Either Malta is a member of the European Community – and therefore it participates at a society in which the freedom of expression is protected – or not. If it decides to leave the European Community, if it decides to treat refugees with shame, if it wants the conditions of the Middle Age back (concerning divorce, abortion, the fully missing separation of public and religious affairs, a censorship of arts etc.) – farewell, then it can leave Europe! But if not, next carnival hundreds of young men should be dressed as Jesus – and I will, too.

If this will happen, I will not lose my trust in a young generation which has understood that 150 years after enlightenment a modern country within Europe must not be chained and patronized by the hypocrisy of frozen conservative men of a frozen conservative catholic church like a baby that does not know the difference between good and evil. If not, it will probably be the time to leave this island.

Sorry, but I don’t understand your point. Or at least I think I do but I’m not sure of its relevance to mine. If I understand yours, you’re saying theism and dictatorship are not equivalent, and although they sometimes are. I’m not saying they’re equivalent either. My original point was a response to a couple of comments by Graham C & Daphne, namely:

Graham – “I can’t stand those people who go around arguing that the world would be a better place with atheism instead of religion.”

Daphne – “The experience of the Soviet Union and China should have shown that it isn’t necessarily so.”

The Soviet Union and China cannot be used as examples of atheism because they were based on a religious model, i.e. there is a God, a high priest & an ecclesiastical structure – generally a founding revolutionary leader, his current successor, and a party.

I think you could make the argument that theism and the despotism faced in these nations are both dictatorial, and/or autocratic, but it does not equate them. It might sound like a petty detail, but it makes a world of difference.

A duck is a bird, but a bird is not necessarily a duck (sorry, been watching Bebe TV too much lately).

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090312/letters/the-nadur-carnival-and-religious-fundamentalism/

Can’t say the same thing about most of the comments written below.

also http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090312/opinion/a-choice-limits-or-no-limits

Not strictly speaking related, but co-indidentally written by one of the Jesuits who accepted my unorthodox religion exam papers. I think he gave my declaration of atheism a 70%. But his outlook is a little more conservative, almost 30 years later….. but always measured and never hysterical, unlike the faithful. And I notice he refers to a bible story being a myth. I wonder how he picks the myths and the true stories.

My main point about Stalin was not that he was educated in a seminary, although the experience must have been helpful, but that the dictatorships of Soviet Russia, Maoist China, and raving mad North Korea, are basically modelled on theocracies and cannot be called atheist – the suppression of religion was simply the suppression of one religion in favour of another. Yahweh is not the only jealous god.

As to religion being the only real opposition to Stalin, not sure its the case, but even so, it does not weaken the main point that these dictatorships are simply theocracies with a different figure of worship from the established religions.

I would argue that Stalin is on neither “scorecard”. It’s true he was educated in a seminary, but what does that have to do with anything? To him, suppression of certain religions, as well as the support for others was a means of power and a means of reaching what he saw as his main goals. It had very little to do with either atheism nor religion.

While being largely inspired by the teachings of Marx, he diverted tremendously in this matter, as Marx very well recognised the need for religious belief and was simply trying to find something to replace it, not suppress it. Don’t make the mistake many others make and forget what came after his famously misquoted remark that “religion is the opium of the people”: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation”. In Stalin’s case religion was simply something that united people against his cause. It’s one of those cases where even I would argue that religious expression was not just a necessity, but probably the only real challenge to his oppression.

Just because YOU stuffed stockings it doesn’t mean Father Christmas doesn’t exist. I know for a fact he exists, and he always came to our house, except that one year when he got caught up and my father offered to fill in.

He just doesn’t come to YOUR house. In fact, it’s because like god, he is all powerful, can listen to everyone at the same time and act upon it. And precisely because he is all-seeing, he knows you’re going to stuff the stocking in the first place, so why bother?

Soviet Russia and China DID have a religion, as does North Korea today. There is a God, a high priest & an ecclesiastical structure – generally a founding revolutionary leader, his current successor, and a party. The worst dictatorships are all modelled on religious cults. Don’t try dumping that one on us. Stalin is firmly in the believers scorecard – AND he was educated in a seminary.

How about this for a definition of God: sentient controlling influence over the fortunes of the known universe, possibly including its creation (including its own), on both a macro and a micro level.”

Whats so difficult about that?

@lino cert

The onus thing? Spot on!

@John

Sure, but I’m not using it to support my point.

@Graham C

“and that’s why I decided believing in God is more rational”.

ROTFL