Tough Questions Answered

II always felt that Dostoyevsky went too far in making the two synonomous. Instead, I think they sprink from the same soil, that having of a rather high view of humanity, sometimes identified as humanism.

I, too, am hardly a political or economic expert, but it seems that this is the chief difference between socialism and capitalism, that capitalism takes as its driving engine the tendency of humans to work for their own self-interest, while socialism assumes that we will work just as hard for the interest of our fellow man. That’s a noble hope, but doens not square with the idea of our fallen state.

The same principle holds in our system of justice and governance: its many flaws notwithstanding, I think one of it’s preserving features is its frustrating dependance on advesarial relationships. Things would work much more smoothly and dfficiently if we could assume goodwill and honesty among parties, particularly elected officials and beurocrats, and it is constantly tempting to smooth the way by assuming it. But governing in the light of a universally fallen human nature seems to give better results.

For athiesm to avoid being a system eithther of narcisism or of dispair, it would seem to require (or at least wish for) the same assumption – that humanity is basically good, as much as that phrase means anything. At least, humans are “hard-wired” towards trying to make social life work.

Bill wrote,

Any ideology which has as its goal to set up a completely human-constructed utopia on earth is certainly not derived from Christian theology or from any other religious theology that I can think of.

Actually, communist ideology owes a fairly strong intellectual debt to Christianity.

To answer the question posed by this posting: Nope. Atheism and socialism are not mutually required. They can come together, of course — just like Christianity and socialism can come together, and just like atheism and capitalism can go together — but they are in no way synonymous or mutually necessary.

If socialism is truly characterized by this aim, to create heaven on earth by man pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, then Dostoyevsky’s point holds – atheism and socialism are bedfellows.

Problem is, there are really probably zero atheists who believe in “utopia” as a real, achievable means. In fact, in most atheist, humanist, and otherwise secular circles, the idea of “utopia” is usually dismissed as purely a religious delusion — the idea being that perfection is by definition impossible, especially on such a global scale, and thus to strive for it at the expense of individual rights and liberties is a fool’s errand. Most atheists would dismiss anyone who believes in a true, realizable “utopia” as horribly misguided at best, because utopia is in principle unachievable.

As far as an atheist is concerned, when you say you’re chasing “utopia” you may as well be saying that you’re chasing the philosopher’s stone or the fountain of youth. They’re myths from a bygone era when we didn’t know the limits of the laws of nature.

The military is a socialist organisation. If you support, you are supporting a form of socialism. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how it differs from the NHS. A private army of mercenaries is capitalist, the US military is tax payer funded.

From the limited things I’ve read about it, socialism and atheism are somewhat of a package deal, at least on a philosophical level. Now that’s not to say that there are not Christian Socialists or Atheist Capitalists, but as Billy put in the post, the idea that the world’s problems can be solved by mankind coming together and destroying the class system, usually through the mechanism of the state is generally a non-Christian philosophy.

Socialism is a product of the removal of God and Biblical Christianity from Western society. When God is removed as sovereign over all of life, something must take His place, and in the case of socialism, the State becomes God. This explains the general growth in government power in the 20th century – if the State takes the place of God, it must take on the attributes of God – omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Think of the Patriot Act, the over 2100 executive agencies that regulate everything from the air we breathe to the amount of sand in the concrete used on an interstate, and the growth of intelligence agencies on the Federal level alone. The growth of the Federal government in the 20th century illustrates this perfectly.

Without God, the State becomes the messianic figure, which can be seen in the welfare policies of the New Deal and Great Society, which charge the Federal government with the responsibility to “rescue” those in need of rescue, which, as can be seen through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the proliferation of safety regulations such as “Warning: Coffee is Hot,” is a growing number of people in society.

What is missed though, is that true salvation only comes by the grace of God, and the general fallen nature of man ensures that the State cannot provide salvation. When everything else becomes relative – morals, finances, history – only one thing remains, and that is power. The 20th century is the picture of what happens when God is removed as the sovereign over all of life, and the state becomes supreme, and the will to power is the driving force. For a good read on this issue, check out Paul Johnson’s “Modern Times.”

Sorry for the long post, just my 2 cents! Love the blog Billy! Been reading for a long while, but this is my first comment!