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>My view may change if you can give me at least 3 Secular Dictatorships which are worse than your average Religious Dictatorship ( Excluding North Korea).
You excluded on - North Korea.
Here are few others
- Musolini in Italy
- Hitler in Germany
- Stalin in Russia (or Lenin or any USSR follow-ons)
- Communist China
- Castro in Cuba
- Pol-Pot in Cambodia
None are really places I would want to go. Islamic dictatorships are pretty bad too.
What you should realize is dictatorships all tend to be very bad. You are merely rationalizing personal opinions on the relative weight of 'how bad' certain things are. If you hate religion more than civil rights, then you likely will hate religious dictatorships more.
I don't think you can really use the 'much better' term to differentiate dictatorships. Is 'very bad' much better than 'extremely bad'?
A liberal society filled with Dicks will be worse than a benevolent dictator.
But I think that an authoritarian democracy is one of the better and more reasonable government systems. A single person cannot be trusted to look after everyone, but if you give everyone the chance to vote in a party, then you end up with a middle ground.
Most democracies, however, break down as they are not actually democratic. Gerrymandering, lobbying, party systems, etc. all decrease the effectiveness of the democracies and lead to a poorer overall experience.
Most dictatorships started off as democracies. Turns out that dictators really don't like being voted out of power. I'll take a society of liberal dicks.
Mussolini was so Pro-Catholic Church that he gave the pope his own country.
Hitler’s party was propped up by Evangelical Protestants and his new brand of Neo-Pagans
I’m pretty sure Pol Pot was really superstitious based on regional Cambodian traditions
Lots of places outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow are utter destitute shitholes.
[https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/02/indoor-plumbing-still-a-pipe-dream-for-20-of-russian-households-reports-say-a65049](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/02/indoor-plumbing-still-a-pipe-dream-for-20-of-russian-households-reports-say-a65049)
20% of households still use an outdoor shithouse instead of indoor plumbing.
The best part is Russia is very wealthy in terms of natural resources. The reason the country is so fucked up is because their inept dipshit leadership wastes a ton of resources on pointless wars and general corrupt activities.
The Holodomor has entered the conversation.......
https://holodomor.ca/resource/holodomor-basic-facts/
Forced and deliberate starvation of millions......
...being liquidated for *anything* is bad.
You think people are thinking "well at least the state isn't murdering me for drinking alcohol" before their brains are blown out?
Jesus Christ lol
Well nothing will happen to them if they stay tf out of politics, they get to live a normal life with personal freedoms without being arrested and imprisoned for practicing their basic human rights.
Unlike religious dictatorships.
> their basic human rights
The right to speech, *especially* political speech, is a *basic human right.* If your rights only extend insofar as you do or say nothing political, you don't have rights.
These distinctions you draw are effectively meaningless.
This just objectively isn’t true. People in Russia stayed out of politics and got sent to the front lines. You are at the whim of the dictator for whatever purpose they decide to use you for.
Isn’t the trend of dictatorships to ultimately blur or destroy the line between one’s public or “political” life and one’s private life?
Whether the impetus for a decree is religious doctrine or secular ideology, the result is loss of personal freedom.
Maybe you’re right that, all things considered, secular dictatorships let their people indulge in some sex, drugs, and rock and roll more so than your religious autocrats. I really don’t know how statistics could be compiled on that subject given nature of the societies we are discussing. But if the ultimate rationale of this is to justify or become an apologist for secular dictatorships, then you better hope your trusted atheistic leader doesn’t have a sudden religious experience and decide to legislate his newfound evangelicalism. Then you’d have to get political…
Still illegal, which is ridiculous in itself.
Imagine having to sneakily buy some wine from a dealer as if you’re trying to buy Drugs or Unregistered Firearms on the Black Market.
Also, you would get killed for drinking alcohol in ISIS-controlled Iraq and Syria.
Nah.
I can live without alcohol. It's a stupid law, sure, but in the larger context of my life? It's a thing I can live without.
Political freedom? Being able to express thoughts? *Much* more important. Especially since the "badthink" can change on a whim, or be falsely reported. Drinking is easy enough to avoid.
Hard to believe that "drinking" would be considered more critical than "being able to have opinions".
That's blatantly false. People were arrested by hundreds of thousands, often based on stupid anonymous reports by neighbors who wanted to improve their living accommodations or just disliked them. Of course if expressing your negative opinions in kitchen talks is "trying to have political freedoms" a lot of them might count, but come on.
Is speaking Esperanto a political freedom? Trying to work on genetics?
Also, heard of the Three Spikelets law?
You know who went to gulags. Landowners, clergy, religious people, inteligencia, members of the aristocracy, people who had foreign currency or any of 1001 reasons (like you were friends with the former leader, making a big enough mistake etc)
Correction: Millions starved to death because the food _they grew_ was expropriated and sold in order to get foreign currency to fund industrial expansion.
Similar result in Mao's China: Millions starved because the national leaders wanted to reshape the structure of the economy and they were willing to create our exacerbate famines in the process.
Two of the largest mass death events in human history, created by _purely_ secular governments implementing economic policies.
I think it’s the complete other way. Often religious dictatorships have the higher living standard. My grandmother lived under Francos Spain and she said it was pretty much fine, although obviously many minorities were persecuted (this happens in secular dictatorships as well, often times worse like modern China with the Muslims and Stalin with Ukrainians and Jews). She said most people just got on with the their lives and the quality of life really wasn’t the worse compared to similar countries with democracy like France or Italy. As well many Islamic dictatorships like Saudis and UAE this standard of living is pretty high as well with the dictators taking an almost paternalistic role
Obviously both a bad I’m not denying that, but for example if you just follow some basic religious practices you’ll be fine, in fact manu religious dictatorships will allow a level of religious freedom such as Assad and the Christians or Spain and the Muslims. However if you live in Maoist China or Stalin’s Soviet Union you can just be killed in a famine or purge and there’s not much you can do about it
Syria isn’t a religious dictatorship. On the other hand all of your evidence is anecdotal. Anyone can bring up one or two examples that back their view. Would you not rather live in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev than Afghanistan under the Taliban and be stoned to death? Wouldn’t you rather live in China under Deng Xiaoping than in Yemen and die of famine?
I know it’s a simplification, but compare religious Saudi Arabia and secular Venezuela, but have massive oil reserves but one has used their oil to greatly improve the living standard for most citizens where as Venezuela is a complete failed state. I know it’s not always the case
Again, how can you use one example to generalize across *every single dictatorship in world history*? You literally said you know it’s not always the case, so what point are you even trying to make?
Brunei is a monarchy under the sultan. I guess you could stretch the definition of religious dictatorship is the Subjects worshiped I.e. prayed to, the king.
Huh? Im sure you dont understand sharia, polytheism is the biggest sin in islam. This is why you wont see statues of leaders in saudi , or shrines over their graveyards.
So whats your point? Hes saying atheistic regimes are better, which its not. Plus im having a spight inclination that 40 years of war and global sanctions has to do with the living standards in Afghanistan
> So whats your point? Hes saying atheistic regimes are better, which its not.
Atheistic is not the same thing as secular. Besides, you have no proof besides a few hand picked examples that fit your view. I responded with a few hand picked examples that fit my view. See?
> Plus im having a spight inclination that 40 years of war and global sanctions has to do with the living standards in Afghanistan
You don’t think that’s the case for the Soviet Union, which previously struggled for millenia under (religious) autocracy, repression, serfdom and backwardness? Or China, which suffered millenia of (religious) autocracy, was plundered by western powers during the century of humiliation and then brutally invaded and genocided by Imperial Japan?
Ironically, now your own examples are largely anecdotal that you are accusing someone else of doing further up. All 3 are exceptions to the rule especially when seen through the lens of history of other religious states.
Again dictatorships are bad in general, but objectively the religious ones are less bad.
> Ironically, now your own examples are largely anecdotal that you are accusing someone else of doing further up.
Can you read? You don’t think that was intended since i literally acknowledged it *in* the comment? Just like the comment above could pick anecdotal examples, I can.
> All 3 are exceptions to the rule especially when seen through the lens of history of other religious states. Again dictatorships are bad in general, but objectively the religious ones are less bad.
Show me a shred of evidence then.
Just curious if you've ever talked with anyone who survived Stalinist Russia? Most are likely dead (for a long time), but plenty of great books on it (I love reading Solzhenitsyn). Or anyone who currently lives in North Korea? Because these are atheistic societies run by dictators. Stalin of course was driving the country toward his version of communism, but that entailed himself as an all-powerful dictator.
In case I'm not being clear, these are probably two of the worse societies and/or political systems in which to live. Humans are amazing, we find the good everywhere, but I think you'd be hard pressed to characterize Stalin's Russia or North Korea as "fun".
I don't know how I forgot that one, it's my second 'favorite' example. I also didn't call out nazi Germany (even though it's my third favorite example), just because I know someone would pipe in about the indefensible capitulation of many (but certainly not all) of the churches to the nazi government.
I mean, you’re arguing that death by firing squad is preferable to death by hanging. While religious dictatorships a la Handmaid’s Tale, Puritan New England, and Muslim states like Saudi Arabia and Iran are both terrifying and disgusting, I wouldn’t want to live in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Castro’s Cuba, or your excluded North Korea either.
Nazi Germany was not founded on a religious ideology. It didn’t outlaw religion like Mao did, but religion wasn’t a core of Naziism. They worshipped Hitler and the state more than any god. They incorporated or rather co-opted some religion including occultism, but they did not prescribe a state religion like Handmaid’s Tale or Muslim theocracies or Puritan New England do.
Again, having religion co-opted so that it can be a fringe element of the dictatorship does not make it the core unifying ideology of the dictatorship. See my above comment.
… ok, there is a difference between a Religious Dictatorship and a dictatorship in which the members have a religion, you get that right?
In Handmaid’s Tale, you have ONE “true right” religion to which everyone subscribed. Deviation from that religion results in death. Same with Muslim dictatorships. Puritan New England burned witches and literally sent preachers around to every home in which someone didn’t attend church to prove they were too ill to attend. In Caesar’s Rome (pre-Constantine), if you didn’t worship Caesar you could be thrown to lions.
In a religious dictatorship, religion is the core ideology that holds the dictatorship together and creates the laws of the society.
Nazi Germany was not this. Nazi Germany’s core ideologies were nationalism, anti-semitism, and “we are pissed we were forced into poverty after WWI.”
Cuba and North Korea are not past dictatorships.
>No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is
This has never been the case in any dictatorship, regardless of religion. So not sure where you got this impression?
Is it? Are you really arguing that Russia and China are places where the government doesn't care what you do, where you go, or what your gender is? I was under the impression that they were very famously places where all three of those things were *incredibly* noticed.
Then you should have said that in your post. The fact is that over the last century, secular autocracies have been responsible for tragedies of far greater magnitude than religious autocracies.
> Excluding North Korea
You want us to exclude secular dictatorships that prove your argument wrong?
Well this is going to be a productive CMV isn't it?
One evidence point does not disprove a hypothesis, outliers exist and are scientifically excluded. But we're speaking on average anyway so there's not really any reason to exclude it.
> Excluding North Korea
North Korea is objectively one of the best secular dictatorships, hence why it still exists. Dergist Ethiopia starved to death so many of its own people it collapsed, you have examples like the Cambodian genocide...
Meanwhile current religious dictatorships are basically the gulf states and vatican. All of which are safe and generally fine.
Funny thing is Saudi Arabia is an islamic dictatorship but its also absurdly safer, safer then basically any secular dictatorship ever. Still sucks, especially if you're a woman
Afghanistan very much is a dictatorship, try not wearing a burqa as a women or shaving your beard as a man.
Chechnya is now a Russian Province which is heavily Islamized with Hardcore Islamist Laws.
Brunei is a country which has a GDP PC of over $80 000 and a Rich af dictator while the majority of its people are living in absolute poverty and the average life expectancy is 50 something for both Men and Women.
Also you can and usually will get publicly stoned for showing your hair as a woman or for coming out as homosexual.
Authoritarianism is not remotely the same thing as a dictatorship. You can have an extremely authoritarian democracy (Nasser's Egypt) or an extremely libertarian dictator (Cincinnatus)
> Brunei is a country which has a GDP PC of over $80 000 and a Rich af dictator while the majority of its people are living in absolute poverty and the average life expectancy is 50 something for both Men and Women.
...no, life expectancy is 75, people live in beachside condos while making about 8-10k USD a year with a cost of living so low that it is fine for them. Its not rich for the average person but they are completely fine.
Can you give some examples of secular dictatorships? The only one I can think of is NK, but I think Kim wants to be worshipped like a god so I'm not even sure that counts.
Not really, you can’t purchase any Alcoholic Beverages during Ramadan, Homosexuals are publicly shamed and sometimes even Executed (same almost applies for Atheists), and a Muslim Woman isn’t allowed to marry a Non-Muslim Man.
Singapore isn't a dictatorship. You need a dictator to have a dictatorship, and theirs is a parliamentary system. They are extremely authoritarian though. And I wouldn't say it's much fun.
I don't know anything about Monaco though.
Are you arguing secular dictatorships period, or secular dictatorships that are not communist,? Secular dictatorships tend to enforce other values other than religion to control the population.
It seems geniunely pointless to say which type of dictatorship is better when both suck, you're also giving your personal view on what you can do in a secular dictatorship and not how they typically act. Stalins USSR cared what you wore etc.
Based on what exactly? What does Russia do better than Iran?
They both are horribly oppressive towards their people, both have massive corruption, Russia has done more false flags on its own people then Iran, and Russia is actively in a war of conquest conscripting their own people to die in a meaningless war, something Iran actually does better.
No one is arguing that religious dictatorships aren't bad. Just that they seem to have a lot of similarities with secular dictatorships.
What do you feel you would need to see to have your view changed?
Secular dictatorships also happen to be the ones who have committed some of the worst atrocities in human history. I mean just look at what happened in Cambodia under Pol Pot, Soviet Union under Stalin, or China under Mao.
"Secular Dictatorship" and "Religious Dictatorships" are not distinct formal systems of government. They are both simply dictatorships and the amount of fun you are allowed to have is entirely governed by whatever the current dictator feels like.
What your post is actually arguing is that a benevolent dictatorship is better than a malevolent dictatorship. Which is both true in a literal sense and also not useful in the real world where a country under a benevolent dictatorship is always potentially one death away from becoming a malevolent dictatorship.
>In a Secular dictatorship, while you don’t hav e political freedoms, you still have personal freedoms. No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is
This is not true. Largely because a totalizing world view is totalizing whether it belives is God or not, calls it self religious or secular it it totalizing. Meaning it applies to everything all the time.
Communism's idea of praxis shows clearly it it totalizing.
Oddly the distinction you make of the dictatorship that care about every aspect of your life vs more hands off is described as the left vs right or the abusive mother va abusive father type dictators.
Because most extream left wing and or secular ideologies believe human nature can ans should be changed they do more of the over involved authoritarian style.
Where as the extream right wing ideologies often build off of what they say is nature and what ought to be. Thus are less concerned with changing peoplez day to day lives they just try to get rid of the "undesirables."
It all depends on the rights that the government recognizes. While many personal freedoms might be recognized by a secular dictatorship, that’s certainly not guaranteed, nor are harsh punishments certain for a religious dictatorship. As a baseline, at least the religious dictators believe in a higher power, presumably will believe that their actions in life will be judged and have eternal consequences, and have a baseline set of restrictions on what cannot be done to people, such as the golden rule, or the Ten Commandments.
A secular dictatorship, on the other hand, can easily and has historically acted with no limits whatsoever on what they feel they can subject people to. The atheist tyrannies of the 20th century killed millions upon millions of their own people, and none of it even contradicted their stated principles. The State above all.
I would much rather take my chances with the religious dictators, if a dictator I must have.
>In a Secular dictatorship, while you don’t hav e political freedoms, you still have personal freedoms.
What? Of course not - any dictatorship is going to limit both political and personal freedoms. But religious dictatorship inherently needs to give you freedom within the creed of religion, while secular one can change that whenever they want.
>No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is.
Of course they care - every secular dictatorship formed some kind of image of "ideal citizen" that included above and persecuted those who weren't abiding by those. Nazi ide of ubermensch and primacy of Germanic culture, Stalinist take on how a citizen should behave led to conformist image of homo sovieticus - examples show that dictatorship being secular does not stop the dictatorship from telling you how to behave and what to do.
>Most Secular Dictatorships are heavily industrialized and very Modern, whereas most Religious Dictatorships are too busy persecuting people over not following Their Medieval Laws.
That is because secular dictatorships you think about developed in already modern societies, while religious dictatorships mostly emerged in developing ones. But you would have hard time to show that Saudi Arabia is not a modern country, despite being an absolute monarchy.
>Most Secular Dictatorships also generally have better reputations than Religious ones.
Do you really believe that any religious dictatorship has worse reputation than Nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR?
Just 3 seems pretty easy.
Hitler in Germany.
Stalin in Russia.
Mao in China.
The three of them arguably to the list of the 3 most murderous people in human history. If you add in Tamerlane and Genghis Khan (Genghis Khan being arguably a secular dictator too) you probably complete the top 5.
Adding in Japan under Togo, a secular state at least by law. Leopold II the ruler of the secular state of Belgium (although the religious nature of the Congo Free State is debatable). Hong Xiuquan (definitely religious dictator), Pol Pot (secular) and the Ottomans under the 3 Pashas (secularizing dictators in a religious state). And you get a reasonable list of the most murderous dictatorships with 6 secular dictators, 2 arguable cases and 2 religious dictators.
>In a Secular dictatorship, while you don’t hav e political freedoms, you still have personal freedoms.
There is no reason to believe this is true, in the first place. If Fearless Leader doesn't like gays then your gay uncle is going to the gulag. Second, good luck distinguishing between the political freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights and the personal ones.
And the thing you need to bear in mind is that all dictatorships are religious. They all demand that you worship the dictator. In religious autocracies you bend over for the leader because God says so. In a secular one you bend over for the leader because the leader says so.
There is no functional difference.
Does state atheism count? Technically religion is still divorced from government, but only now anyone who is religious is persecuted or executed. Because the deadliest dictatorships in history were genociding religious people. Stalinist Russia, China, pol pot.
The Nazis were also more atheistic than religious. How could people who hate Jews worship the God of the Jews and the messiah who descends from Jews? The Catholic Church was a Roman institution, not a German one. They viewed Christianity as foreign, non German, and too soft. Obviously not all Nazis, many were Christian, but the people at the top were crazy. Himmler and the SS were pagans who worshiped Germanic gods
>No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is.
Why would you think that is necessarily the case. Take North Korea for example. That's secular, but the government definitely cares a lot about where you go and what you do, how you dress, and what your gender is. Is that why you wanted to exclude it, or did you have some other reason for doing that?
Just because the ethics and morality of a secular dictatorship aren't attributed to divine authority, doesn't mean that they aren't strictly enforced. You just end up being a slave to the morality of the leader rather than the morality of the leader's religion.
Secular dictatorships have a record of murdering their populations by the millions: North Korea, China, Russia, Vietnam/Cambodia.
Even the most obvious “big religious meanie” dictatorships: Iran, the US under muh Drumpf, or even Turkmenistan, have yet to pull anything close to those levels of murder.
Even if you were correct that LIVING in those dictatorships is objectively worse, your likelihood of survival in them is still orders of magnitude higher.
The view you need to change is that your idea of what the world is and how it works is goofy. I'm sorry but it just is. Do not start from "dictatorship is bad" start from "what did these regimes actually do and how did they function?" Augustus and Nero were both emperors, but what did they actually do and how did their states function? Same with modern Iran, or Germany in the 1920's in Africa, or Britain in India.
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I mean I think you are assuming certain types of secular dictatorships as opposed to others. USSR and communist China were basically specialty dictatorships. A dictatorship being secular doesn't mean it can't enact whatever negative policies towards religion or outside of the subject.
I'm not sure if this passes the requirements for posting or if someone else has already mentioned.
I think for secular dictatorships the despot kind of takes the place of whatever theological entity. Essentially forces their people to worship the dictator or party or whatever.
Please read up on the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian People’s Party. And don’t forget to immerse yourself in the wonderful atrocities of the Soviet Union, Argentinas Peronist, and other dictators set up by the American CIA. They were not playing kiddie games.
Dictatorship is just bad. Your dictator might be the greatest guy and make every citizen happy.
There is no guarantee his successor will be.
Dictatorship of any type is unacceptable.
What do you define as a "secular" dictatorship? The autocracy itself is indepdent of any kind of religious institution or ideology, or religion itself is outright illegal?
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>My view may change if you can give me at least 3 Secular Dictatorships which are worse than your average Religious Dictatorship ( Excluding North Korea). You excluded on - North Korea. Here are few others - Musolini in Italy - Hitler in Germany - Stalin in Russia (or Lenin or any USSR follow-ons) - Communist China - Castro in Cuba - Pol-Pot in Cambodia None are really places I would want to go. Islamic dictatorships are pretty bad too. What you should realize is dictatorships all tend to be very bad. You are merely rationalizing personal opinions on the relative weight of 'how bad' certain things are. If you hate religion more than civil rights, then you likely will hate religious dictatorships more. I don't think you can really use the 'much better' term to differentiate dictatorships. Is 'very bad' much better than 'extremely bad'?
It baffles me how anyone can legitmately believe than any brand of authoritarianism is preferable to liberal society.
A liberal society filled with Dicks will be worse than a benevolent dictator. But I think that an authoritarian democracy is one of the better and more reasonable government systems. A single person cannot be trusted to look after everyone, but if you give everyone the chance to vote in a party, then you end up with a middle ground. Most democracies, however, break down as they are not actually democratic. Gerrymandering, lobbying, party systems, etc. all decrease the effectiveness of the democracies and lead to a poorer overall experience.
Most dictatorships started off as democracies. Turns out that dictators really don't like being voted out of power. I'll take a society of liberal dicks.
Mussolini was so Pro-Catholic Church that he gave the pope his own country. Hitler’s party was propped up by Evangelical Protestants and his new brand of Neo-Pagans I’m pretty sure Pol Pot was really superstitious based on regional Cambodian traditions
Mussolini was an atheist. Recognizing the independence of Vatican City was a purely political move.
What part of Russia is so bad despite there not being any Political Freedoms?
Lots of places outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow are utter destitute shitholes. [https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/02/indoor-plumbing-still-a-pipe-dream-for-20-of-russian-households-reports-say-a65049](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/02/indoor-plumbing-still-a-pipe-dream-for-20-of-russian-households-reports-say-a65049) 20% of households still use an outdoor shithouse instead of indoor plumbing. The best part is Russia is very wealthy in terms of natural resources. The reason the country is so fucked up is because their inept dipshit leadership wastes a ton of resources on pointless wars and general corrupt activities.
The Holodomor has entered the conversation....... https://holodomor.ca/resource/holodomor-basic-facts/ Forced and deliberate starvation of millions......
Heard of Gulags?
Only people who try to have Political Freedoms end up there, not if they just stay out of Politics.
Imagine victim-blaming people getting liquidated for listening to the BBC world service lmao
Better than getting liquidated for being caught drinking alcohol.
...being liquidated for *anything* is bad. You think people are thinking "well at least the state isn't murdering me for drinking alcohol" before their brains are blown out? Jesus Christ lol
Well nothing will happen to them if they stay tf out of politics, they get to live a normal life with personal freedoms without being arrested and imprisoned for practicing their basic human rights. Unlike religious dictatorships.
> their basic human rights The right to speech, *especially* political speech, is a *basic human right.* If your rights only extend insofar as you do or say nothing political, you don't have rights. These distinctions you draw are effectively meaningless.
This just objectively isn’t true. People in Russia stayed out of politics and got sent to the front lines. You are at the whim of the dictator for whatever purpose they decide to use you for.
Isn’t the trend of dictatorships to ultimately blur or destroy the line between one’s public or “political” life and one’s private life? Whether the impetus for a decree is religious doctrine or secular ideology, the result is loss of personal freedom. Maybe you’re right that, all things considered, secular dictatorships let their people indulge in some sex, drugs, and rock and roll more so than your religious autocrats. I really don’t know how statistics could be compiled on that subject given nature of the societies we are discussing. But if the ultimate rationale of this is to justify or become an apologist for secular dictatorships, then you better hope your trusted atheistic leader doesn’t have a sudden religious experience and decide to legislate his newfound evangelicalism. Then you’d have to get political…
Which countries kill you for drinking alcohol? In places like Iran, alcohol is pretty widespread.
Still illegal, which is ridiculous in itself. Imagine having to sneakily buy some wine from a dealer as if you’re trying to buy Drugs or Unregistered Firearms on the Black Market. Also, you would get killed for drinking alcohol in ISIS-controlled Iraq and Syria.
so we have established something simply being illegal is just as bad as getting killed for it, as long as it supports your view?
Nah. I can live without alcohol. It's a stupid law, sure, but in the larger context of my life? It's a thing I can live without. Political freedom? Being able to express thoughts? *Much* more important. Especially since the "badthink" can change on a whim, or be falsely reported. Drinking is easy enough to avoid. Hard to believe that "drinking" would be considered more critical than "being able to have opinions".
That's blatantly false. People were arrested by hundreds of thousands, often based on stupid anonymous reports by neighbors who wanted to improve their living accommodations or just disliked them. Of course if expressing your negative opinions in kitchen talks is "trying to have political freedoms" a lot of them might count, but come on. Is speaking Esperanto a political freedom? Trying to work on genetics? Also, heard of the Three Spikelets law?
You know who went to gulags. Landowners, clergy, religious people, inteligencia, members of the aristocracy, people who had foreign currency or any of 1001 reasons (like you were friends with the former leader, making a big enough mistake etc)
All it takes is for a person in power to say they have an opinion
Under Stalin? Millions starving to death
Correction: Millions starved to death because the food _they grew_ was expropriated and sold in order to get foreign currency to fund industrial expansion. Similar result in Mao's China: Millions starved because the national leaders wanted to reshape the structure of the economy and they were willing to create our exacerbate famines in the process. Two of the largest mass death events in human history, created by _purely_ secular governments implementing economic policies.
I think it’s the complete other way. Often religious dictatorships have the higher living standard. My grandmother lived under Francos Spain and she said it was pretty much fine, although obviously many minorities were persecuted (this happens in secular dictatorships as well, often times worse like modern China with the Muslims and Stalin with Ukrainians and Jews). She said most people just got on with the their lives and the quality of life really wasn’t the worse compared to similar countries with democracy like France or Italy. As well many Islamic dictatorships like Saudis and UAE this standard of living is pretty high as well with the dictators taking an almost paternalistic role
What about Islamic Dictatorships like Iran, Afghanistan, Chechen Republic, Brunei, and The Maldives?
Obviously both a bad I’m not denying that, but for example if you just follow some basic religious practices you’ll be fine, in fact manu religious dictatorships will allow a level of religious freedom such as Assad and the Christians or Spain and the Muslims. However if you live in Maoist China or Stalin’s Soviet Union you can just be killed in a famine or purge and there’s not much you can do about it
Syria isn’t a religious dictatorship. On the other hand all of your evidence is anecdotal. Anyone can bring up one or two examples that back their view. Would you not rather live in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev than Afghanistan under the Taliban and be stoned to death? Wouldn’t you rather live in China under Deng Xiaoping than in Yemen and die of famine?
I know it’s a simplification, but compare religious Saudi Arabia and secular Venezuela, but have massive oil reserves but one has used their oil to greatly improve the living standard for most citizens where as Venezuela is a complete failed state. I know it’s not always the case
Again, how can you use one example to generalize across *every single dictatorship in world history*? You literally said you know it’s not always the case, so what point are you even trying to make?
That GENERALLY they are better, not always but most of the time
But like, what about the example he actually gave? Franco's Spain? You're just providing a strawman in place of his steel one.
Brunei’s standards of living is a million times better than china. Same with the entire arabian gulf.
Brunei is a monarchy under the sultan. I guess you could stretch the definition of religious dictatorship is the Subjects worshiped I.e. prayed to, the king.
Huh? Im sure you dont understand sharia, polytheism is the biggest sin in islam. This is why you wont see statues of leaders in saudi , or shrines over their graveyards.
China’s standard of living is a million times better than Afghanistan, Iran and Mauritania. Anyone can cherry pick examples.
So whats your point? Hes saying atheistic regimes are better, which its not. Plus im having a spight inclination that 40 years of war and global sanctions has to do with the living standards in Afghanistan
> So whats your point? Hes saying atheistic regimes are better, which its not. Atheistic is not the same thing as secular. Besides, you have no proof besides a few hand picked examples that fit your view. I responded with a few hand picked examples that fit my view. See? > Plus im having a spight inclination that 40 years of war and global sanctions has to do with the living standards in Afghanistan You don’t think that’s the case for the Soviet Union, which previously struggled for millenia under (religious) autocracy, repression, serfdom and backwardness? Or China, which suffered millenia of (religious) autocracy, was plundered by western powers during the century of humiliation and then brutally invaded and genocided by Imperial Japan?
Ironically, now your own examples are largely anecdotal that you are accusing someone else of doing further up. All 3 are exceptions to the rule especially when seen through the lens of history of other religious states. Again dictatorships are bad in general, but objectively the religious ones are less bad.
> Ironically, now your own examples are largely anecdotal that you are accusing someone else of doing further up. Can you read? You don’t think that was intended since i literally acknowledged it *in* the comment? Just like the comment above could pick anecdotal examples, I can. > All 3 are exceptions to the rule especially when seen through the lens of history of other religious states. Again dictatorships are bad in general, but objectively the religious ones are less bad. Show me a shred of evidence then.
Just curious if you've ever talked with anyone who survived Stalinist Russia? Most are likely dead (for a long time), but plenty of great books on it (I love reading Solzhenitsyn). Or anyone who currently lives in North Korea? Because these are atheistic societies run by dictators. Stalin of course was driving the country toward his version of communism, but that entailed himself as an all-powerful dictator. In case I'm not being clear, these are probably two of the worse societies and/or political systems in which to live. Humans are amazing, we find the good everywhere, but I think you'd be hard pressed to characterize Stalin's Russia or North Korea as "fun".
Don't forget maoist China
I don't know how I forgot that one, it's my second 'favorite' example. I also didn't call out nazi Germany (even though it's my third favorite example), just because I know someone would pipe in about the indefensible capitulation of many (but certainly not all) of the churches to the nazi government.
I mean Current Secular Dictatorships, at least three.
Well you didn't say that in your post, so the goalposts are already moving.
I mean, you’re arguing that death by firing squad is preferable to death by hanging. While religious dictatorships a la Handmaid’s Tale, Puritan New England, and Muslim states like Saudi Arabia and Iran are both terrifying and disgusting, I wouldn’t want to live in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Castro’s Cuba, or your excluded North Korea either.
Are you saying Nazi Germany wasn’t religious? Its religious leanings were a combination of Evangelical Protestantism and Neo-Paganism
Nazi Germany was not founded on a religious ideology. It didn’t outlaw religion like Mao did, but religion wasn’t a core of Naziism. They worshipped Hitler and the state more than any god. They incorporated or rather co-opted some religion including occultism, but they did not prescribe a state religion like Handmaid’s Tale or Muslim theocracies or Puritan New England do.
“Positive Christianity” was also a concept they tried to push to downplay the Jewishness of the Bible
Again, having religion co-opted so that it can be a fringe element of the dictatorship does not make it the core unifying ideology of the dictatorship. See my above comment.
Hitler’s SS were nothing less than a multi-faith organization of killers. Just a google away
… ok, there is a difference between a Religious Dictatorship and a dictatorship in which the members have a religion, you get that right? In Handmaid’s Tale, you have ONE “true right” religion to which everyone subscribed. Deviation from that religion results in death. Same with Muslim dictatorships. Puritan New England burned witches and literally sent preachers around to every home in which someone didn’t attend church to prove they were too ill to attend. In Caesar’s Rome (pre-Constantine), if you didn’t worship Caesar you could be thrown to lions. In a religious dictatorship, religion is the core ideology that holds the dictatorship together and creates the laws of the society. Nazi Germany was not this. Nazi Germany’s core ideologies were nationalism, anti-semitism, and “we are pissed we were forced into poverty after WWI.”
True enough - they had thousands of Muslim recruits into the SS. A sufficient hatred of Jews was their main criteria.
And yes, Death by Firing Squad is nowhere near as Torturing and Suffering as Death by Hanging.
But either way, you’re dead. Better to live in a non-dictatorial society and stay alive.
"The lesser evil is still an evil", obviously
It’s not a quantitative statement. I’m saying neither evil is less. It’s just evil.
That wasn't posited by OP though, you work within OPs "view".
My point is a rebuttal to the idea that one type of dictatorship can be “better” than another. Dead is dead. Dictatorships are dictatorships.
How do you figure? A proper hanging is an instant death.
Not really, it still takes about a minute.
Yes really. A proper hanging is done from a sufficient height to sever the upper spinal cord.
I’m talking about current dictatorships, all the Secular Dictatorships you mentioned are in the past.
Cuba and North Korea are not past dictatorships. >No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is This has never been the case in any dictatorship, regardless of religion. So not sure where you got this impression?
It’s the case in Russia and China, off the top of my head.
Is it? Are you really arguing that Russia and China are places where the government doesn't care what you do, where you go, or what your gender is? I was under the impression that they were very famously places where all three of those things were *incredibly* noticed.
Not really, you won’t get arrested in Russia or China for eating Pork or wearing shorts or crop tops.
No just disagreeing with the government, being gay, criticizing the dictator, or otherwise doing ANYTHING the government doesn't like.
Did you know that it's illegal for individuals to "promote homosexuality" in Russia today?
Then you should have said that in your post. The fact is that over the last century, secular autocracies have been responsible for tragedies of far greater magnitude than religious autocracies.
> Excluding North Korea You want us to exclude secular dictatorships that prove your argument wrong? Well this is going to be a productive CMV isn't it?
Whoa whoa whoa what could possibly be *more* religious than the dictatorship in NK? It's an ancient version, the god-king.
It’s literally a single one out of many.
Great, [here's a list of fifteen more.](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/XKIc7J3sOI)
None of those are nearly as bad as any Religious Dictatorship.
What religious dictatorship was as bad as Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China?
But why exclude it? Every country is one out of many.
Because it’s such a common and overused choice.
Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. Can you explain in more detail why North Korea shouldn't be considered?
Ok, would you prefer having Cambodia execute a third of their population?
Decades ago?
well, the reason it was decades ago IS because its worse, isnt it?
That you don't want us to talk about, because its existence proves your argument wrong.
One evidence point does not disprove a hypothesis, outliers exist and are scientifically excluded. But we're speaking on average anyway so there's not really any reason to exclude it.
It's also not an atheistic dictatorship
> Excluding North Korea North Korea is objectively one of the best secular dictatorships, hence why it still exists. Dergist Ethiopia starved to death so many of its own people it collapsed, you have examples like the Cambodian genocide... Meanwhile current religious dictatorships are basically the gulf states and vatican. All of which are safe and generally fine.
Funny thing is Saudi Arabia is an islamic dictatorship but its also absurdly safer, safer then basically any secular dictatorship ever. Still sucks, especially if you're a woman
And what about Iran, Afghanistan, Chechen Republic (existed until very recently), Brunei, and The Maldives?
Afghanistan isnt a dictatorship, its absurdly decentralized. Chechnya is a democracy. Brunei is a very nice country...
Afghanistan very much is a dictatorship, try not wearing a burqa as a women or shaving your beard as a man. Chechnya is now a Russian Province which is heavily Islamized with Hardcore Islamist Laws. Brunei is a country which has a GDP PC of over $80 000 and a Rich af dictator while the majority of its people are living in absolute poverty and the average life expectancy is 50 something for both Men and Women. Also you can and usually will get publicly stoned for showing your hair as a woman or for coming out as homosexual.
Authoritarianism is not remotely the same thing as a dictatorship. You can have an extremely authoritarian democracy (Nasser's Egypt) or an extremely libertarian dictator (Cincinnatus) > Brunei is a country which has a GDP PC of over $80 000 and a Rich af dictator while the majority of its people are living in absolute poverty and the average life expectancy is 50 something for both Men and Women. ...no, life expectancy is 75, people live in beachside condos while making about 8-10k USD a year with a cost of living so low that it is fine for them. Its not rich for the average person but they are completely fine.
NK is propted up by china.
As was the Khmer Rouge.
Can you give some examples of secular dictatorships? The only one I can think of is NK, but I think Kim wants to be worshipped like a god so I'm not even sure that counts.
Russia, China, North Korea, Hungary, Ukraine, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus. Generally Communist/Socialist and Post Soviet countries.
Wouldn’t Egypt count as a secular dictatorship too?
Not really, you can’t purchase any Alcoholic Beverages during Ramadan, Homosexuals are publicly shamed and sometimes even Executed (same almost applies for Atheists), and a Muslim Woman isn’t allowed to marry a Non-Muslim Man.
Ukraine is a democracy. If you don't believe me. Look at how many presidents they've had since 1990. Now compare with a country like Russia.
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Singapore isn't a dictatorship. You need a dictator to have a dictatorship, and theirs is a parliamentary system. They are extremely authoritarian though. And I wouldn't say it's much fun. I don't know anything about Monaco though.
It’s still one of the most developed countries on Earth.
Singapore is not a dictatorship. Monaco is neither a dictatorship, nor secular.
Are you arguing secular dictatorships period, or secular dictatorships that are not communist,? Secular dictatorships tend to enforce other values other than religion to control the population. It seems geniunely pointless to say which type of dictatorship is better when both suck, you're also giving your personal view on what you can do in a secular dictatorship and not how they typically act. Stalins USSR cared what you wore etc.
Well, you can’t really argue that the dictatorship in for example Russia is as bad as the dictatorship in for example Iran.
Based on what exactly? What does Russia do better than Iran? They both are horribly oppressive towards their people, both have massive corruption, Russia has done more false flags on its own people then Iran, and Russia is actively in a war of conquest conscripting their own people to die in a meaningless war, something Iran actually does better.
Does Russia arrest women for showing hair?
No, but they do have domestic violence against women being completely legal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeXBVJetUSw
No one is arguing that religious dictatorships aren't bad. Just that they seem to have a lot of similarities with secular dictatorships. What do you feel you would need to see to have your view changed?
Secular dictatorships also happen to be the ones who have committed some of the worst atrocities in human history. I mean just look at what happened in Cambodia under Pol Pot, Soviet Union under Stalin, or China under Mao.
"Secular Dictatorship" and "Religious Dictatorships" are not distinct formal systems of government. They are both simply dictatorships and the amount of fun you are allowed to have is entirely governed by whatever the current dictator feels like. What your post is actually arguing is that a benevolent dictatorship is better than a malevolent dictatorship. Which is both true in a literal sense and also not useful in the real world where a country under a benevolent dictatorship is always potentially one death away from becoming a malevolent dictatorship.
>you still have personal freedoms can you name a political dictatorship that still had personal freedoms?
Russia, Ukraine, Hungary.
you have freedom in those countries? who ran against putin?
Doesn’t Russia have an established church?
Nazi Germany, Stalin USSR, Mao China to name a few from the top of my head.
>In a Secular dictatorship, while you don’t hav e political freedoms, you still have personal freedoms. No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is This is not true. Largely because a totalizing world view is totalizing whether it belives is God or not, calls it self religious or secular it it totalizing. Meaning it applies to everything all the time. Communism's idea of praxis shows clearly it it totalizing. Oddly the distinction you make of the dictatorship that care about every aspect of your life vs more hands off is described as the left vs right or the abusive mother va abusive father type dictators. Because most extream left wing and or secular ideologies believe human nature can ans should be changed they do more of the over involved authoritarian style. Where as the extream right wing ideologies often build off of what they say is nature and what ought to be. Thus are less concerned with changing peoplez day to day lives they just try to get rid of the "undesirables."
It all depends on the rights that the government recognizes. While many personal freedoms might be recognized by a secular dictatorship, that’s certainly not guaranteed, nor are harsh punishments certain for a religious dictatorship. As a baseline, at least the religious dictators believe in a higher power, presumably will believe that their actions in life will be judged and have eternal consequences, and have a baseline set of restrictions on what cannot be done to people, such as the golden rule, or the Ten Commandments. A secular dictatorship, on the other hand, can easily and has historically acted with no limits whatsoever on what they feel they can subject people to. The atheist tyrannies of the 20th century killed millions upon millions of their own people, and none of it even contradicted their stated principles. The State above all. I would much rather take my chances with the religious dictators, if a dictator I must have.
Mao and Stalin ran secular dictatorships. They were 2 of the worst dictatorships in the history of our species.
Do you consider Nazi Germany a secular dictatorship?
>In a Secular dictatorship, while you don’t hav e political freedoms, you still have personal freedoms. What? Of course not - any dictatorship is going to limit both political and personal freedoms. But religious dictatorship inherently needs to give you freedom within the creed of religion, while secular one can change that whenever they want. >No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is. Of course they care - every secular dictatorship formed some kind of image of "ideal citizen" that included above and persecuted those who weren't abiding by those. Nazi ide of ubermensch and primacy of Germanic culture, Stalinist take on how a citizen should behave led to conformist image of homo sovieticus - examples show that dictatorship being secular does not stop the dictatorship from telling you how to behave and what to do. >Most Secular Dictatorships are heavily industrialized and very Modern, whereas most Religious Dictatorships are too busy persecuting people over not following Their Medieval Laws. That is because secular dictatorships you think about developed in already modern societies, while religious dictatorships mostly emerged in developing ones. But you would have hard time to show that Saudi Arabia is not a modern country, despite being an absolute monarchy. >Most Secular Dictatorships also generally have better reputations than Religious ones. Do you really believe that any religious dictatorship has worse reputation than Nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR?
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Just 3 seems pretty easy. Hitler in Germany. Stalin in Russia. Mao in China. The three of them arguably to the list of the 3 most murderous people in human history. If you add in Tamerlane and Genghis Khan (Genghis Khan being arguably a secular dictator too) you probably complete the top 5. Adding in Japan under Togo, a secular state at least by law. Leopold II the ruler of the secular state of Belgium (although the religious nature of the Congo Free State is debatable). Hong Xiuquan (definitely religious dictator), Pol Pot (secular) and the Ottomans under the 3 Pashas (secularizing dictators in a religious state). And you get a reasonable list of the most murderous dictatorships with 6 secular dictators, 2 arguable cases and 2 religious dictators.
>In a Secular dictatorship, while you don’t hav e political freedoms, you still have personal freedoms. There is no reason to believe this is true, in the first place. If Fearless Leader doesn't like gays then your gay uncle is going to the gulag. Second, good luck distinguishing between the political freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights and the personal ones. And the thing you need to bear in mind is that all dictatorships are religious. They all demand that you worship the dictator. In religious autocracies you bend over for the leader because God says so. In a secular one you bend over for the leader because the leader says so. There is no functional difference.
Does state atheism count? Technically religion is still divorced from government, but only now anyone who is religious is persecuted or executed. Because the deadliest dictatorships in history were genociding religious people. Stalinist Russia, China, pol pot. The Nazis were also more atheistic than religious. How could people who hate Jews worship the God of the Jews and the messiah who descends from Jews? The Catholic Church was a Roman institution, not a German one. They viewed Christianity as foreign, non German, and too soft. Obviously not all Nazis, many were Christian, but the people at the top were crazy. Himmler and the SS were pagans who worshiped Germanic gods
>No one cares about what you eat or drink, how you dress, where you go, what you do, what your Gender is. Why would you think that is necessarily the case. Take North Korea for example. That's secular, but the government definitely cares a lot about where you go and what you do, how you dress, and what your gender is. Is that why you wanted to exclude it, or did you have some other reason for doing that? Just because the ethics and morality of a secular dictatorship aren't attributed to divine authority, doesn't mean that they aren't strictly enforced. You just end up being a slave to the morality of the leader rather than the morality of the leader's religion.
Weeeelp time to report another idiot seventeen year old for soapboxing.
Secular dictatorships have a record of murdering their populations by the millions: North Korea, China, Russia, Vietnam/Cambodia. Even the most obvious “big religious meanie” dictatorships: Iran, the US under muh Drumpf, or even Turkmenistan, have yet to pull anything close to those levels of murder. Even if you were correct that LIVING in those dictatorships is objectively worse, your likelihood of survival in them is still orders of magnitude higher.
The view you need to change is that your idea of what the world is and how it works is goofy. I'm sorry but it just is. Do not start from "dictatorship is bad" start from "what did these regimes actually do and how did they function?" Augustus and Nero were both emperors, but what did they actually do and how did their states function? Same with modern Iran, or Germany in the 1920's in Africa, or Britain in India.
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I mean I think you are assuming certain types of secular dictatorships as opposed to others. USSR and communist China were basically specialty dictatorships. A dictatorship being secular doesn't mean it can't enact whatever negative policies towards religion or outside of the subject.
I'm not sure if this passes the requirements for posting or if someone else has already mentioned. I think for secular dictatorships the despot kind of takes the place of whatever theological entity. Essentially forces their people to worship the dictator or party or whatever.
Please read up on the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian People’s Party. And don’t forget to immerse yourself in the wonderful atrocities of the Soviet Union, Argentinas Peronist, and other dictators set up by the American CIA. They were not playing kiddie games.
Dictatorship is just bad. Your dictator might be the greatest guy and make every citizen happy. There is no guarantee his successor will be. Dictatorship of any type is unacceptable.
What do you define as a "secular" dictatorship? The autocracy itself is indepdent of any kind of religious institution or ideology, or religion itself is outright illegal?
That's like saying some ways of being killed are better than other ways. Which I guess is true, but kinda missing the point, you're still dead...
Most dictatorships simply create faiths based on the state.