I’m talking about deeply held beliefs you have that many might disagree with here or deem to be incompatible with Marxist ideology. I’m interested because I doubt everyone here is an ideological robot who all share the same uniformity in belief
I’m talking about deeply held beliefs you have that many might disagree with here or deem to be incompatible with Marxist ideology. I’m interested because I doubt everyone here is an ideological robot who all share the same uniformity in belief
Religion and belief play a major role in Marxism and anti-capitalism and ignoring it or casting aside as ignorance or something to be cleansed is a mistake has been a major mistake of many leftist movements through history, turning the church and believers into perfect targets for anti-marxist radicalization and conversion. Many of our philosophers and theorists, from Marx to Mao, battled with this issues but frequently religion is dismissed in discussion or treated like it has no potential.
This is completely backwards. In places where religious organisations weren’t powerful politically, there was not very much need of oppression or it didn’t mattered very much. Example: China or minor religions in Europe. In places where they were… please enlighten me, how would you deal with entrenched institution like catholic church? By kissing the bishop ring and handing even more privileges? EVERY infringement on their privileges was always treated as attack on faith itself.
what
They do. Major? Depending where. In colonized and exploited countries the often do, though even there, they often brings they own deal of problems, just lesser than the imperialism. When imperialism will be defeated those contraditions will resurface, for example: Afghanistan. Also if you look at this, religious movements as antiimperialist gained traction everywhere where the socialists were massacred. And even there, imperialism very often use religion for their purposes, like in entire west Asia. Or Xinjiang. In imperialist countries themsevles, religion either stand hand to hand with imperium or at least reap the rewards of imperialism.
I agree, a strong church has never been a good thing. From England to Tibet. But I feel like there is not enough credit for the fact that the first (utopian) communists got their ideas from religion. I do think the vanguard should be athiest, but when there are progressive religious forces—like in current Nicaragua or in the US during the civil rights movement— they should be allied with.
More from the primitive pre-class society, but true, some religions preserved those ideas (though that probably means they were super backwards), and this just as all other utopian versions of socialism never spread far or survived long surrounded by the clas societies. And those ideas eventually often morphed into monasticism which was just feudal or slave exploitation sprinkled with the holy water.
Absolutely, i was never against allying with relatively progressive religious movements, i just vehemently oppose revising the marxist principles in this direction. In the same meaning as famous Lenin analogy about road and swamp.
I believe many religions had (some) decent foundations and they lose those once they stop being religions of the oppressed and become religions of oppressors. Take Christianity, in its early days it was radical and anti-colonial, but it was absorbed by Rome and created the Catholic Church. 🤮
my problem with presenting the few utopian ideals in modern religion as evidence that its leftist actually is that just about any conclusion can be justified by religious books, sure the first utopians got inspiration and more importantly justification from religion but people got inspiration for anything and everything from religion back then and most of those ideas where horrible(those movements and idea didnt come from religion they came from good people who happen to live in a society which was inundated in religion). besides we have entirely discarded such utopian ideologies and most things spawned from religion for that matter why hang on to it and protect it as if it were more special than any other ideology. i dont want a ban on religon (tho as a product of such bans i cant deny their effectiveness) but im certainly distrustful.
I don’t think religion is inherently good, but if there happens to be a progressive religious force support it.
The key question here is “progressive compared to what”, remember that even feudalism was once progressive compared to slavery.
Progressive in this case means anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist etc like Malcom X who was based and also Muslim.
A lot of those were basically forced into it by the relentless western attacks. It will be interesting to watch after US hegemony crumble.
While I’m not going to get up in anyone’s face for being religious, I could never understand how our comrades of faith square the circle of knowing that natural and societal existence is driven by observable, material processes with believing that something that is completely undetectable to the senses (enhanced with instruments or not) not only exists, but plays a vital role in the way the world and people’s lives work. At least, not Marxists anyway: I could understand if the comrade was another tendency like anarchism or some non-Marxist socialism.
I saw someone on here put it once (I can’t remember who it was though) that religious communists tend to be either very good communists and not very good at their religion or vice versa. Nevertheless, a comrade with cognitive dissonance who contributes materially to the communist movement is better than the one who has ironed out inconsistent beliefs but puts no skin in the game.
religion is a tool of the establishment to begin with, its leaders are mostly incredibly reactionary and its ideology is too, how is this different from patsocs? and on a more personal level if you believe in a god that would stop the fucking sun in the sky so its followers had more day light to murder the infidels aka me im just not gonna be very amenable to work with u.
all good if you don’t wanna but could you elaborate on the sun shit 👀 what the fuck, is that real?
Yup. Book of Joshua 10-12. During conquest of Canaan (the one where they shamelessly bragged about atrocities) in the battle of Gibeon, God stopped the Sun for as long as Joshua held his arms up because Hebrews were winning and wanted to exterminate more enemies which would be difficult in the dark. He also send up a hailstorm on Caanaanites since Hebrews, while excellent at murdering and enslaving women and children were apparently not as good in open battle against armed men.
Thank you for the context. Only thing that comes to mind is “jesus fucking christ.”
edit: ah, of course.
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Liberation theology in El Salvador brought us the early FMLN movement that’s weren’t psy-op 'd and infiltrated
If we can apply this to all religions in a socialist state, it would keep followers from being fooled by capitalist religious entities and influences
and in the nicaragua the sandinistas are/were named after Sandino, an early 20th century Nicaraguan who wanted to liberate his country from US influence. He was deeply influenced by religion/god