This thread has run its course and there’s not much left to add so I’m going to exercise an executive move and lock the comments.
In general, I want to reiterate we are not reddit and we don’t tolerate personal attacks against other comrades. I don’t want to start banning people over this but we will if we have to.
We don’t police for every opinion users may have, so the problem is not – from the admin standpoint – that people support or don’t support religion, the problem is how people get that message across.
There’s perfectly reasonable ways to talk about this topic but honestly, if it’s clear your interlocutor is not going to change their mind, then you’re probably better off just dropping the topic.
The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism, which has fully taken over the historical traditions of eighteenth-century materialism in France and of Feuerbach (first half of the nineteenth century) in Germany—a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion.
Oh, no, comrade, you forgot your fedora and katana, which is given to us by the central committee of satanic homosexuality cabinet, which is a requisite of being atheist.
Also, we should remember that the good atheist is the one that empowers religion and serves it, and never voices out for their own interests and their companions.
Religion is not inherently bad. It can be a progressive cause in certain instances. Second Thought did a great video on that topic. Anti-theism on the other hand, is a reactionary position, as it ignores materialism, and dialectics.
How the fuck is reactionary a concept labeled by Anarchists and continued by Marx and Lenin, which confronts worldviews that are the most contrary form of Dialectics and Materialism!? Nice poisoning the well to precisely protect at all costs the FIRST and OLDEST form of classism, idealism, and reaction since its bare conception as being the opposite of what it is! BRAVO! CHAPÓ!
Anti-theism is reactionary because most people who pose as anti-theists “MLs” (specifically Hoxhaists as Hoxha banned religion) don’t see that people are still religious. They also pose that the religion is always reactionary from the very start, despite evidence suggesting otherwise. (That second thought video). The existence of religion fits well within the dialectics of nature.
I would like to bring one counter-point which shows that religion would still exist in a socialist society. And one counter-point that not everything in religion is reactionary. Stalin allowed the autonomous region of Dagestan to adopt Sharia:
We are told that among the Daghestan peoples the Sharia is of great importance. We have also been informed that the enemies of Soviet power are spreading rumours that it has banned the Sharia. I have been authorized by the Government of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic to state here that these rumours are false. The Government of Russia gives every people the full right to govern itself on the basis of its laws and customs. The Soviet Government considers that the Sharia, as common law, is as fully authorized as that of any other of the peoples inhabiting Russia. If the Daghestan people desire to preserve their laws and customs, they should be preserved.
So, your only defense is that banning religion is bad because reactionaries will react. OH WOW AND STILL YOU CAN’T SEE IT. The only valid excuse is “if you outright bann this at the get go, reactionaries will react, it needs tact, like you discussed below”, or “think like the Communists + ROC in China when fighting against the Japanese”. Or something like that, but no, you still prefer to not understand why is it that Lenin condemned religion even more than I do.
Also, again, no.
Religion to be progressive needs and demands to rupture the three omnigod concept, to rupture “universal truths” and many, many more shit it has already.
Buddhism defends that women are inferior and that bad Karma will literally make you reincarnate in lower classes.
Abrahamism as a whole is… Have you ever fucking read any sacred text, to begin with?
Religion is by nature reactionary because it’s rooted in traditions and alleged eternal unmutable powers that must be continued or “humanity doomed”, and WILL ALWAYS BECOME REACTIONARY the same way Capitalism could be seen as progressive… COMPARED WITH FEUDALISM. But sure, some video has the universal truth, nice cultist behavior.
Third. “muh human nature”. Really? This is another argument?
The fact that we as an species developed a neurology from our primate ancestors THAT MAKES US SEE SHIT THAT IT ISN’T THERE?
You know what’s also “human nature”? Drug abuse, hormone abuse(being addict to serotonine, oxitocine, etc, nothing to do with transitioning), habits in general, like slacking off, or dangerous behavior. Is “muh human nature” excuse enough for letting drugs, sexual slavery, being lazy or a cheater, alcohol abuse, etc, etc, etc run wild without any control nor trying to eradicate problems derived from taking profit from this? Why not, bro? They will get angry too!
So, your only defense is that banning religion is bad because reactionaries will react.
I never said that. There can be reactionary people in religion. Those reactionary people must be purged. But not people who believe in religion as a whole. They can (and usually are) progressive.
you still prefer to not understand why is it that Lenin condemned religion even more than I do.
Source? Also Stalin clearly allowed religion within the USSR. Does that mean he’s a revisionist now?
Religion to be progressive needs and demands to rupture the three omnigod concept, to rupture “universal truths” and many, many more shit it has already.
For religion to be progressive, it must cause an advancement in some way towards a communist or Socialist mode of production. Religion definitely fits this category. You seem to have more a Liberal definition.
Religion is by nature reactionary because it’s rooted in traditions and alleged eternal unmutable powers that must be continued or “humanity doomed”
It looks like you never read the sacred texts yourself. Curious.
Also I don’t really care about your rambling at the end as it is nothing but strawmanning.
My guess is that their source is Lenin’s “On the Significance of Militant Materialism” but it would be much appreciated if @VictimOfReligion can verify. (This reply is also a response to VictimOfReligion)
"The most important thing — and it is this that is most frequently overlooked by those of our Communists who are supposedly Marxists, but who in fact mutilate Marxism — is to know how to awaken in the still undeveloped masses an intelligent attitude towards religious questions and an intelligent criticism of religions.
On the other hand, take a glance at modern scientific critics of religion. These educated bourgeois writers almost invariably “supplement” their own refutations of religious superstitions with arguments which immediately expose them as ideological slaves of the bourgeoisie, as “graduated flunkeys of clericalism”.
The summary goes that we should know how to get the masses to question religion (and especially its structural form) in an intelligent manner (as opposed to the Liberal’s form of militant atheism, which handles this issue in a more classist manner and has failed to address the ideological weaponry of the Church which is also used by the ruling class)
However, in his “The Attitude of the Worker’s Party to Religion” he denounces attempts at a “war on religion” (the active and forced suppression of religion) as this would only revive interest in religion and prevent it from really dying out.
“And in 1877, too, in his Anti-Dühring, while ruthlessly attacking the slightest concessions made by Dühring the philosopher to idealism and religion, Engels no less resolutely condemns Dühring’s pseudo-revolutionary idea that religion should be prohibited in socialist society. To declare such a war on religion, Engels says, is to “out-Bismarck Bismarck”, i. e., to repeat the folly of Bismarck’s struggle against the clericals (the notorious “Struggle for Culture”, Kulturkampf, i.e., the struggle Bismarck waged in the 1870s against the German Catholic party, the “Centre” party, by means of a police persecution of Catholicism). By this struggle Bismarck only stimulated the militant clericalism of the Catholics, and only injured the work of real culture, because he gave prominence to religious divisions rather than political divisions, and diverted the attention of some sections of the working class and of the other democratic elements away from the urgent tasks of the class and revolutionary struggle to the most superficial and false bourgeois anti-clericalism. Accusing the would-be ultra-revolutionary Dühring of wanting to repeat Bismarck’s folly in another form, Engels insisted that the workers’ party should have the ability to work patiently at the task of organising and educating the proletariat, which would lead to the dying out of religion, and not throw itself into the gamble of a political war on religion.”
[…]
“We must combat religion—that is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism. But Marxism is not a materialism which has stopped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses in a materialist way. The combating of religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching, and it must not be reduced to such preaching. It must be linked up with the concrete practice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion. Why does religion retain its hold on the backward sections of the town proletariat, on broad sections of the semi-proletariat, and on the mass of the peasantry? Because of the ignorance of the people, replies the bourgeois progressist, the radical or the bourgeois materialist. And so: “Down with religion and long live atheism; the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!” The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois uplifters. It does not explain the roots of religion profoundly enough; it explains them, not in a materialist but in an idealist way.”
So yeah. From what I can tell going by what’s going on in these threads, the question of religion seems to be a very divisive topic within Left-wing discourse. (iirc these discussions also existed back in the GZD subreddit prior to its quarantine) I personally believe religion holds us back generally but that doesn’t mean we should immediately dismiss religious socialist movements (i.e. Sandinistas, Gaddafi, Ba’athism, etc.) as long as they are anti-imperialist. (Note: Patsocs, which are also religious “socialists,” are not anti-imperialist as they live in (and support) an imperialist country and thus they never experienced struggle against imperialism. Thus patsocs are undeserving of support)
Once Socialism wins, the decline of religion would be inevitable anyway, as more of the masses find less reason to take the Opium which is religion. Let a drug addict reform by providing them with basic necessities in life and they will no longer find need in the drugs which they used to fill that gap. Take their drugs forcefully instead and you only get an angry drug addict suffering from withdrawal.
ik this is a controversial topic by the looks of it so if I have made any errors and/or misinterpretations feel free to correct me.
I kind of answered this in another thread in this post, if you look further down, which is a condensed and simplofied version of this, but here people think I am for giving religious a taste of their own medicine without even having asked the right questions nor anything else than assumptions while I was speaking only of religions themselves.
You provided a more insightful answer than anything VictimOfReligion provided. This is one of the few arguments that I actually agree with. Thanks for your answer in the midst of a warzone, comrade.
Lmao yeah, theocracism is closer to socialism, and I’m using the liberal definiton.
And strawman? You dream, I’m demonstrating to you how your reasoning sounds, oh, by the way, I had to read the Bible four time as a theist, one as a questioning agnostic, and the fifth time was when I understood that the mere Bible is evidence AGAINST Abrahamism.
Not to mention the whole three timdza week of having to study Bible related stuff time and time again.
Now I see you hold not a bit of an idea about what you are trying to defend nor what I even say, since I never said “prosecute and kill believers” or whatever they had, are, and will do to unbelievers, even being other branches of theism.
“cUrIoUs”
And many feminists are also terfs or reactionary as fuck. Under your constant rule of three, sexism must be protected at all cost too. You’ve been called out already.
Hey man, you might wanna take a break and stop putting words in my mouth. I get you are emotionally invested but calm down, jesus christ (no pun intended)
Nice touch poisoning the well, but it was a rational thought what made me realize that religion are not to keep safe if we want to achieve communism.
But nothing to be impressed to use this sort of tactics against a crític when you’ve been also non stopped using soecial pleadings and ignoring fucking literally history to defend your point.
How does it feel to make you understand the gravity of what you are saying? Hitting the cognitive dissonance, or still not?
"Noooooooooooooo! It doesn’t matter that religion is reactionary idealism!!! It has nothing to do with Dialectical Materialism!!! Marx and Lenin never said anything bad about religion!!! Noooooooo!!! I don’t know what history is!!! I am physically unable to study modern religions unless it is un a vacuum in the most liberal way to do shit noooooooooo!!! "
Going against religion is undialectical. It presupposes that religion has no inherent change, and that its base is always reactionary and unchanging. Religion has changed, and always will change. It can be progressive, or it can be inherited by reactionaries for the purpose of fulfilling their own reactionary ideology. This is what marxists should oppose. Reactionary people who utilise religion for their own benefit, but not religion itself.
Okay, why religion gets a free pass when literally socdem, nazol, patsoc, monsoc, etc also exists?
Isn’t it “aNtIdIaLeCtICaL” to want a change in the system when its obvious that capitalists ideologies ALSO change? For example, Carlists, (Spanish Imperialists, basically) also portray themselves as something “progressive teehee”, yet we know it can’t be.
Or even there are also Gustavo Buenismo, also called “Atheist Catholicism” (an incredibly reactionary bullshit about protecting traditions and cristofascism and whatnot). Isn’t it oximoronic too?
Let me tell you something so you get it:
To bent is to be the most reactionary. This is why “Socdem is the soft hand of Fascism” and “Scratch a Liberal and a Fascist bleeds”.
Hey, guess what!
The soctheo is the soft hand of Theofascism. And scratch a progressive theist, and a bigot fundamentalist bleeds.
why religion gets a free pass when literally socdem, nazol, patsoc, monsoc, etc also exists?
Religion is not an ideology. It is based on faith on a being with certain customs, not political ideas that a person must follow. Also monsoc is a joke ideology, with very few people actually supporting it.
Isn’t it “aNtIdIaLeCtICaL” to want a change in the system when its obvious that capitalists ideologies ALSO change?
Strawman, yet you accuse people of fallacies. Curious. Also you didn’t read anything I wrote. I know the laws of dialectics.
For example, Carlists, (Spanish Imperialists, basically) also portray themselves as something “progressive teehee”
Here’s a quote from Lenin:
Imperialism is as much our “mortal” enemy as is capitalism. That is so. No Marxist will forget, however, that capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism, and that imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly capitalism. Hence, it is not every struggle against imperialism that we should support. We will not support a struggle of the reactionary classes against imperialism; we will not support an uprising of the reactionary classes against imperialism and capitalism.
Progress isn’t about what you say. Your actions matter more than your intentions. Progress is about advancement. Reactionary is about regression. The spanish imperialists may have been progressive at one point, but they certainly are not nowadays especially since socialist nations exist. You congeal an idea that is based on the rigid structure, yet you concern yourself about dialectics. Curious.
scratch a progressive theist, and a bigot fundamentalist bleeds.
This is fundamentally not true. Let’s take LGBT people as an example. LGBT people are ‘clearly’ progressive according to your definition, so according to statistics, 42% of LGBT people belong in Christianity in the US. Are the LGBT christians now bigot fundamentalists? Some (a small minority) may be. But most of them certainly aren’t. Just because people identify with a religion does not mean it affects their lives on a daily basis. I identify as an atheist. I don’t see this affecting my life in a significant manner. And so many others will follow the same even if they follow a religion or not (for the most part).
That is literally the case though. Islamic Sharia for example is a political framework for how to run a state Islamically, it also tells individuals how to live their life down to the most minute details. It’s not a separate text, the rulings are compiled from the Quran and Hadith and collectively referred to as Sharia (it literally means law in Arabic). As far as I know, this kind of legal framework exists in some Jewish sects as well as the Old Testament for Christians (the sects that still recognize it as Christian text).
I’m not claiming that those three religions are the only ones to exist but Christianity and Islam are number 1 and 2 respectively on a global scale and they are followed by over 50 percent of the world population source.
So, a man made set of rules, that explain in dogmatic ways how the world and politics must be understood and run, isn’t in any sort an ideology.
Because it can be mixed with “actual ideologies”
Good thing people don’t mix ideologies, like Nazism and Socialism even if just trying, and ends being just Nazism with aesthetics… Oh, no, it happens. I wonder what happens with TheoSocialists… Oh no, theocracism with aesthetics.
Dude. Stop.
You’re just ignoring history since Mesopotamia while diving in echo chamber attitudes just to keep jerking off with the same people that ain’t able to get shit like why both Marx and Marxists and Anarchists were rabid Anti-Theist.
It’s like saying “oh, no, I know evolution real, but still it’s all creation, aleluya” and see no problem with that.
BTW peope is capable of holding contradictory beliefs, like being even black and a white supremacist, this argument of LGBT people holding to Christianity due to indoctrination says nothing. Christianity at its core is still bigoted, yes.
So, a man made set of rules, that explain in dogmatic ways how the world and politics must be understood and run, isn’t in any sort an ideology.
Religion isn’t an ideology. Religion (especially the larger ones) isn’t made by just one person, but usually a collective of people who have the same faith. They believe in God.
TheoSocialists… Oh no, theocracism with aesthetics.
Stop going to the polcompball political ideologies and actually think for a second. Does that ideology actually exist, if so, does a significant number of people uphold it? “TheoSoc” does not fit either of the categories.
the same people that ain’t able to get shit like why both Marx and Marxists and Anarchists were rabid Anti-Theist.
You think Marx is an anti-theist? Such “schoolboy behaviour” as Marx put it:
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Also anarchists are not marxists, and Anarchists are individualists who share nothing alike with Marxism. “MLs” who are anti-theist are not marxist at all, but rather revisionist. Enver Hoxha is one example. Same with the leaders Post-Stalin USSR which banned religion.
BTW peope is capable of holding contradictory beliefs
So every LGBT Christian is a bigot fundamentalist? Good to know that you despise Christianity so much it actually overshadows your opinions on the characteristics of the person because of what they believe in. Also you fallen into the trap of Identity Politics, which is exactly what I feared would happen.
Aren’t religions manmade? Really? Are you saying seriously this?
Or, if you refer to individual…
Oh, boy, you haven’t heard of Josiah’s reforms in Israel, the birth of the current notion of Abrahamic god…
Religions ARE ideologies, and it has been like this since ancient times.
You’re just special pleading nonsense. You have no argument regarding this, only “faith and God”. So? Fascism in Italy and Spain and Portugal was also “faith and god”, they just added patriotism to the equation, being even more similar to when theocracy was implemented in city states of the Crescent Fertile and many other regions.
“theosocialism doesn’t exist!!” well, they go by names such as “theology of liberation”, for example.
Also, nice quote from Marx describing Religions as a palliative drug that is given to people to stop complaining and make their miserable lifes a little more easy to handle, by calling it literally OPIUM, which, I hope you don’t go full apologetic and try to spin it to have a different meaning, which… Have you read the rest of it? About how only after getting rid off religion happens something?
Oh, and I see that Lenin was a revisionist by your own standards, nice bullshit you made there, “comrade”. I’m the revisionist for understanding that religions are manmade ideologies.
Then,you go crying because you ain’t capable of distinguish individuals from ideology, cried “Idpol” when we thought there was consensus on class reductionism, yada yada.
Frankly, it shows how literally you’re all brainwashed by religion to the point you’re doing their job for free.
Also, nice quote from Marx describing Religions as a palliative drug that is given to people to stop complaining and make their miserable lifes a little more easy to handle, by calling it literally OPIUM, which, I hope you don’t go full apologetic and try to spin it to have a different meaning, which…
You do realize that Marx was alive during the 1800’s and that yes in fact they did have a very different conception of opium. It should also be noted that Marx was a regular opium user.
Have you read the rest of it? About how only after getting rid off religion happens something?
Is your problem that you can’t find the “abolish religion immediately” button? Check next to the “communism now” button.
Oh, and I see that Lenin was a revisionist by your own standards, nice bullshit you made there, “comrade”.
How are they claiming Lenin was a revisionist? Have you even read Lenin?
"But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an “intellectual” question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.
That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Programme; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various “Christians”. But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all; nor does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development."
Lenin
.
“We should remember that Social-Democracy’s strength lies in the unity of the broad masses of the proletariat, and that such unity, owing to the splitting, disuniting, and dulling conditions of capitalism, is not achieved with immediacy, but only at the cost of persistent effort and tremendous patience. We should remember the experiences of our European comrades, who consider it their duty to show an attitude of comradely concern even towards the workers who are members of the Catholic unions and try not to antagonise them by treating their religious and political prejudices with contempt, but persistently, tactfully, and patiently make use of every act of the political and economic struggle in order to enlighten them and bring them closer to the class conscious proletariat on the ground of common struggle.”
Lenin
.
“We shall have no difficulty in overcoming their inconsistency, for our views are supported by history itself, are supported at every step by reality. If our pamphlet has not taught them Social-Democracy, our revolution will. To be sure, those workers who remain Christians, who believe in God, and those intellectuals who defend mysticism (fie upon them!), are inconsistent too; but we shall not expel them from the Soviet or even from the Party, for it is our firm conviction that the actual struggle, and work within the ranks, will convince all elements possessing vitality that Marxism is the truth, and will cast aside all those who lack vitality.”
Lenin
.
“This is one of those current objections to Marxism which testify to a complete misunderstanding of Marxian dialectics. The contradiction which perplexes these objectors is a real contradiction in real life, i. e., a dialectical contradiction, and not a verbal or invented one. To draw a hard-and-fast line between the theoretical propaganda of atheism, i. e., the destruction of religious beliefs among certain sections of the proletariat, and the success, the progress and the conditions of the class struggle of these sections, is to reason undialectically, to transform a shifting and relative boundary into an absolute boundary; it is forcibly to disconnect what is indissolubly connected in real life. Let us take an example. The proletariat in a particular region and in a particular industry is divided, let us assume, into an advanced section of fairly class-conscious Social-Democrats, who are of course atheists, and rather backward workers who are still connected with the countryside and with the peasantry, and who believe in God, go to church, or are even under the direct influence of the local priest—who, let us suppose, is organising a Christian labour union. Let us assume furthermore that the economic struggle in this locality has resulted in a strike. It is the duty of a Marxist to place the success of the strike movement above everything else, vigorously to counteract the division of the workers in this struggle into atheists and Christians, vigorously to oppose any such division. Atheist propaganda in such circumstances may be both unnecessary and harmful—not from the philistine fear of scaring away the backward sections, of losing a seat in the elections, and so on, but out of consideration for the real progress of the class struggle, which in the conditions of modern capitalist society will convert Christian workers to Social-Democracy and to atheism a hundred times better than bald atheist propaganda. To preach atheism at such a moment and in such circumstances would only be playing into the hands of the priest and the priests, who desire nothing better than that the division of the workers according to their participation in the strike movement should be replaced by their division according to their belief in God. An anarchist who preached war against God at all costs would in effect be helping the priests and the bourgeoisie (as the anarchists always do help the bourgeoisie in practice). A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could. A Marxist must be able to view the concrete situation as a whole, he must always be able to find the boundary between anarchism and opportunism (this boundary is relative, shifting and changeable, but it exists). And he must not succumb either to the abstract, verbal, but in reality empty “revolutionism’˜ of the anarchist, or to the philistinism and opportunism of the petty bourgeois or liberal intellectual, who boggles at the struggle against religion, forgets that this is his duty, reconciles himself to belief in God, and is guided not by the interests of the class struggle but by the petty and mean consideration of offending nobody, repelling nobody and scaring nobody—by the sage rule: “live and let live”, etc., etc.”
Lenin
Before answering, have you read what I said regarding what to do with religion in this same post?. Because I never even referred to the "stop religion at once button"and stopped reading beyond that, already knowing about contextual tactics from Lenin too, you know?
People can have spiritual beliefs apart from the material world y’know. Hell the Global South, which is the most prone to revolution, is deeply religious. Shit like this is what prevents people like Gaddafi from further radicalization.
It’s okay to be religious, and this is coming from a non religious person.
"the global south and the poorest people are significantly more likely to hold reactionary views like say about LGBTQ+ people for example, and they are the most prone to revolution.
it’s okay to be a biggot, and this is coming from a non biggot."
you probably
what your arguing for is called tailism chasing behind the worst views of the working people in a shit attempt to appeal to them, this is patsoc talking points 101.
people especially the poorest people tend to be more religious because it is a form of escapism it isnt a coincidence quality of life and % of religious people are linked in opposing directions.
also it is NOT ok to be part of a cult that asks you to indoctrinate your children into it thats fucked and abusive and it is NOT ok to be part of a cult that tells you to hate others and all the most popular religions in the world fit that description so until the world gets some less garbage cults imma have to argue against imaginary friends and the opioid of the masses just on practical terms alone.
Woah, easy tiger. Never said anything about bigotry, this is about alienating the majority of the population with a belief you can’t prove yourself.
But now that you mentioned it, bigotry and imperialism go hand in hand. I know Seanchai has spoken adamantly about this. It wasn’t till many decades of socialist construction that Cuba was able to put in the new Family Code. There is still much conservatism in the Chinese public, but there is work being done.
Also never advocated for cults or religious institutions. Those are reactionary yes, but to abolish them would be completely separating the party from the masses. Look at how shitty the DRA was. Look at the conservative religious rebound after the fall of the Eastern Block. These institutions need to be put under socialist control to prevent reactionary indoctrination. If not legalized they will go underground in forms of cults, with an extreme counter revolutionary nature.
I take it you have traumatic experience with religion and thus are emotionally invested. I’m not discrediting your experience, just stating atheism isn’t a prerequisite to socialist construction.
Heyyyy guess what goes hand in hand too with imperialism! Guess what? Guess which ideologies are fostered and given resources to keep poor countries bigot and indoctrinated into lethargic inmovement. Guess what, guess what!
Oh, but no matter, you like to lick the boots of precisely one of the things Lenin claim against and even there was a campaign about why religion is contrary towards socialism, but YOUR feelings are the correct ones, ain’t it?
They make a valid point about the DRA and the reactionary takeover of religious institutions in the post USSR states. State atheism encouraged reactionaries to weaponize religion to radicalize anti-socialists. What according to you should be done to avoid this in modern socialist states?
State atheism encouraged reactionaries to weaponize religion to radicalize anti-socialists
Huge problem with that is that every fucking thing done against even the blatant opulence, power and corruption of priesthood is ALWAYS seen as attack on religion and encourage reactionaries to weaponize religion to radicalize anti-socialists. Always, without any single exception.
You are correct, but its important to understand that this stuff isn’t an absolute, there are certain tolerances that exist. Not every offended party will react the same, and sure the extremists will never change but the average religious person is still human, and will be motivated firstly by their material conditions, not whatever the clergy or imam says.
And in Afghanistan for example the tolerance for state atheism simply was not there. The people were not educated enough and saw the government’s policy as unacceptable. The soviet union however used a less heavy hand when dealing with their religious populations, someone else in the thread mentioned Stalin’s speech on Sharia as an example.
Agree mostly. So i must add we are mostly talking about the conditions we live in, that is, christianity tradition and domination. Note that i don’t mind (currently) for example ba’athists who are often religious, because there the contradictions look otherwise, social manifestation of religion is antiimperialist there and proimperialist here. But note the question of current Afghanistan. Nobody here said Taliban is cool, but we were still rooting for its victory against USA because it was a bigger contradiction. Now that this is mostly resolved, the lesser contradictions started to resurface in discussion.
And after Afghanistan we have KSA which is old school religious monarchy, then we have Iran when the issues of religious oppression are certainly legit despite being hijacked by libs, and so on and on.
Again, principles vs tactics, just as Lenin and Stalin did.
Ultimately, religious “marxists” and religious socialists are people we should not have any problem striking at the common enemy with, but we should be very wary that marching with them would not lead us in bog.
Completely defund any sort of privilege nor protection to any cult, aka, religion. A church wants to open? Ask the Vatican. A Mosque? A Buddhist temple? The same. A church, mosque, kingdom hall, temple, whatever can’t be sustained? It’s going to be a nice library.
Open forums where religion can be questioned, disputed all the misdeads it made and the harm and lies it does as of now, protecting skeptics, critics and open platform the victims of religion to the public, sponsored, making it the most possible to not be victims of violent assaults, which, every. single. religion. is. guilty. of.
Then, on the other hand, absolutely prohibit religious influence in the state nor statal organisms, such as the elimination of religious propaganda in school, and also to ban minors to be able to enter temples and any other form of indoctrination since… Let’s be frank, have you ever read religious texts? If they weren’t considered religious, no minor would be near them and only in the adults section.
And then, a constant education on how reality works, which is Dialectical and Material, not magical, not spiritual, not theistic, not idealistic, not anything that religion tried to explain about based on their own collective ignorance of the time while drooling over owning absolute control over people…
This is super simple, it is not polished at all, etc, but the general direction of this is enough.
It would be nice, if daring, to prohibit any ideology that promotes hatred towards women, LGBTA+, protecting all the traditions at all cost, specially the harmful ones, demand killings of animals, pseudoscience (such as creationism, faith healing, etc), classism, etc, regardless of any allegations of deities or not, and see how many religions survive the test… But people her would cry about how some of those ideologies must be protected at all cost, and most of you, will not see the alarms regarding it.
I haven’t seen anyone claim that we need to “protect religion at all costs”, and everything you’ve said is fairly reasonable. Nobody here will oppose secularizing the state, which is much of what the first half of your suggestion is. I think where they take issue is the idea that deeply religious people need to be confronted with these ideas in such an immediate manner.
To exclude them or antagonize them is only going to entrench them in their religious views, or even worse radicalize them into anti-coms. Wouldn’t it be more sound to simply secularize the state and allow people to be educated in socialist principles? I agree wholeheartedly that religious institutions deserve no funding or support from the state, but to actively antagonize religion is only asking for religion to be used as ammunition against your socialist project.
The problem is that even the first half of their comment would be vehemently opposed by the majority of the population where I’m from (and likely many other places too). Any popular conversations about secularizing the state always turn into shit slinging contests and the shit is primarily from the anti-secular side. My own family members are quite reactionary and mald at my most lukewarm suggestions of removing the article that says that Islam is the religion of the country. The article in English and Arabic. That article fails to give rights to the other religious groups in the country (which only some are mentioned in the constitution) and doesn’t even acknowledge the various religions that are unrecognized and lack of belief as well.
This is just the legal side, things on the ground are even more bleak.
And still was downvoted, even if not by you. Even his reasonable position is attacked HERE of all places in ML SPACE.
What ML are those, who rally do defend nor religious people, but RELIGIONS, which is happening here. As you see it is not him who can’t make this distinction. What ML’s are those that read the wiki article about historicity of Jesus posted elswhere here and upvote that fallacious nonsense? It leads me to conclusion they are the same when reading marxist theory, like basically everything about philosophy where religion is harshly denied.
Although I haven’t seen anyone outright defending religious institutions, I can only imagine that the downvotes are from those that are probably religious themselves and take offense to being called reactionary and such. I don’t doubt one minute that religious institutions are dangerous if allowed to exist in the form they do today, and I am certain that most people here believe so too. It can be a difficult thing to confront especially for those who have been raised religious or live in highly religious communities to be told that the faith they believe in is inherently evil. And victim of religion here doesn’t hold any punches so its no surprise that they’ve managed to strike some nerves, lol.
downvotes are from those that are probably religious themselves and take offense to being called reactionary and such.
You are probably right, but this makes my argument even stronger, they even downvoted “papacy is reactionary”. Marxism is explicitly antireligious in principles, even if that can be taken aside in tactics for a long time.
Which leads us to yet another common problem which is recurring in case of many things, not only religion. Confusing matters of principle with matters of tactics. Hell, menshevism started in exact same manner even if not the same matter.
They, unfortunately, are reactionary in this question, even if that contradiction is currently lesser than others. In this thread, that question is stated as primary and here we are.
And victim of religion here doesn’t hold any punches so its no surprise that they’ve managed to strike some nerves, lol.
Yeah lol he doesn’t, for him this issue is more important than for others. I don’t see why we must pull our punches, other comrades certainly don’t when it comes to other issues such as feminism, trans rights etc.
Again i would invoke Lenin who never mistaken principles and philosophy from tactics and he was absolutely harsh on religion while courting religious sects and muslims oppressed by mainstream orthodoxy.
It’s like people reading about biological evolution and think “hummm this surely doesn’t applies to humans, because the Pope says that we are special hum hum hummmmm”
Not sure about english, because i read Lenin in polish, but the seer disdain and pretty wide usage for the word “klechostwo” says it all.
Funniest of all, this exact position of yours from few posts above is pretty close to that which is espoused by CPC. There is even example what happens there when a religion strays from the lines - Falun Gong. And no one here criticizes what CPC did to them.
Yet in the white world we have cults in which FG completely pales in comparison to, like all major christian denominations. And relations of those to socialist states and communist parties are exactly the same as FG to PRC and CPC, but when socialist states did to them 1/50 of the oppression CPC did to FG, it’s suddenly “too much” and it’s widely criticized.
How nice to see that the ages old difference between “dangerous sect” and “good religion” which is just the sheer size of it and amount of power it gathered, is raising its head here, unchanged.
the power structures that support the Amish, the LDS, the FLDS, the Family, and Jehovah’s Witnesses need to be dismantled piece by piece in Amerika. sex abuse, apocalyptic cults skating by on the principle of “freedom of religion” and earning millions upon millions of dollars… they need to be destroyed. same with Osteen and MegachurchismTM.
idk about the cults in Poland and eastern europe, I’m sure they’re disturbed as hell too. just use any opportunity I can to shit on these specific Amerikan cults.
Problem is that every single Christian sect has the same Bible as those like the JW have, then going on the “debate” of which cults are cults? And then majoritary religions will go and protect those obvious dangerous cults to maintain their privileges under “freedom of religion.”…
Only place I’m seeing JWs are starting to get their legality taken off, is in Norway, while in China they were never legal.
I don’t disagree with you, Christianity, explicitly fascistic Christian belief, maintains an iron grip on many nations and its power structures need to be systematically dismantled. I do also believe that it is a pragmatic idea to pinpoint the most powerful and detrimental sects of Christianity and fight against their growth (whatever that actually looks like from a praxis standpoint). Religions with sects and that went through schisms are entrenched into the earth like no other octopus’s tentacles, and there are a lot of tentacles with varying degrees of power and of negative consequence. I am not saying the ideological quirks and silly Christian infighting matter all that much, but the varying degrees of power these sects wield does. Am I making sense?
Yes, you are. And from a praxis standpoint, is simply counterpropaganda, and scientific education (specially biology and astrophysics) what cures cultist mentality.
While all religion is dumb and bullshit, I think it can be helpful to look at religions based on how much they tolerate people being members of the religion while not actually giving too many shits about the religion. A deus vult catholic and a mormon are going going to be at about the same level of batshit detachment from reality, but it’s been my experience that you’ll meet a lot more self professed catholics who don’t bother actually doing the bare minimum their religion expects them to than you would mormons.
Yeah, sure, and those are the “cultural [insert religion]” which won’t give a damn if the institution is faded away, making this situation even less complicated that people here is trying to portray as.
Agreed, I’m more in the “anti-theist” camp than the religious tolerance camp as they were, but the destructive effects religion has in general can vary in severity by religion and local cultural histories. It should be obvious the overwhelmingly negative, wide-reaching influence Catholocism has on the people, as well as the extreme influence it has on world politics for instance, contrasts pretty harshly to a native religion with many followers like Vodun. Numerous syncretic indigenous religions have arisen out of the colonized ashes of Catholic imperialism, and those colonized peoples’ belief systems are not what’s preventing revolution.
I have no disagreements with anyone criticizing the iron grip Christianity wields over Christian-state policymaking or the horrific cultural ideals propagated by religious groups. Mostly just focusing on cults in the U.S. like the JWs and LDS that wield significant political power and capital (more than you’d think!), while harboring (more like promoting) sex pests and preaching hate-speech apokalypsis.
I’m with you, and I do have consideration with context, even though I will for sure not treat animal sacrifice as a non significant matter, since we are talking about the gratuitous slaughter of sentient beings of which even some theorize as “animals as a societal class bellow the working class”, and even science is recognizing their intelligence, which has been drawn back precisely by religions.
The thing is to compare religions like other similar power structure:
Is the same an Spanish Monarchist than a Hawaiian one?
This is the fule of thumb I use.
Also, regarding cults, I know of the LDS church, but not many of the political influence JWs hold, since it’s a religion of political asceticism(or to not partake in any political issue, only what the Governing Body(Popes) says to do).
We basically don’t have many cults in Poland and their are jumping the fringes and present themselves as innocent as possible (which every religion always does when facing stronger opposition, only growing teeth and claws as it gain it) because religious landscape is dominated by the single huge church that goes hand to hand with capitalist state in eliminating all the real opposition for either. It’s naturally bit more complicated in multiethnic and multireligious countries like Russia but even there they went right back to the altar throne alliance really fast after capitalism was restored.
Well it’s not exactly monolithic, there is a lot of more or less silent internal strife like in every mafia and at least one borderline schism, but it is a single denomination centralised by organized hierarchy from the up to bottom which boast membership of officially 85% population.
Figures of practicing, according to church itself, are (of that 85%) 40% attending to mass regularily and 16% recieving communion.
Yep, completely.
It’s like “REVOLUTION! WE WILL NOT RESPOND TO OUR OWN CRUELTY! BLOOD! DEATH TO ALL BUT US!!!.. Nonononononono… No, come on, you can’t just treat the megabillonaires that rule religions, come on, that’s too much, they are the main collaborators with everything that is against us and many more, but please, dude, it’s reactionary to deal with them like they dealed with us”.
Like, they can’t even fucking grasp how religions even HAVE CAPITALS. PHYSICAL, STATAL, POLITIFAL CAPITALS, and still not see it.
I would never think i would see “papacy is reactionary” downvoted here but alas. You seem to have developed a fan or two who are downvoting your comments few minutes after you write it. Truly dialectical XD
Well the downvotes is commonly taken as “disagree”. Without comment i assume it is indeed about this. So either this thread alone is brigaded or, more worrying, we have papists around here posing as marxists.
Yeah, why else would you not want sacerdots to hold legal privileges such as not being legally forced to rat out sexual predators, the #1 issue inside basically every single legalized religion in Spain, for example?
Not even bending to at least accept legal equity towards the priesthood is also a transgression, when this would protect the believers even more? Come on, I’d like an answer from a believer:
Do you think that the sacerdotal class should remain privileged even in a socialist system?
Not directly, read between lines, and you will see how eager people here is to protect this reactionary and victims factory as much as they can.
Regarding the rest of what you said, two things:
Religious people are the most entitled collective everywhere they are stablished as some sort of majority and they all have victim/persecution complex even when they are the top privileged group, and if they are equilized with the rest, they will literally believe they are persecuted like the worst kind of bullies that they already are. So a lot of emotional gymnastics have to be made, and still, religious will get anti-com, since their ideologies are also already anti-com. Remember, the ideology is inherently theocracism.
And second: would not be a general reaction from any non-com to become rabid anti-com whenever socialism rises already? Doesn’t it happen already?
So, how to handle it?
And another question, why the special pleading?
Fuck off, do you know what is called in the phylosophical context “muh spirituality”? IDEALISM. THE OPPOSITE OF MATERIALISM. THEY ARE OPPOSITE. THEY ARE NOT ABLE TO MIX, BECAUSE MATERIALISM DENIES SPIRITUALITY, AKA, IDEALISM.
As idealist as dismissing fascism, whip I never said to dismiss, but to educate against as communism educates against monarchism, capitalism, feudalism… And THEOCRACIES. “But mu-” shut up, if religion held no political power, explain Vatican, Meka, Tibet, and all the theocracist power and states ruled in all of history.
“but muh spiri-” shut up.
Why is it something man made and not free from both materialism and dialectics, forced to be considered special and not be regarded as idealist reactionarism a la socdem, nazbol, etc?
Nice touch how they also dismissed how I am talking about religion being the opposite of Dialectical Materialism, yet changing the subject by changing the meaning of “idealism” to a nice non sequitur, lmao.
It’s funny, because full idealist bullshit of theistic utopia still has sacerdots and kings as ruling class, which is even more backwards than even capitalism by even Marx’s standards BUT OKAY.
Comrade, I will have to ask that you please calm down in discussions regarding religion. We’re not Reddit, and we work hard to foster an accepting and generally chill atmosphere on lemmygrad. Aside from the occasional lib wandering in once in a while, we’re all MLs here and there is no reason to get nasty towards each other.
Yeah, that’s something that bothers me… If you can’t accept some of the mains aspects of Marxism… Why be one? There’s been always non Marxist branches of communism that ain’t Materialist.
Well marxism is certainly not the only socialism (and by damn definition diffuse even communism stopped meaning “strictly marxist” at some point), but as pointed out by Lenin in “Materialism and Empiriocriticism” all others are idealist. And even “almost” materialist revision attempts like machism leads to opportunism, even though that philosophical core might seem very distant and unimportant to average communist.
I would love, but I will be called “bigot” for not being a real one against people being in actual danger by precisely this “comrades” that try really hard to keep the sacerdotal class in power without realizing(I hope).
No, I’m not, comrade. I quitted Twitter long ago now.
And thanks for the support. Here there are a lot of people who aren’t physically able to read Lenin about religion even calling themselves ML, and even pretend that ancient history didn’t happened,so this is fresh air.
Jesus was the first communist, all his teachings and speeches show it, but the church was created by the merchants that Jesus threw out of the temple. Of course they are now the antagonist who uses Jesus nailed to the cross as a company brand.
No. Not even in the primitive communism sense, humans lived in communism all the time before class society, there were also things like palace economy which could be considered primitive communism (mostly in decay into monarchy or oligarchy but still at some level), and various religious communes, all before Jesus.
And sure as hell i hope you are not suggesting he was communist in scientific, marxist sense.
communism is a historical movement and idea which came out of the context of capitalism there where no communist before capitalism there couldn’t have been by definition.
you could argue that jesus was egalitarian that he spoke for the poor that he wanted a better world, but not that he was a communist.
Primitive communism maybe? The kind of public ownership people would have in small groups producing barely enough to meet their needs, as opposed to the global abundance that comes from beefy productive forces being owned in common? Either way, it’s still a downgrade compared to what we have now. Hell, considering the mode of production that was developed by Jesus’ time, I’m pretty sure that makes him a reactionary even by his time’s standards. This is pretending he even existed of course, which he didn’t.
Victim of Abrahamic laws!? What the fuck are you talking about?! WHAT IS THIS ANTISEMITIC NONSENSE!?
Where the fuck do you think even the name of Jesus comes!? Or the alleged fact of him being the Messiah!? Or the fact that he is non stop saying that he came to fulfill the law of Moses, which people thought at the time to be Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and even said that you had to literally believe what Moses said, which was fucking Genesis having to take it literally.
It is not known, at least not as described in the Bible many years later, edited by the Curie to fit their dogma. Although if there were some at this time who were leading the resistance against the Roman occupation, I could have been one of them perfectly, ending badly like everyone who wanted to change the depraved system throughout history.
There was no one to fit the Biblical description of Jesus, who you called “protocommunist”, to fit any description of a historical Yeshua that was a revel.
Also, it’s literally called Jesus because some prophecy of a Yeshua that was shoehorned in the narrative, so if it was ever some real man (probably as real as Mythra or Hercules or Moses) it wasn’t even called Jesus.
Considering how many preachers swarmed I century Judea he was probably made from amalgamation of many of them. I mean even new testament mentions some of them like John the Baptist and there is that very suspicious but pretty logical thing with Barabbas.
No, there is literaly no proof at all, lt’s go one by one:
Alleged
It’s not even know if he was really jesus brother or thaw was just how he was titled, religious sects love titles like “father, brother, mother etc.”
Assuming it’s really John, which is also doubtful, John is still not Jesus. You could as well argument that because Pilatus was real, therefore Jesus was real?
A house for judaic prayer in judaic town? Definitely proof that certain preacher existed!
Seriously?
Was it signed? How many boats were there in those years?
4, 3 and 2. LMAO called it in 8.
Did you even read that article? It’s utter nonsense, way below the usual level of argument for that problem. NONE of that is any proof and the only one that is even possibly linked is point 9 - and that guy is the best existing proof period - which is not up to standard, just as for example alleged sons of Lodbrok are not definitive proof of Ragnar Lodbrok existence.
EDIT: I fucking hate lemmy formatting, i have no idea how to make that look not like shit.
(and just to be clear, I am not arguing that Jesus was a wizard with magical duplication powers, just a guy that existed 2k years ago and probably got crucified, not an uncommon thing at the time)
Still nothing though. The only thing really confirmed it that christians in second half of I century in Rome believed in his existence, which was half century from his death and half of known world from the place.
Also the article in wiki is incredibly biased, starting from “Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed.” which is blatantly false, unless they a
This thread has run its course and there’s not much left to add so I’m going to exercise an executive move and lock the comments.
In general, I want to reiterate we are not reddit and we don’t tolerate personal attacks against other comrades. I don’t want to start banning people over this but we will if we have to.
We don’t police for every opinion users may have, so the problem is not – from the admin standpoint – that people support or don’t support religion, the problem is how people get that message across.
There’s perfectly reasonable ways to talk about this topic but honestly, if it’s clear your interlocutor is not going to change their mind, then you’re probably better off just dropping the topic.
Good lord is it a warzone in the comments
Communists be like: 100+ comments struggle session under a c/memes post.
With the unexpectedly contentous topic being… dialectical materialism no less.
damn, what a chaotic fuckin thread lol.
Maybe having a cooldown period between successive posts in a single thread ain’t such a bad idea.
It’s definitely chaotic. But hey, people will espouse whatever they want according to the “theory” people wrote I suppose.
The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism, which has fully taken over the historical traditions of eighteenth-century materialism in France and of Feuerbach (first half of the nineteenth century) in Germany—a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion.
- r/atheism i guess
Oh, no, comrade, you forgot your fedora and katana, which is given to us by the central committee of satanic homosexuality cabinet, which is a requisite of being atheist. Also, we should remember that the good atheist is the one that empowers religion and serves it, and never voices out for their own interests and their companions.
sigh
the sad truth
deleted by creator
true lol. previous thread was like ‘damn ratto, aru and seanchai are gone, hope they’re okay’
and now this thread is basically just ‘FUCK OFF I HATE YOU GRAAHHHH’
deleted by creator
Real talk:
Religion is bad.
And I think communists shouldn’t be so tolerant of it; we concede too much to other communists who are religionists.
Religion is not inherently bad. It can be a progressive cause in certain instances. Second Thought did a great video on that topic. Anti-theism on the other hand, is a reactionary position, as it ignores materialism, and dialectics.
I am an atheist by the way, so don’t call me out.
Second Thought’s video was pretty weak.
How the fuck is reactionary a concept labeled by Anarchists and continued by Marx and Lenin, which confronts worldviews that are the most contrary form of Dialectics and Materialism!? Nice poisoning the well to precisely protect at all costs the FIRST and OLDEST form of classism, idealism, and reaction since its bare conception as being the opposite of what it is! BRAVO! CHAPÓ!
Anti-theism is reactionary because most people who pose as anti-theists “MLs” (specifically Hoxhaists as Hoxha banned religion) don’t see that people are still religious. They also pose that the religion is always reactionary from the very start, despite evidence suggesting otherwise. (That second thought video). The existence of religion fits well within the dialectics of nature.
I would like to bring one counter-point which shows that religion would still exist in a socialist society. And one counter-point that not everything in religion is reactionary. Stalin allowed the autonomous region of Dagestan to adopt Sharia:
Source
So, your only defense is that banning religion is bad because reactionaries will react. OH WOW AND STILL YOU CAN’T SEE IT. The only valid excuse is “if you outright bann this at the get go, reactionaries will react, it needs tact, like you discussed below”, or “think like the Communists + ROC in China when fighting against the Japanese”. Or something like that, but no, you still prefer to not understand why is it that Lenin condemned religion even more than I do.
Also, again, no. Religion to be progressive needs and demands to rupture the three omnigod concept, to rupture “universal truths” and many, many more shit it has already. Buddhism defends that women are inferior and that bad Karma will literally make you reincarnate in lower classes. Abrahamism as a whole is… Have you ever fucking read any sacred text, to begin with? Religion is by nature reactionary because it’s rooted in traditions and alleged eternal unmutable powers that must be continued or “humanity doomed”, and WILL ALWAYS BECOME REACTIONARY the same way Capitalism could be seen as progressive… COMPARED WITH FEUDALISM. But sure, some video has the universal truth, nice cultist behavior.
Third. “muh human nature”. Really? This is another argument? The fact that we as an species developed a neurology from our primate ancestors THAT MAKES US SEE SHIT THAT IT ISN’T THERE?
You know what’s also “human nature”? Drug abuse, hormone abuse(being addict to serotonine, oxitocine, etc, nothing to do with transitioning), habits in general, like slacking off, or dangerous behavior. Is “muh human nature” excuse enough for letting drugs, sexual slavery, being lazy or a cheater, alcohol abuse, etc, etc, etc run wild without any control nor trying to eradicate problems derived from taking profit from this? Why not, bro? They will get angry too!
I never said that. There can be reactionary people in religion. Those reactionary people must be purged. But not people who believe in religion as a whole. They can (and usually are) progressive.
Source? Also Stalin clearly allowed religion within the USSR. Does that mean he’s a revisionist now?
For religion to be progressive, it must cause an advancement in some way towards a communist or Socialist mode of production. Religion definitely fits this category. You seem to have more a Liberal definition.
It looks like you never read the sacred texts yourself. Curious.
Also I don’t really care about your rambling at the end as it is nothing but strawmanning.
My guess is that their source is Lenin’s “On the Significance of Militant Materialism” but it would be much appreciated if @VictimOfReligion can verify. (This reply is also a response to VictimOfReligion)
The summary goes that we should know how to get the masses to question religion (and especially its structural form) in an intelligent manner (as opposed to the Liberal’s form of militant atheism, which handles this issue in a more classist manner and has failed to address the ideological weaponry of the Church which is also used by the ruling class)
However, in his “The Attitude of the Worker’s Party to Religion” he denounces attempts at a “war on religion” (the active and forced suppression of religion) as this would only revive interest in religion and prevent it from really dying out.
So yeah. From what I can tell going by what’s going on in these threads, the question of religion seems to be a very divisive topic within Left-wing discourse. (iirc these discussions also existed back in the GZD subreddit prior to its quarantine) I personally believe religion holds us back generally but that doesn’t mean we should immediately dismiss religious socialist movements (i.e. Sandinistas, Gaddafi, Ba’athism, etc.) as long as they are anti-imperialist. (Note: Patsocs, which are also religious “socialists,” are not anti-imperialist as they live in (and support) an imperialist country and thus they never experienced struggle against imperialism. Thus patsocs are undeserving of support)
Once Socialism wins, the decline of religion would be inevitable anyway, as more of the masses find less reason to take the Opium which is religion. Let a drug addict reform by providing them with basic necessities in life and they will no longer find need in the drugs which they used to fill that gap. Take their drugs forcefully instead and you only get an angry drug addict suffering from withdrawal.
ik this is a controversial topic by the looks of it so if I have made any errors and/or misinterpretations feel free to correct me.
This is how I see it.
I kind of answered this in another thread in this post, if you look further down, which is a condensed and simplofied version of this, but here people think I am for giving religious a taste of their own medicine without even having asked the right questions nor anything else than assumptions while I was speaking only of religions themselves.
You provided a more insightful answer than anything VictimOfReligion provided. This is one of the few arguments that I actually agree with. Thanks for your answer in the midst of a warzone, comrade.
Lmao yeah, theocracism is closer to socialism, and I’m using the liberal definiton.
And strawman? You dream, I’m demonstrating to you how your reasoning sounds, oh, by the way, I had to read the Bible four time as a theist, one as a questioning agnostic, and the fifth time was when I understood that the mere Bible is evidence AGAINST Abrahamism. Not to mention the whole three timdza week of having to study Bible related stuff time and time again. Now I see you hold not a bit of an idea about what you are trying to defend nor what I even say, since I never said “prosecute and kill believers” or whatever they had, are, and will do to unbelievers, even being other branches of theism. “cUrIoUs”
Also the alt right is full of atheists, and they aren’t progressive in the slightest.
And many feminists are also terfs or reactionary as fuck. Under your constant rule of three, sexism must be protected at all cost too. You’ve been called out already.
Hey man, you might wanna take a break and stop putting words in my mouth. I get you are emotionally invested but calm down, jesus christ (no pun intended)
Nice touch poisoning the well, but it was a rational thought what made me realize that religion are not to keep safe if we want to achieve communism.
But nothing to be impressed to use this sort of tactics against a crític when you’ve been also non stopped using soecial pleadings and ignoring fucking literally history to defend your point. How does it feel to make you understand the gravity of what you are saying? Hitting the cognitive dissonance, or still not?
A YouTube link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same video on Invidious, which is a YouTube frontend that protects your privacy:
You know the thread is getting heated when the tankie reply bot is getting downvoted.
Lmao, innocent passing robot tank caught in crossfire
Lmao, even the poor bot!?
"Noooooooooooooo! It doesn’t matter that religion is reactionary idealism!!! It has nothing to do with Dialectical Materialism!!! Marx and Lenin never said anything bad about religion!!! Noooooooo!!! I don’t know what history is!!! I am physically unable to study modern religions unless it is un a vacuum in the most liberal way to do shit noooooooooo!!! "
This alleged ML forum.
Going against religion is undialectical. It presupposes that religion has no inherent change, and that its base is always reactionary and unchanging. Religion has changed, and always will change. It can be progressive, or it can be inherited by reactionaries for the purpose of fulfilling their own reactionary ideology. This is what marxists should oppose. Reactionary people who utilise religion for their own benefit, but not religion itself.
Okay, why religion gets a free pass when literally socdem, nazol, patsoc, monsoc, etc also exists? Isn’t it “aNtIdIaLeCtICaL” to want a change in the system when its obvious that capitalists ideologies ALSO change? For example, Carlists, (Spanish Imperialists, basically) also portray themselves as something “progressive teehee”, yet we know it can’t be. Or even there are also Gustavo Buenismo, also called “Atheist Catholicism” (an incredibly reactionary bullshit about protecting traditions and cristofascism and whatnot). Isn’t it oximoronic too?
Let me tell you something so you get it: To bent is to be the most reactionary. This is why “Socdem is the soft hand of Fascism” and “Scratch a Liberal and a Fascist bleeds”. Hey, guess what! The soctheo is the soft hand of Theofascism. And scratch a progressive theist, and a bigot fundamentalist bleeds.
Religion is not an ideology. It is based on faith on a being with certain customs, not political ideas that a person must follow. Also monsoc is a joke ideology, with very few people actually supporting it.
Strawman, yet you accuse people of fallacies. Curious. Also you didn’t read anything I wrote. I know the laws of dialectics.
Here’s a quote from Lenin:
Source
Progress isn’t about what you say. Your actions matter more than your intentions. Progress is about advancement. Reactionary is about regression. The spanish imperialists may have been progressive at one point, but they certainly are not nowadays especially since socialist nations exist. You congeal an idea that is based on the rigid structure, yet you concern yourself about dialectics. Curious.
This is fundamentally not true. Let’s take LGBT people as an example. LGBT people are ‘clearly’ progressive according to your definition, so according to statistics, 42% of LGBT people belong in Christianity in the US. Are the LGBT christians now bigot fundamentalists? Some (a small minority) may be. But most of them certainly aren’t. Just because people identify with a religion does not mean it affects their lives on a daily basis. I identify as an atheist. I don’t see this affecting my life in a significant manner. And so many others will follow the same even if they follow a religion or not (for the most part).
That is literally the case though. Islamic Sharia for example is a political framework for how to run a state Islamically, it also tells individuals how to live their life down to the most minute details. It’s not a separate text, the rulings are compiled from the Quran and Hadith and collectively referred to as Sharia (it literally means law in Arabic). As far as I know, this kind of legal framework exists in some Jewish sects as well as the Old Testament for Christians (the sects that still recognize it as Christian text).
I’m not claiming that those three religions are the only ones to exist but Christianity and Islam are number 1 and 2 respectively on a global scale and they are followed by over 50 percent of the world population source.
So, a man made set of rules, that explain in dogmatic ways how the world and politics must be understood and run, isn’t in any sort an ideology.
Because it can be mixed with “actual ideologies” Good thing people don’t mix ideologies, like Nazism and Socialism even if just trying, and ends being just Nazism with aesthetics… Oh, no, it happens. I wonder what happens with TheoSocialists… Oh no, theocracism with aesthetics.
Dude. Stop. You’re just ignoring history since Mesopotamia while diving in echo chamber attitudes just to keep jerking off with the same people that ain’t able to get shit like why both Marx and Marxists and Anarchists were rabid Anti-Theist.
It’s like saying “oh, no, I know evolution real, but still it’s all creation, aleluya” and see no problem with that.
BTW peope is capable of holding contradictory beliefs, like being even black and a white supremacist, this argument of LGBT people holding to Christianity due to indoctrination says nothing. Christianity at its core is still bigoted, yes.
Religion isn’t an ideology. Religion (especially the larger ones) isn’t made by just one person, but usually a collective of people who have the same faith. They believe in God.
Stop going to the polcompball political ideologies and actually think for a second. Does that ideology actually exist, if so, does a significant number of people uphold it? “TheoSoc” does not fit either of the categories.
You think Marx is an anti-theist? Such “schoolboy behaviour” as Marx put it:
Source
Also anarchists are not marxists, and Anarchists are individualists who share nothing alike with Marxism. “MLs” who are anti-theist are not marxist at all, but rather revisionist. Enver Hoxha is one example. Same with the leaders Post-Stalin USSR which banned religion.
So every LGBT Christian is a bigot fundamentalist? Good to know that you despise Christianity so much it actually overshadows your opinions on the characteristics of the person because of what they believe in. Also you fallen into the trap of Identity Politics, which is exactly what I feared would happen.
Aren’t religions manmade? Really? Are you saying seriously this? Or, if you refer to individual… Oh, boy, you haven’t heard of Josiah’s reforms in Israel, the birth of the current notion of Abrahamic god…
Religions ARE ideologies, and it has been like this since ancient times. You’re just special pleading nonsense. You have no argument regarding this, only “faith and God”. So? Fascism in Italy and Spain and Portugal was also “faith and god”, they just added patriotism to the equation, being even more similar to when theocracy was implemented in city states of the Crescent Fertile and many other regions.
“theosocialism doesn’t exist!!” well, they go by names such as “theology of liberation”, for example.
Also, nice quote from Marx describing Religions as a palliative drug that is given to people to stop complaining and make their miserable lifes a little more easy to handle, by calling it literally OPIUM, which, I hope you don’t go full apologetic and try to spin it to have a different meaning, which… Have you read the rest of it? About how only after getting rid off religion happens something?
Oh, and I see that Lenin was a revisionist by your own standards, nice bullshit you made there, “comrade”. I’m the revisionist for understanding that religions are manmade ideologies.
Then,you go crying because you ain’t capable of distinguish individuals from ideology, cried “Idpol” when we thought there was consensus on class reductionism, yada yada.
Frankly, it shows how literally you’re all brainwashed by religion to the point you’re doing their job for free.
You do realize that Marx was alive during the 1800’s and that yes in fact they did have a very different conception of opium. It should also be noted that Marx was a regular opium user.
Is your problem that you can’t find the “abolish religion immediately” button? Check next to the “communism now” button.
How are they claiming Lenin was a revisionist? Have you even read Lenin?
"But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an “intellectual” question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.
That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Programme; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various “Christians”. But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all; nor does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development." Lenin
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“We should remember that Social-Democracy’s strength lies in the unity of the broad masses of the proletariat, and that such unity, owing to the splitting, disuniting, and dulling conditions of capitalism, is not achieved with immediacy, but only at the cost of persistent effort and tremendous patience. We should remember the experiences of our European comrades, who consider it their duty to show an attitude of comradely concern even towards the workers who are members of the Catholic unions and try not to antagonise them by treating their religious and political prejudices with contempt, but persistently, tactfully, and patiently make use of every act of the political and economic struggle in order to enlighten them and bring them closer to the class conscious proletariat on the ground of common struggle.” Lenin
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“We shall have no difficulty in overcoming their inconsistency, for our views are supported by history itself, are supported at every step by reality. If our pamphlet has not taught them Social-Democracy, our revolution will. To be sure, those workers who remain Christians, who believe in God, and those intellectuals who defend mysticism (fie upon them!), are inconsistent too; but we shall not expel them from the Soviet or even from the Party, for it is our firm conviction that the actual struggle, and work within the ranks, will convince all elements possessing vitality that Marxism is the truth, and will cast aside all those who lack vitality.” Lenin
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“This is one of those current objections to Marxism which testify to a complete misunderstanding of Marxian dialectics. The contradiction which perplexes these objectors is a real contradiction in real life, i. e., a dialectical contradiction, and not a verbal or invented one. To draw a hard-and-fast line between the theoretical propaganda of atheism, i. e., the destruction of religious beliefs among certain sections of the proletariat, and the success, the progress and the conditions of the class struggle of these sections, is to reason undialectically, to transform a shifting and relative boundary into an absolute boundary; it is forcibly to disconnect what is indissolubly connected in real life. Let us take an example. The proletariat in a particular region and in a particular industry is divided, let us assume, into an advanced section of fairly class-conscious Social-Democrats, who are of course atheists, and rather backward workers who are still connected with the countryside and with the peasantry, and who believe in God, go to church, or are even under the direct influence of the local priest—who, let us suppose, is organising a Christian labour union. Let us assume furthermore that the economic struggle in this locality has resulted in a strike. It is the duty of a Marxist to place the success of the strike movement above everything else, vigorously to counteract the division of the workers in this struggle into atheists and Christians, vigorously to oppose any such division. Atheist propaganda in such circumstances may be both unnecessary and harmful—not from the philistine fear of scaring away the backward sections, of losing a seat in the elections, and so on, but out of consideration for the real progress of the class struggle, which in the conditions of modern capitalist society will convert Christian workers to Social-Democracy and to atheism a hundred times better than bald atheist propaganda. To preach atheism at such a moment and in such circumstances would only be playing into the hands of the priest and the priests, who desire nothing better than that the division of the workers according to their participation in the strike movement should be replaced by their division according to their belief in God. An anarchist who preached war against God at all costs would in effect be helping the priests and the bourgeoisie (as the anarchists always do help the bourgeoisie in practice). A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could. A Marxist must be able to view the concrete situation as a whole, he must always be able to find the boundary between anarchism and opportunism (this boundary is relative, shifting and changeable, but it exists). And he must not succumb either to the abstract, verbal, but in reality empty “revolutionism’˜ of the anarchist, or to the philistinism and opportunism of the petty bourgeois or liberal intellectual, who boggles at the struggle against religion, forgets that this is his duty, reconciles himself to belief in God, and is guided not by the interests of the class struggle but by the petty and mean consideration of offending nobody, repelling nobody and scaring nobody—by the sage rule: “live and let live”, etc., etc.” Lenin
Before answering, have you read what I said regarding what to do with religion in this same post?. Because I never even referred to the "stop religion at once button"and stopped reading beyond that, already knowing about contextual tactics from Lenin too, you know?
Completely agree, comrade
Yep
Thank you.
No prob!
Did you really just say “religionists”?
People can have spiritual beliefs apart from the material world y’know. Hell the Global South, which is the most prone to revolution, is deeply religious. Shit like this is what prevents people like Gaddafi from further radicalization.
It’s okay to be religious, and this is coming from a non religious person.
"the global south and the poorest people are significantly more likely to hold reactionary views like say about LGBTQ+ people for example, and they are the most prone to revolution.
it’s okay to be a biggot, and this is coming from a non biggot."
what your arguing for is called tailism chasing behind the worst views of the working people in a shit attempt to appeal to them, this is patsoc talking points 101.
people especially the poorest people tend to be more religious because it is a form of escapism it isnt a coincidence quality of life and % of religious people are linked in opposing directions.
also it is NOT ok to be part of a cult that asks you to indoctrinate your children into it thats fucked and abusive and it is NOT ok to be part of a cult that tells you to hate others and all the most popular religions in the world fit that description so until the world gets some less garbage cults imma have to argue against imaginary friends and the opioid of the masses just on practical terms alone.
Woah, easy tiger. Never said anything about bigotry, this is about alienating the majority of the population with a belief you can’t prove yourself.
But now that you mentioned it, bigotry and imperialism go hand in hand. I know Seanchai has spoken adamantly about this. It wasn’t till many decades of socialist construction that Cuba was able to put in the new Family Code. There is still much conservatism in the Chinese public, but there is work being done.
Also never advocated for cults or religious institutions. Those are reactionary yes, but to abolish them would be completely separating the party from the masses. Look at how shitty the DRA was. Look at the conservative religious rebound after the fall of the Eastern Block. These institutions need to be put under socialist control to prevent reactionary indoctrination. If not legalized they will go underground in forms of cults, with an extreme counter revolutionary nature.
I take it you have traumatic experience with religion and thus are emotionally invested. I’m not discrediting your experience, just stating atheism isn’t a prerequisite to socialist construction.
Heyyyy guess what goes hand in hand too with imperialism! Guess what? Guess which ideologies are fostered and given resources to keep poor countries bigot and indoctrinated into lethargic inmovement. Guess what, guess what!
Oh, but no matter, you like to lick the boots of precisely one of the things Lenin claim against and even there was a campaign about why religion is contrary towards socialism, but YOUR feelings are the correct ones, ain’t it?
They make a valid point about the DRA and the reactionary takeover of religious institutions in the post USSR states. State atheism encouraged reactionaries to weaponize religion to radicalize anti-socialists. What according to you should be done to avoid this in modern socialist states?
Huge problem with that is that every fucking thing done against even the blatant opulence, power and corruption of priesthood is ALWAYS seen as attack on religion and encourage reactionaries to weaponize religion to radicalize anti-socialists. Always, without any single exception.
You are correct, but its important to understand that this stuff isn’t an absolute, there are certain tolerances that exist. Not every offended party will react the same, and sure the extremists will never change but the average religious person is still human, and will be motivated firstly by their material conditions, not whatever the clergy or imam says.
And in Afghanistan for example the tolerance for state atheism simply was not there. The people were not educated enough and saw the government’s policy as unacceptable. The soviet union however used a less heavy hand when dealing with their religious populations, someone else in the thread mentioned Stalin’s speech on Sharia as an example.
Agree mostly. So i must add we are mostly talking about the conditions we live in, that is, christianity tradition and domination. Note that i don’t mind (currently) for example ba’athists who are often religious, because there the contradictions look otherwise, social manifestation of religion is antiimperialist there and proimperialist here. But note the question of current Afghanistan. Nobody here said Taliban is cool, but we were still rooting for its victory against USA because it was a bigger contradiction. Now that this is mostly resolved, the lesser contradictions started to resurface in discussion.
And after Afghanistan we have KSA which is old school religious monarchy, then we have Iran when the issues of religious oppression are certainly legit despite being hijacked by libs, and so on and on.
Again, principles vs tactics, just as Lenin and Stalin did.
Ultimately, religious “marxists” and religious socialists are people we should not have any problem striking at the common enemy with, but we should be very wary that marching with them would not lead us in bog.
Completely defund any sort of privilege nor protection to any cult, aka, religion. A church wants to open? Ask the Vatican. A Mosque? A Buddhist temple? The same. A church, mosque, kingdom hall, temple, whatever can’t be sustained? It’s going to be a nice library.
Open forums where religion can be questioned, disputed all the misdeads it made and the harm and lies it does as of now, protecting skeptics, critics and open platform the victims of religion to the public, sponsored, making it the most possible to not be victims of violent assaults, which, every. single. religion. is. guilty. of.
Then, on the other hand, absolutely prohibit religious influence in the state nor statal organisms, such as the elimination of religious propaganda in school, and also to ban minors to be able to enter temples and any other form of indoctrination since… Let’s be frank, have you ever read religious texts? If they weren’t considered religious, no minor would be near them and only in the adults section.
And then, a constant education on how reality works, which is Dialectical and Material, not magical, not spiritual, not theistic, not idealistic, not anything that religion tried to explain about based on their own collective ignorance of the time while drooling over owning absolute control over people…
This is super simple, it is not polished at all, etc, but the general direction of this is enough.
It would be nice, if daring, to prohibit any ideology that promotes hatred towards women, LGBTA+, protecting all the traditions at all cost, specially the harmful ones, demand killings of animals, pseudoscience (such as creationism, faith healing, etc), classism, etc, regardless of any allegations of deities or not, and see how many religions survive the test… But people her would cry about how some of those ideologies must be protected at all cost, and most of you, will not see the alarms regarding it.
I haven’t seen anyone claim that we need to “protect religion at all costs”, and everything you’ve said is fairly reasonable. Nobody here will oppose secularizing the state, which is much of what the first half of your suggestion is. I think where they take issue is the idea that deeply religious people need to be confronted with these ideas in such an immediate manner.
To exclude them or antagonize them is only going to entrench them in their religious views, or even worse radicalize them into anti-coms. Wouldn’t it be more sound to simply secularize the state and allow people to be educated in socialist principles? I agree wholeheartedly that religious institutions deserve no funding or support from the state, but to actively antagonize religion is only asking for religion to be used as ammunition against your socialist project.
The problem is that even the first half of their comment would be vehemently opposed by the majority of the population where I’m from (and likely many other places too). Any popular conversations about secularizing the state always turn into shit slinging contests and the shit is primarily from the anti-secular side. My own family members are quite reactionary and mald at my most lukewarm suggestions of removing the article that says that Islam is the religion of the country. The article in English and Arabic. That article fails to give rights to the other religious groups in the country (which only some are mentioned in the constitution) and doesn’t even acknowledge the various religions that are unrecognized and lack of belief as well.
This is just the legal side, things on the ground are even more bleak.
And still was downvoted, even if not by you. Even his reasonable position is attacked HERE of all places in ML SPACE.
What ML are those, who rally do defend nor religious people, but RELIGIONS, which is happening here. As you see it is not him who can’t make this distinction. What ML’s are those that read the wiki article about historicity of Jesus posted elswhere here and upvote that fallacious nonsense? It leads me to conclusion they are the same when reading marxist theory, like basically everything about philosophy where religion is harshly denied.
Although I haven’t seen anyone outright defending religious institutions, I can only imagine that the downvotes are from those that are probably religious themselves and take offense to being called reactionary and such. I don’t doubt one minute that religious institutions are dangerous if allowed to exist in the form they do today, and I am certain that most people here believe so too. It can be a difficult thing to confront especially for those who have been raised religious or live in highly religious communities to be told that the faith they believe in is inherently evil. And victim of religion here doesn’t hold any punches so its no surprise that they’ve managed to strike some nerves, lol.
You are probably right, but this makes my argument even stronger, they even downvoted “papacy is reactionary”. Marxism is explicitly antireligious in principles, even if that can be taken aside in tactics for a long time.
Which leads us to yet another common problem which is recurring in case of many things, not only religion. Confusing matters of principle with matters of tactics. Hell, menshevism started in exact same manner even if not the same matter.
They, unfortunately, are reactionary in this question, even if that contradiction is currently lesser than others. In this thread, that question is stated as primary and here we are.
Yeah lol he doesn’t, for him this issue is more important than for others. I don’t see why we must pull our punches, other comrades certainly don’t when it comes to other issues such as feminism, trans rights etc.
Again i would invoke Lenin who never mistaken principles and philosophy from tactics and he was absolutely harsh on religion while courting religious sects and muslims oppressed by mainstream orthodoxy.
It’s like people reading about biological evolution and think “hummm this surely doesn’t applies to humans, because the Pope says that we are special hum hum hummmmm”
Not sure about english, because i read Lenin in polish, but the seer disdain and pretty wide usage for the word “klechostwo” says it all.
Funniest of all, this exact position of yours from few posts above is pretty close to that which is espoused by CPC. There is even example what happens there when a religion strays from the lines - Falun Gong. And no one here criticizes what CPC did to them.
Yet in the white world we have cults in which FG completely pales in comparison to, like all major christian denominations. And relations of those to socialist states and communist parties are exactly the same as FG to PRC and CPC, but when socialist states did to them 1/50 of the oppression CPC did to FG, it’s suddenly “too much” and it’s widely criticized.
How nice to see that the ages old difference between “dangerous sect” and “good religion” which is just the sheer size of it and amount of power it gathered, is raising its head here, unchanged.
Re: white cults like FG
the power structures that support the Amish, the LDS, the FLDS, the Family, and Jehovah’s Witnesses need to be dismantled piece by piece in Amerika. sex abuse, apocalyptic cults skating by on the principle of “freedom of religion” and earning millions upon millions of dollars… they need to be destroyed. same with Osteen and MegachurchismTM.
idk about the cults in Poland and eastern europe, I’m sure they’re disturbed as hell too. just use any opportunity I can to shit on these specific Amerikan cults.
Problem is that every single Christian sect has the same Bible as those like the JW have, then going on the “debate” of which cults are cults? And then majoritary religions will go and protect those obvious dangerous cults to maintain their privileges under “freedom of religion.”… Only place I’m seeing JWs are starting to get their legality taken off, is in Norway, while in China they were never legal.
I’m an ExJW, btw
I don’t disagree with you, Christianity, explicitly fascistic Christian belief, maintains an iron grip on many nations and its power structures need to be systematically dismantled. I do also believe that it is a pragmatic idea to pinpoint the most powerful and detrimental sects of Christianity and fight against their growth (whatever that actually looks like from a praxis standpoint). Religions with sects and that went through schisms are entrenched into the earth like no other octopus’s tentacles, and there are a lot of tentacles with varying degrees of power and of negative consequence. I am not saying the ideological quirks and silly Christian infighting matter all that much, but the varying degrees of power these sects wield does. Am I making sense?
Yes, you are. And from a praxis standpoint, is simply counterpropaganda, and scientific education (specially biology and astrophysics) what cures cultist mentality.
While all religion is dumb and bullshit, I think it can be helpful to look at religions based on how much they tolerate people being members of the religion while not actually giving too many shits about the religion. A deus vult catholic and a mormon are going going to be at about the same level of batshit detachment from reality, but it’s been my experience that you’ll meet a lot more self professed catholics who don’t bother actually doing the bare minimum their religion expects them to than you would mormons.
Yeah, sure, and those are the “cultural [insert religion]” which won’t give a damn if the institution is faded away, making this situation even less complicated that people here is trying to portray as.
Agreed, I’m more in the “anti-theist” camp than the religious tolerance camp as they were, but the destructive effects religion has in general can vary in severity by religion and local cultural histories. It should be obvious the overwhelmingly negative, wide-reaching influence Catholocism has on the people, as well as the extreme influence it has on world politics for instance, contrasts pretty harshly to a native religion with many followers like Vodun. Numerous syncretic indigenous religions have arisen out of the colonized ashes of Catholic imperialism, and those colonized peoples’ belief systems are not what’s preventing revolution.
I have no disagreements with anyone criticizing the iron grip Christianity wields over Christian-state policymaking or the horrific cultural ideals propagated by religious groups. Mostly just focusing on cults in the U.S. like the JWs and LDS that wield significant political power and capital (more than you’d think!), while harboring (more like promoting) sex pests and preaching hate-speech apokalypsis.
I’m with you, and I do have consideration with context, even though I will for sure not treat animal sacrifice as a non significant matter, since we are talking about the gratuitous slaughter of sentient beings of which even some theorize as “animals as a societal class bellow the working class”, and even science is recognizing their intelligence, which has been drawn back precisely by religions.
The thing is to compare religions like other similar power structure: Is the same an Spanish Monarchist than a Hawaiian one? This is the fule of thumb I use.
Also, regarding cults, I know of the LDS church, but not many of the political influence JWs hold, since it’s a religion of political asceticism(or to not partake in any political issue, only what the Governing Body(Popes) says to do).
We basically don’t have many cults in Poland and their are jumping the fringes and present themselves as innocent as possible (which every religion always does when facing stronger opposition, only growing teeth and claws as it gain it) because religious landscape is dominated by the single huge church that goes hand to hand with capitalist state in eliminating all the real opposition for either. It’s naturally bit more complicated in multiethnic and multireligious countries like Russia but even there they went right back to the altar throne alliance really fast after capitalism was restored.
Oh, so you have a big monolithic cult, there.
Well it’s not exactly monolithic, there is a lot of more or less silent internal strife like in every mafia and at least one borderline schism, but it is a single denomination centralised by organized hierarchy from the up to bottom which boast membership of officially 85% population.
Figures of practicing, according to church itself, are (of that 85%) 40% attending to mass regularily and 16% recieving communion.
Yep, completely. It’s like “REVOLUTION! WE WILL NOT RESPOND TO OUR OWN CRUELTY! BLOOD! DEATH TO ALL BUT US!!!.. Nonononononono… No, come on, you can’t just treat the megabillonaires that rule religions, come on, that’s too much, they are the main collaborators with everything that is against us and many more, but please, dude, it’s reactionary to deal with them like they dealed with us”.
Like, they can’t even fucking grasp how religions even HAVE CAPITALS. PHYSICAL, STATAL, POLITIFAL CAPITALS, and still not see it.
I would never think i would see “papacy is reactionary” downvoted here but alas. You seem to have developed a fan or two who are downvoting your comments few minutes after you write it. Truly dialectical XD
Wanna try it? I am sure some will say that the current pope is based or some other Christofascist nonsense even here.
Well the downvotes is commonly taken as “disagree”. Without comment i assume it is indeed about this. So either this thread alone is brigaded or, more worrying, we have papists around here posing as marxists.
Yeah, why else would you not want sacerdots to hold legal privileges such as not being legally forced to rat out sexual predators, the #1 issue inside basically every single legalized religion in Spain, for example?
Not even bending to at least accept legal equity towards the priesthood is also a transgression, when this would protect the believers even more? Come on, I’d like an answer from a believer: Do you think that the sacerdotal class should remain privileged even in a socialist system?
Not directly, read between lines, and you will see how eager people here is to protect this reactionary and victims factory as much as they can.
Regarding the rest of what you said, two things: Religious people are the most entitled collective everywhere they are stablished as some sort of majority and they all have victim/persecution complex even when they are the top privileged group, and if they are equilized with the rest, they will literally believe they are persecuted like the worst kind of bullies that they already are. So a lot of emotional gymnastics have to be made, and still, religious will get anti-com, since their ideologies are also already anti-com. Remember, the ideology is inherently theocracism. And second: would not be a general reaction from any non-com to become rabid anti-com whenever socialism rises already? Doesn’t it happen already? So, how to handle it? And another question, why the special pleading?
Fuck off, do you know what is called in the phylosophical context “muh spirituality”? IDEALISM. THE OPPOSITE OF MATERIALISM. THEY ARE OPPOSITE. THEY ARE NOT ABLE TO MIX, BECAUSE MATERIALISM DENIES SPIRITUALITY, AKA, IDEALISM.
Is it not idealism to suggest that Communists can dismiss religion and religious people in a world where religion is so widespread?
As idealist as dismissing fascism, whip I never said to dismiss, but to educate against as communism educates against monarchism, capitalism, feudalism… And THEOCRACIES. “But mu-” shut up, if religion held no political power, explain Vatican, Meka, Tibet, and all the theocracist power and states ruled in all of history. “but muh spiri-” shut up. Why is it something man made and not free from both materialism and dialectics, forced to be considered special and not be regarded as idealist reactionarism a la socdem, nazbol, etc?
dismissed no its far to dangerous for that but it can certainly be suppressed along side other right wing garbage like fascism
Nice touch how they also dismissed how I am talking about religion being the opposite of Dialectical Materialism, yet changing the subject by changing the meaning of “idealism” to a nice non sequitur, lmao.
I disagree.
LMAO
It’s funny, because full idealist bullshit of theistic utopia still has sacerdots and kings as ruling class, which is even more backwards than even capitalism by even Marx’s standards BUT OKAY.
Comrade, I will have to ask that you please calm down in discussions regarding religion. We’re not Reddit, and we work hard to foster an accepting and generally chill atmosphere on lemmygrad. Aside from the occasional lib wandering in once in a while, we’re all MLs here and there is no reason to get nasty towards each other.
Well…
Yeah, that’s something that bothers me… If you can’t accept some of the mains aspects of Marxism… Why be one? There’s been always non Marxist branches of communism that ain’t Materialist.
Well marxism is certainly not the only socialism (and by damn definition diffuse even communism stopped meaning “strictly marxist” at some point), but as pointed out by Lenin in “Materialism and Empiriocriticism” all others are idealist. And even “almost” materialist revision attempts like machism leads to opportunism, even though that philosophical core might seem very distant and unimportant to average communist.
Yeah, well, you described pretty much too what’s going on with religiousness staining Marxism, to take it away from Materialism
Religion has not stained Marxism one bit. You’re just being straight up reactionary. Go to r/Atheism if you wanna circlejerk.
“no you 😭😭😭😭😭😭”
deleted by creator
I have the appointment scheduled by Wednesday, Screamy
You meant this comment as an example to tone down, or this thread in general, tho?
Yes the thread in general; I just picked the first comment I found to reply to.
Thanks for the clarification
Care to share your story?
I would love, but I will be called “bigot” for not being a real one against people being in actual danger by precisely this “comrades” that try really hard to keep the sacerdotal class in power without realizing(I hope).
I like the username.
Are you the “Religion Recovery” guy that I’m mutuals with on Twitter?
No, I’m not, comrade. I quitted Twitter long ago now.
And thanks for the support. Here there are a lot of people who aren’t physically able to read Lenin about religion even calling themselves ML, and even pretend that ancient history didn’t happened,so this is fresh air.
Thanks! Yeah, finally, someone that actually is consistent with Marxism and its anti-theism and anti-religionism.
Jesus was the first communist, all his teachings and speeches show it, but the church was created by the merchants that Jesus threw out of the temple. Of course they are now the antagonist who uses Jesus nailed to the cross as a company brand.
No. Not even in the primitive communism sense, humans lived in communism all the time before class society, there were also things like palace economy which could be considered primitive communism (mostly in decay into monarchy or oligarchy but still at some level), and various religious communes, all before Jesus.
And sure as hell i hope you are not suggesting he was communist in scientific, marxist sense.
communism is a historical movement and idea which came out of the context of capitalism there where no communist before capitalism there couldn’t have been by definition.
you could argue that jesus was egalitarian that he spoke for the poor that he wanted a better world, but not that he was a communist.
Primitive communism maybe? The kind of public ownership people would have in small groups producing barely enough to meet their needs, as opposed to the global abundance that comes from beefy productive forces being owned in common? Either way, it’s still a downgrade compared to what we have now. Hell, considering the mode of production that was developed by Jesus’ time, I’m pretty sure that makes him a reactionary even by his time’s standards. This is pretending he even existed of course, which he didn’t.
Communist or not, Jesus had that crucifixion coming. The antichrist, on the other hand, is based.
Jesus didn’t exist
Victim of Abrahamic laws!? What the fuck are you talking about?! WHAT IS THIS ANTISEMITIC NONSENSE!?
Where the fuck do you think even the name of Jesus comes!? Or the alleged fact of him being the Messiah!? Or the fact that he is non stop saying that he came to fulfill the law of Moses, which people thought at the time to be Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and even said that you had to literally believe what Moses said, which was fucking Genesis having to take it literally.
It is not known, at least not as described in the Bible many years later, edited by the Curie to fit their dogma. Although if there were some at this time who were leading the resistance against the Roman occupation, I could have been one of them perfectly, ending badly like everyone who wanted to change the depraved system throughout history.
There was no one to fit the Biblical description of Jesus, who you called “protocommunist”, to fit any description of a historical Yeshua that was a revel.
Also, it’s literally called Jesus because some prophecy of a Yeshua that was shoehorned in the narrative, so if it was ever some real man (probably as real as Mythra or Hercules or Moses) it wasn’t even called Jesus.
He existed, just he was you know, a normal human.
We have literally zero evidence of his existence beyond the Bible and literal forgeries. It’s normal to be skeptical about this character, frankly.
Considering how many preachers swarmed I century Judea he was probably made from amalgamation of many of them. I mean even new testament mentions some of them like John the Baptist and there is that very suspicious but pretty logical thing with Barabbas.
Well we don’t know if he had magical powers or something but he existed
(i didn’t downvote u BTW)
We know FOR SURE that if he didn’t had powers, wtf?
aaand im not arguing that, just saying that this guy existed, magical powers or not
Your argued that “we don’t know if magic man was magic”.
I said that a guy that existed 2000 years ago existed, where did I say that he had wizard powers?
There’s no historical evidence of his existence lol
There is sound archaeological proof for his existence, again I’m not arguing that he was a wizard that discovered a duplication cheat or something, But there’s more than enough evidence that he existed
No, there is literaly no proof at all, lt’s go one by one:
4, 3 and 2. LMAO called it in 8.
EDIT: I fucking hate lemmy formatting, i have no idea how to make that look not like shit.
(You can use numbered bullet points. Start a new paragraph with the number and a full stop, e.g. “1.” and delete the hyphen.
To be fair that article was just an aggregator of sort, here’s more stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus
(and just to be clear, I am not arguing that Jesus was a wizard with magical duplication powers, just a guy that existed 2k years ago and probably got crucified, not an uncommon thing at the time)
Still nothing though. The only thing really confirmed it that christians in second half of I century in Rome believed in his existence, which was half century from his death and half of known world from the place.
Also the article in wiki is incredibly biased, starting from “Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed.” which is blatantly false, unless they a