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Comment by maratd | Hacker News Reader

> Today we are experimenting with new phenomena

Pretty sure every generation from the beginning of time has thought of itself as a pioneer exposed to new forces and new phenomena. It's a bit arrogant to think that you're the one and only.

There are a multitude of other changes that have transformed our environment (agriculture, spoken language, written language, barter, commerce, etc.) over the millennia.

> There is no need for anything mystical to be involved.

And yet something mystical has been involved for thousands of years, in virtually every culture. When we tried to eradicate it forcefully (communism), bad things happened. Perhaps there's more to it than you think?

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The pace of change over the last century makes the pace over the last few thousand years look like a crawl. Agriculture was not invented and brought to the point of industrialisation within a single human lifetime. I’d wager that spoken language took a bit longer than a few decades to perfect as well. You’re not comparing like with like.

> And yet something mystical...

People need explanations for things, when they don’t have them they invent them.

> When we tried to eradicate it forcefully (communism), bad things happened

This is a little disingenuous.

Yes, states described as communist attempted to eradicate religion; to do that, they merely replaced religion with the state. The state became the church, its leaders became the saints.

Don't conflate the example of failed, corrupt Stalinist communist states with the concept of the eradication of religion, they're not at all mutually inclusive.

> The state became the church, its leaders became the saints.

Can you name a single attempt to eradicate religion that didn't end up with the very description you provide?

No, but history’s follies are not the full extent of all possibilities and potential consequences.

Stalin brought back the orthodox church after Lenin got rid of it. When Stalin died, Khruschev cracked down on the church again.

Not quite. When he took power, he ruthlessly enforced atheism and slaughtered anyone who stood in his way. Only when he was fighting for his life with the Nazis did he find the Orthodox Church useful in his efforts. After he was done with the Nazis, he went back to his old tricks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_t...

Stalin's relative clemency towards the orthodox church does give the lie to the idea that the policy is "Stalinist." It was a Leninist policy of long standing. Khruschev reverted to it despite his explicit denunciation of Stalinism.

> After he was done with the Nazis, he went back to his old tricks.

According to the article you yourself linked, he was pretty soft on them from after the war until his death.

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