Desrtopa comments on Positive Thinking - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Swimmer963 07 March 2011 01:03AM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 07 March 2011 04:25:21PM *  3 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Tiiba 07 March 2011 04:38:28PM 1 point [-]

There was also the issue of communism, which is nothing if not a cult.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 March 2011 06:15:56PM 3 points [-]

So are you trying to say that the USSR wasn't truly atheist. That sounds like no true scotsman.

Comment author: DSimon 07 March 2011 07:26:24PM 1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: Tiiba 07 March 2011 09:13:24PM *  0 points [-]

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.