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Eugine_Nier comments on Positive Thinking - Less Wrong
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During the cold war, would you say the USSR or the USA had a higher sanity waterline? Keep in mind that the USSR was an atheist state, while the USA had (and still) has a very religious culture.
The USSR was nominally atheist, but my understanding, based on the testimony of my fencing coach, who grew up in Soviet Russia, is that levels of religious belief were, if not as high as in America, still substantial, and simply practiced in private.
There was also the issue of communism, which is nothing if not a cult.
So are you trying to say that the USSR wasn't truly atheist. That sounds like no true scotsman.
Hold on, where did he say that? He said that they were cultish communists, but (as the OP points out), it's quite possible to be rational about one thing and irrational about another, even though the same strategy would correctly guide you through both issues if you only followed it consistently.
Actually, I said it wasn't atheist AT ALL. About as atheist as Don Quixote was a knight. Even the atheism was a manifestation of the personality cult of Karl Marx.
I actually can't say, not really having a sufficiently good grasp of the cultural history of either country during the 20th century. I'd rank both as obviously better than most cultures that have existed during human history, but still with widespread obviously weird and counterproductive stuff. Both were sane enough at the commanding level to stick with the game theory of not nuking each other.