I’m sure we have all learned in one school or another, even if it were the school of hard knocks, that communism is a political ideology advocating a classless society, the abolition of private ownership and all sources of wealth and production being collectively owned and controlled, while atheism is the belief that there is no god. One is an ideology, while the other is a theological claim. It seems plausible that, following the fall of the Soviet Union there were far fewer communists, while the number of “people of faith” - be they theists or atheists – need not have changed significantly one way or another.

As I recall (from Sunday School perhaps?), the early Christian church, a faith filled and religious group if ever there was one, was a communist society. Acts 2, 44 – 45.

Faith need not mark out people that we would term “religious”. An example is that to be an atheist requires a great leap of faith, that is, to assent to the unprovable statement, the uprovable premise that no God exists. So, in fact, an atheist and a theist are both people of faith, they are both believers. It just happens that the formers belief is negative, while the latter is affirmative. Additionally, being an atheist need not be the same as anti-religious.

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Eudaimonia

Does this mean we're not talking about the Harlan Goat anymore? ... or Kipling ... or Frost, even?

Here's the one I am trying to teach my boys:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

William Carlos Williams

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dicksbro,

How about this one I recall (not directly) from Euclid?

"A chief had three daughters. When they came of age, he married them off."

"With the first he gave as a wedding gift, a beautiful Black Bear hide for power. He gave a Deer’s’ hide to the husband of the second. At the wedding of the third daughter, the apple of his eye, he gave the happy couple a truly dazzling gift! It was a hippopotamus hide rug which the chief had just received in trade with one of those newly discovered White Men."

"In due course, the first squaw gave birth to a healthy son. A son was also given to the second squaw. The third squaw, however, had twins!"

"Now class, does anyone know why?"

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"Didn’t ANYONE prepare Proposition 47 for today’s class?"

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"You there! Little Johnny! Can you tell me why the Chief’s third daughter had twins?"

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“Um... er... ah, is it because the Squaw on hippopotamus is equal to the Sum of the Squaws on the other two hides?"

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Eudaimonia