Even a single minute of feverish clapping consumes
energy, but in this case it was important to sustain the "enthusiasm"
much longer. Three, four, five minutes passed and more! Tired
arms!--but who could risk stopping? Seven, eight, and nine minutes
elapsed. It was absurd! Finally after eleven minutes (!), a local
factory director stopped clapping and sat down. All followed suit, but
that night the one who stopped first was arrested and given ten years!
He was told, "Don't ever be the first to stop applauding!"
Solzhenitsyn queries, "And just what are we supposed to do? How are we
supposed to stop?" 7 In harmony with the position of this article, he
adds:
Now that's what Darwin's natural selection is. And that's also how to
grind people down with stupidity. 7
CONCLUSION
In a previous article, 8 the present author documented the thesis that
Hitler was a fanatical evolutionist. Evolutionary language and terms
were shown to be used in Hitler's Mein Kampf. Sir Arthur Keith
summarized, "Hitler (was) an uncompromising evolutionist, and we must
seek for an evolutionary explanation if we are to understand his
action." 9
This present article relates Stalin, along with the Fathers of
Communism, to the same concepts. The attachments of these men to
Darwin have been made explicit, and, again, it would seem wise to
include evolutionary explanations if we want fully to understand their
actions. Of Hitler it may be said that he killed millions; of these
men--and especially of Stalin--tens of millions!
Of course none of this either proves or disproves the theory itself,
but it does strongly suggest that much evil has entered the world
under the tutelage of Darwin's theory.
Henry Fairfield Osborn once wrote, "The ethical principle inherent in
evolution is that only the best has a right to survive. . . ." 10
Jesus, however, was concerned to heal the sick and deformed. He showed
compassion for the weak and enfeebled. Not much of a follower of
evolution's "ethical principle" was He, but, then again, one would
hardly expect this from the Creator.
"Men have forgotten God;
that's why all this has happened."
REFERENCES
1 E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin (Moscow: Foreign
Languages Publishing house, 1940), pp. 8-12.
2 Conway Zirkle, Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), pp. 85-87.
3 Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin (New York: W. W. Norton and
Co., Inc., 1977), p. 26.
4 Eduardo del Rio (pseudonym="Rius"), Marx for Beginners (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1976), Glossary, n.p.
5 Harrison E. Salisbury, "Reading The Gulag Archipelago is like no
other reading experience of our day," Book-of-the-Month Club NEWS,
Midsummer, 1974, pp. 4,5.
6 Edward E. Ericson, Jr., "Solzhenitsyn - Voice from the Gulag,"
Eternity, October 1985, pp. 23, 24.
7 Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (New York: Harper &
Row, 1973), p. 7.
8 Paul G. Humber, "The Ascent of Racism," Impact (Institute for
Creation Research, February 1987).
9 Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons 1947), p. 14.
10 Henry Fairfield Osborn, Evolution and Religion in Education
(London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926), p. 48.
* Paul G. Humber, A.B., M.S., M.Div., is a schoolmaster at a college
preparatory school in the Philadelphia area.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 11:37:09 PM |
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Bullock, Hitler&Stalin 1993 ISBN 0-679-72994-1
p7 Like Stalin, he served as a choirboy.. Alois Hitler as not a
sympathetic figure. He was authoritarian and selfish, showing little concern
for the feelings of his younger wife and little understanding of his children
p9 Hitler's great hero was Richard Wagner.. source of theatricality and
epic scale of his own political style
p18 [Hitler] By the autumn of 1909, however, his funds had run out; he
left his room without paying the rent he owned, and took to sleeping out on
park benches, even in doorways
p37 If Stalin's pieces contained little that was original, Lenin was
impressed by the combination of their down-to-earth tone with unswerving
devotion to the Bolshevik line
p44 no doubt that Hitler was a good soldier.. infuriating his fellow
soldiers by continuing to "spout" like a recruiting poster
p73 difficulty in establishing human relationships with individuals, his
rapport with a mass audience was exceptional.. impression of spontaneity..
never swept away by the enthusiasm he elicited.. Hitler dangerous was this
combination of fanaticism and calculation
p77 Hitler and Lenin shared an insistence on the importance of winning the
support of the masses with an equal insistence on the inability of the masses
to organize themselves
p80 Hitler, still ill at ease on social occasions, was clever enough to
exploit his own awkwardness, deliberately behaving in exaggerated fashion,
arriving late and leaving early
p103 Any government that tried to take the [Stolypin reformed] land back
from them in order to collectivize agriculture would meet determined
resistance.. If Lenin reluctantly accepted the postponement of the
collectivization of agriculture, he was determined not to allow free trade in
grain.. Resistance was widespread. THe peasants hid their stocks and cut
production
p154 Hitler's ideology, however crude and unconvincing to those who did
not share it, provided him with a view of the [Hegelian] historical process
that gave him the same assurance as Marxism gave to Communist leaders. Like
Lenin and Stalin, he treated policies and tactics as matters, not of
principle, but of expediency, the object of which was to gain support and win
power
p209 Stalin set up the goal of overtaking the capitalist nations and
putting an end to "the age-old backwardness of our country." Socialism was no
longer the product of capitalism, as Marx had thought, but an alternative
designed to accelerate the development of those parts of the world left
behind by the industrial progress of the West
p220 Columbia historian Fritz Stern has suggested that the special
attraction that Hitler had for German Protestants, not least Protestant
pastors, owed much to the "silent secularization" of Protestantism during the
previous centruy in which the Church became identified with the fate of the
nation and the monarchy.. Nietzchean irrationalism, heroic man in place of
economic man
p285 forced collectivization.. Stalin himself later told Churchill that it
had been as hard a war as that against the Nazis and cost ten million lives
[WSC WW2 IV 1951 pp447-8]
p339 [Hitler] refusal to be bound by legal convention and his courage in
acting in accord with natural justice [sitn eth?]
p343 belief that the two men shared, that they were chosen to play such a
role, and therefore exempt from the ordinary canons of human conduct..
narcissistic
p367 Both men took special pains to conceal, as well as to exploit, their
personalities. Both owed a great dea of their success as politicians to their
ability to disguise, from allies as well as opponents, their thoughts and
their intentions
p375 Hitler, who was an aggressive vegetarian and teetotaller, forbade
smoking and kept a simple table
p381 Stalin had mocked religious belief since his days in the Tiflis
seminary. Hitler had been brought up as a Catholic and was impressed by the
organization and power of the Church.. had no time at all for its teaching,
regarding it as a religion fit only for slaves
p409 He insisted to Otto Wegener and others with whom he talked privately
before coming to power: "We alone can and must think clearly about racial
questions. For us these questions are a key and a signpost. But for the
public at large they are poison" [1985 p213]
p414 Hitler has said in Mein_Kampf [1939 p110] "The art of leadership
consists in concentrating the attention of the people on a single
adversary. making different opponents appear as if they belonged to the same
category"
p503 fear of informers, which made everyone afraid to speak, producing
that atomization of society that Aristotle long ago saw as one of the
safeguards of tyranny " the creation of mistrust, for a tyrant is not
overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another" [Pol V ii]
p525 "The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the
most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marched into the
Rhineland we would have had to withdraw with o ur tails between our legs, for
the militray forces at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for
even a modearte resistance" [Paul Schmidt 1949 p320]
p536 Franco victory was not desirable.. "Our interest lay in a
continuation of the war and in keeping up the tension in the Mediterranean."
Both Hitler and Stalin valued the diversionary effect
p554 Unlike Stalin, Hitler did not attempt to carry out a complete purge
of the High Command. He was later to regret
p567 psychological preparation of the German people for war.. "business
of the political leadership to await or bring about the suitable moment"
p575 "little tricks of bluff and bluster".. Without firing a shot Germany
had already come close to nullifying the results for which the Western powers
had fought the World War
p613 This was too much for Stalin. After six years of pouring buckets of
filth over each other's heads, he said, they could not expect their peoples
to believe that all was forgotten and forgiven. Public opoinion in Russia,
and no doubt in Germany, too, would have to be prepared slowly for the change
p617 "I accept the British Empire and I am ready to pledge myself
personally to its continued existence and to commit the power of the German
Reich to this" [doc germ frn pol 18-45 d vii 265]
p634 Stalin was the more reserved, Hitler more flamboyant and changeable
in mood; Stalin operated in the shadows, Hitler perfomed best in the
limelight. Stalin was more the calculator, Hitler the gambler
p647 [Poland, Hilter] "Upper classes" in practise meant officers,
officials, judges, landowners, teachers, intllectuals, priests - anyone with
the capacity for leadership. Once arrested they were herded into camps were
thousands were exeuted
p659 The luck that Hitler believed would always respond to a bold enough
bid did not desert him
p696 [Hitler 11July41] "Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child.
Both are inventions of the Jew"
p697 Substitute "class" for "race," the Communist party exercising
dictatorship in the name of the proletariat for a racial elite; "the
individual exists only for the state" instead of "only for the Volk"; "agents
of history" for "agents of Providence" - and Stalin would have found little
to disagree with. Together they represent the twentieth century's most
formidable examples of those simplificateurs_terribles whom the nineteenth
century historian Jakob Burckhardt foresaw as characteristic of the century
to follow
p707 regent, Prince Paul, was pro-British, but was impressed by the fall
of France and by the offer of Salonika.. Simovic, rebelled
p708 Greece was to be occupied, Yugoslavia destroyed
p738 Rosenberg saw "Muscovy" as the heart of "Russian-Mongol backwardness"
which under the tsarist and Soviet regimes alike had supressed and forced a
forced Russification on the national identities of Ukrainians and Estonians
[ie Rosenberg's], Georgians and Tartars.. Rosenberg's plans for partitioning
the Soviet Union varied, but common to all of them was the creation of a
Ukrainian state and the formation of Baltic and Caucasian federations
p759 As Himmler told his SS commanders: [Posen 4Oct43] "This is a page in
our history which has never been written and is never to be written.. We had
the moral right, we had the duty to destroy this people which wanted to
destroy us".. selected those fit enough to be worked to death
p761 miscalculation. Always speaking of the United States with contempt as
another degenerate democracy, "a society corrupted by Jews and niggers"
p763 Neither Hitler nor Stalin was content with assuming strategic
direction of the war; they constantly intervened in operations as well
p772 The fact that Hitler's winter success had been accomplished by an act
of will in defiance of the professional advice of his generals had
strengthened his sence of mission
p776 Hitler resisted, as strongly as Stalin had, intelligence reports that
called into question the picture he had formed
p817 Stalin proposed the liquidation of the 50,000 German officers..
Elliott Roosevelt, FDRs son, made a speech expressing enthusiasm, Churchill
walked out of the room in disgust. He was quickly followed by Stalin, who put
both hands on his shoulders, assured him he had not been talking seriously,
and persuaded him to return [WSC WW2 V p330]
p837 "After my miraculous escape from death today I am more than ever
convinced that it is my fate to bring our common enterprise to a successful
conclusion." Nodding his head, mussolini could only agree: "After what I have
seen here, I am absolutely of your opinion. This was a sign from heaven."
p855 After long hesitation, the three major Allies had agreed at Tehran to
accept Tito's National Liberation Army, not General Drazha Mihailovic's Royal
Yugoslav Army, as the effective resistance movement. But they did not accept
the declaration of the Ant-Fascist Council held at Jajce in October 1943
refusing to acknowledge the king
p898 silence about nuclear fission meant that an American project was
under way.. reports passed secretly to him by the physicist Klaus Fuchs
working at Los Alamos
p908 Of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners.. four million had died.. force
was used to send them back to Russia.. Twenty percent were sentenced to death
of twenty-five years in camps
p927 When Djilas tried to explain, Stalin would not let him finish,
declaring, "We have no special interest in Albania. We agree to Yugoslavia
swallowing Albania."
p943 Were the Russians really prepared to give up a Communist-controlled
East Germany for the promise of neutrality by a reunited country?.. It would
be characteristic of Stalin not to have made up his mind how far hewas
prepared to go until he had tried out the strength and weaknesses of the
other parties' positions around the negotiating table
p956 Mikoyan recalls Stalin telling Beria, "I won't give you Zhukov. I
know him, he is not a traitor."
p973 The fact that they were underestimated by their rivals was a psoitive
advantage to both men
p976-7 But the historical record shows that even in the worst
circumstances, not only in battle but in overcrowded prisons and camps, under
torture, in the Resistance, and in the face of certain death, there was a
handful - drawn from every nation - who showed to what heights men and women
can rise
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| User: "Robert Kolker" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 01:25:01 PM |
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The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
Hegel was more like it than Marx or Darwin.
Bob Kolker
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| User: "wbarwell" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 01:44:01 PM |
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Robert Kolker wrote:
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
Hegel was more like it than Marx or Darwin.
Bob Kolker
More likely thatn any of this was simply the realization the Russian
Orthodox church along with the feudlism of Russia was truely repressive and
wrong.
--
Join the anti-willful-religious-stupidity brigade today.
You will be glad you did.
Our motto: Slap! "Wake up stupid!"
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 11:47:07 PM |
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wbarwell wrote:
Robert Kolker wrote:
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
Hegel was more like it than Marx or Darwin.
Bob Kolker
More likely thatn any of this was simply the realization the Russian
Orthodox church along with the feudlism of Russia was truely repressive and
wrong.
Stalin had nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox church. He belonged
to the Georgian Orthodox church and was even studying in a Georgian
seminary to become a priest.
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| User: "Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
02 Jul 2006 02:55:18 AM |
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wrote:
wbarwell wrote:
Robert Kolker wrote:
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
Hegel was more like it than Marx or Darwin.
Bob Kolker
More likely thatn any of this was simply the realization the Russian
Orthodox church along with the feudlism of Russia was truely repressive and
wrong.
Stalin had nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox church. He belonged
to the Georgian Orthodox church and was even studying in a Georgian
seminary to become a priest.
Whom did the Georgian Orthodox church report to? i.e. which patriarch?
Moscow or Constantinopole or ??
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| User: "Hugo S. Cunningham" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
02 Jul 2006 01:25:37 PM |
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On Sun, 02 Jul 2006 03:55:18 -0400, "Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj"
<urjlew@bellsouth.net> wrote:
vkarlamov@yahoo.com wrote:
[...]
Stalin had nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox church. He belonged
to the Georgian Orthodox church and was even studying in a Georgian
seminary to become a priest.
Whom did the Georgian Orthodox church report to? i.e. which patriarch?
Moscow or Constantinopole or ??
Originally dependent on the Patriarch of Antioch, the Georgian
Orthodox Church became autocephalous (independent) in 466 CE.
After Georgia was annexed by Tsarist Russia, the Georgian Orthodox
Church was subjected to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1811, their
status when the young Iosif Dzhugashvili attended their seminary.
They reasserted autocephaly in 1917, but their claim was not
recognized by the Soviet government and the Russian Orthodox Church
until 1943.
History of the Georgian Orthodox Church
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Orthodox_and_Apostolic_Church
Organization of Eastern othodox churches
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church_organization
Note the large number of autocephalous national churches.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
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| User: "Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
02 Jul 2006 03:52:09 PM |
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Hugo S. Cunningham wrote:
On Sun, 02 Jul 2006 03:55:18 -0400, "Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj"
<urjlew@bellsouth.net> wrote:
vkarlamov@yahoo.com wrote:
[...]
Stalin had nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox church. He belonged
to the Georgian Orthodox church and was even studying in a Georgian
seminary to become a priest.
Whom did the Georgian Orthodox church report to? i.e. which patriarch?
Moscow or Constantinopole or ??
Originally dependent on the Patriarch of Antioch, the Georgian
Orthodox Church became autocephalous (independent) in 466 CE.
After Georgia was annexed by Tsarist Russia, the Georgian Orthodox
Church was subjected to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1811, their
status when the young Iosif Dzhugashvili attended their seminary.
They reasserted autocephaly in 1917, but their claim was not
recognized by the Soviet government and the Russian Orthodox Church
until 1943.
History of the Georgian Orthodox Church
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Orthodox_and_Apostolic_Church
Organization of Eastern othodox churches
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church_organization
Note the large number of autocephalous national churches.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
Thanks.
Just goes to show that vkarlamov is again wrong.
(un ?)intentionally :)
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
02 Jul 2006 01:45:54 PM |
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Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj wrote:
vkarlamov@yahoo.com wrote:
wbarwell wrote:
Robert Kolker wrote:
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
Hegel was more like it than Marx or Darwin.
Bob Kolker
More likely thatn any of this was simply the realization the Russian
Orthodox church along with the feudlism of Russia was truely repressive and
wrong.
Stalin had nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox church. He belonged
to the Georgian Orthodox church and was even studying in a Georgian
seminary to become a priest.
Whom did the Georgian Orthodox church report to? i.e. which patriarch?
Moscow or Constantinopole or ??
From what I understand, it is pefectly independent. Orthodox people
have no Popes.
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| User: "Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
02 Jul 2006 03:57:42 PM |
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wrote:
Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj wrote:
wrote:
wbarwell wrote:
Robert Kolker wrote:
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
Hegel was more like it than Marx or Darwin.
Bob Kolker
More likely thatn any of this was simply the realization the Russian
Orthodox church along with the feudlism of Russia was truely repressive and
wrong.
Stalin had nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox church. He belonged
to the Georgian Orthodox church and was even studying in a Georgian
seminary to become a priest.
Whom did the Georgian Orthodox church report to? i.e. which patriarch?
Moscow or Constantinopole or ??
From what I understand, it is pefectly independent. Orthodox people
have no Popes.
As usual, You do not understand! Intentionally?
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
07 Jul 2006 12:29:23 PM |
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On 1 Jul 2006 08:37:50 -0700, "Sound of Trumpet"
<sound_of_trumpet@lycos.com> wrote in alt.atheism
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-172.htm
ICR. 'Nuff said. [flush]
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 10:43:22 AM |
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Previously, on alt.atheism, Sound of Trumpet in episode
<1151768270.782787.205540@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>...
The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God
AKA "The Bible?"
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
"As hip as it is for outsiders to blame New Orleans
for everything bad that happened during and after
Hurricane Katrina, the truth is that the people
who lived here were much more prepared for a big
storm than the federal government that promised
us flood protection." [Jarvis DeBerry]
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V180525DC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
.
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| User: "Greywolf" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 03:39:27 PM |
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"Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote in message
news:2O-dnWz2I9OHBTvZnZ2dnUVZ_vGdnZ2d@megapath.net...
Previously, on alt.atheism, Sound of Trumpet in episode
<1151768270.782787.205540@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>...
The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God
AKA "The Bible?"
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
"As hip as it is for outsiders to blame New Orleans
for everything bad that happened during and after
Hurricane Katrina, the truth is that the people
who lived here were much more prepared for a big
storm than the federal government that promised
us flood protection." [Jarvis DeBerry]
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V180525DC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
Do you mean to say that Stalin actually read books instead of burning them?
Or did he do both? As for the bible, I would think he would have taken it
and held it close to his bosom -- with all that a slashin' and a burnin' and
a killin' ... and all by a 'God' who was doin' the 'right thing' for his
'people'.
Greywolf
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
03 Jul 2006 01:09:33 AM |
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wrote:
Greywolf wrote:
"Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote in message
news:2O-dnWz2I9OHBTvZnZ2dnUVZ_vGdnZ2d@megapath.net...
Previously, on alt.atheism, Sound of Trumpet in episode
<1151768270.782787.205540@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>...
The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God
Do you mean to say that Stalin actually read books instead of burning them?
Sure he did. But judging from your last remark, you haven't read much.
It is common knowledge that Stalin was one of the most voratious
readers ever.
In case readers wonder how he could find so much time to read, as I
understand he suffered from severe insomnia, so he had a whole night to
read away.
E.g.:
///////////////////////////////////////////////
http://www.psylive.ru/?mod=articles&gl=22&id=41
"Stalin read several books per day. "My daily norm - about 500 pages" -
he used to tell his visitors. He read around 1000 books per year."
/Roy Medvedev, famous historian/
Or did he do both? As for the bible, I would think he would have taken it
and held it close to his bosom -- with all that a slashin' and a burnin' and
a killin' ... and all by a 'God' who was doin' the 'right thing' for his
'people'.
Greywolf
.
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| User: "leo" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 11:12:44 AM |
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Sound of Trumpet ha escrito:
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-172.htm
STALIN'S BRUTAL FAITH
by Paul G. Humber
Some have the mistaken notion that faith and religion are linked
inseparably with the confession of a supreme being, but many exercise
faith in self and other human beings--to the exclusion of the divine.
This, too, is religion. Whatever serves as one's basic system of
beliefs about his or her place and role in the universe is certainly a
faith, a religion.
Joseph Stalin, though an atheist, was a believer. His was a faith
resulting in tremendous brutality--nevertheless, a faith! What was
this faith? Was it uniquely Stalin's? Also, how brutal was it? The
purpose of this article is to offer some answers to these questions
and to add insights of the eminent authority on Russia's soul, Nobel
laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
STALIN'S FAITH--WHAT WAS IT?
Often an individual's faith is firmly attached to a book of some kind.
Muslims have the Koran; Hindus, their Veda; and Christians, the Bible.
Writings of Confucius, Buddha, and indeed, Mao Tse-Tung, serve similar
purposes for other groups. In Stalin's case, the writings of Marx,
Engels, and Lenin incited him, but to stop here would be premature.
There is one man-book amalgam which may have been even more
determinative for Stalin, especially during his youthful,
impressionable years.
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
To document this, appeal is made first to a book published in Moscow
entitled, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin. It was written during
Stalin's "glory," and was designed to set him in a positive light.
Note in the selection cited, that faith in Darwin and his "book"
contrasts markedly with faith in a supreme being:
At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiastical school,
Comrade Stalin developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments.
He began to read Darwin and became an atheist.
G. Glurdjidze, a boyhood friend of Stalin's, relates:
"I began to speak of God, Joseph heard me out, and after a moment's
silence, said:
"'You know, they are fooling us, there is no God. . . .'
"I was astonished at these words, I had never heard anything like it
before.
"'How can you say such things, Soso?' I exclaimed.
"'I'll lend you a book to read; it will show you that the world and
all living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all
this talk about God is sheer nonsense,' Joseph said.
"'What book is that?' I enquired.
"'Darwin. You must read it,' Joseph impressed on me" 1
A few pages later, another individual--also reflecting on Stalin's
youthful pursuits, added the following:
". . .in order to disabuse the minds of our seminary students of the
myth that the world was created in six days, we had to acquaint
ourselves with the geological origin and age of the earth, and be able
to prove them in argument; we had to familiarize ourselves with
Darwin's teachings."1
HAD MARX, ENGELS, AND LENIN SHARED THE SAME FAITH?
It has already been stated that Stalin was influenced by the writings
of these men. Did this dilute the effect of Darwin on him, or were
these men also affected by the same British naturalist? The answer to
the second question must be affirmative. Conway Zirkle, Professor of
Botany at the University of Pennsylvania, published a book in 1959
entitled, Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene, in which
he cites comments made in correspondence between Engels and Marx. As
early as December 12, 1859 (only months after The Origin of Species
was published), Friedrich Engels wrote to Karl Marx, "Darwin, whom I
am just now reading, is splendid." [2] About a year later (December
19, 1860), Marx, the Father of Communism, responded, "During my time
of trial, these last few weeks, I have read all sorts of things. Among
others, Darwin's book of Natural Selection. Although it is developed
in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis
in natural history for our view." 2 To one Ferdinand Lassalle, he
wrote (January 16, 1861), "Darwin's book is very important and serves
me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history."
[2] Zirkle also indicated that Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to
Darwin. 2 Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould, an intense and modern spokesman
for evolution, corroborates this by reporting that he saw Darwin's
copy of Marx's first volume inscribed by Marx--describing himself as a
"sincere admirer" of the English naturalist. 3
Ruis credits Vladimir Lenin with the following commentary on Darwin:
Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species
bear no relation to one another, except by chance, and that they were
created by God, and hence immutable. 4
HOW BRUTAL WAS STALIN'S FAITH?
The 20th century has been one of tyranny and mass genocide. One needs
only to remember the two million Cambodians slaughtered under Pol Pot,
the six million Jews exterminated by Adolf Hitler, and the 20 million
helpless lives aborted in America. Leading the list of atrocities,
however, might well be the millions of Russian people eliminated under
Stalin's murderous rule.
Harrison E. Salisbury of The New York Times, described the Soviet
system of prison camps as "a whole continent of terror. . . . Compared
with those who brought about the hundreds of thousands of executions
and the millions of deaths in the Soviet terror system, the Czars seem
almost benign. . . . Our minds boggle at the thought of a
systematized, routine evil, under which three or four or more million
men and women were sentenced each year to forced labor and eternal
exile--and in a manner so casual that the prisoners often were not
even told what their sentences were. . . ." 5
SOLZHENITZYN'S INSIGHTS
In 1983, Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for
Literature, gave an address in London in which he attempted to explain
why so much evil had befallen his people:
Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a
number of old people offer the following explanation for the great
disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's
why all this has happened."
Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of
our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books,
collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already
contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away
the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to
formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous
revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could
not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God;
that's why all this has happened." 6
But has Solzhenitsyn considered any relationship involving Soviet
oppression, Stalin's terror, and Darwin's theories on origin? In his
towering book, The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn recounts an
incident which apparently took place in 1937-38 at a district Party
conference meeting in Moscow Province. The secretary (replacing an
arrested one) was paying tribute to Comrade Stalin. The group,
including the new secretary, was standing and applauding their
esteemed Leader. Even a single minute of feverish clapping consumes
energy, but in this case it was important to sustain the "enthusiasm"
much longer. Three, four, five minutes passed and more! Tired
arms!--but who could risk stopping? Seven, eight, and nine minutes
elapsed. It was absurd! Finally after eleven minutes (!), a local
factory director stopped clapping and sat down. All followed suit, but
that night the one who stopped first was arrested and given ten years!
He was told, "Don't ever be the first to stop applauding!"
Solzhenitsyn queries, "And just what are we supposed to do? How are we
supposed to stop?" 7 In harmony with the position of this article, he
adds:
Now that's what Darwin's natural selection is. And that's also how to
grind people down with stupidity. 7
CONCLUSION
In a previous article, 8 the present author documented the thesis that
Hitler was a fanatical evolutionist. Evolutionary language and terms
were shown to be used in Hitler's Mein Kampf. Sir Arthur Keith
summarized, "Hitler (was) an uncompromising evolutionist, and we must
seek for an evolutionary explanation if we are to understand his
action." 9
This present article relates Stalin, along with the Fathers of
Communism, to the same concepts. The attachments of these men to
Darwin have been made explicit, and, again, it would seem wise to
include evolutionary explanations if we want fully to understand their
actions. Of Hitler it may be said that he killed millions; of these
men--and especially of Stalin--tens of millions!
Of course none of this either proves or disproves the theory itself,
but it does strongly suggest that much evil has entered the world
under the tutelage of Darwin's theory.
Henry Fairfield Osborn once wrote, "The ethical principle inherent in
evolution is that only the best has a right to survive. . . ." 10
Jesus, however, was concerned to heal the sick and deformed. He showed
compassion for the weak and enfeebled. Not much of a follower of
evolution's "ethical principle" was He, but, then again, one would
hardly expect this from the Creator.
"Men have forgotten God;
that's why all this has happened."
REFERENCES
1 E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin (Moscow: Foreign
Languages Publishing house, 1940), pp. 8-12.
2 Conway Zirkle, Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), pp. 85-87.
3 Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin (New York: W. W. Norton and
Co., Inc., 1977), p. 26.
4 Eduardo del Rio (pseudonym="Rius"), Marx for Beginners (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1976), Glossary, n.p.
5 Harrison E. Salisbury, "Reading The Gulag Archipelago is like no
other reading experience of our day," Book-of-the-Month Club NEWS,
Midsummer, 1974, pp. 4,5.
6 Edward E. Ericson, Jr., "Solzhenitsyn - Voice from the Gulag,"
Eternity, October 1985, pp. 23, 24.
7 Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (New York: Harper &
Row, 1973), p. 7.
8 Paul G. Humber, "The Ascent of Racism," Impact (Institute for
Creation Research, February 1987).
9 Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons 1947), p. 14.
10 Henry Fairfield Osborn, Evolution and Religion in Education
(London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926), p. 48.
* Paul G. Humber, A.B., M.S., M.Div., is a schoolmaster at a college
preparatory school in the Philadelphia area.
The mind of Stalin was influenced by his life in a Ortodox seminary in
Georgia. He entered there as a preadolescent and was there till he was
about 20. I dont remind the exact age he had when was kicked out from
the seminary. The holy tyrany he suffered there, the cruelty the
priests showed trying to control the mind of the young Josif
Vissarianovich, conformed the mind of the youngman into the son of a
***** he become later. He rejected the god of the Christians and
adopted a new god called Socialismus. Then he imitated all the cruelty
and secret manners he learned during the ten years he was in the
seminary. So, his cruelty was a mirrored image of the way the
Christians were controling Russia and the rest of Europe.
Leopoldo
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| User: "Colin Day" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 08:49:34 PM |
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Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-172.htm
STALIN'S BRUTAL FAITH
by Paul G. Humber
Some have the mistaken notion that faith and religion are linked
inseparably with the confession of a supreme being, but many exercise
faith in self and other human beings--to the exclusion of the divine.
This, too, is religion. Whatever serves as one's basic system of
beliefs about his or her place and role in the universe is certainly a
faith, a religion.
Joseph Stalin, though an atheist, was a believer. His was a faith
resulting in tremendous brutality--nevertheless, a faith! What was
this faith? Was it uniquely Stalin's? Also, how brutal was it? The
purpose of this article is to offer some answers to these questions
and to add insights of the eminent authority on Russia's soul, Nobel
laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
STALIN'S FAITH--WHAT WAS IT?
Often an individual's faith is firmly attached to a book of some kind.
Muslims have the Koran; Hindus, their Veda; and Christians, the Bible.
Writings of Confucius, Buddha, and indeed, Mao Tse-Tung, serve similar
purposes for other groups. In Stalin's case, the writings of Marx,
Engels, and Lenin incited him, but to stop here would be premature.
There is one man-book amalgam which may have been even more
determinative for Stalin, especially during his youthful,
impressionable years.
The man was Charles Darwin.
The book--his The Origin of Species.
To document this, appeal is made first to a book published in Moscow
entitled, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin. It was written during
Stalin's "glory," and was designed to set him in a positive light.
Note in the selection cited, that faith in Darwin and his "book"
contrasts markedly with faith in a supreme being:
And what kind of Darwinist would have appointed T. D. Lysenko?
Colin Day aa #1500
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The Book That Turned Stalin Away From God |
01 Jul 2006 11:49:46 PM |
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Colin Day wrote:
And what kind of Darwinist would have appointed T. D. Lysenko?
A pre-mendelian one?
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