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Communists Against Religion--Part 1 May 17, 2003 by RedStar2000 |
It's been said that religion is like dandruff; people would rather scratch and fuss with it than simply wash their hair.
It's also been said that religion is one of those things that will just wither away with the passing of time...people will pay less and less attention to it until finally people simply act as if it doesn't exist at all.
Perhaps, five or ten centuries into the future, that will seem reasonable; it does not seem reasonable to me now.
These posts are primarily concerned not with the "truth" of religion--since there is none--but with the social role of religion under capitalism...and what place it should be permitted to occupy in a communist society.
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Maybe it would help to re-phrase the question. Can communism and astrology co-exist? Can one be a good communist and yet also believe in astrology? Should communist societies appoint and fund "official astrologers", set up "astrology colleges", build and maintain special "astrology buildings" with distinct architecture, etc., etc., etc.?
Should we do those things simply because a lot of people believe in astrology--in other words, should we follow an easy road to popularity?
Or should we say bluntly: no compromise with superstition! We will not endorse it; we will not fund it; we will not publicize it. In fact, we will prohibit the public exercise of it; we will tear down its buildings; and if we catch anybody taking money from people for astrological "predictions", we will charge them with a Class A Felony (Fraud). If we catch anybody teaching anyone under the age of 12 that astrology is true, that's felony child abuse. Anyone on a street-corner yelling at people about the virtues of astrology is guilty of a misdemeaner--disturbing the peace.
Get the picture?
Marx and Engels thought that superstitions would "wither away"...and, perhaps in the long run, they'll turn out to have been right. But our own era suggests that superstition is a very tough old bird...and needs to be fought hard.
(I highly recommend the late Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World for good insight into the minds of the superstitious.)
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First posted at Che-Lives on November 12, 2002
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I don't care what people "believe"...I'm just concerned with what they do with that belief.
For example, believers do try to force their beliefs on others; it hasn't been that long ago that public observance of religious ritual was compulsory in western countries. As late as the early 1700s (I don't remember the exact year), a 21-year-old college student was hanged for expressing his opinion that Jesus was not a god--this happened in Scotland! Christians and Muslims are both explicitly commanded by their "Holy Books" to convert the heathen (that's me), if necessary at sword-point. In the "Old Testament", it's likewise plain that when the Yahvehists had the power to do so, they also converted people by force or else simply slaughtered them. Today's Hindu fundamentalists are up to the same tricks, etc. As far as I can tell, all religions preach tolerance until they sniff the opportunity to punish the "children of darkness" (that's me again)...and then the knives are drawn and the hangmen are summoned.
I am not out to punish their beliefs; I am going to permanently deprive them of their knives and ropes...and the opportunity to spread their disgusting anti-human lies.
People can, for all I care, "believe" that murder and cannibalism are good things...but if they try to exercise that belief publicly, they're going face severe consequences.
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First posted at Che-Lives on November 12, 2002
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quote:
What gives a hardcore communist the right [to claim] that his theory is the best in the world and that his views might save the world from whatever?
In a word, evidence. In other words, not revelation, not a special visit from a supernatural being, not a visit by the "soul" to another, higher dimension.
Just ordinary evidence--what pretty much anyone who had the time and desire could gather for themselves. You don't need a "spiritual guru" to understand communism; you don't need to attend special meetings in special buildings to understand communism; you don't even need Marx and Engels to understand communism. With a couple of years of diligent study of capitalist economics and politics, you could arrive at a pretty fair approximation of Marxism.
The key to science (including Marxism) is that anyone can do it, if they want to. You don't have to be one of the lucky "winners" in "God's Lottery".
So it's really not a matter of "faith" in science or Marxism...it's something that can be verified as useful in explaining the real world.
Religion, on the contrary, can never be verified--for no matter what happens, no matter how unjust it is, no matter how inexplicable it seems to be, it's all a matter of the unknowable "Mind of God".
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First posted at Che-Lives on November 27, 2002
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...the human mind seeks out things to worship...
Mine never did, but maybe I was just lucky. How and why did human minds decide to worship? We all know, at least crudely, the answer to that; humans worshipped natural phenomena that they didn't understand in the hope of controlling them. Pray in the right way to the Storm God and avoid getting hit by lightning or having a hailstorm ruin your crops, etc. (All the big-time gods got their start as storm-gods, by the way, including Yahveh.)
Well, we do understand natural phenomena now...and yet probably 95%+ of the human race is still mired in a habit that no longer serves any rational purpose. What is the point?
Marx and Engels thought that religion served as consolation to the victims of an unjust society...but what consolation is it that you know you're going to live a horrible existence and then die and go to "heaven"? If people really believed that, then all of society's "losers" would commit suicide at once...why hang around for more shit?
I think it's time to "kick the habit" of worship. It serves no useful end that I can see...while providing endless excuses for unspeakable atrocities. "No hell below us," sang John Lennon, "and above us only sky."
He was right!
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First posted at Che-Lives on November 28, 2002
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I think there's something to what you say: in present society people do "worship" other things than "gods"--celebraties from the sports and entertainment media, politicians, self-proclaimed "holy men", etc.
Something needs to be done to put a stop to this servility and I'm open to suggestions...that is, any suggestion that doesn't involve compromising with it or trying to "use" it for "good purposes". There's nothing "good" about servility, humiliation, or degradation. It totally contradicts the heart of communist purpose: human liberation.
Nor am I impressed by any arguments of the type "it's human nature to worship". Even if that could be proven to be true (unlikely but possible), that is no excuse. Cannibalism and rape might well be part of "human nature"--that doesn't mean we accept them. We stop such behavior as best we can. At the very least, we should create a sense of shame in those who voluntarily submit to the degradation of worship.
As to merely closing religious buildings or converting them into museums or other uses, the Russians tried that and it didn't work. As soon as the heat was off, the god-suckers came crawling out from under their rocks, and within weeks of the end of the USSR there were parades carrying icons of "St. Nicholas the Martyr"--the last czar of the old Russian Empire.
Religious architecture is "propaganda in stone" and needs to be utterly destroyed. The empty sites afterwards can be used for any purpose; I would favor public parks, since most cities have far too few green spaces. But regardless of use, one should be able to live one's daily life without having to see monuments to torturers, murderers and witch-burners...just as one should be able to live one's daily life without having to watch someone eating shit. Both are equally disgusting!
I'd also like to say something about the "disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God" type of argument. The fact that one can find, here and there (it's rare), examples of people who fought for liberation with religious motivations is, I think, mostly a case of people who are/were confused.
Think, for example, of the American abolitionists, most of whom operated from religious motives; they believed that "slavery was an abomination in the eyes of God"...though the only slaves freed in the Bible are the Hebrew slaves in Egypt--the "good" Lord neglected to free all the Egyptian slaves in Egypt. Elsewhere, the Bible accepts slavery as perfectly normal. There is no commandment: Thou shalt not hold thy brother in chains. Nowhere in the christian gospels is a word raised against slavery; even though a guy who can "raise the dead" ought to find braking chains a fairly easy task.
I'm aware of so-called "liberation theology"--there are jewish and muslim variants, by the way; it's not just a christian thing. I think they all fall into the catagory of "save what can be saved and dump the rest"--that is, save the worship of god and obedience to his self-proclaimed servants and get rid of everything else that people will no longer accept anyway. I admire their cleverness but I am not fooled.
If you think that John Brown, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X were great fighters for human liberation, I won't dispute the point...except to ask you how much more they might have done had they been atheists and communists?
Or would you like to argue that they would have done less???
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 1, 2002
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"...religion is the best way to teach values"--how so? Are we supposed to do good because "God" commanded it or because we fear the fires of "Hell"? Are values not self-evidently worthy and, if not, just how valuable are they?
"...in those religions where all people were intentionally made by God, the idea of equality is even stronger."--it certainly is not.
Are the "chosen people" equal to the various peoples they conquered and slaughtered? Are muslims "equal" to unbelievers? Are christians "equal" to the heretics they've tortured and murdered?
Quite the contrary, every religion makes a sharp distinction between the saved and the damned...and guess who gets the shitty end of the stick?
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 6, 2002
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"...religion has been given a bad name just like communism has been given a bad name"--sounds reasonable until you look at the time involved. Religions have been around 6,000 years (at least); the Communist Manifesto is just over 150 years old.
To put it crudely, who's got the worse track record here?
"You can't abolish religion, look at what happened in Russia." The Russians didn't abolish religion; they tried but not hard enough. Specifically, they didn't demolish all the churches.
Of course, killing people because they're religious would be both cruel and stupid. Nobody advocates that! And it's not even necessary.
All that's necessary is that it be removed from public life altogether. Don't see many Zeus worshippers around these days, do you? Think it might have something to do with the fact that all of his temples were shut down and all the public ceremonies in his honor were abolished?
What people (13 or older) do in the privacy of their own homes is of no interest to me; they can "worship" a pair of dirty gym shorts for all I care.
As it happens, no one knows what Yeshuah ben-Yosif (Jesus) taught; the "gospels" were all written at least 40 years after his death and pretty much said whatever the particular author wanted "Jesus" to say. There was no way, then, to go back and "look it up".
Yes, the mis-use (abuse) of drugs and alcohol has no doubt fucked up numerous lives; the appropriate use of drugs and alcohol has doubtless made many lives more pleasurable or, at least, endurable than would otherwise be the case. I realize I cannot speak for others, but the proposition that some superstitious mullah has the right to tell me not to have a drink because Muhammed the Illiterate said so is totally unacceptable.
Do people "need" religion as a "crutch" and therefore it's ok? Why shouldn't we rather teach people how to walk without crutches?
Wishing for a world without conflict is pointless; a world mostly without violent conflict is, I think, attainable. But it certainly won't happen as long as people persist in the conviction that their special version of "God" gives them to "right" to shit on everybody else.
When people are deprived of their illusions, they do indeed complain most bitterly. But, as Marx pointed out, to attack illusions (religion) is to attack a world that requires illusions...a necessary step towards changing it.
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 7, 2002
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You can always say that past failures may be overcome in the future in some fashion--and you might possibly say that about anything.
But, again, time is the crucial consideration. Thousands of years of history state bluntly: there is no "humane" or "just" form of slavery or serfdom.
Hundreds of years of history suggest that capitalism...has some problems, to say the least. It's speculative whether countries like Sweden or Denmark have "proven" that capitalism can have a "humane" form that will endure.
The first attempts at communism in the 20th century were unmitigated failures...that must be admitted by any honest observer.
Against these phenomena, compare religion. Thousands of years of history state bluntly that puritanical repression, mythology, attacks on any kind of rational philosophy, conversions at sword-point or gun-point, mass murder of heathens, exploitation of slave labor, apologetics for blood-sucking ruling classes, etc., etc., etc. are all as natural to religion as breathing. The exceptions seem to me to be trivial...involving small numbers and very brief periods of time. (If the "Acts of the Apostles" is accurate, the early christians practiced a rather rigorous communism amongst themselves...but only in Jerusalem and only until 70CE at the latest.)
The record is pretty clear.
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 8, 2002
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What is the purpose of a public demonstration of religious belief?
You know the answer to that one: "Look at us, the saved; join us, or be damned."
And it's a very small step from that to: "join us or be killed!"
No, I will neither accept that nor will I compromise with it. And if the popular militia has to be called out to crack a few skulls, so be it!
And if all the god-suckers want to piss and moan about my "stalinist" methods on the internet, let them go to it.
I maintain that religion has shown itself to be the worst invention in the history of the human species--and while I'm willing to tolerate its private practice among consenting adults, any public manifestation of it is unacceptable under any circumstances.
And if my views have any influence on future generations of communists, that's the way it's going to be!
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 9, 2002
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I agree that property was indeed another perverse invention. But before there was property, there was some tribal con man convincing other members of the tribe that he had a special "connection" to the supernatural realm...which he would gladly share with you for a hand ax and the leg of a dead zebra.
And the con has been going on ever since...until we stop it.
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First posted at Che-Lives on December 11, 2002
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There are many paths to emancipation from religion. One of these paths is biblical criticism...forget that it's a "holy book" and read it just as you would read any other book, Aristotle, Plato, etc.
Putting aside miracle stories, historical inaccuracies, and internal contradictions, what about the morality of the "Bible"?
It's not good! But, as some would quickly point out, I mean "not good" by current standards of civilized behavior. By the standards of its own time, it was average. No worse and no better than hundreds of competing national faiths and universal religions.
As far as we can tell, whether a particular religion survives and grows or not seems to be an accident. That is, a conguence of random developments, none of which can "explain" by itself much of anything.
Think fish! Each fish lays millions of eggs, most of which are eaten by other predators. Only one or two survive long enough to reach sexual maturity and reproduce. For nature, that's sufficient. For ruling classes, it's not important which religion the people follow...just as long is there's at least one!
It is when we abandon religion altogether that we have a chance to confront and change the real world.
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First posted at Che-Lives on January 20, 2003
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I can't speak for others, of course, but I can tell you why I personally keep arguing these matters concerning religion whenever a thread appears on the subject.
It has to do with a (whisper) gaping hole in Marxist theory.
According to Marx and Engels, the working class in the advanced capitalist countries should be the most class conscious and revolutionary of all. It hasn't (whisper again) happened, at least not yet.
Why? Bourgeois sociologists don't care what the reason or reasons might be...they're happy to dismiss Marx and Engels as a couple of wankers. But I care! And I think communists have to care about this issue.
My hypothesis: religion has proven to be a critical obstacle to the development of revolutionary working class consciousness.
I won't argue this now...it deserves a thread of its own and the presentation of some evidence and argument. I'll just say for now that I'm convinced that wide-spread atheism is crucial for the success of the communist project.
That's why I don't let the matter rest.
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First posted at Che-Lives on January 23, 2003
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An "aggressive" religion probably has a "better shot" at growing than one that isn't...but I still think it's largely accidental.
The cult of Isis aggressively recruited in the Mediterranean world while Christianity was growing; likewise the cult of Mithras (the Bull). Neo-platonism was highly popular among the "intelligentsia". Had the Emperor Julian had a longer reign (instead of only a little over 3 years), the old classical religion might have made a huge come-back; his edict of toleration was instantly repealed by the next (Christian) emperor. Finally, Judaism also enjoyed a wide-spread reputation as a "more serious" religion; had it not been for the rite of circumcision, it might well have grown much larger and faster than it did.
In the Arabian Peninsula, Islam had no serious competition prior to the invasion of Persia...and the combination of the "warrior mentality" of the Arab tribes and Islam proved well-nigh irresistable.
I think it boils down to a whole series of factors that are largely accidents of history--things like the personality of the founder, the ease of conversion, how demanding are the rituals and commandments, what competition exists, are people "in the market" for new religions, the attitude of the public authorities, etc., etc.
Who would have predicted that the Mormons would do so well...and the Moonies so poorly?
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First posted at Che-Lives on January 24, 2003
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"Separation of church and state" doesn't get the job done...that is, doesn't smash the hold that religion has on people. It helps, but it's not enough. Separation of church and state was written into the American constitution over two hundred years ago...and yet we have repeatedly suffered from and are suffering from waves of fundamentalist persecution. Things like the "war on drugs", the crusade against tobacco, the struggle to limit and ultimately abolish abortion rights for women, and even much of the official anti-communist ideology in this country have their roots in neo-puritanical religious fundamentalism...not to mention the role of religion as "justification" for U.S. imperialism.
I think history clearly demonstrates that, for the most part, religion has played a thoroughly reactionary role in every country in the world. I will grant rare exceptions...but even the exceptions don't look all that "exceptional" when viewed "close up."
This role does not change simply because you've made a revolution. Every progressive change that your new society proposes to introduce is likely to be opposed, openly or covertly, by the "church". And if your country happens to fall victim to counter-revolution, they will come crawling out in hordes...like cockroaches in a dark and filthy kitchen.
The ink wasn't dry on the law that abolished the USSR when they were parading through the streets of Moscow with pictures of "St. Nicholas the Martyr"--otherwise known to historians as "Bloody Nicholas", the last Czar of Russia.
My "stalinist" remedy: the removal of religion from public life altogether...making it a private concern, privately practiced, like using the toilet.
That means: no churches or religious architecture, no public religious demonstrations or ceremonies, changing the names of all public areas that have religious connotations (San Francisco goes back to its old name: Yerba Buena), no religious schools, no publication of religious works (except for critical scholarly works), etc. Taking money from people for performing religious ceremonies would be a class A felony...fraud. Teaching small children religious beliefs would be felony child abuse. Street preaching would be a misdemeanor...distrubing the peace. And so on.
People would be free only to worship in their own homes with their fellow believers. If they wish to communicate with other believers, they could do so on the internet...but no spamming non-religious boards.
Beyond this, I would attempt to create a "climate of opinion" that considered religious belief something shameful and disgraceful...rather like we would regard a "UFO nutball" or "flat earth nutball" now.
The idea is that over several generations, religion would essentially be forgotten...except by historians and a few nutballs.
Is such a dramatic transformation possible? Well, remember that in revolutionary situations, many things that formerly seemed unshakable "suddenly" become "paper tigers" (to use Mao's old term). A working class revolution is the most critical event in human history...nothing is "sacred" or beyond questioning.
And, of course, it has happened before. The Christians "abolished" the old classical religions so effectively that you'd look far and wide these days to find even one worshipper of Zeus or Isis. It can be done.
The task begins with communists...ourselves. We must rid ourselves of all foolish and romantic illusions about "Jesus", the Buddha, or any other such figure. They were not our forerunners in any way. We have nothing in common with them, much less with their followers. For the most part, serious religious believers are our open and declared enemies. They have shown that they will unite with anyone--even fascists and Nazis--to oppose us.
And, of course, they have tried and will try to copy us if they think that will work to defeat us. They had "worker priests" in France in the 1930s; they had the "Catholic Worker" outfit in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s; they have "liberation theology" now (the Jews and the Muslims, knowing a good tactic when they see one, now have their versions of "liberation theology" as well).
This should not "fool" any communist. They don't really mean it. What they really mean is that bosses should treat workers a little better and that small farmers in Central and South America should get a little plot of land for their own use...and that's about it. A real change in class relationships, the end of rule by capitalists and landed aristocrats is the last thing they really want! The end of class society threatens the end of their special role as "God's appointed representatives on Earth"...and that scares the "Hell" out of them. Their wealth, their authority, their prestige are all at stake...and like every ruling class, they will fight to the death to keep them.
At the root of all religious belief are three things: (1) Obedience to God's Will; (2) Obedience to God's duly-appointed representatives on Earth; (3) Obedience to those secular authorities deemed sufficiently "godly" by God's earthly representatives.
On Point 3, Hitler, Mussolini, and George W. Bush "qualify". We communists do not. Nor should we try!
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 8, 2003
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quote:
...treading a fine line between ideology and oppression there, redstar2000.
Well, it seems wide enough to me...at least to walk confortably. To serious religious believers, of course, what I propose is "outrageous Stalinist tyranny" and I am, no doubt, worse than the Emperor Nero...in their eyes.
But you see, my post was really addressed to people who are or who want to be communist revolutionaries. I think it's vital that communists be clear about the reactionary role of religion.
It's "no good" pretending that we can encouage class struggle while just ignoring things like religion and nationalism...people's minds just don't "work" like that. Since religion and nationalism are "childhood indoctrinations" and communism is an "adult conviction", the former influence, distort and even destroy the latter.
When World War I began, all of the "socialist" parties (Social Democracy) immediately forgot all about class struggle and plunged enthusiastically into the muck of nationalism and the joy of slaughtering their "inferior" neighbors. Same thing happened in the former Yugoslavia.
We communists can talk about class struggle until we're blue, or rather, red in the face...but it's strictly uphill while people remain stupified by their hopes of "Heaven"...or, worse, the conviction that their masters have been "appointed by God."
That doesn't mean class struggle doesn't take place...material reality imposes its own demands and they can sometimes outweigh even the most reactionary ideology (there was class struggle within the Nazi Party).
But religious beliefs and nationalist prejudices make everything SO much harder. It's like trying to run with a 50 kilogram weight on your shoulders...if you're strong enough, you can still do it, but you're not going to set any speed records. And don't forget, the longer class society lasts, the greater the sufferings of both ourselves and everyone else who's not part of the elite.
And, finally, religion and nationalism are just plain wrong, that is, incorrect ways of looking at the world. There is no "special" group of people who are "more human" than all other groups of people. And there are no gods, of any kind.
Before we can expect other people to understand these things...we communists first must understand them ourselves.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 8, 2003
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Well, there is an "absolutist civil libertarian" position, which evidently you endorse, that does permit "freedom of speech" even for Nazis.
It's just NOT my position.
As to the "existence of God", from my view, there's no "debate." No religion has ever produced scientifically verifible evidence for the existence of any supernatural entities. Do you believe in unicorns or elves? They are just as "real" as "God"--the same amount of evidence exists to support both.
The "con" is to get you to believe in something that doesn't exist...just as if I were to promise you a "hot new investment opportunity" that will "double your money in six months." You say that this belief has not made you into a robot; with all due respect, I would add "not yet" to your statement. ("robot" by the way, comes from a Czech word meaning worker.)
"Does religion have a part to play in a socialist society?" No. Even were they to take a "pro-socialist" position publicly, I would assume counter-revolutionary intent on their part and would watch them like a hawk. To rephrase slightly what I said earlier: real power in the hands of the working class to change the world means...who needs the religious hierarchies? Once people grasp as part of daily reality that the world can be changed to grant their desires, who will the clerical vampires feed off of?
Consequently, whatever church hierarchs say in public statements, privately they are bitterly opposed to socialist revolution. Usually, they say this publicly as well, but, in extremis, they have been known to lie.
"How do they oppose class struggle?" Well, let's be more specific; they have no objection to the class struggle waged by the ruling class against the workers. Has the Pope issued a "bull" (declaration) opposing privatization, de-regulation, abolition of welfare, etc.?
Are they supporting Chavez in Venezuela...or have they joined up with the old Venezuelan elite in a desperate attempt to prevent modest reforms of capitalism? (Chavez is not--yet--a socialist.)
In Argentina, do they condemn the IMF and the political/financial elite there...or do they say that the crisis there is the "fault" of the ordinary people "who have lost touch with God"?
If you really wanted to get in touch with the heart of modern Catholicism, you should try and read up some on Opus Dei--the semi-fascist order of rich bastards determined to preserve capitalism by any means necessary...the Pope just made it's founder a saint.
On what basis does religion directly attack class struggle? Because it divides humanity along different lines than we communists do. Religion says there are two groups of humans: the saved and the damned. (This is also, by the way, the problem with nationalism: it divides humanity into two groups: the "superior" group that I'm a member of and all the other "inferior" humans...who may not really be "human" at all.)
A consistent Christian cannot oppose a Christian boss...they are "brothers/sisters in Christ." That outweighs mere "earthly" concerns. Whenever a Christian worker nevertheless does oppose a Christian boss, s/he does it with a "bad conscience", s/he "feels guilty" about it...and s/he is therefore much less likely to see the need for total confrontation with and total victory over all bosses.
This also answers your question about "using religion as a vehicle for class struggle." It's been tried from time to time...usually in those rare situations where the priest/preacher is damn near as poor as his congregation. It never works.
I should warn you--if you haven't gathered it already--that I'm a lot worse than Marx and Engels on this topic. They spent little time discussing religion...they thought that capitalism itself would fatally weaken religion and that it would wither away spontaneously under socialism. Historical experience suggests a different conclusion--religion has become extremely important as a way of stupifying the working class and keeping the capitalist class in power...and there's big money behind it. I'm told this is not so much the case in the European Union as it is in the United States...and I hope that's true, because here it's awful!
Nationalism does indeed deserve its own thread(s)...I mentioned it because it does have striking parallels with religion and serves many of the same social purposes. And, it would have to be dealt with by many of the same measures that I proposed to remove religion from public life. All those statues of "great military leaders" are going to the scrap metal factory, etc.
Also, I've ridden the Buddhist merry-go-round before and don't want to again, if I can avoid it. Buddhism proposes that we should strive for "freedom from desire" as the road to liberation from "the wheel of existence"...the idea is that we stop suffering the pains of existence when we stop being reincarnated and thus stop existing.
Leaving aside that fact that there's no evidence for reincarnation, I think communist society exists for the purpose of fulfilling human desires. Thus, I find Buddhism rather unsatisfying. I suppose Buddhists could become pro-communists...but I think they'd take the most conservative side in any debate among communists.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 9, 2003
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I hate to "disappoint" you, but there are several groups that I do not wish to "liberate"...starting with the capitalist class. I very much want to take away many of the "liberties" they cherish...especially the freedom to exploit wage labor.
Likewise, I do not wish to "liberate" Nazis, Klansmen, and religious fundamentalists, among others...because the "freedom" they want most is the freedom to kill me. I know that's "selfish" of me...but I would much prefer their deaths to mine (should it come to that). No doubt, they would disagree.
And their motives, by the way, are of no interest to me: whether they think I'm an agent of the "Jewish World Conspiracy" or a "traitor to my race" or a "tool of the Devil" makes no difference. None of those groups or their imitators have ever "played fair"...I have no intention of ever "playing fair" with them.
Religion and politics do mix in the real world. Maybe they "shouldn't"...but they do! And why would you expect anything else? If someone takes religion really seriously, then the carrying out of "God's Will" on Earth is important...in fact, it's crucial. In their eyes, what could possibly be more important?
They've "conned" you for a very important reason...to get you to do what they approve of and to refrain from doing what they disapprove of. The "con" is not always 100% effective...and sometimes (fortunately) falls flat on its face.
But consider...here you are on a message board advancing some of the same arguments that they want advanced very much...e.g. religion should not be removed from public life, women should not have access to abortion on demand, etc. Wouldn't a pope or any Caholic hierarch say the same things? But they have you to argue for them. And you have more credibility with the members of che-lives than they could ever hope to have.
So, the "con" has worked...at least some.
One reason why churches find it difficult to "change" their position on issues is that they are not democratic institutions. Can you imagine a potential pope "campaigning" on a platform of "liberation theology" and "one believer, one vote"?
Some Protestant denominations do have quasi-democratic bodies...but such bodies usually "decide" for the most conservative of any two or more options because the people that take religion seriously enough to actively participate in church politics are conservative.
There are some limited circumstances in which religious institutions are compelled by secular authorities to change their positions. After 1865, very few churches, even in the former Confederate states, openly preached that "Negro slavery was God's Will"...though they did continue to preach the gospel of "Negro inferiority." And the Mormons were "made" to receive a "special revelation" from the "Lord" abolishing polygamy as a condition of Utah statehood (the first "divine revelation" ever transmitted by telegraph...from Washington, D.C., no less!).
So, would you have us issue orders to all religious institutions for a new revelation: "Thus sayeth the Lord, communism is My Kingdom on Earth...and the counter-revolutionists shall suffer both earthly punishments and the fires of Hell." You think my measures are repressive; but something like that...trying to make people change their religious beliefs for my political convenience, seems to me to be far worse.
You claim that religion is, for many people, a "social thing", a "hobby"...like sports.
I do think that sports have been used, in some circumstances, to stupify the working class...though nowhere near the degree that religion and nationalism have been used. I'm certainly in favor of sports after the revolution...but not the multi-billion dollar idiocy that exists now.
Yes, people who are not serious about religion now regard their attendance at religious functions as a "social event". But they could have "social events" after the revolution without involving the public celebration of superstition. There are probably an enormous number of ways that people could "get together" for mutual enjoyment...none of which need involve concern over the supernatural.
Yet what may be seen as "harmless" today can turn into something very harmful tomorrow. Prior to World War I, the cult of "Nordic/Ayran superiority" was a "hobby", a thing that only a few nutballs were really interested in. One of those nutball groups, the "Thule Society", provided some of the earliest financing for the Nazi Party. Opus Dei has a wealthy membership...wonder who they're giving some "seed money" to these days?
"The church actually does a lot to help poor people everywhere." Depends on what you mean by "help". The churches are good at "charity" (sometimes)...a free meal here and there, a place to sleep out of the rain and cold on occasion, stuff like that. Real help seems to me to be something altogether different...it means making a communist revolution and trying to show people how that could be done.
As it happens, there were a couple of occasions in my life where I was (briefly) "down and out"...no money, no food, no place to live. It never occurred to me to seek religious charity. I had comrades and they helped me scramble my way up out of the hole...as I have helped a few others in later years. None of us needed religion to make us do those things...it was just the communist thing to do, period.
The use of religion as a revolutionary vehicle? The outstanding example would be during the Protestant Reformation...a fellow by the name of Thomas Muenzer organized a quite extensive peasant rebellion against feudalism in what is now the western part of Germany (1520-21). He took the verses in the "Acts of the Apostles" concerning early Christian "communism" quite literally--the wealth and privileges of both the Catholic hierarchy and the feudal aristocracy were "unGodly" and should be fought until they were destroyed. (His comments on that hypocritical shit Martin Luther are still delightful after 5 centuries.)
They lost, of course...but their distant descendents still survive to this day, primarily in the Hutterian Brethren--a religious communist society that mostly exists in rural parts of the eastern United States and the mid-western parts of Canada. They've lost all interest in "changing the world", of course, and they treat women like baby-making machines...but their farming communes are "true" communist groups, sharing their wealth equally among their members.
That's the "best" example I know of. I did once hear a sermon preached in a union hall in Eastern Kentucky (coal mining country)...the preacher said that "the greedy mineowners are going to burn in Hell!" (Amen, brother.) But, cynic that I am, I suspect his motive had more to do with the source of his next meal than with anything in Marx and Engels.
Using religion as a vehicle for revolution is, in my view, like trying to use an automobile as a boat. An automobile will float for a short period of time in calm waters...but it is, after all, the wrong tool for the job.
What about religious people who support socialism...are such people wolves in sheep's clothing?
Personally, I think such people are confused. They are trying to balance two conflicting world-views inside their heads. It's an extremely unstable situation...and which way they will ultimately go is decided by a host of individual factors--impossible to predict with any accuracy.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 10, 2003
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If this discussion, has veered in a "civil libertarian" direction, that's your choice. I'm willing to go in any direction you wish...and to at least try to answer any question you have.
A minor point: I am not against sports after the revolution...but I am against multi-billion dollar spectacles, multi-billionaire owners and multi-millionaire players and tickets so expensive that the average guy can't even get on the waiting list.
Am I a "stalinist"? Well, at the end of your post, you noted that Stalin did not try to "ban religion." He did close some churches and even tore down a few, but, for example, Gorbachev and Yeltsin were born in the early 1930s...and duly baptised eight days after their births according to the ritual prescribed by the Russian Orthodox Church. In fact, Stalin followed, in a way, your suggestion...he attempted to use the Russian Orthodox Church as a vehicle to build support for the USSR...all members of the church hierarchy had to be "approved" by the Communist Party.
So even though I'm not in favor of "banning religion"...except from public life, I'm actually worse than Stalin...because he still allowed it some limited public presence. On the other hand, I'm also "better" than Stalin...because I don't think communists should be involved in choosing or approving the clergy of this or that superstition. I mean, come on, are we to go on to appoint "communist-approved" astrologers?
Are communists "anti-everything-that-exists" under capitalism? Um, most likely, yes...with some limited exceptions. Why? Because capitalist ideology permeates damn near everything that exists. Everything under capitalism, Marx once said, becomes a "commodity"...that which can be traded in the marketplace. In the course of working class revolution and a society wherein political and economic power are in the hands of the working class, everything pretty much has to be re-evaluated, criticized, and decisions have to be made...to keep, to modify, to restrict, or to abolish.
This was, in fact, the case during many of the bourgeois revolutions in the past...it will be much more so in the working-class revolutions of the future. This would be a good place to point out that the proposals I made to remove religion from public life would not be implemented until they had been approved by public referendum, preceeded by the widest possible public debate and discussion. In this respect, at least, my methods are...somewhat different from those of "Comrade Stalin."
Both capitalist and communist countries have had formal rules requiring the separation of church and state...and both have in fact ignored such rules whenever the ruling elites thought it was convenient. I find this formulation inadequate for the real world and therefore propose stronger measures. And I've already admitted that I was "worse" than Marx and Engels on this issue.
Actually, the "cult of aryan superiority" was a mixture of racial, political, occult, and old Norse mythological beliefs. Had World War II ended in an overwhelming German victory, it would probably have triumphed within the Nazi Party and eventually (after a century or two, maybe less) become a new religion. Why not? Other religions have plenty of bloodshed in their background...and it didn't hinder them.
I think I'm basing my "hatred" of religion on a logical and rational analysis of its social role over the past 6,000 years...that is, all of written history that we have access to. But perhaps there's a personal element involved...there is something about the arrogant presumption of those who claim to be especially selected "by God" to give me orders. Not to mention that the punishment for disobedience of those orders is, if they can manage it, death.
I am not worried about "turning people against me" because of my position on religion in public life or any other position I might take. The struggle for communism is not a "beauty contest" or a "bourgeois election". I am not asking for people to hand over their destinies to me or any other revolutionary...I'm calling on them to "take matters into their own hands."
But I'm not really expecting them to listen until they "kill the priest inside their own heads." (Didn't James Joyce say that?)
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 10, 2003
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That "liberation theology" has had an impact on politics in Latin America is undeniable...particularly in rural areas, I imagine.
The question of whether it is actually possible to combine Christian and Marxist principles is a different one. I do not think it is possible.
Marxism draws its conclusions about the world based on evidence. Christianity looks at the world through the eyes of "divine revelation"...evidence is irrelevant.
Consequently, it's perfectly possible (though unlikely) for a Christian to be "pro-communist"...on the grounds that communism is a "morally superior" social order vs. capitalism. But a sincere Christian would find Marxist principles unacceptable because they deny "God's existence."
Historically, Christians have seen communist ideas as a "threat" so dire that they have been willing to form alliances with fascists and Nazis to "stop communism." I don't really expect that to change in any significant way.
To the extent that people motivated by the principles of "liberation theology" actually oppose the old landed aristocracy and military dictators in Latin America, they might be considered mildly "progressive". But to rely on such folks as a force for serious revolutionary change on that unhappy continent is, in my view, ludicrous.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 15, 2003
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If "all things are possible with God", then the rich can enter the "Kingdom of Heaven" and the rest of what "Jesus" says is just rhetorical. At worst, the rich can keep their wealth on earth but must use the "servant's entrance" in "Heaven".
There seems little doubt that the first century appeal of "Christianity" was concentrated among people who, for the most part, were the "losers" in the Roman Empire...slaves, poor freedman, and women. As a consequence, some of their aspirations "made it" into the early "gospels"...including the possibility of a "Heaven" that would exclude the arrogant rich bastards who had made life on earth pure hell.
By the time the Christian Church became really well-organized (c.200-300CE), all of that sort of thing was pretty much over. A few scraps of rhetoric "made it" into the "New Testament"...but no one took it seriously then or now.
The over-riding message of Christianity (like all religions): 1. Obey the Will of God; 2. Obey God's (self-appointed) earthly representatives; and 3. Obey the secular authorities that have been endorsed as sufficiently "godly" by God's earthly representatives.
I'm sorry, but there is nothing even remotely "left-wing" about this outlook; it has been and remains entirely reactionary.
It is good that you have an expansive idea of communist freedom...but let's be reasonable. There will be things under communism that will not be permitted. One of those things is the exploitation of wage-labor. Another of those things will be the public celebration of religion...of any kind. Another of those things will be public racism or sexism or anti-semitism, etc.
Only "gods" can do anything they want...which is why we are fortunate that they don't exist.
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First posted on February 28, 2000
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I'm curious...no, I'm dumbfounded as to the purpose(s) of a thread like this.
The consensus appears to be that all three of the monotheistic religions are just big bundles of love and mutual tolerance...and the fact that the most committed followers of these faiths cheerfully slaughter one another is of no consequence. It's all, I guess, "the work of the devil".
It's not the words in any particular "holy book" that is the problem...it is the very mind-set of the faithful that is the problem.
Once you accept, without evidence, the existence of supernatural entities, the desire of these entities to be "worshipped" in a certain particular way, and the power of these entities to inflict torture on those who refuse their commands in this world and the "next"...what possible difference can lip-service to tolerance make?
In "Saudi" Arabia, a woman can't drive a car and a non-Muslim cannot even enter the city of Mecca!
In Israel, it is almost impossible for a non-Jew to become a citizen.
In Germany, France, Austria...non-Christians are permitted to live...but their lives are at risk from those who think they are unworthy of "European" (Christian) civilization.
Tolerance? Do you believers dare mention the word tolerance?
When communism triumphs, you believers will complain bitterly of communist "intolerance"...among other things, we won't permit you to kill each other any more.
What an outrage!
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 6, 2003
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Everyone should respect the religions of this world. These ancient faiths united the world and brought about moral civilization.
And, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, I am the rightful King of Roumania!
The truth "about Islam" is the same as the truth "about Judaism" which is the same as the truth "about Christianity". Preach love and tolerance while you are weak; convert or kill the unbeliever when you are strong.
That is the unquestionable "track record" of all three monotheistic religions...though the Hindus are catching up rapidly.
And this is not to mention that, if no heathens are readily available, it's always "Godly" to kill other members of your own faith for insufficient godliness or errors of doctrine.
"Demonize religion"? What "demon" could possibly match what human believers have done?
"Unify the world?" In an ocean of innocent blood!
"Civilization?" The deeds of the religious would shame a barbarian!
"Every faith should be respected." Yes, you should never approach one unless you are heavily armed!
Oh, is that "bigoted"? Did I "offend"?
Give me your "Tough Shit" Card and I'll punch it for you.
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First posted on March 6, 2003
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It doesn't much matter whether you want to be "judged" responsible for the acts of anyone who has called themselves a communist in the past...you will be!
Likewise, your differences with other communists, regardless of what they might be, will not mean much of anything to non-communists and will be ignored by anti-communists.
See what I'm saying: you sign up? you buy the package!
That doesn't mean that you personally cannot attempt to change the contents of the package. Communism today is not what it was 50 years ago or 100 years ago or 150 years ago. People have learned...if at a painfully slow rate.
But when I hear people say that "Stalin wasn't a real communist" or "Trotsky wasn't a real communist", etc., I get a little irritated. In their time, they were the best that communism had to offer.
However you personally interpret and apply the ideas of Marx and Engels, you will be judged by other communists. There's no escaping that.
What separates communism from religion is that communism appeals to material reality for its validation. If the interpretation of Marx and Engels by Stalin or Trotsky is inaccurate in the light of historical experience, then it must be rejected.
This will not stop our enemies from trying as best they can to drape those corpses around our necks...but, as time passes, their slanders will count for less and less, unless we are so stupid as to repeat the errors of Lenin, Stalin, or Trotsky.
The whole point about religious fundamentalism of any variety is precisely that they must repeat their stupidities and crimes over and over again...divine revelation is not impaired by material failure. They don't give up. And they dream of exactly the kind of situation that exists today in Iran or "Saudi" Arabia...where "God's representatives" are both respected and feared.
If you think today's Christian fundamentalists would not burn someone for witchcraft if they thought they could get away with it...you are unbelievably naive.
Jewish fundamentalists in Israel would simply love to bring back stoning as the penalty for adultry (women only, of course).
The recent behavior of Islamic fundamentalists is a matter of reports in the daily news...as is the behavior of Hindu fundamentalists.
Religious "liberals" try to distinguish themselves from fundamentalists; they claim to be modern and civilized and incapable of barbaric behavior.
I think they are either lying to themselves...or just lying. Why? Because the heart of religion is anti-rational. When you're talking about enforcing the "Will of God", there simply aren't any rational limits. It's ok to do anything.
They have! And, given the chance, they will!
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 7, 2003
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You are well informed, but you are using your knowledge to confirm what you already believe to be true, not drawing conclusions from what you know.
I don't even understand what that sentence means. Yes, the knowledge I have gathered confirms conclusions that I reached long ago...if it did not confirm those conclusions, then I would no longer have them. On what basis can anyone conclude anything that is not based on gathered knowledge? Oh, I forgot, there's always "divine revelation".
Could one make a distinction between the crimes committed by communists and the crimes committed by the faithful? Yes, actually I think it could be done.
The communist crimes, admittedly awful, were committed in the quasi-rational pursuit of an "earthly" goal...the achievement of communism. It would never have occurred to Stalin, for example, to simply exterminate everyone who wasn't a committed communist. Even the wretched Pol Pot and his Khymer Rouge did not attempt to murder every Buddhist in Cambodia.
Even in those instances where the numbers are not comparable, the crimes of the faithful are of a different order of magnitude altogether. Here we are talking of torture and murder for "spiritual" gain...reason is unnecessary and, in fact, unwanted.
Thus it is that we communists have learned that Stalin was wrong and Pol Pot was mad.
Where is the equivalent in religious circles? Do the Lutherans repudiate the words of Martin Luther when he called for the mass murder of rebellious peasants and the vigorous persecution of the Jews?
Has the Pope "revoked" sainthood for the murderous priests of the inquisition?
Do Jewish fundamentalists now repudiate the crimes of the ancient Hebrews against the Philistines? That's where our word "Palestine" comes from, by the way...in Arabic, I think, it's something like "Filisteen". After 3,000 years, the people that live there must still be conquered and expelled...or killed.
And even the most rabid anti-stalinist (Robert Conquest?) has never accused Stalin of ordering acid thrown in a woman's face for going unveiled in public. In fact, women could drive cars in the USSR! How about that!
I think I'm as well informed in the history of religion as you are, but your knowledge of contemporary religious practice appears deficient to me.
Who are the people demanding to control female sexuality and fertility? Who are the people who want Darwin out of the schools and the ten commandments in? Who are the people that proclaim AIDS to be "divine judgment" of sexual and chemical sin? Who are the people who say God has chosen America to rule the world? Who are the people that invented the concept of "Holy War"? And this shit is going on right now.
Yes, religion does change...under secular compulsion. When the English laws against witchcraft were repealed (1821, I think), the Church of England was furious in its opposition.
You would say that wouldn't happen now; the C of E has gotten used to the idea that burning women for witchcraft has gone out of fashion...at least for the time being. But the history of religion clearly shows that all it takes is one charismatic "prophet" to bring about a revival of "that old-time religion"...in which burning a "witch" is as unremarkable as stoning an adulterer.
You reveal, perhaps unintentionally, your real reason for your defense of religion. You think the capitalists have won. You think that we communists are just a bunch of dreamers...and since you're in the dream racket yourself, you find it unacceptable and intolerable that a communist should dare to criticize your fantasies.
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...deep inside you KNOW that you have a deep need to know how it actually all began.
Indeed? Have you considered a career as a telephone psychic? It would be a shame to waste such a great talent on a hopeless sinner like me...there are so many who want to believe. And they'll pay you!
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That is what religion is, an attempt to explain the unexplainable mysteries of life, its purposes and origin.
To attempt to explain the "unexplainable" sounds like an exercise in utter futility to me. But what religion really is is just a pack of lies. What is so hard to understand about that?
Perhaps you think that people "need" to believe in lies. But we communists have already stolen your thunder on that one. Believers may have said it first...but we mean it!
Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free!
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 8, 2003
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Religion is the most powerful institution in the world and nothing can change that.
Actually, capitalism has changed that quite a bit...though I'm sure they've come to regret it by now, and are doing their best to repair what they once despised.
But, I already know your pro-capitalist views and your position in defense of religion comes as no surprise.
Enjoy your moment of triumph...it won't last.
If "St. Paul" was wrong about so many things, how come he's still a "saint"?
And if a "saint" can be wrong, what meaning does Christianity really have? Here's a guy who claimed to have a direct vision of "Jesus" himself...and he fucked up?
What the Archbishop of Canterbury means by "more liberalization within the church" I have no idea. Is he going to issue a public statement flatly condemning U.S. imperialism in Iraq? Is he going to excommunicate Tony Blair? or any British soldier who takes part in the war?
Perhaps he plans to reveal a new divine message to the effect that the dictatorship of the proletariat is the "Will of the Lord"??
The Sandinistas are indeed a tragic case; I don't deny that they sincerely meant well...but I think the combination of U.S. Government terrorism and their own naivte was fatal. They should have known that a "free election" to the bourgeoisie is one that can be bought.
Now, of course, they're just another bunch of corrupt bastards...with a power-sharing agreement with the old Somoza gangsters that insures that no real opposition will ever be on the ballot in Nicaragua.
But note that all their subservience to "the Lord" did not save their reforms. Evidently, "God" doesn't really give a shit about poor people in Nicaragua...or any place else.
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 8, 2003
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I strongly suspect that there is more myth than reality to the characterization of the USSR as an "atheist" state.
I agree it certainly looked that way to "believers". Compared to the old Czarist regime, Lenin and Stalin were a lot more tight-fisted. Many churches were closed down, some were torn down, seminaries were closed, etc. The subsidies that the church used to get from the government and the aristocracy diminished greatly.
But a lot of that crap did continue. It's interesting to note that both Gorbachev and Yeltsin were born in the early 1930s...and duly baptised on the eighth day after thier birth according to the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church. As war with Germany loomed closer, the propaganda organs of the USSR began to soft-pedal atheism and the old phrase "Holy Mother Russia" began to, here and there, appear.
Of course, with the collapse of the USSR, the vermin really came crawling out from under their rocks in serious numbers; within days, there were processions in the streets of Moscow with large portraits of "St. Nicholas the Martyr"...referring to bloody Nicholas II, the last Czar.
Which brings me to the spirited defense of one version of Christianity...which is equated with the mutual cooperation of communist society.
No, I don't see that at all...for a whole bunch of reasons.
Whatever "good works" the members of your church perform, sir, they do not perform them because such works are good in themselves but because it's their...ticket to "Heaven".
Although "Jesus" only required belief in "Him" to get into "Heaven", there is strong inference in the "New Testament" that "good works" are one way of "laying up treasures in Heaven"...suggesting that there is some kind of status hierarchy "up there". After all, you don't want to spend eternity in a basement apartment in a low-status neighborhood even in "Heaven"...when you can feed a few homeless and "qualify" for better arrangements, do you?
Christians do "good works" to qualify for "Heaven's A-list".
As far as liberation from a society that requires homelessness, poverty, hunger, etc., the Christians can only echo the words of their founder: "The poor ye shall always have with thee". (my emphasis)
Could a Christian honestly assert that "Jesus" was wrong? Could the "Son of God" have made a mistake? To a believer, how could that be possible?
I think that even when Christians say that they "support" revolutionary change, they do it in "bad faith"...they really believe that no real change is possible until "Jesus" returns. Therefore, as a communist, I do not want their "support" and, in fact, prefer their open opposition.
As I am openly opposed to them!
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First Posted at Politics Forum on March 8, 2003
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It seems to me that "closed-mindedness" is another one of those fuzzy, flabby terms that is so difficult to assign a meaning to with any precision.
A doctor would flatly refuse to waste any time arguing with someone who believed in the "demon-possession theory" of disease. Is she "closed-minded"?
An astronomer does not waste time arguing with astrologers. A chemist does not waste time arguing with alchemists (if any were still to be found). A rare few biologists have gone to the trouble of arguing with "creation scientists"...in court. They perceive "creation science" as a direct attack on science in general and on their field in particular...and they are quite right about that.
Thus it is that the vast majority of atheists--including most communists--are unwilling to "waste time" arguing with believers. All of the arguments in support of religion have been discredited over the last two centuries...there's nothing of substance left to argue "about".
This may be true as far as it goes, but I think it is clearly a short-sighted view. Many atheists (non-communist or even anti-communist for the most part) think of themselves as an "intellectual elite" and are dismissive or contemptuous of the "opinions of the herd".
Like Greek philosophers, they think that religion is acceptable and even desirable for the "stupid masses" while they enjoy the light of reason.
We communists have a different view; we do not consider the masses to be inherently stupid and incapable of reason. But for reason to prevail, it must enter the battle.
Communists who sit back and say "we don't care if people are religious as long as they support communism in this world" are being arrogant and stupid. They are like a powerful sports team that thinks they've already won the contest just by showing up for the game.
If, as I have maintained in other posts, religion is fundamentally reactionary, then it needs to be fought in the same way we would fight any other powerful reactionary ideology. We do not let racism, patriotism, sexism, homophobia, etc. pass by without the sharpest criticism; why should we let religious superstitions off the hook?
Are we afraid of ideological struggle, where it counts?
Sad to say, some are. But I'm not.
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 9, 2003
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If you are speaking of "western" countries, the sources of law are quite diverse...though some do have their origins in Christian prejudices. The laws against witchcraft stem from a reading in the Torah or "Old Testament".
But most western law actually, if rather distantly, is descended from the Roman Empire...mixed with local traditions in different countries.
The "quality" of law, in all cases, is highly dubious. Even right now, the law codes are crammed with the most outrageously unjust, not to mention wildly irrational statutes. Trying to find a law that is both just and sensible is "needle-in-a-haystack" country.
If this is a "benefit", you clearly mean something very different from that word than I do.
Does religion promote the "doing of good deeds"? I suppose, in a trivial sense, that would occasionally happen. I hardly think it makes up for the historical roster of horrors that religion is directly responsible for.
Yes, I already conceded that religion "comforts the afflicted"...but is "comfort" what is really needed? To believe that a deceased loved one is in "Heaven" may enable someone to cope with the grief of loss...but it doesn't change the fact of death or the need to mourn and move on.
Perhaps there would be far less deep grief if we simply came to terms with the facts...that death is the common fate of us all and not some unique outrage aimed at each of us individually; for which a special compensation in some ghostly realm is required.
Our real "after-life" comes from the memories that people have of us after we are dead. To the extent that we have affected human life for the better (or, it must be admitted, for the worse), we actually live a lot longer than we think we do.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 9, 2003
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Science was studied as a way to find out God's intentions for things.
It sets a powerful challenge to science to figure out "why" God intended that women who go unveiled in public should have acid thrown in their face by the pious.
For a muslim to reproach an atheist for "blind ignorance" does take some, er, nerve.
So, your believing scientist writes books on physics for children. That's kind of scary. Does he discuss the aerodynamics of angelic flight? Or what would happen to a planet suddenly stopped from rotating?
The "beliefs" of atheists are, for the most part, ordinary common sense. The "beliefs" of believers are...well, unbelievable. Granted that some of the more esoteric regions of modern physics are counter-intuitive, still they can, with serious study, be understood.
But how is one supposed to understand "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" or the criticism of acid in a woman's face?
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 9, 2003
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Do you think that we would have "no morals" if religion had never been invented?
"Morals" are a human invention just as much as religions are. In the absence of "divine thunderbolts", we call them customs or mores...but they are just as binding.
In some ways, more binding; which would you find more embarrassing, being publicly "exposed" as an atheist or going on television wearing a dress?
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...religion is not responsible for the crimes committed in its name...
Oh, yes it is! When the "Bible" says "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" and the religious proceed to murder somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 women, religion is responsible!
When the "Bible" says that "he who loveth his son chastiseth him" and "good Christians" beat their children to death, religion is responsible.
When the "Bible" says "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and good Christian Americans willingly and eagerly follow George W. Bush into a "holy war" against Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, etc., religion is responsible.
When the "Bible" says "Woman, submit thyself to thy Husband", and doctors who perform abortions are murdered by Christian fanatics, religion is responsible.
When the "Bible" says "And the Lord said kill all the men and women and children and cattle and oxen, etc." and good Christian America drops nuclear weapons on the heathen Japanese, religion is responsible.
Religion is responsible for what it explicitly advocates and condones. As well as, of course, for what can be reasonably inferred from its dictates.
Try to find something in Marx and Engels that explicitly justifies "the crimes of Stalin"...you will look in vain!
You seem to think that I would meet the death of someone close to me with a stupid remark--"shit happens"--well, it does. Does that mean I would not mourn? Or does it mean I simply reject the fake "consolation" of "life after death"? You know, like a grown-up.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 10, 2003
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...science hasn't explained why we are here...
maybe because that's not a real question...even though it "sounds" like one.
Religion hasn't "explained" "why" we are here either; they've just made up a bunch of lies and are, whenever they believe they can get away with it, willing to kill anyone who won't go along with the con.
Why are they worthy of "respect"?
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 11, 2003
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In the field of linguistics, it is possible to distinguish between "real" questions and "questions" which conform to the rules of grammar, but are, in fact, nonsense.
"Why is the sky so humble?"
"Why is the Earth crouching?"
"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
The problem often comes by attributing qualities to an entity that don't, in fact, exist. The sky does not possess the quality of humility; the earth, being spheroid, cannot "crouch"; there's no such thing as an angel.
The "question" "why are we here?" falls, in my view, into that area of things that look "like" questions but are, in fact, just meaningless noises.
As for the rest of what you had to say, permit me to translate: "If billions of people believe lies are true, then you have to respect that."
Yeah...when "Hell" freezes over.
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 11, 2003
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Religion is a theory about why the universe was created (because god wanted it), most philosophers and theologians agree with this viewpoint.
Historically, most "philosophers and theologians" defended slavery. So I am neither impressed with their approval of anything nor would I be upset if they disagreed with me about anything.
What you're doing here is called "arguing from authority"...if the famous "authorities" say it's so, therefore it must be so. Horseshit!
And don't you even think of replying that I do the same with Marx...not after I spent 12 pages in a thread repudiating "Marxist dialectics" as Hegelian metaphysical bullshit.
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...most everyday religious people are beyond religious hatred...
Yes, that's true, in the western countries. Is it because the clergy and the theologians have "reformed"? Or is it because what they'd like to do is, at present, a serious violation of criminal law?
If you look at the Islamic countries, you get a much clearer picture of what religion does when it has the power to act without restraint. It is at this precise point that the hypocrisy of Christian and Jewish denunciations of "Islamic barbarism" emerges...the Muslims actually get to do what the Christian and Jewish fundamentalists would like to do if they could.
How do I know this? Because, historically, Christians and Jews did act just as barbaric as the Muslims...when they had the power to get away with it.
But they wouldn't act like that now, you say. It kind of reminds me of people with kids who have a pit bull for a pet..."why he's just as sweet as he can be with the children..." until he decides to eat one.
The fundamentalist agenda in the United States is very clear and open: 1. Abolition of legal abortion; 2. Compulsory prayer in public schools; 3. Censorship of all references to modern biology and cosmology and geology--"creation science" to be the only science; 4. Censorship of all erotically explicit materials; 5. Abolition of all forms of birth control; 6. Criminalization of homosexuality; 7. A constitutional amendment that explicitly declares the United States to be "a Christian nation"; and so on, and so on, and so on...until, one day, they burn a witch on the Capitol Mall. And they're winning.
Something to really look forward to, right?
Yes, I think "liberal Christians" are hypocrits...they pretend an attitude of tolerance and modernity and a willingness to come to terms with science. That's because they see religion as losing the battle and are trying to salvage whatever they can. But suppose they are wrong and the fundamentalists are right? Suppose a new dark age is actually achievable? After all, in the midst of modern developed capitalism, the Nazis certainly created a credible replica of the dark ages (and capitalism flourished throughout the Reich).
I think every one of these "liberal Christians" will scurry back to fundamentalism at the drop of a crucifix...like rats returning to a re-floated vessel.
Am I "narrow-minded" or "intolerant"? You bet your "Bible" I am! 6,000 years of bloody irrational tyranny is enough!
You folks keep telling me that "I cannot say that" in the face of evidence that I have said it and will continue to say it. But evidence means nothing to you; you'd prefer to rant at my " disgusting ignorance" and "sheer stupidity".
There are times when it is appropriate to take pride in the qualities of one's enemies.
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 11, 2003
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The religious do constantly portray themselves as the "conscience" of society, the upholders of "right" against "wrong", etc.
Yet both historically and at the present moment, they are everywhere to be found on the side of...tyrants. The Pope says the forthcoming war is a bad thing...what do you think the Catholic chaplains are telling American and British troops at this very moment?
When the war starts, what prayers will be heard and what will they say? Here's one you won't hear:
Almighty God, we pray that the mindless killers of the Iraqi People will suffer your Holy Wrath; rain down your Holy Fire on the Americans and the British and the Turks and the Australians and let them scream in agony in this life and hereafter; above all, let those who mobilized these killers and those who blessed them in Thy Holy Name be confounded and destroyed as the Satanic Agents they are...this we ask of you, oh Lord, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
In other words, they never live up to their own advertising. When they have power, they act like tyrants; when they don't have as much power as they'd like, they suck up to tyrants in the hopes that some of that arbitrary power will "rub off" on them.
Of course, the same things could sometimes be said of communists...except we don't proclaim divine sanction for our fuckups. No communist could "excuse" an alliance with tyranny or acts of tyranny with a bunch of yap about "divine will". In such an event, other communists would "roast" the bastard and rightly so.
The real secret of "God's Will" is very simple if somewhat less than moral: always make sure your church is on the winning side. Even if you make a mistake, you can always switch...no one expects principled behavior from the clergy.
On a side issue, you raised the question of evaluating historical figures: should we evaluate them by contemporary standards or by the standards of their time? I think the answer is both. Comparing them to other figures of their times gives us an idea of what it was possible for people to do back then; but the most "objective" standard we have is the most recent one...and we would be remiss not to use it.
An interesting example is that of John Brown. By the standards of today he was a religious fundamentalist...and I would argue that it was his fundamentalism that doomed his rebellion against slavery. By the religious standards of his own time, he was a GIANT...who showed that "being white" didn't have to mean "being racist"...no matter what the "Bible" said.
If "Islam's concern is for the general welfare of humanity", please explain how throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women contributes to "the general welfare".
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 12, 2003
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Yes, religions do like to make "lists" of morals and "reinforce" them with threats of eternal torture.
And such wonderful "morals" they are...my favorite is "thou shalt not kill...except when I, the Lord, order you to do it."
(On the matter of Biblical quotations, you have to study your own Bible...every educated Christian knows I'm not making this stuff up. Do your own homework!)
Christians were "not supposed to do witch hunts"? Well, they thought they were supposed to...and the Popes--the "Vicars of Christ", remember?--supported the campaign of extermination. Are you suggesting that it was all a big mistake? And, by the way, I don't believe that witches are even mentioned in the "New Testament"--certainly "Jesus" never explicitly says, "No more killing witches...that's an order."
The question that was asked of "Jesus" concerned taxes. But "Jesus" didn't just say "pay your taxes, boy, and quit your bitching." Jesus's statement is far more sweeping and inclusive; "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" includes military service if Caesar demands it. In fact, it has always been interpreted to mean that Christians must obey secular authorities except in matters directly pertaining to religion itself. Christians were forbidden to "worship" the emperor, even in a pro-forma way, but were found throughout the Roman armies from the 2nd century on. It has been that way ever since.
Answer to "yes or no question"--YES! The idea that the mass murder of Japanese civilians was "morally acceptable" is directly found in the "Old Testament" wherein the "Lord" not only destroys cities by "Himself" but commands the Hebrews to do likewise. It's exactly the sort of crap that Harry S Truman would have learned as a child in Sunday School in Kansas City.
As to the murder of doctors who perform abortions, what are you saying? That Christians are not supposed to do that or that it's "ok" provided they only murder a "small" number of them?
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 13, 2003
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It's not the details that bother me...it's the affectation of "moral superiority" that you believers trumpet coupled with the practice of atrocities that sticks in my throat. You quite literally reek of "holier than thou" pretense while desparately evading responsibility for the deeds of "your brothers in Christ."
"Jesus" wouldn't have burned witches? Perhaps not. No one has any way of knowing. But his self-proclaimed followers, Catholic and Protestant, certainly did...with enthusiasm.
"In the early church popes lived in mansions and had multiple wives..." and now bishops live in mansions and have multiple boyfriends. Perhaps you can explain the improvement...it escapes me.
You certainly offer a novel explanation for the continuing delay in the "second coming"...that "Jesus" is afraid of his own followers putting him back on the cross. (!)
If you think my interpretation of the "render unto Caesar" quote is wrong, then how else do you explain Christian participation in war? Why, for example, do such people as military chaplains even exist? If Christianity is a religion of "peace and love" (notice how all religions say that?), how is it that the clergy do not proclaim that participating in any way in any war in any army is a sin?
Back in the Middle Ages, Christians used to yap about "just wars" and "unjust wars." But they don't bother with that any more. Now, the rule is "pray for peace until the war starts; then pray for your country's victory." And if conscription is re-introduced, it will be the old "render unto Caesar" routine all over again.
No, I don't think Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons was directly motivated by religious considerations...the point is that he was raised in a moral climate in which such decisions were unexceptional. He was raised in your moral climate...the moral climate of Christianity.
Recall how this little exchange began? You asserted that religion is a good thing because it "gives us morals". Yes it does...lousy ones.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 14, 2003
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According to my mere human sense of decency, the use of violence against children is inexcusable. But if you think that I'm exaggerating the proverbs quote, how about this little charmer:
quote:
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
(That's from Deuteronomy, 21:19-21, by the way. Chapter 20 is another charmer...about what the "Lord" commands you to do to your enemies.)
You point out that early Christians behaved very differently from modern Christians. That's true. Before a religion becomes powerful, it always plays the "meek and mild" card...what else could it do? The real face of a religion is revealed when it has the power to do what it really wants to do. And what they always want to do is murder their competitors, suck up to or even replace secular authorities, and exploit and oppress the masses. That's not me speaking, that's 6 or 7 thousand years of recorded history speaking. It's also confirmed in the daily news.
You say you are not like that...you want to live like the orginal Christians did. I certainly won't stop you. But any attempt by you or others like you to impose your atrocious morals on modern society deserves the most bitter and fierce resistance. There are no grounds for compromise here.
Marx once made an off-hand remark at the end of a letter to Engels that humanity would choose between socialism and barbarism. Right now, sad to say, the barbarians--and their religious allies--are winning.
This will not always be the case.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 16, 2003
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I don't think anyone can speak "for" "Uncle Lenin" on this or any contemporary matter. It may be argued that Lenin was the greatest communist of his time. But that time is long gone.
And the historical record is clear: Lenin and those who followed him were enormously too tolerant of religion in the USSR and the "People's Democracies".
Like many, you seem to think of religion as simply a matter of private conscience...which it certainly ought to be. But it isn't...it has a social dimension and that dimension is inevitably reactionary.
Yes, I am well aware that there are a few scraps of verses in the "Bible" that can be used to give the Judeo-Christian ideology a "progressive" spin. But spin is all it is; considered as a totality, it is simply a disgusting plea for servility in the face of authority, secular and "divine".
What could be more opposed to communism?
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when capitalist ideologues were still, in some senses, "progressive", they led the way in attacking religious illusions and superstitions. Now the capitalist class knows better. They have learned, as prior ruling classes knew, that religion is incredibly useful in maintaining an exploitative and oppressive social order. If suffering is "God's Will", then communism is a "hopeless" project and we shouldn't even try. We should wait for "pie in the sky when we die".
Therefore, and regardless of the hypothetical opinions of "Uncle Lenin", I regard all forms of religious superstition as deadly enemies of working class revolution to be openly opposed whenever opportunity arises.
Some things are not to be "tolerated".
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 17, 2003
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As I anticipated, your responses--like all believers--become more bizarre with the progress of discussion.
Your response to my criticism of physical violence against children is an example; something about "loads of emotional baggage", was it not? How amusing.
And stoning to death a kid for refusing to obey his parents? Your response is instrumental--it's ok because "it works like a charm."
But this is what I expected from you: the "morals" of the religious always turn out to be disgusting when examined closely enough.
You blame the crimes of organized religion on "power hungry bastards" proclaiming themselves to be "religious authorities". But isn't authority built-in to the very concept? And if obedience to "God" is our fundamental religious duty, how are we to do that without, sooner or later, obeying the most "authoritative" human voice in our midst? He (rarely she) always turns out to be a "power hungry bastard"...it's in the job description.
I do not worry myself--and you shouldn't either--about whether or not anything I might say "goes against" anybody's views. Lenin was human; he made mistakes. Marx was human; he made mistakes. I am human; I have made mistakes. It is not required that we make the same mistakes that people made before us.
I do not wish to "persecute" people because of what they might "believe" privately; it is the public presence of religion in any form that needs to be completely eradicated...if, that is, one really wants a civilized communist society.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 17, 2003
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One believer says that children who are not beaten with a belt are "a pain in the ass to everybody".
So I guess it's ok then to terrorize them into silence with the threat or use of violence...after all, our embarrassment and the annoyance of others clearly outweigh the transient fright of a small child when those he trusts turn on him like mad dogs.
And consider the lesson taught: grovel to those who are stronger; brutalize those who are weaker. Excellent training for life in a hierarchial society, is it not?
People who want "well-disciplined" children should consider getting a dog instead. But definitely not a cat.
Then we pass on to another believer's more openly barbaric view: "people are full of shit; they NEED to be contained."
Of course, we all "know" that, don't we? The iron fist is always what other people deserve, isn't it? Not for us, of course, as "we" are truly "moral" people, capable of self-discipline. But, in general, the human species are insolent and rebellious to their natural superiors (human and divine) and, above all, need to be taught a stern lesson.
You have clearly indicated what lies at the heart of your religious beliefs: a contempt for humanity and a love for brutal dictatorship.
But I don't mean to be personal about this: what you believe is at the heart of every religion.
And now for some fun.
I was all prepared to launch a sharp attack on "the god module" as junk science (which it is) when I went to the link provided...and discovered that he completely misrepresented what the article actually says.
believer: "Religion is something that's physically hard-wired into us."
article: "A study of epileptics who are known to have profoundly spiritual experiences has located a circuit of nerves in the front of the brain which appears to become electrically active when they think about god." (emphasis added)
We're talking sick people here, folks.
The link goes on to discuss head injuries and blackouts as factors in deep religious belief...which comes as no surprise to me.
Here's where the junk science comes in: "There may be dedicated neural machinery in the temporal lobes concerned with religion. This may have evolved to impose order and stability on society." (emphasis added)
Don't you wish, fellows? No need to worry about all that communist revolution crap if everybody's got a built-in god-believer...especially when you can activate it with a few well-aimed blows to a child's head (listen up, you guys, this is how you can guarantee that your kids are well-behaved...and religious too!).
So...no, there's no "god module"...just a bunch of unlucky bastards with head injuries and epilepsy. No doubt, such types "invented" every religion in the beginning...though, of course, they were more or less quickly "kicked upstairs" when those "power-mad bastards" moved in on the operation.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 19, 2003
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I'm sure the "gods" were invented by bewildered people trying to explain natural events that they didn't understand. But I don't think it took very long at all for certain individuals to see what advantages could be gained by anyone with a "private pipeline" to the gods.
Our oldest historical records hint at, even where they don't explicitly indicate, a constant struggle between early religious "authorities" and secular authorities over power and prestige (and presumably whatever forms of wealth were at hand). I suspect the tribal chief and the tribal shaman arose more or less at the same time and were at each other's throats or joined in a very uneasy alliance within hours.
Unlike the believers, I don't think the "people are full of shit" theory has any validity...but people are surprisingly gullible. It is easy to fool primitive peoples into believing all kinds of utter nonsense...a special "module" for this purpose is an unnecessary complication.
It might fairly be argued that rational thought "pushes" our brains to their limits...that superstition is "easier" and "more natural". Superstitious "explanations" require less effort and take less time away from hunting your next meal or even getting your next job. (!) Perform the accepted rituals, pay the expected god-tax, and go on about your life. Again, no special "module" is required.
"There's got to be something that makes us believe in something." Why? Is there a special module that makes us "believe" that two times two equals four? Or that the sun will rise in the east and not the west? Or that it is not a good idea to closely approach bear cubs in the mother's presence?
And, even should such a module ultimately be proven to exist, why label it the "god module"? If, as you say, it fires up on the thought of any strong conviction, why not call it the "strong conviction module"?
Well, you know why. Calling it the "god module" is nailing down that next research grant with railroad spikes! The name alone convinces me that it's junk science.
By the way, if memory serves me, the module theory itself is in a bit of difficulty these days; I seem to recall an item in Science News recently that suggested that there may be some over-all integrating function going on in the brain, based on what happened in the immediate past and what is anticipated to happen in the immediate future.
Also, it should be remembered that when we measure electrical activity in a portion of the brain, that is all that we are measuring. We don't know what is going on...just that something is going on.
In the case of the believers, it may not be all that much.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 20, 2003
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Thought I'd clear up a few minor points here...
The link that was posted asserts that "Human beings are essentially religious beasts." So atheists are, perhaps, a mutation...the next step up the evolutionary ladder? Flattering as that would be, I must decline the honor. Anyone (who is not sick in the head) can learn to do without the "gods".
"Christian monks effectively invented science." Very amusing! Western science was "invented" by Greek-speaking philosphers c.600BCE living in what is now the southern coast of Turkey. They were the first (that we know of) to try to explain the world in non-religious terms. Honor to their memories!
"Einstein was religious and said it was the motivation for his science." I only know of one quotation from Einstein that could be interpreted in this fashion.
Einstein was, in his later years, looking for a way out of the contradictions in quantum physics...he was convinced that, in some fashion, a classical "cause and effect" relationship could be found beneath the strange and inexplicable behavior of sub-atomic particles. At one point, in defense of his efforts, he said "The good Lord is subtle, but not malicious." I suppose that could be interpreted as "motivation"...but I disagree with the interpretation. Einstein was trained as a classical physicist and never accepted quantum physics as the last word on the subject...and he never found that "cause and effect" explanation, either. But I think the "good Lord" quote was just a quip; his real motivation was to rescue the physics that he had grown up with.
Of course this is academic. It wouldn't matter if Einstein had been a regular participant in the "First Holy Roller Church of Princeton" every Sunday and Wednesday evening.
A number of reputable scientists took "spiritualism" (communication with the dead) very seriously in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. It was still all a hoax.
Like all supernatural endeavors.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 20, 2003
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Ok, after you strip away all the erudite name-dropping, what's left of that massive post?
Ideas influence other ideas. Pretty impressive, huh?
Or, something like: there were some core ideas in the fusion of Christianity and Greek philosophy that created a mind-set favorable to the rise of science.
Well, do you really want to sit there and tell me that science would never have arisen if Christianity had never existed?
Or is this a historical argument: because the late medieval proto-scientists were Christians, therefore Christianity must have made some kind of contribution to their outlook that enabled them to be proto-scientists. Really?
Frankly, I think this is a silly argument...and a feeble attempt to somehow "legitimize" Christianity in the eyes of science.
It's not my field, but my understanding of the matter is that "craftsmanship", particularly in the technologies of war, leads to science in the modern sense of the word. That's "vulgar Marxism", I know, but that's my opinion nonetheless.
It is simply a matter of chance that Chinese, Indian, or Islamic culture did not develop proto-scientists...given sufficient time, they would have. They certainly seem to be able to do science now...inspite of their failure to become Christian.
I can understand the rather desperate efforts of believers to somehow neutralize the acidic flood of science that eats away at their core beliefs...and I can even admire the quasi-ingenuity of the attempt you quoted.
But...no. The track record of religious opposition to scientific discovery and even scientific research is much too clear to be denied by any reasonable observer. Since religion cannot provide evidence, in the scientific sense of the word, for its assertions, its face must always be set against the very idea that assertions require evidence to be considered rational.
As to a Christianity-Science "alliance" against neo-pagan environmentalists...that's just too funny for words.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 21, 2003
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In my country, the church has been the stronger progressive force in the last 20 years...
I simply don't see how that could be possible. Of course, my knowledge of Brazil is far inferior to your own...but what you have said sounds to me as utterly improbable as if you had told me that Brazilians eat rocks and drink mud.
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Religion is a necessity for most human beings.
Here I am on firmer ground...as this is obviously a false statement. When small children are indoctrinated by their parents to believe in a particular religion, is it because small children fear death?
You know it's not. Small children are gullible; they have no direct way of knowing that their parents are telling them lies.
When they do get old enough to be suspicious, they find themselves in a cultural matrix that approves religious affiliation and stigmatizes disbelief. For most, it is "easier" to go along with the lie.
How many people would be believers if the first time they even heard of religion was on or after their 12th birthday? Or even older?
And suppose the cultural matrix was such that disbelief was socially approved of while belief was regarded as backwards and primitive?
Suppose the only church they ever saw was a photograph in a high school history book?
Yes, there might still be some believers (remember that epilepsy and those head injuries). But I contend that the overwhelming majority of the human species would come to regard religious belief in the same light as we would regard belief in witchcraft or astrology...as pathetic nonsense.
I don't deny that it might take two or three centuries to achieve this enlightenment...but I see nothing inherently impossible in the idea.
As to the idea of "using" religion to advance communism, I think it ludicrous. Why should they help us? What would be the price we'd have to pay to secure their "support"...and how much would that price rise over the years?
How long before the price would be religious "instruction" in the public schools? Or compulsory church attendance? Or tax support for churches?
It would be safer to attempt sexual congress with a boa constrictor.
In fact, with a few trivial exceptions, the institutional organs of religion have always been openly opposed to communism. I think they have good reason for that...communism means (or should mean) that their days in the god racket are drawing to a close. Their absurd and outrageous "moral codes" end up in the garbage can; their official subsidies and tax-exemptions are withdrawn; the government itself stops paying lip-service to their social validity. If I were in their shoes, I'd hate communism too!
As to arranging things in such a way as to tolerate churches but prevent them from "taking over the government", I think that misses the point altogether. The USSR wasn't taken over by the Russian Orthodox Church; it was taken over by people who accepted the validity of the Russian Orthodox Church as a legitimate social institution. Not to mention, an extremely useful one.
When your plans are going to make the masses suffer, it's always helpful to have "God's Will" around to take the heat.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 24, 2003
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If what you say about Brazil is true, you must have had enormously poor luck in your domestic secular political movements. If I thought for a second that I had to rely on a Church for social progress, I would truly despair!
I have no fear of not existing nor does any rational person who stops to think about it. We effectively cease to exist every time we sleep...does it hurt?
The people who answer the pollsters questions know the socially acceptable answer and give it. There's nothing surprising about that.
Lots of Germans "believed" in Nazism...when the Nazis were defeated, some still believed, most quit. It will be somewhat the same with religion; as soon as it becomes possible to keep kids from being indoctrinated and there are no constant physical reminders of its existence--churches are "propaganda in stone"--religion will be on its way out and the polls will show very different numbers.
Agnosticism doesn't get the job done; it still suggests there is some kind of intellectual legitimacy to the religious position...when there isn't. It would be like saying two multiplied by two is often four but may be some other number under conditions that we are unaware of. Why evade the central point? There are no gods, period.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 25, 2003
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If one day we have a socialist government, it won't be necessary to fight the huge force of Brazilian Catholicism.
Yes, all the bejeweled clergy will join in proclaiming "God's" blessings on the dictatorship of the proletariat. (!)
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Better the certainty of hell than the possibility of non-existence.
Voltaire was quite famous for his quips...back in the 18th century. Would you really consider something like that as a serious explanation for the appeal of religion?
One of the old Greek philosophers answered that quip a couple of thousand years before Voltaire made it.
"Why should I fear death? Where I am, death is not. Where death is, I am not."
The fear of non-existence is simply childish; but the invention of an imaginary "after-life" is fraud.
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First posted at Politics Forum on March 30, 2003
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No, I did not so much as "lift a finger" to research the "left wing" of the Catholic Church in Brazil...because such a concept is too incredible to be taken seriously; it ranks with astrology or ufo-olgy for sheer unbelievability.
But, if you wish, you may furnish us with a succinct statement from a Brazilian clergyman (as high a rank as you can find) that plainly endorses communist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The biblical sanction for this view would also be appreciated (just for fun!), but I won't require it.
I take it (correct me if I'm wrong) that you personally believe in "an afterlife" and wish to put the burden of proof on me that it ain't so.
That's not how scientific logic works. Negatives are generally difficult or impossible to "prove"; consequently, the burden of proof lies with the person who makes a positive statement about the universe.
The fact that there is no evidence for an "afterlife" means that we rationally conclude that there is no such thing...until such time as verifible evidence should be introduced.
In court, we are innocent until proven guilty. We do not have to "prove" our innocence.
Likewise, those who assert "supernatural truths" are required to prove that they are true or be considered liars and frauds (or mentally ill).
The average person who "worships" as a social ritual learned in childhood and never thought about since is not guilty of fraud, just inattention and laziness. But those who actively argue for superstition are guilty of fraud.
Sooner or later, their crimes will catch up with them.
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First posted at Politics Forum on April 1, 2003
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Yes, I am aware that Catholicism played a much bigger role in Nicaragua than in, for example, Cuba. I'm also aware that the Sandinista leadership "successfully" transformed themselves into a bunch of corrupt bastards...no different than the other traditional parasites that have sucked the blood of Latin America. I suspect there is a connection there...but I have no evidence one way or another. It would make a good book by someone fluent in Spanish and with access to Nicaraguan sources.
"Believing in an afterlife seems to be a human necessity"...then how is it that there are people who don't believe? Eating is a human necessity; all humans must do so or die. The same for breathing. The same for urination and defication. When you enter the realm of human thought, it seems to me that "human necessity" becomes problematical if not downright speculative.
It makes much more sense to attribute the persistence of religion in secular and even officially anti-religious societies to parental indoctrination. Why are you so resistant to such an obvious explanation?
Assuming that your brief summaries of "Liberation Theology" are accurate (and I thank you for the brevity), it is obviously a muddle...an attempt to co-opt Marxism to fight Marxism.
Why? Because they always had the alternative of abandoning Christianity altogether and embracing Marxism wholeheartedly. The very fact that they didn't choose this alternative indicates they were "of two minds" and two distinct motivations.
If you want to "save the Christian religion" from becoming totally irrelevant, why not borrow some Marxist insights? Historically, religions are not shy about borrowing (stealing) ideas from each other and from any other source that may prove useful.
It is certainly "nice" that they would like to see power taken from the wealthy minorities and given to the poor majorities...though they appear to have overlooked that wealth itself must follow that same redistribution if anything useful is to be accomplished.
What do you think, are the "Christians for Socialism" ready to face that one? Land taken from the big estates and redistributed to the peasantry? Factories and businesses taken from the capitalist class and redistributed to the working class?
More horrifying yet, even the wealth of the Church itself must be taken away and redistributed to the poor. "Jesus" might have approved; the archbishops have a different view, no doubt.
Capitalism is anti-Christian, by the way, in its economic aspects. Down at the roots of the capitalist system is total indifference to any consideration beyond maximizing profit. If there were such a thing as an "abstract" capitalist, a "laboratory specimen", s/he would not care about race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or anything else except increasing profits without limit.
In the real historical world, matters are somewhat more complex. The capitalist class has learned over the last century that divisions in the working class are useful; that racial, patriotic, and religious illusions can be very effective in diverting the working class from its real enemies, etc. Consequently, ruling classes invest substantial resources in supporting religion's ongoing role in public life. It's "good business."
It's not for me to take sides between the Vatican and the "Liberation theologians". Yet, I can see the Vatican's point of view more easily than their opponents. If the "Christians for Socialism" deny class struggle, then they will continue to be irrelevant; but if they embrace class struggle, then they will end up having to attack their "brothers in Christ" who are rich. An exceedingly thorny dilemma!
Whether the "Christians for Socialism" are acting "in good faith" is not for me to say...and doesn't really matter all that much anyway. The crucial point is that they have intervened in the class struggle with motives other than genuine liberation from the ruling class...to save the Christian religion from irrelevance and, ultimately, from nonexistence.
That's not good enough.
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First posted at Politics Forum on April 4, 2003
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quote:
...I both believe in God and Communism.
Well, when it comes to belief, you can believe anything you want.
What you can't do is be a Marxist and be religious...Marxism is atheistic.
"Believing" in communism is like "believing" in "heaven" or "santa claus". It doesn't require the use of reason.
To examine the historical and economic evidence and decide on the basis of reason that communism (Marxism) makes sense is very different from "believing in communism". The first involves serious and thoughtful effort; the second can be easily substituted for any belief and, in turn, any belief can be substituted for it. And there's no limit: you can believe in "God" and communism and homeopathy and alien abductions and telepathy and astrology and...whatever. Belief is unconstrained by reason.
Without jumping into the morass of the "real" nature of the USSR, I do think people should realize that Stalin, et.al., were not consistently anti-religious. Some churches were torn down, most were not. Some were shut down and converted into other uses, most were not. The subsidies that the old Czarist regime furnished the Russian Orthodox Church were reduced, not eliminated. The number of clergy was reduced, but the clergy was not abolished and remained on the government payroll. There was even at least one seminary to train new priests at government expense.
For all the efforts in schools to reduce the impact of religion on the young, parental indoctrination of the young with religious ideas obviously continued throughout the existence of the USSR. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin, born in the early 1930s, were duly baptized on the eighth day after their births according to the rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The classic film Alexander Nevsky, made in the late 1930s, was not only an ultra-patriotic saga of "good Russians" vs. "evil Germans" but also emphasized "glorious Russian Orthodoxy" vs. "evil Catholic fanaticism". It was one of Stalin's favorite films.
I think that 21st and 22nd century communist societies will do better. Religion's public presence will be completely terminated. And the indoctrination of small children with parental religious prejudices will be seen as serious child abuse.
It's wrong to lie to small children
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 5, 2003
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"In the [Soviet] cities perhaps 20% of the people are atheist but in the [Soviet] countryside, there is not an atheist to be found" - Internal Memo of the League of the Militant Godless, 1937
That shows, I think, how ineffective the struggle against religion really was in the old USSR.
Since I don't think "God" directly intervened to "preserve the faith", it seems to me that the most reasonable explanation is a combination of incompetence and lack of political will.
Imagine a society where no one under the age of 15 has ever heard of the supernatural...how many would ever bother to take an interest in such matters?
Some would, of course. And for them, we'd have a special course or even courses in comparative religious history...training the next generation of scholars.
The small child is presently confronted with a single religious faith without any standards to judge it by or compare it with others...and so becomes a believer. By the time s/he is old enough to realize alternatives exist, it takes considerable effort to root out those childhood convictions and either adopt a different religion or, even more difficult, junk the whole concept.
But if the first exposure to religion is in adolescence and the whole absurd panorama is presented, the idea of following a particular faith would appear as the obvious absurdity that it really is.
As to telling small children that "communism is good", well, that's true, isn't it?
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 5, 2003
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It's not a matter of "brain-washing" in the abstract.
We teach small children the language that we speak...so we can talk to them and they to us.
We teach them some of the basics of the culture we live in--don't stick your finger in that electrical outlet, kid!
We teach them to use a toilet...and worry if they don't pick it up as quickly as we'd like.
Unfortunately, many parents who believe the lie of religion pass it on to their kids...not unlike the lies of racism, sexism, anti-semitism, etc. are passed on.
What should be done about that in a revolutionary society?
It seems to me that the answer is obvious. Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, it must become the general social consensus that teaching small children about religion--especially the "truthfulness" of a particular religion--is child abuse.
This will not be easy...and perhaps will have to be done in measured stages.
But either we are serious about eliminating this pernicious evil from human society or we are not.
I'm serious.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 6, 2003
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quote:
Parents should be allowed to teach their children whatever they want.
...if you think that children are property.
quote:
I know it's not right to refer to a living being as a thing...
Then why do you do it? On what grounds?
Comparing religious indoctrination to "a house rule" (whatever that may be) is absolutely idiotic. Concluding therefrom that making new rules of your own when you move out is the same as escaping from some fairly serious brainwashing doesn't even meet the feeble standard of idiocy that the premise does.
It clearly takes a major effort to overcome childhood religious conditioning...and many people cannot do it. It is no good to tie a kid to a wheelchair until s/he's 15 and then untie the ropes and say "Ok, kid, now you can walk as much as you want." How many will be able to walk? How many won't even try? Particularly, if they see that most of the people around them are also in wheelchairs?
It is not a matter of "forcing" children to be philosophical atheists. The matter of "god" simply does not arise in ordinary life...it's not necessary to say anything about things that don't exist.
In the real world, of course, kids are exposed to many influences, including the observation that some people wallow in god-shit. Then, it would be necessary to explain things like delusion, deception, manipulation, the non-existence of the super-natural, etc.
It would be done in the same way that we explain that there is no such thing as a ghost...or the boogie-man that hides in the closet at night. It's not "a big deal". And you can leave the light on if it makes you feel better.
The matter of childhood imagination is something of a diversion from this thread...but let's look at it briefly. It doesn't fall out of the sky; kids appropriate the materials for their imaginative efforts from the culture that surrounds them...they don't "make it up" out of nothing.
It's generally thought--among civilized people--that tons and tons of sex and violence are not real great materials for small children to exercise their imaginations on. How much there should be and what the proportions should be is debatable--I personally would suggest more sex and less violence. But kids are not going to "make up" a full blown religion all by themselves...nor do I see any reason to encourage them to do so.
Tell me how it is supposed to "help kids" to let them lie awake at night imagining what "Hell" must really be like.
I fully understand--though I know from experience that it won't stop you from telling me again and again and again--that you god-suckers find it outrageous that your kids should be protected from your delusions...it's a direct attack on your own validity. You seem to think that if you can't make your kids into You v.2.0, that your life has been a failure.
I hear it all the time: "I want my kids to choose for themselves"--the rest of the sentence is unspoken--"as long as they make the same choices I did." Because if they make the same choices, then that validates the choices you made.
All of us, if we raise children, are subject to that temptation and must learn to resist it as much as we can. To be anything just because your parents were is dumb. Whenever you hear people say "I was raised to believe XYZ and that's why, in fact, I believe XYZ" -- you've just encountered another brain in a wheelchair...and one who wants to make damn sure that their kids' brains are in wheelchairs.
Since I know that it is too much to ask that religious parents refrain from inflicting such stupidities on their kids, they will have to be prevented from doing so.
It will take a while, perhaps a long while, but it will be done.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 6, 2003
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If you own a firearm and have small children in your home, what do you do? Unless you want a dead kid, you lock up the firearm where the kids can't get to it.
Why not the same thing with "holy books"?
In addition, not one kid in a million is going to even try to read a "holy book" on his/her own...they are amongst the most boring and impenetrable books ever written.
No, the way that small children are indoctrinated is by (1) parental "instruction" and (2) secondarily, "children's books, videotapes, cds, etc." that are simplified versions of a particular religion's mythologies. The second can be prohibited altogether...the same way child pornography is prohibited.
But the first is crucial. I propose zero tolerance for "god talk" to kids under 12. At 12, if they express an interest in the subject, then, as I said, an introduction to the whole panorama...the whole package of religious beliefs from 4000BCE to the present...with no suggestion that any one of them is "truer" than any other...they are all false, however interesting they might be.
I think these steps, along with the complete absence of religious architecture, public references to religion, etc., should be sufficient to kill the old bird off...though I freely concede it may take a century or even longer.
I hope it will not be necessary to put very many people in prison for "god talk" to kids (child abuse). And, as I've noted in other threads, prisons do not have to be the hell-holes they are under capitalism...I have no sadistic interest in inflicting pain and humiliation for the sheer "joy" of it.
But if we are serious about finally freeing the human species from this grotesque monstrosity called religion, then we must do whatever it takes.
It won't go away by itself.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 6, 2003
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True-False Quiz on Atheists & Religion
1. "there are frightening numbers of atheists [who] want to control what parents teach to their children."
False. Most atheists don't grasp that children are not property to do with as you wish. Further, the major proponents of "home schooling" are religious fundamentalists who wish to deprive their children of any scientific knowledge of the real world.
2. "Atheists do not believe in free choice with regard to religion."
False. Most atheists do believe in free choice with regard to religion. Only the most radical communist atheists want to get rid of religion entirely.
3. "Atheists do not accept that they might actually be wrong."
True. Since there's no evidence that any religion is anything but claptrap, atheists assume correctly that there are no gods.
4. "Atheists do not accept that they too don't really know."
True. We know.
5. "Atheists are blind to the evolution of the other side."
False. Atheists are generally better informed on the historical evolution of religion than believers. However, atheists are not deceived as to the contents of the package by the addition of a shiny new wrapper.
6. "Atheists only think in terms of black and white."
True. There is/are no god/gods. Until verifible evidence is produced by believers, the default position is a clear one.
7. "There has never been a democratic government practicing anything other than secularism."
False. There's no recorded instance of any government, democratic or otherwise, that did not make totally unjustifiable concessions to religious believers and religious institutions. From tax exemptions to outright subsidies, every government (yes, even Cuba and Vietnam) allows the rot to continue and even spread.
How did redstar2000 do on this test?
I suppose we're all free to engage in psychological speculation as to the "real" motives for people's positions on controversial questions.
But it would seem to me that atheists as a group are apparently more comfortable with the uncertainties of life than believers. We have no "daddy" in the sky who is "looking after us" and will make sure that everything "turns out for the best".
As one scientist put it, "the more we learn about the universe, the more utterly indifferent to our existence it seems to be." That fact seems to cause brain-cramps in some folks' heads...but atheists would have no problem with it at all.
Why should anything give a shit about us besides us?
Agnosticism is, in my view, just a way of side-stepping the necessity of taking a clear position on the matter. It is a "comfortable" response to an uncomfortable question. When you say "I'm an agnostic", people will leave you alone and not bother you...until it's heretic-hunting time again. Then you and I both go to the stake!
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 7, 2003
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It's not a case of Marxists rejecting religion "because" it's an opiate...it's actually worse than that.
The primary reason for rejecting religion is that it is plainly untrue. Believers have had 60 centuries or more to produce some verifible evidence for their beliefs and have universally failed to do so.
But the social role of religion in the class struggle, especially in the modern era, has been one of forceful advocate of reaction. Whether it's the catholic Opus Dei, the protestant evangelicals, the muslim and jewish and hindu fundamentalists...everywhere in the world today, religion lines up on the side of reaction and oppression (the occasional and limited exceptions notwithstanding).
They are universally publicly sworn enemies of communism by their own words!
Do you think they're just kidding around...having a good laugh at our expense?
And, may I add that the exercise of searching for scraps of commonality between religion and communism in this or that "holy book" is degrading. Where is the honor in seeking justifications for our own views in the camp of one of our major enemies?
It is as if we were to seek justification for communism in the doubts of George Soros (big-time currency speculator) on the sustainability of globalization.
I agree with you on the "opiate" function of the modern entertainment complex...and it is indeed worthy of the sharpest attacks we can make. By giving people a vicarious form of "living", it distracts them from the fact that their real lives are mostly shit.
Nonetheless, it is "easier" to turn off the television than it is to turn off the god-talk pumped into you when you were a kid and didn't know any better.
There is a difference.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 8, 2003
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quote:
The whole Point on Belief in God is that there is no evidence, it's called faith.
"Arrogant closed-minded bastard" that I am, I submit that this summary is accurate and self-damning.
Thus any believer in anything can say only that "it's true because I say it's true." And if he's got a gun, you'd better pay very respectful attention.
I confess continuing astonishment at such a medieval outlook in the pages of che-lives.
I guess that's what you get in an new era of "holy wars".
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 9, 2003
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Consider the task of "proving" that "God" does not exist. How, exactly, could that be done?
If one adopts that approach, difficulties arise immediately.
For example, inspite of hundreds of thousands of person-years of observation, no gods have been seen by astronomers.
The believer retorts: "God is invisible."
In spite of millions of autopsies, no "souls" have ever been located.
The believer retorts: "Souls are invisible and weightless."
In spite of the all the efforts of reputable historians of all periods to unearth reliable evidence of divine appearance or intervention in earthly affairs, no such event has ever been discovered.
The believer retorts: "God works in mysterious ways."
Without positive evidence of God's existence, believers have nothing to offer but assertions...that can always be infinitely adjusted to meet negative results with new assertions. Whether they call it "faith" or "horse apples" makes no difference: it says something is true because I say so!
To accept such an assertion from anyone about anything, from a rational standpoint, is stupid!
Don't believe me? Ok, send me a PM with your e-mail address. I will then tell you where to send me all your money. Why should you do that? Because "God" told me that anyone who sends me all their money will live forever!
Why is my brazen attempt to swindle you out of your cash any less plausible than any other "Faith"? You can't "prove" I'm lying my ass off, can you?
I repeat...this is fucking medievalism! It is the perfect justification for a new century of holy wars and a new dark age.
That it should be found in the pages of che-lives is disgraceful.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 9, 2003
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I note that you keep attempting to apply "universal principles" to class societies.
From the capitalist standpoint, it is perfectly justified to exclude communist views from the mainstream media...and they do!
Likewise, it is perfectly justified for communists to exclude pro-capitalist views from the media...and we will!
The same is true about religion. Today, atheist views are, in practice, excluded from the media.
Tomorrow, theist views will be excluded from the media.
Today, religion is everywhere visible in public. Tomorrow, it will be invisible in public.
I understand that there are those who sincerely believe in an abstract right of "unlimited freedom of expression"...though, upon closer examination, I find that even they don't really believe in it.
They frown on cannibalism, for example, even when the corpse died from accident and not murder. (It does occur to me that under capitalism, a cook-book dealing with human "meat" might do quite well.)
My point is that "everyone" is in favor of "freedom of speech"...except for speech about X, X being something really important.
"Well," they say, "that's different!"
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First posted at Politics Forum on April 14, 2003
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quote:
All capitalists will burn in Hell! (I would like to make it clear that I don't believe this.)
Why not? If "Jesus" was really "against" the wealthy and powerful, why shouldn't "He" arrange matters so that they suffer eternal torment after they die?
quote:
Just because Hitler said he was Christian does not make him one.
What does? As far as I've ever been able to tell, the only requirement for becoming a follower of any religion is self-annointment. In the case of functioning religious organizations, you may have to go through some kind of childish ritual...but to be a follower, you merely need to believe yourself a follower and tell other people. That's it.
Of course, other followers can denounce you. Many German Christians in the 1930s thought Hitler was "sent by God"; others thought he arrived from a different point of origin; all prayed for him.
quote:
Well, some of the people that you lot hold in near worship status will, no doubt, include Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che. Not perfect examples of being themselves, really, are they? However some of their feats and achievements allow them to be worshipped.
Obvious nonsense. The worship of human beings is a sign of immaturity or retardation. No communist "worships" any other communist.
quote:
All religions preach forgiveness...
Their practice suggests other priorities.
quote:
...I'm pretty sure none of you have read the bible in its entirity. Until you do, you cannot therefore comment on it.
Better still, memorize it. "Only then" will you be able to demolish the believers with cogent and devastating quotations.
quote:
If you're against Christianity, then by all means keep that to yourself...
Why? Would anyone want to say that "if you're against U.S. imperialism, keep it to yourself"?
To criticize religion is to criticize a world that needs religion!
quote:
Therefore Christianity cannot be held accountable for people with fucked-up ideologies, i.e., Hitler.
True, if you are prepared to admit that Christianity, like all religions, is human-made...and not something that came from "God". If Christianity "came from God", then "He" is responsible for the deeds done in "His Name"...it's "His Duty" to smite the fake "Christian" with a thunderbolt of divine displeasure forthwith. If "He" doesn't do that, one can only presume it's because the "fake" is as acceptable to "Him" as the genuine...or that "He" doesn't exist.
quote:
The old testament prophecies were fulfilled in the new testament.
Yes, with a good deal of bad translation and out-of-context quotations...all deliberate.
quote:
The world becomes a sadder place when human beings start thinking that they are the highest power and are their own gods.
But the world becomes more joyful once you realize that there are no gods at all. For what is worship but the act of a terrified slave?
And what greater joy than the cry Free at last! Free at last! Great God has fallen; FREE AT LAST!
Casting down the mighty? Raising up the lowly? The gods have had their chance; now it's our turn.
PS: And the next time somebody tries to persuade you that "Jesus" was some kind of "revolutionary" or "communist", remind them of this little sparkler...
quote:
Take therefore the talent* from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25: 28-30 (*a unit of currency)
Let's hear it for Jesus the Capitalist.
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First posted on April 24, 2003
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