Cults of Personality

I set up this blog literally to illustrate a point that I made on Salient.

"Dictators such as Hitler and Stalin were not acting out of atheism, per se, if they were atheists at all. They were acting out of desire to make themselves gods.

Hitler used a fear-and-blame technique to scapegoat minority religious and social groups. Stalin outlawed a competing authority when he eliminated Russia's churches. Hitler, Stalin, Kim Il-sung, Enver Hoxha, etc – promoted in statues, busts, posters, portraits, newsreels, rallies, and parades – all attempted to secure and maintain absolute power by placing themselves in the position formerly occupied by supreme religious authorites. They attempted to turn themselves into the state god. This is not secularism, this is not atheism, these 'cults of personality' are merely religion in vicious disguise."

Obviously, I am using that definition of religion that does not include belief in supernatural entities. This is why I used small cap "gods" rather than God.

In pagan and heathen religions, despotic monarchs were often presented to the subjects as being, or being destined to become, gods. The Emperors of Japan claimed to be divine until Hirohito was forced to renounce such claims after WWII.

Later European monarchs attempted to strengthen their hold on their crowns by citing the Divine Right of Kings. This idea, utilized by the Stuart monarchs to Charles I's ultimate detriment, arose in Europe during the Middle Ages. The theory claimed that kings were answerable only to God. This idea was very useful to absolute monarchs.

Continue.