Communism and freedom of religion.

[Comrade Akai]

Hey, comrades. I've heard differing opinions on this, but I generally hold that a communist system allows freedom of religion. Stalin (though not quite a communist) obviously did not think this way, and Marx had his reservations about religion. What do you guys think?

[LeninKobaMao]

Well I have no problem with it and I am a 'Stalinist' unless there is no funding whatsoever to any religious organisations. And if there are already many churches in the area some could be used for storage.

[Zolken]

For every atheist willing to die in defense of intellectual integrity there's a hundred believers willing to kill him for the sake of blind faith. A person can worship a carrot if they wish, as not as the carrot doesn't command them to kill those that worship a turnip.

[9]

The suppression of religion in a post-revolutionary society would do a couple very negative things. The first and most obvious is that it would force religion underground. And there should be no doubt that this will happen, assuming a significant percentage of society is still religious at the time of said revolution. Secondly, the underground religious organizations would almost undoubtedly form views in stark opposition to those of the revolution solely as a result of the revolution being, more or less, the primary force behind the suppression of religion. So, for those who believe religion is inherently reactionary, it would become a hell of a lot more reactionary if it were forced underground in my opinion.
I am well aware that the problem is far more complicated than "allowing it versus banning it", but I think the dangers that could potentially arise from tolerating religion are dwarfed by the dangers that will undoubtedly arise from banning it.

The good news is that, even in insanely-religious America, the number of religious is notably decreasing. Between 2001 and 2008, the number of "non-religious" nearly doubled from a measly 8% in '01 to 15% in '08. So, if things were to continue at this pace, a majority of Americans would be non-religious by around 2020.
And this illustrates why I think it is a mistake to make "anti-theism" a tenet of revolutionary leftism, particularly in a country like the US where the vast majority of the working class is presently religious. Religious workers who might otherwise fully relate to revolutionary ideals could be very easily turned off completely, if not also driven well to the right, by the frequent vitriolic religion-bashing that is not only commonplace among individual leftists, but is also often part of the "official line" of many leftist organizations. I know many here fervently disagree with my position on this, but nonetheless, I just don't think it is productive to take an official anti-religious position when religion is already rapidly diminishing on its own.

[core_1]

Personally, I think religion tends to be in correspondence with the
Psychological happiness of the indivdual. Religion can be a symptom of alienation that occurs under capitalism, therefore people reach up to a higher being to strengthen them (which ties in nicely to the description of it as "The opium of the people"). So having said this, religion would most likely wither away in a post-revolutionary society. Couple this with the abolition of class antagonisms and the division of Labour (which religion historically speaking, serves to justify) and there is a convincing case that religion would cease to exist post-capitalism.

[Comrade Akai]

I must say, for some people, religion is all that gives them hope in life; they would have an emotional breakdown without it.

[Comrade Akai]

Personally, I think religion tends to be in correspondence with the
Psychological happiness of the indivdual. Religion can be a symptom of alienation that occurs under capitalism, therefore people reach up to a higher being to strengthen them (which ties in nicely to the description of it as "The opium of the people"). So having said this, religion would most likely wither away in a post-revolutionary society. Couple this with the abolition of class antagonisms and the division of Labour (which religion historically speaking, serves to justify) and there is a convincing case that religion would cease to exist post-capitalism.
I actually think the opposite might happen. I've seen a lot of people drop religion not due to not needing it but due to great hardship causing them to no longer believe. With the alleviation of this I think there would be less and less people to drop religion. I don't think it would boom or anything, but I certainly don't think it would go away. Not all religions...just a lot of them.

[core_1]

I actually think the opposite might happen. I've seen a lot of people drop religion not due to not needing it but due to great hardship causing them to no longer believe. With the alleviation of this I think there would be less and less people to drop religion. I don't think it would boom or anything, but I certainly don't think it would go away. Not all religions...just a lot of them.
Yeah maybe good point, but perhaps not a rise or growing acceptence of 'organised' religion, but a rise in spirituality. Perhaps this 'spirituality' would be extremly different to the organised religion we see today, again because the organisation wouldn't be needed as class antagonisms would cease to exist. The difference between spirituality and religion would need to be clarified I guess.

[Comrade Akai]

Yeah maybe good point, but perhaps not a rise or growing acceptence of 'organised' religion, but a rise in spirituality. Perhaps this 'spirituality' would be extremly different to the organised religion we see today, again because the organisation wouldn't be needed as class antagonisms would cease to exist. The difference between spirituality and religion would need to be clarified I guess.
Indeed, it is possible. Can't deny that. We'll have to wait and see, and for a better world, do all we can for the revolution.

[h0m0revolutionary]

There's an immediate assumtpion here that we either allow religious belief to go unchallenged, or we suppress it.

Well i'm with neither camp, i'm an anti-thiest and as such I believe religion is anti-materialist, irrational and manifests itself in the most reactionary of ways. That doesn't lead me to hate religious people, or want to repress them, but I tinhk in the here and now there is an important function for the left, and that is one of propaganda. The fight against reactionary ideas necessitates the fight against religious belief, in that vein I think the promotion of secularism and athiesm should be a touchstone standard of leftist groups.

Sadly the oppositie is true, much of the British and US left are too busy tailing reactionary religious customs and traditions, distancing themselves from LGBTQ liberation and defending some of the most draconian acts done in the name of faith.

[Comrade Akai]

There's an immediate assumtpion here that we either allow religious belief to go unchallenged, or we suppress it.

Well i'm with neither camp, i'm an anti-thiest and as such I believe religion is anti-materialist, irrational and manifests itself in the most reactionary of ways. That doesn't lead me to hate religious people, or want to repress them, but I tinhk in the here and now there is an important function for the left, and that is one of propaganda. The fight against reactionary ideas necessitates the fight against religious belief, in that vein I think the promotion of secularism and athiesm should be a touchstone standard of leftist groups.

Sadly the oppositie is true, much of the British and US left are too busy tailing reactionary religious customs and traditions, distancing themselves from LGBTQ liberation and defending some of the most draconian acts done in the name of faith.
But don't anti-materialism and the left go hand in hand? I mean, won't a leftist revolution leave us with a lot more time to focus on the things that matter in life (friends, family, art, etc.) rather than the selfish and empty material pursuits that we get with capitalism?

EDIT: Not all religions hate LGBTQs. If I'm not mistaken, only Judaism and Christianity do (among the mainstream religions). Contrary to popular belief, Islam does not teach hatred for the LGBTQ, and that a person is made by their actions and not their emotions.

[9]

There's an immediate assumtpion here that we either allow religious belief to go unchallenged, or we suppress it.

Well i'm with neither camp, i'm an anti-thiest and as such I believe religion is anti-materialist, irrational and manifests itself in the most reactionary of ways. That doesn't lead me to hate religious people, or want to repress them, but I tinhk in the here and now there is an important function for the left, and that is one of propaganda. The fight against reactionary ideas necessitates the fight against religious belief, in that vein I think the promotion of secularism and athiesm should be a touchstone standard of leftist groups.

I agree that the left should be involved with the promotion of secularism, but I don't agree that it should, on an organizational level, explicitly promote atheism. I'm not sure where you're from, but people are very religious in the US, and most people are also very unacquainted with revolutionary leftist ideas beyond conceptions garnered from capitalist propaganda and scare-mongering. Which is why, on a strategic level, I don't see anything good coming out of disseminating anti-religious propaganda. Many religious workers who may be sympathetic to every other principle that the left holds will categorically and definitively dismiss our philosophy for good if their first impression is explicitly anti-theistic. Though again, I don't know where you're from and it is certainly a more sensitive subject to people in the US than it seems to be to people in the other industrialized nations. But here, it seems that it would be a much more effective strategy to firstly introduce broader issues such as class, exploitation, discrimination, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should not speak up when religious institutions take reactionary positions; I'm merely saying that we should criticize the specific reactionary positions and not religion as a whole.


Originally Posted by Comrade Akai
Not all religions hate LGBTQs. If I'm not mistaken, only Judaism and Christianity do (among the mainstream religions). Contrary to popular belief, Islam does not teach hatred for the LGBTQ, and that a person is made by their actions and not their emotions. You are mistaken, Islamic fundamentalists take extreme positions against LGBTs, as do the fundamentalists of the other two Abrahamic religions. But none are uniform. There are plenty of Christians who support LGBT rights and full equality. Reform Judaism, which is the most common denomination of Judaism in the US, explicitly advocates full inclusion, equality, and civil rights for LGBTs. So it is really a matter of denomination, as these religions are not homogenous.

[Comrade Akai]

I agree that the left should be involved with the promotion of secularism, but I don't agree that it should, on an organizational level, explicitly promote atheism. I'm not sure where you're from, but people are very religious in the US, and most people are also very unacquainted with revolutionary leftist ideas beyond conceptions garnered from capitalist propaganda and scare-mongering. Which is why, on a strategic level, I don't see anything good coming out of disseminating anti-religious propaganda. Many religious workers who may be sympathetic to every other principle that the left holds will categorically and definitively dismiss our philosophy for good if their first impression is explicitly anti-theistic. Though again, I don't know where you're from and it is certainly a more sensitive subject to people in the US than it seems to be to people in the other industrialized nations. But here, it seems that it would be a much more effective strategy to firstly introduce broader issues such as class, exploitation, discrimination, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should not speak up when religious institutions take reactionary positions; I'm merely saying that we should criticize the specific reactionary positions and not religion as a whole.

You are mistaken, Islamic fundamentalists take extreme positions against LGBTs, as do the fundamentalists of the other two Abrahamic religions. But none are uniform. There are plenty of Christians who support LGBT rights and full equality. Reform Judaism, which is the most common denomination of Judaism in the US, explicitly advocates full inclusion, equality, and civil rights for LGBTs. So it is really a matter of denomination, as these religions are not homogenous.
That's Islamic extremism, not Islamic fundamentalism. Unlike with most religions, there's a difference with Islam. Islamic fundamentalism is actually really agreeable and doesn't do BS like this. Extremism, however, gets priorities out of whack and starts to blow stuff up.

The points I previously gave were from the perspective of Islamic fundamentalism.

[9]

That's Islamic extremism, not Islamic fundamentalism. Unlike with most religions, there's a difference with Islam. Islamic fundamentalism is actually really agreeable and doesn't do BS like this. Extremism, however, gets priorities out of whack and starts to blow stuff up.

The points I previously gave were from the perspective of Islamic fundamentalism.

Would you consider the Iranian government to be Islamic extremists? Because, if I am not mistaken, homosexuality is punishable by law there. Also, do you have any sources to back up the rest of your comments about Islamic fundamentalism being accepting of LGBTs?

[Comrade Akai]

Would you consider the Iranian government to be Islamic extremists? Because, if I am not mistaken, homosexuality is punishable by law there. Also, do you have any sources to back up the rest of your comments about Islamic fundamentalism being accepting of LGBTs?

Yes, I do consider that to be extremism. I think we can both agree that it is very wrong to punish someone because of the way they feel.

I am a Muslim (and I suppose you could call me a fundamentalist), so I can assure you you're getting this straight from the horse's mouth.

I am an Islamic fundamentalist, and I am telling you that it is sinful in Islam to punish someone for how they feel.

[ChrisK]

But don't anti-materialism and the left go hand in hand? I mean, won't a leftist revolution leave us with a lot more time to focus on the things that matter in life (friends, family, art, etc.) rather than the selfish and empty material pursuits that we get with capitalism?

He means philosophic materialism. Philosophic materialism is the belief that everything is made out of matter.

Religion is usually dualistic in its belief in an immaterial soul that is separate from the material body.

Personally I don't see how this would be a problem in a post-revolutionary society. Sure its irrational and most probably wrong, but I can see no harm other than in dogmatic fundementalism.

And even with that, I don't think we'd really have to worry as the majority of fundementalists are impoverished people who are looking for a greater meaning in life other than impoverished living.

[Comrade Akai]

He means philosophic materialism. Philosophic materialism is the belief that everything is made out of matter.

Religion is usually dualistic in its belief in an immaterial soul that is separate from the material body.

Personally I don't see how this would be a problem in a post-revolutionary society. Sure its irrational and most probably wrong, but I can see no harm other than in dogmatic fundementalism.

And even with that, I don't think we'd really have to worry as the majority of fundementalists are impoverished people who are looking for a greater meaning in life other than impoverished living.
But how can we even be sure that the soul is immaterial? Isn't it true that the body loses a couple pounds after it dies? It has been hypothesized that this is the soul leaving the body.

[ChrisK]

But how can we even be sure that the soul is immaterial? Isn't it true that the body loses a couple pounds after it dies? It has been hypothesized that this is the soul leaving the body.

We have no scientific proof of any substance that would comprise a human soul in the body. I've never heard of the body losing weight after death, but I have heard of the body ridding itself of waste (due to lack of muscle control). That could explain your weight loss point.

[Jimmie Higgins]

In order for religion to really be something that withers away after a revolution, people will have to be allowed to freely practice their own religion as long (as it doesn't pose a direct threat to worker's power or attempt to oppress other people).

If the ruling class ideological aspect of religion is removed, then to be anti-theist is a little strange. People currently have many idealist or mixed ideas that are just as unmaterialistic as believing in some kind of god.

If getting rid of religion is a precondition of revolution, then wouldn't you also need to get rid of "great-man" theories of history? Wouldn't you also need to get rid of conspiracy theories? Belief in aliens?

All these strange ideas are appealing to people because they live in a crazy society that really doesn't make much rational sense. As the working class takes power into its own hands, these ideas will have less of a draw because the class divisions in society will make themselves more apparent in a time of mass strikes and radicalism. People who once said, "well the lord is testing you" when confronted with problems will start to see that poverty and other hardships are not permanent features of life in general but specific features of an irrational system.

In the most basic terms, contemporary religion is part of the superstructure in society and so to change that we need to change the base of society - the way society is structured.

[Comrade Akai]

In order for religion to really be something that withers away after a revolution, people will have to be allowed to freely practice their own religion as long (as it doesn't pose a direct threat to worker's power or attempt to oppress other people).

If the ruling class ideological aspect of religion is removed, then to be anti-theist is a little strange. People currently have many idealist or mixed ideas that are just as unmaterialistic as believing in some kind of god.


I disagree with the notion that all religion is a tool for the ruling class and/or bourgeois to keep the proletariat and others in line, based on the grounds that some religions (such as my own) are rather anarchic in nature and often clash with the laws put forth by the bourgeois. If you like, I can elaborate a bit on the history and other details.

[Comrade Akai]

We have no scientific proof of any substance that would comprise a human soul in the body. I've never heard of the body losing weight after death, but I have heard of the body ridding itself of waste (due to lack of muscle control). That could explain your weight loss point.
While I agree, I am fairly certain that there is also no proof specifically against the existence of the human soul.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I disagree with the notion that all religion is a tool for the ruling class and/or bourgeois to keep the proletariat and others in line, based on the grounds that some religions (such as my own) are rather anarchic in nature and often clash with the laws put forth by the bourgeois. If you like, I can elaborate a bit on the history and other details.

Sure and I have no problem with that - I was trying to separate the dual nature of religion in society. On the one hand people are attracted to it because it provides them with answers in a world where a lot of things don't make sense - but at the same time, historically religion has been used by the ruling class to maintain its rule.

Institutions of the religious right in the US are political entities that use religion to advance US imperialism around the world and capitalist order at home. These institutions will have to be suppressed just as corporate media will have to be shut down and replaced; people should still be allowed to believe what they believe just as media should be free to report what it wants provided it isn't reactionary and in direct opposition to worker's power. Workers will have to determine these things on a case by case basis at that time, but I imagine the revolution itself will draw these lines for workers and make it easy to see who is on their side and who is on the side of the capitalist ruling class.

Although I am an atheist, I think religion in some form will remain if only for the fact that the revolution can not answer questions about what happens when we die. But I think religion will become a much more personal thing and workers will probably want a true separation of church and society in general.

[Comrade Akai]

Sure and I have no problem with that - I was trying to separate the dual nature of religion in society. On the one hand people are attracted to it because it provides them with answers in a world where a lot of things don't make sense - but at the same time, historically religion has been used by the ruling class to maintain its rule.
Correct. I should mention that the religious principles are often warped when "taught" by the ruling class, as the fundamental principles of some religions are more in tune with the political ideologies that you and I carry proudly.


Institutions of the religious right in the US are political entities that use religion to advance US imperialism around the world and capitalist order at home. These institutions will have to be suppressed just as corporate media will have to be shut down and replaced; people should still be allowed to believe what they believe just as media should be free to report what it wants provided it isn't reactionary and in direct opposition to worker's power. Workers will have to determine these things on a case by case basis at that time, but I imagine the revolution itself will draw these lines for workers and make it easy to see who is on their side and who is on the side of the capitalist ruling class.
I don't think all religious institutions, due to their constant clashing with each other in belief, etc. need be suppressed. Only those used by the state, for reasons I need not explain.

Although I am an atheist, I think religion in some form will remain if only for the fact that the revolution can not answer questions about what happens when we die. But I think religion will become a much more personal thing and workers will probably want a true separation of church and society in general.
Depends on the religion, and I think this is most true for those religions that were used by the state to control the individual.

[The Feral Underclass]

"The only church which illuminates is a burning one" - Buenaventura Durruti.

With religious belief we have to persistently engage our fellow workers in debate and propagate an atheist, rationalist and materialist world view as part of our revolutionary 'duty'. With religious institutions and organisation, we have to smash it with the same ferocity we would smash fascism and capitalism.

[9]

"The only church which illuminates is a burning one" - Buenaventura Durruti.

With religious belief we have to persistently engage our fellow workers in debate and propagate an atheist, rationalist and materialist world view as part of our revolutionary 'duty'. With religious institutions and organisation, we have to smash it with the same ferocity we would smash fascism and capitalism.

So that is your line even if it means isolating the vast majority of the working class?

[The Feral Underclass]

So that is your line even if it means isolating the vast majority of the working class?

In a workers revolution, how could this line isolate the vast majority of the working class? It's their revolution. When they're on the barricades, in the factories and communities, re-organising their lives and defending their gains, how would this "line" isolate "them"? I mean, who would they even be isolated from?

Your question makes no sense.

[Comrade Akai]

"The only church which illuminates is a burning one" - Buenaventura Durruti.

With religious belief we have to persistently engage our fellow workers in debate and propagate an atheist, rationalist and materialist world view as part of our revolutionary 'duty'. With religious institutions and organisation, we have to smash it with the same ferocity we would smash fascism and capitalism.
To deny the people the right to practice their chosen religion is an infringement upon their rights and a serious violation of anarchist ideology, and I'm sure I don't need to explain how.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

No not really. If your religion involves indoctrinating kids with your mind rot, abusiveness towards women , child beating , bullying people who are attracted to the same gender and building forty foot monstrosities as to make people feel intimidated by your vile god-junkie racket then it is the duty not the right of the working class to deny your bile any chance of remaining a hindrance to progress.

[Comrade Akai]

No not really. If your religion involves indoctrinating kids with your mind rot,wife beating , child beating , discriminating against people who are attracted to the same gender and building forty foot monstrosities as to make people feel intimidated by your vile god-junkie racket then it is the duty not the right of the working class to deny your bile any right to breathe.

That sounds pretty awful, I wouldn't want to be a part of that religion.

Religion only becomes a problem when it infringes upon the rights of the people.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Religion only becomes a problem when it infringes upon the rights of the people.


Which it does the moment it has the ability to. (Until then the mainstream god shite tells everyone how much god loves you and asks for respect in an attempt not to get kicked while down.

[Comrade Akai]

One thing I'd like to point out is that I've been noticing a lot of not just dislike, but hatred towards religion in a fashion akin to fascism. Shouldn't we be a bit more tolerant?

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Shouldn't we be a bit more tolerant?

Absoutly not if there was a button infront of me that when pressed caused every religious leader to drop dead id be sitting on it.

[Comrade Akai]

Absoutly not if there was a button infront of me that when pressed caused every religious leader to drop dead id be sitting on it.
Every religious leader? That's stereotyping.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Every religious leader? That's stereotyping.

No its not stereotyping its making sure.

[ChrisK]

In a workers revolution, how could this line isolate the vast majority of the working class? It's their revolution. When they're on the barricades, in the factories and communities, re-organising their lives and defending their gains, how would this "line" isolate "them"? I mean, who would they even be isolated from?

Your question makes no sense.

His question makes perfect sense. I don't know how it is in Britain, but in America he's saying you being so militantly atheist would isolate the working class from revolutionaries because of how religious they are.

What doesn't make sense to me, a person surronded by very religious people, is your argument for the need to attack and destroy religion. How do you plan to get an overwhelming majority of workers to be willing to listen to revolutionary rhetoric when its violently against one of the few things that gives them hope?

[KC]

In regards to the original post, I would recommend checking out this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxist-perspectives-religion-t85163/index.html) created by Random Precision with a few additions by myself.

In short, religion is both a product of alienation and a reaction against it. As Marx said, "[r]eligious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." However, at the same time, in capitalist society religion is treated as a value relation and a means of production, and in this sense it is exploited - either consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly - by the bourgeoisie.

[The Feral Underclass]

To deny the people the right to practice their chosen religion is an infringement upon their rights

Sigh.

Firstly I didn't say that we or I should "deny the people" their "rights" to practice their chosen religion. Secondly, I don't accept the idea of "rights" in the first place.

I was talking about attacking organised religion and its institutions.

[The Feral Underclass]

His question makes perfect sense. I don't know how it is in Britain, but in America he's saying you being so militantly atheist would isolate the working class from revolutionaries because of how religious they are.

You're confused. The OP was talking about religion in a communist society.


What doesn't make sense to me, a person surronded by very religious people, is your argument for the need to attack and destroy religion. How do you plan to get an overwhelming majority of workers to be willing to listen to revolutionary rhetoric when its violently against one of the few things that gives them hope?

I think you should re-read the words I kindly constructed into sentences and understand their meaning.

[Comrade Akai]

No its not stereotyping its making sure.
It's that kind of thinking that gives anarchism a bad name.

[Comrade Akai]

Sigh.

Firstly I didn't say that we or I should "deny the people" their "rights" to practice their chosen religion. Secondly, I don't accept the idea of "rights" in the first place.

I was talking about attacking organised religion and its institutions.
Substitute the word "rights" with "freedom" and my point stands.

[The Feral Underclass]

Substitute the word "rights" with "freedom" and my point stands.

It would stand if your point was actually related to something I said.

[ChrisK]

You're confused. The OP was talking about religion in a communist society.

I understand that thank you.


I think you should re-read the words I kindly constructed into sentences and understand their meaning.

The way you wrote it implied that during the revolution itself religions destruction should be key. But the way you say it now makes alot more sense. Post revolutionary destruction makes more sense to me.

[eyedrop]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Vaaler_kirke.jpg/240px-Vaaler_kirke.jpg

This church was burnt to the ground, by a person or a group, 29. Mai this year. I can't say anyone cared.

http://gfx.dagbladet.no/labrador/645/645760/6457607/jpg/active/960x.jpg

[Comrade Akai]

It would stand if your point was actually related to something I said.
It wasn't?

[The Feral Underclass]

It wasn't?

No.

Nowhere did I say that we should "deny the people" the "rights" or "freedom" to believe in god.

[al8]

What doesn't make sense to me, a person surronded by very religious people, is your argument for the need to attack and destroy religion. How do you plan to get an overwhelming majority of workers to be willing to listen to revolutionary rhetoric when its violently against one of the few things that gives them hope?

We do it by doing it and standing firm. As it stands now revolutionaries are few and far between. We keep at it until the envolope has been pushed in our direction. Wikipedia the Overton window.
Religion is an unavoidable obsticle. For religion does not only serve as false comfort and hope, but it also serves as a conservative, class collaborationist and diversionary influance on the main potential revolutionary agent: the proletariat.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

While I agree, I am fairly certain that there is also no proof specifically against the existence of the human soul.

Erm, excuse me, but the way it works is that the positive assertion (that souls exist) is the one with the burden of evidence.

You don't have any evidence that there isn't an invisible, intangible spider on my shoulder that's telepathically telling me to spread the belief that we all have shoulder-spiders, at gunpoint if necessary.

[ChrisK]

We do it by doing it and standing firm. As it stands now revolutionaries are few and far between. We keep at it until the envolope has been pushed in our direction. Wikipedia the Overton window.
Religion is an unavoidable obsticle. For religion does not only serve as false comfort and hope, but it also serves as a conservative, class collaborationist and diversionary influance on the main potential revolutionary agent: the proletariat.

We keep at it? We keep saying that the one thing that gives you hope is wrong oppressive and gives you false comfort? The American working class will reject us for that.

The overton window doesn't work at all in this case. Being anti-religion won't make something unrelated (workers control) become okay in peoples minds. Promoting atheism would end up pushing agnosticism, not workers power.

Besides, as I understand it, the overton window is saying that by advocating revolution, we create reform, which, while true, isn't that desireable.

[Decolonize The Left]

Trashed off-topic back and forth banter between TAT and Apikoros. Please keep it on topic and respectful.

- August

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[spiltteeth]

Well, as far as saying we ought to kill and/or oppose every person who has a religion, one could make the exact same plea against those who have morals or conceptions of right and wrong not based on rational Stirner-like egoism of strict materialistic utilitarians, which many, most even on this forum, would I suspect find repulsive.

However, I am an Orthodox Christian in America and it is a fact that the majority of fundamentalist churches are fascists. Our military and government is full of them.
IO recall reading about the priests who went off the Germany to fight Nazi fascism. Before they left they said the next wave a fascism would be coming from the American right fundamentalist churches. Now back then this was a small weird sect, today it has grown to tens of thousands.
Regardless of them waving about bibles, they, and those like them, Pat Robinson etc, are ideologically fascists.
Here in America there is a large segment of Left Christian, just look at Sojourners. Even the Jesus Radicals who are anarchist. Many apolitical minority churches also. These would welcome the revolution IF IT EXPLICITLY guaranteed freedom of religion.
As for the fundamentalists, as distasteful as it seems, they may well have to be dealt with with violent oppression...

[Hyacinth]

Well, as far as saying we ought to kill and/or oppose every person who has a religion, one could make the exact same plea against those who have morals or conceptions of right and wrong not based on rational Stirner-like egoism of strict materialistic utilitarians, which many, most even on this forum, would I suspect find repulsive.
I'm afraid—despite your continued assertion—religion and morality aren't analogous. That aside, no one here has suggested killing religious followers or anything of the sort (though perhaps a few executions of criminal clergy is called for). In opposing religion we aren't really interested in what people believe—they are free to believe whatever they wish—rather we oppose, and seek to dismantle, religious institutions and the public expression of religion. So, for instance, I do think it ought to be unacceptable for adults to indoctrinate children into religion, among other things.

[spiltteeth]

I'm afraid—despite your continued assertion—religion and morality aren't analogous. That aside, no one here has suggested killing religious followers or anything of the sort (though perhaps a few executions of criminal clergy is called for). In opposing religion we aren't really interested in what people believe—they are free to believe whatever they wish—rather we oppose, and seek to dismantle, religious institutions and the public expression of religion. So, for instance, I do think it ought to be unacceptable for adults to indoctrinate children into religion, among other things.

Some dude wrote this :

"if there was a button infront of me that when pressed caused every religious leader to drop dead id be sitting on it."

Followers, for some crazy reason, may take offense to that.
I wouldn't keep saying 'we'.

Anywho, keeping religion out of the public sphere is a good and meet idea.
I bring up morals cuz how can you say adults 'indoctrinating' children with religious beliefs is unacceptable -(although the enforcing of such would be...uh...problematical to say the lest) BUT its OK for parents to 'indoctrinate' their children with their morals?
Hey, I just made an analogy between religion and morality! Looky that.

[Hyacinth]

Some dude wrote this :

"if there was a button infront of me that when pressed caused every religious leader to drop dead id be sitting on it."

Followers, for some crazy reason, may take offense to that.
I wouldn't keep saying 'we'.

Anywho, keeping religion out of the public sphere is a good and meet idea.
I bring up morals cuz how can you say adults 'indoctrinating' children with religious beliefs is unacceptable -(although the enforcing of such would be...uh...problematical to say the lest) BUT its OK for parents to 'indoctrinate' their children with their morals?
Hey, I just made an analogy between religion and morality! Looky that.
The nature of parent-child relations has been discussed on this board before. And my view is that parents have no rights vis-a-vis children, only duties. In fact, our aim should be to guarantee the economic independence of children, including and up to the point of ensuring that they can live independently if they so choose. So one way to keep children from being indoctrinated by their parents, be it with some particular religion or morality or whatever, is by allowing the children to leave the home. So, for example, if a child doesn't like how they are being treated, if they don't, e.g., want to eat their broccoli (perfectly reasonable, as it really does taste disgusting to many children), they can move out and be supported for by the community at large.

Another way to handle potential harmful parental influence is by education. So, unlike today, parents will not have a say in what their child is taught. No denying them access to sex education, or other information, or anything of the sort.

These two policies combined will severely undermine the nearly despotic grip parents have over children's lives. It is no wonder that many rebel when they get a bit of economic independence. By guaranteeing for the economic security of children, in combination with their right and access to information, we remove the material base upon which current parent-child relations are founded. Bye-bye traditional family, and good riddance.

[*Viva La Revolucion*]

Yeah maybe good point, but perhaps not a rise or growing acceptence of 'organised' religion, but a rise in spirituality. Perhaps this 'spirituality' would be extremly different to the organised religion we see today, again because the organisation wouldn't be needed as class antagonisms would cease to exist. The difference between spirituality and religion would need to be clarified I guess.

I agree with this. I'd hope that, in a communist society, spirituality would still exist. But what would change would be organised religion and people trying to fit themselves into one distinct category. Personal beliefs and feelings can be very complex and as long as they are coupled with critical thought, there isn't really a problem. I've always thought it strange that people need to declare themselves as 'Christian' or 'Muslim' as though they adhere to every single thing that that religion stands for. Surely people aren't so alike they all believe exactly the same just because it's written in the Bible or Guru Granth Sahib? So yes, freedom of religion is important, but hopefully there'd be an increase in people holding personal beliefs rather than just following orders laid down thousands of years ago. And obviously religion would not interfere with educational matters or the law. Supression never eradicates anything, so it's pointless to even try.

[Demogorgon]

This church was burnt to the ground, by a person or a group, 29. Mai this year. I can't say anyone cared.

Christ, church burning is so fifteen years ago.

Anyway I support complete freedom of religion. I hold a pretty orthodox Marxist view of the subject in that it is a consequence of oppression and all that and will fade with their removal, though not completely, partly because old habits die hard and it is heavily ingrained in culture and partly because it will always be effective in providing comfort in times of bereavement. That doesn't terribly bother me though, I have no interest in taking part in religious rituals whatsoever, so how on earth does it affect me if others choose to do so?

I certainly do not wish to live in a society that restricts the behaviour of people when they are not causing harm to others. There are some people here whom I think desire to lash out at the world and prevent certain behaviour they do not like largely for the sake of it. People who desire that find all sorts of ideologies to justify it and sadly some use leftism; wanting to lash out at religion. A free world is a "live and let live" world. Nobody should have to justify themselves to others for their behaviour unless it is harming others or causing economic exploitation. Religion does neither. Even if we accept that it is bad for the believer (which I don't) then it still does not follow that it is bad for everyone else. It becomes problematic if religion is used in an attempt to influence public policy, but that is a different issue.

At its worst religion is akin to a narcotic and we all know how successful banning those has been. It is not always even that bad though, indeed at its best religious organisations have done a great deal of good. Not because they are/were religious of course, but nor did religion stop them doing good. I see it as being largely a neutral force used to justify whatever political beliefs the believer already holds rather than informing them. Or to put it another way, I no more think that Pat Robertson would become a tolerant progressive if he renounced religion than Desmond Tutu would become a homophobic zionist if he did the same.

Overall my position can best be summed up as ardently secularist. I oppose all religious involvement in public policy and oppose all attempts to use public policy to suppress religion. If we fall into the view that we can attempt to stifle human diversity, cultural expression and variation of beliefs, we go down a very dangerous rode indeed.

[spiltteeth]

The nature of parent-child relations has been discussed on this board before. And my view is that parents have no rights vis-a-vis children, only duties. In fact, our aim should be to guarantee the economic independence of children, including and up to the point of ensuring that they can live independently if they so choose. So one way to keep children from being indoctrinated by their parents, be it with some particular religion or morality or whatever, is by allowing the children to leave the home. So, for example, if a child doesn't like how they are being treated, if they don't, e.g., want to eat their broccoli (perfectly reasonable, as it really does taste disgusting to many children), they can move out and be supported for by the community at large.

Another way to handle potential harmful parental influence is by education. So, unlike today, parents will not have a say in what their child is taught. No denying them access to sex education, or other information, or anything of the sort.

These two policies combined will severely undermine the nearly despotic grip parents have over children's lives. It is no wonder that many rebel when they get a bit of economic independence. By guaranteeing for the economic security of children, in combination with their right and access to information, we remove the material base upon which current parent-child relations are founded. Bye-bye traditional family, and good riddance.

That's a good point. You probably know that under Mao the family unit was somewhat modified.
It would be interesting. I think many youngsters may still do what pappy tells them just for approval. Psychological relations would still be around tho obviously much different.
So, you have no objection to parents sending their kids to religious education, as long as the kid is willing and obviously in addition to regular schooling, like CCD?
The broccoli comment is descriptive of some of the problems that would need to be worked out, taste buds are programmed in the first few years, although they can be re-programmed to a lesser degree later on, so even if the child's diet leads him/her to dislike broccoli, it's still healthy for growth. In other words, kids can be idiots. They often do not know what's best for them. Just something that would have to be worked out.
Parents would still be telling their kids what's "right and wrong" as they see it, it wouldn't have the same impact as it does under present conditions, but indoctrination would have to have a pretty specific definition.

[Hyacinth]

So, you have no objection to parents sending their kids to religious education, as long as the kid is willing and obviously in addition to regular schooling, like CCD?
I'm not sure what to think of that. Personally I would still find it objectionable, but that is hardly grounds for prohibiting it. Of course, all provided that the material isn't reactionary.

But I think it a remote possibility. After all, what kid would choose to attend Sunday school or anything of the sort when given the option of doing whatever else they want. Without the ability to enforce attendance at a young age I doubt you would see religion survive after a few generations.


The broccoli comment is descriptive of some of the problems that would need to be worked out, taste buds are programmed in the first few years, although they can be re-programmed to a lesser degree later on, so even if the child's diet leads him/her to dislike broccoli, it's still healthy for growth. In other words, kids can be idiots. They often do not know what's best for them. Just something that would have to be worked out.
Yes, kids, just like adults, can be idiots. But in this instance there are plenty of ways of ensuring a healthy nutrition for children without resorting to things the children might not like to eat. The problem in our current society is that children are still largely treated as property of parents, though now with some legal limits on what one may or many not do with said property. What we should strive for is to treat children like people, and, as such, recognize their autonomy inasmuch as possible, and provide them with a wider array of choices than they are currently offered.


Parents would still be telling their kids what's "right and wrong" as they see it, it wouldn't have the same impact as it does under present conditions, but indoctrination would have to have a pretty specific definition.
Indeed, parents would still be able to tell children whatever they like, but without the economic dependence of children on their parents it will no longer carry the same force as it does today.

[Hyacinth]

Overall my position can best be summed up as ardently secularist. I oppose all religious involvement in public policy and oppose all attempts to use public policy to suppress religion. If we fall into the view that we can attempt to stifle human diversity, cultural expression and variation of beliefs, we go down a very dangerous rode indeed.
The problem that I see with this is that is treats religion as something that is, or can be, apolitical. Quite the contrary, religion is, and has always been, political: either directly itself (such as when the clergy attempt to exercise power), or, indirectly as a tool for the ruling class. As such, it is reactionary. And presumably we would oppose and attempt to eradicate other reactionaries, after all, I doubt anyone here is keen on rights for fascists or anything of the sort. Nor for that matter rights for capitalists. Why is it that religious institutions should be held sacrosanct (pun intended)?

And, once again, this isn't to imply that we will go after believers, nor for that matter after what people believe. But, just as we will abolish capitalists by abolishing private property in the means of production, so too we abolish religion by abolishing the public exercise thereof which makes it possible for religion to maintain and propagate itself. An ex-capitalist would still be quite free to hold whatever opinions they wished, just as a believers would be free to worship in private, but what both would be prohibited from doing is expressing these reactionary views publicly.

This isn't to imply that we'd have some sort of formal police force responsible for punishing those who express reactionary views. This isn't either desirable nor necessary for our ends. Rather, what we would do is deny all reactionaries, religious or otherwise, access to public life by depriving them of, among other things, access to means of communication, public buildings, etc. So, just as we wouldn't print Mein Kampf (except perhaps for academic purposes), so too we can stop the waste of paper that goes to printing Bibles, Korans, etc. Likewise, no more religious, or other reactionary, broadcasts on mass media. Nor churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, or whatever. We can find much better uses for these buildings. Not to mention some interior decorators, some of them are quite ghastly.

This is how we kill religion, by suffocating it. By depriving it of what keeps it going: both by the abolition of the material conditions which give rise to religion, but as well by abolition of the public exercise of religion.

[Demogorgon]

It is rubbish to say that religion is by its nature a tool of the ruling class. It is very easy to think of countless situations where churches were at the centre of fights against those in power.

I find it incredibly creepy to talk about prohibiting public expression of religion, why? Because you dislike it? That simply is not good enough. So long as people wish to worship they should be free to do so. So long as people want Bibles and Korans, Bibles and Korans should be printed. So long as people want to attend Churches and Synagogues, Churches and Synagogues should be maintained.

To oppose that is to go into the realm of imposing arbitrary restrictions upon people. Labeling things reactionary and saying people cannot do them any longer is utterly incompatible with any kind of free society. You might very well dislike religious services, but that is no reason whatsoever to stop them being carried out publicly, no more than my dislike of romantic comedies is any reason to stop them from being shown publicly (even if I try the get out clause of calling them reactionary).

Some people here (including, rather amusingly, a lot of anarchists) regard Communism as being a society where the majority should get to regulate the personal behaviour of the minority. That is not on in my opinion. Either society is permitted to be diverse or it is oppressive. Appalling tyrannies have been set up in the name of leftism precisely because people failed to grasp this. You cannot remake people by dictating to them the "correct" way to live their lives, society can only truly change when it changes naturally, that is when changes as a reflection of a changing economic structure.

It is my belief that religious belief will greatly decline in a Communist society due to my Marxist understanding of religion and also because of the simple empirical fact that the more egalitarian a society is, the less religious belief there is. If people don't need religion, they won't use it. To say you wish to suppress religion is to say that you do not believe this change will happen naturally.

To equate suppression of religion with suppression of capitalism is simply absurd. Capitalism is an economic system. Religion a set of beliefs. The removal of capitalism is the removal of private control over the means of production, a necessary step due to the fact that said private control is literary wrecking the world. Religion on the other hand works differently. Practicing capitalism hurts us for reasons that are well canvassed here. People in board rooms right now are causing you and me real harm as we speak. People attending church services are not affecting us one iota. All I ask of them is they don't try and enforce their ways on me and I will make no effort to enforce my ways on them.

[The Feral Underclass]

It is rubbish to say that religion is by its nature a tool of the ruling class. It is very easy to think of countless situations where churches were at the centre of fights against those in power.

The fact that individuals or churches have rebelled against their leadership and used their religious beliefs contrary to how the establishment wants them to is not proof of the possible progressiveness of religion. If anything it's the exception that proves the rule. Just because a priest et al may use his beliefs to "do good" or even proselytise against the institution they belong does not mean the religion is not, by its nature, a tool of the ruling class.

[Demogorgon]

The fact that individuals or churches have rebelled against their leadership and used their religious beliefs contrary to how the establishment wants them to is not proof of the possible progressiveness of religion. If anything it's the exception that proves the rule. Just because a priest et al may use his beliefs to "do good" or even proselytise against the institution they belong does not mean the religion is not, by its nature, a tool of the ruling class.
Saying it does not make it so. In any conflict you care to look at, you will find religion clearly present on both sides. In apartheid for instance the Calvinists (broadly) backed it while the Episcopalians (again mostly) opposed it. In Burma the state actively portrays itself as Buddhist, but the Buddhist monks are often at the centre of organising against it and of course I can go on. Religion is if nothing else adaptable and can be used for anything one wants to use it for. You see religion supporting the ruling class because it can easily be used for that end and you see it opposing the same, again because it is easily used for that.

Religious institutions aren't for anything at all by nature except their own survival. That is why they change their views quite regularly. To take the Catholic Church for example, its rapid decline in the West means it needs to gain support in the third world, hence the Pope declares himself to oppose Capitalism. If the situation changes then the Church will choose as his successor a Pope with an entirely new set of views again. In a socialist society, the churches would mostly declare themselves to support socialism seeing it as their best means of survival. They certainly wouldn't make much noise about restoring capitalism, current churches don't call for feudalism to return after all, do they?

At its heart though, religion is nothing more than a reflection of the society it exists in, hence you will find religions fulfilling all sorts of roles. To only look at its reactionary roles is to deliberately blind oneself from seeing anything other than they want to see. Never a desirable thing to do.

[Hyacinth]

I find it incredibly creepy to talk about prohibiting public expression of religion, why? Because you dislike it? That simply is not good enough. So long as people wish to worship they should be free to do so. So long as people want Bibles and Korans, Bibles and Korans should be printed. So long as people want to attend Churches and Synagogues, Churches and Synagogues should be maintained.
Where did I, or anyone, say that it ought to be prohibited because we dislike it? Whether or not it should be prohibited has nothing to do with whether I dislike it or not, but with whether it is harmful and reactionary. As simple as that. And whether or not something is reactionary isn't a matter of like or dislike—it isn't subjective—rather it is a question of whether it promotes and supports oppressive institutions and attitudes. Religion clearly falls in that camp.

I don't deny that in many parts of the world the working class is in the grip of religion—though certainly not in all parts. But so what? Does the fact that people hold a reactionary position mean that we shouldn't oppose it? So long as people wish to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. they should be free to do so? So long as people want Mein Kampf printed it should be printed?

As I said before, the left doesn't seem to think we ought to allow reactionaries such as fascists or capitalists to have a free pass, why is religion somehow special?


To oppose that is to go into the realm of imposing arbitrary restrictions upon people. Labeling things reactionary and saying people cannot do them any longer is utterly incompatible with any kind of free society. You might very well dislike religious services, but that is no reason whatsoever to stop them being carried out publicly, no more than my dislike of romantic comedies is any reason to stop them from being shown publicly (even if I try the get out clause of calling them reactionary).

Some people here (including, rather amusingly, a lot of anarchists) regard Communism as being a society where the majority should get to regulate the personal behaviour of the minority. That is not on in my opinion. Either society is permitted to be diverse or it is oppressive. Appalling tyrannies have been set up in the name of leftism precisely because people failed to grasp this. You cannot remake people by dictating to them the "correct" way to live their lives, society can only truly change when it changes naturally, that is when changes as a reflection of a changing economic structure.
An aside: most romantic comedies are sexist, so yet, they are reactionary trash, and we shouldn't allow such blatant sexism to go unchecked.

As far as religious services are concerned, I'm actually quite fond of some of them aesthetically. A Latin mass can be quite moving. It is the message of religious services that I object to. Having some cleric standing up on an altar declaring this or that a sin, expressing blatantly homophobic, sexist, racist, etc. remarks, is what I find objectionable, offensive, and something that I wouldn't want to see done in a public building. And presumably, once we have democratized the economy, I do have a say in how resources of society are to be distributes. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to see any part of my labour going toward the production of reactionary trash such as the Bible, etc.

I've already said that I think religion will be undermined when socialism is established simply because its material base will have been destroyed. That being said, I don't expect religion to immediately dissipate, likewise for other reactionary ideas. I don't pretend to be setting policies for a future socialist society, it isn't up to me to decide what is to be done with religion, but I would get a say, and you can bet that I'll be advocating for its expulsion from public life.


It is my belief that religious belief will greatly decline in a Communist society due to my Marxist understanding of religion and also because of the simple empirical fact that the more egalitarian a society is, the less religious belief there is. If people don't need religion, they won't use it. To say you wish to suppress religion is to say that you do not believe this change will happen naturally.
I don't think religion will go away as easily as you do, no more than I think we can sit around and simply wait for socialism to fall from the sky. But, that aside, even if you're right, I fail to see why we shouldn't hasten the decline of a reactionary force. I'm sure sexism will decline as well once economic equality between men and women has been achieved, but does that mean that we shouldn't fight sexism while it still exists?


To equate suppression of religion with suppression of capitalism is simply absurd. Capitalism is an economic system. Religion a set of beliefs. The removal of capitalism is the removal of private control over the means of production, a necessary step due to the fact that said private control is literary wrecking the world. Religion on the other hand works differently. Practicing capitalism hurts us for reasons that are well canvassed here. People in board rooms right now are causing you and me real harm as we speak. People attending church services are not affecting us one iota. All I ask of them is they don't try and enforce their ways on me and I will make no effort to enforce my ways on them.
Religion isn't just a set of beliefs, but also a set of institutions. Not to mention, beliefs affect how people behave. What the Pope says might no longer be as relevant today as it once was, especially in the advanced industrial countries, but the reactionary ramblings of the senile pontiff are still taken seriously by many in the developing world, which is resulting in a huge problem in the fight against AIDS, for women's rights, etc.

[Demogorgon]

Where did I, or anyone, say that it ought to be prohibited because we dislike it? Whether or not it should be prohibited has nothing to do with whether I dislike it or not, but with whether it is harmful and reactionary. As simple as that. And whether or not something is reactionary isn't a matter of like or dislike—it isn't subjective—rather it is a question of whether it promotes and supports oppressive institutions and attitudes. Religion clearly falls in that camp. That is a broad statement and terribly inaccurate. As I have said previously, religion falls into all political categories. It is neither reactionary nor progressive. It is whatever its adherents want it to be. Or to use an example, I consider the Christian Right in America to be perhaps the most dangerous political group extant today. The Quakers who host some of our Stop The War coalition meetings are not reactionary however. I'll come back to Quakers actually because they tie in nicely with something I will say later.


I don't deny that in many parts of the world the working class is in the grip of religion—though certainly not in all parts. But so what? Does the fact that people hold a reactionary position mean that we shouldn't oppose it? So long as people wish to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. they should be free to do so? So long as people want Mein Kampf printed it should be printed? Certainly if someone wishes to say something, no one should stop them saying it. You are conflating this with things like racist oppression and so forth. Certainly all forms of oppression against women LGBT people, ethnic minorities and so forth should be dealt with as quickly as we can, but that is different from stopping people making bigoted comments, which I oppose. Apart from anything else, I would like to be able to identify these bigots so that I know not to associate with them.


As I said before, the left doesn't seem to think we ought to allow reactionaries such as fascists or capitalists to have a free pass, why is religion somehow special?

Because it is an entirely different beast. For instance with capitalism, the problem is that it is the economic system that encompasses more or less the entire planet. Individual capitalists aren't the problem and minus their property should be permitted to go on with their lives once they have been deprived of their power over the rest of us. Indeed they should be perfectly free to call for the return of capitalism if they want. I don't imagine too many people being that interested, but if they want to, that is their perogative. Religion on the other hand does not work like that at all. Religious authorities have no power over me whatsoever for instance. In places where they do, that power must be eliminated (as I say I am an ardent secularist) but once we are in the position where religion cannot affect non-religious people, there is no reason whatsoever to constrain it other than for the sake of reducing freedom.


An aside: most romantic comedies are sexist, so yet, they are reactionary trash, and we shouldn't allow such blatant sexism to go unchecked. One of the any reasons I dislike them, but good luck trying to get people to support a system including film censorship.


As far as religious services are concerned, I'm actually quite fond of some of them aesthetically. A Latin mass can be quite moving. It is the message of religious services that I object to. Having some cleric standing up on an altar declaring this or that a sin, expressing blatantly homophobic, sexist, racist, etc. remarks, is what I find objectionable, offensive, and something that I wouldn't want to see done in a public building. And presumably, once we have democratized the economy, I do have a say in how resources of society are to be distributes. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to see any part of my labour going toward the production of reactionary trash such as the Bible, etc. What about when they are used for the opposite. When Desmond Tutu gives services promoting gay rights, racial equality, freedom for Palestinians, removing the vestiges of apartheid and so on, is he making poor use of public buildings?

And if you don't want to be involved in producing the Bible, then don't be, but those who do wish to be involved should be free to do so. People should be free to access whatever books they please, so whatever books people want should be printed regardless of what you or I might think about their contents.


I've already said that I think religion will be undermined when socialism is established simply because its material base will have been destroyed. That being said, I don't expect religion to immediately dissipate, likewise for other reactionary ideas. I don't pretend to be setting policies for a future socialist society, it isn't up to me to decide what is to be done with religion, but I would get a say, and you can bet that I'll be advocating for its expulsion from public life. Thing is, by explulsion from public life, you mean you should not have to view it. Again, why exactly? It will have no affect on you at all, even indirectly if people attend church to worship, so why try to stop them doing it? My objection here, you must understand is not about religion, but rather predicated on my ardent belief that a free society cannot be involved in suppressing practices people wish to engage in unless they are causing damage.


I don't think religion will go away as easily as you do, no more than I think we can sit around and simply wait for socialism to fall from the sky. But, that aside, even if you're right, I fail to see why we shouldn't hasten the decline of a reactionary force. I'm sure sexism will decline as well once economic equality between men and women has been achieved, but does that mean that we shouldn't fight sexism while it still exists?
I don't think religion will vanish either, nor do I care. It will resettle at whatever level suits a socialist society. What matters is it fits with that, a subject I shall shortly turn to. To attempt to eliminate it smacks of oppression. It is not my business, nor is it yours what others believe or practice. I don't believe in God and will attempt to convince others as to that position, but if I fail to do so I must absolutely not resort to force to try and force them to accept my position.


Religion isn't just a set of beliefs, but also a set of institutions. Not to mention, beliefs affect how people behave. What the Pope says might no longer be as relevant today as it once was, especially in the advanced industrial countries, but the reactionary ramblings of the senile pontiff are still taken seriously by many in the developing world, which is resulting in a huge problem in the fight against AIDS, for women's rights, etc.
Well the HiV thing is outrageous, but remember there are many priests-particularly Jesuits-out there trying to make condoms widely available to stop the spread of the disease, again religion is not a monolithic entity seeking a single goal.

Now to come back to my point about religion changing (and Quakers) and change from capitalism to socialism would be an enormous change in the nature of society and would have major knock on effects. Just as the change from Feudalism to Capitalism did, and this will affect religion. When feudalism died we saw the reformation. It is from there that many churches take their liberal structures. For instance the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland functions like an old fashioned version of elitist representative democracy. That happened because the church changed to a system reflecting the way society changed. It is my belief that churches will have to change again to make themselves democratic and those that are hierarchical will need to rid themselves of the reactionaries in charge of such a system. Churches looking at lot like the Quakers could well be the result.

To take the Catholic Church for instance, an institution in desperate need of a clean out given it still hasn't gotten rid of all its feudal practices, there will have to be a "revolution" of sots within it changing the structure to a democratic church that can function in a modern socialist society. However that change will have to come from Catholics themselves, not from you or I, we can't impose change from the outside. If you poke about the internet you will find small groups of Catholics advocating exactly what I propose, a removal of the Church hierarchy and a democratic church. As society itself changes and churches adapt to reflect this, such groups will grow and the churches will change their nature. I think the outcome will be churches that have far fewer members and are far more democratic and progressive. No matter how progressive they become of course, they should not be allowed to participate in deciding public policy but they should also be free of any oppression.

[eyedrop]

Christ, church burning is so fifteen years ago.Well the Norwegian state church does go to an extra length to piss people off. The latest being making everyone not a member of another "life-view organisation" after 1991 is a member of the church. But yeah, religion is already dead and it's just trying to stay afloat with some top-down measures.


Anyway I support complete freedom of religion. I hold a pretty orthodox Marxist view of the subject in that it is a consequence of oppression and all that and will fade with their removal, though not completely, partly because old habits die hard and it is heavily ingrained in culture and partly because it will always be effective in providing comfort in times of bereavement. That doesn't terribly bother me though, I have no interest in taking part in religious rituals whatsoever, so how on earth does it affect me if others choose to do so?I mostle agree, I just get pissed when people try to portray most folks as red-necks in furious defence of their religion. The welfare state has already done a splendid job abolising religion. I see no reason why more wouldn't abolisish completely.

There are no grass roots religious movements here. I understand folks if they torch a church after suddenly discovering they are a member of the church after doing everything possible to avoid it.

[Robert]

But yeah, religion is already dead and it's just trying to stay afloat with some top-down measures.I don't know how you define "dead," but Christianity is growing at a rate about equal to the growth of world population. Islam is growing slightly faster than the world's population.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/growth_isl_chr.htm

In China, Christianity appears to be growing at least as fast as the population, whose growth has hopefully stabilized:


Christianity — repressed, marginalized and, in many cases, illegal in China for more than half a century — is sweeping the country, overflowing churches and posing a sensitive challenge to the officially atheist Communist Party.

By some estimates Christian churches, most of them underground, now have roughly 70 million members, as many as the party itself. A growing number of those Christians are in fact party members. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-jesus-1-1-webjun22,0,2458211.story

[eyedrop]

I don't know how you define "dead," but Christianity is growing at a rate about equal to the growth of world population. Islam is growing slightly faster than the world's population.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/growth_isl_chr.htm

In China, Christianity appears to be growing at least as fast as the population, whose growth has hopefully stabilized:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-jesus-1-1-webjun22,0,2458211.story

How are those stats if you only count places where misery is only an uncommon companion.

[Robert]

You said religion is dead. It either is or it isn't.

Which is it? What do your stats say?

[The Feral Underclass]

Saying it does not make it so.

No, the fact it's true does.


In any conflict you care to look at, you will find religion clearly present on both sides.

So? That proves nothing except that some people are able to do what they should already be doing despite their belief in god.


In Burma the state actively portrays itself as Buddhist, but the Buddhist monks are often at the centre of organising against it and of course I can go on.

You're talking about liberal reformist movements that are as easily part of the state than any other. The Burmese monks have very little politics beyond being against the generals. What does that prove? Have you been to Myanmar? Do you not know of the sheer brutality of the regime there? I mean, everyone is against it. It doesn't prove that religion is not a tool of capital or the ruling class. It simply proves that this particular ruling class can no longer justify using it as a tool because they're blatantly lying about its role.


Religion is if nothing else adaptable and can be used for anything one wants to use it for. You see religion supporting the ruling class because it can easily be used for that end and you see it opposing the same, again because it is easily used for that.

That's not really being disputed. What Hyacinth asserted was that it was a natural tool of the ruling class, and it is. In spite of the fact it's adaptable.


Religious institutions aren't for anything at all by nature except their own survival.

In this historical epoch, it is intertwined within the existence of capital.


That is why they change their views quite regularly. To take the Catholic Church for example, its rapid decline in the West means it needs to gain support in the third world, hence the Pope declares himself to oppose Capitalism.

Where has he done that? But in any case, as you say, just saying it doesn't make it so. The pope is clearly lying. He came out yesterday saying that atheists were the cause of global warming, for fuck sake!


In a socialist society, the churches would mostly declare themselves to support socialism seeing it as their best means of survival.

Yes, and the socialist state and it's bureaucratic ruling class may very well use it for their own advantage, just like the bourgeoisie do now.


At its heart though, religion is nothing more than a reflection of the society it exists in, hence you will find religions fulfilling all sorts of roles.

And in a communist society it will have no role. It will become a redundant set of superstitions such as saluting magpies and not walking under ladders. The world will grow to ridicule these beliefs as a time of incalculable stupidity.


To only look at its reactionary roles is to deliberately blind oneself from seeing anything other than they want to see. Never a desirable thing to do.

You assume that because certain people are capable of understanding the world based on its struggles this somehow exempts their faith and belief in god and religion from being regressive. And it doesn't. To hold onto irrational beliefs, reject a philosophical materialist understanding of the world and proselytise the existence of a wrathful, giant imaginary thing is wholly regressive in every instance.

[Hyacinth]

Certainly if someone wishes to say something, no one should stop them saying it. You are conflating this with things like racist oppression and so forth. Certainly all forms of oppression against women LGBT people, ethnic minorities and so forth should be dealt with as quickly as we can, but that is different from stopping people making bigoted comments, which I oppose. Apart from anything else, I would like to be able to identify these bigots so that I know not to associate with them.
I really don't see what there is to be gained from the expression of reactionary views. But even if we choose to permit their expression in public with no formal punitive measures, I don't see why we should provide a podium for the views, least of all one that would be subsidized by the community as a whole (which, presumably, churches would have to be given that they would become public property). Though, again, neither you nor I will be deciding what is going to be done to churches after a revolution. I would hope we put it to the vote: I'd favour the conversion of churches into pubs, after all, as A.E. Housman once quipped "Malt does more than Milton can to justify the ways of God to Man."


Religion on the other hand does not work like that at all. Religious authorities have no power over me whatsoever for instance. In places where they do, that power must be eliminated (as I say I am an ardent secularist) but once we are in the position where religion cannot affect non-religious people, there is no reason whatsoever to constrain it other than for the sake of reducing freedom.
I don't think people should be deceived, and religion is deceitful. As such I don't think we should provide a public place for its practise, no more than we would, say, homeopathy, or any other pseudoscience. Just as we should take active measures to teach people to reason, to combat pseudoscience, so too we should do the same with superstition.


One of the any reasons I dislike them, but good luck trying to get people to support a system including film censorship.
Who's proposing censorship? I just wouldn't want us to aid in its distribution.


What about when they are used for the opposite. When Desmond Tutu gives services promoting gay rights, racial equality, freedom for Palestinians, removing the vestiges of apartheid and so on, is he making poor use of public buildings?
What do any of those have to do with religion? I'm perfectly happy that certain members of even the clergy rebel against their own dogma, but that doesn't absolve the dogma.


And if you don't want to be involved in producing the Bible, then don't be, but those who do wish to be involved should be free to do so. People should be free to access whatever books they please, so whatever books people want should be printed regardless of what you or I might think about their contents.
I would think the allocation of resources is something to be decided and debated publicly, and decided democratically. Now, I think the example of printing Bibles is somewhat antiquated, what with e-books and all, but let's run with it. Every Bible printed is a waste of paper inasmuch as that paper could have been put to printing something of some real value. Likewise for every church constructed.


Thing is, by explulsion from public life, you mean you should not have to view it. Again, why exactly? It will have no affect on you at all, even indirectly if people attend church to worship, so why try to stop them doing it? My objection here, you must understand is not about religion, but rather predicated on my ardent belief that a free society cannot be involved in suppressing practices people wish to engage in unless they are causing damage.
A church or synagogue or temple or mosque or whatever left standing is an insult to all those who have been oppressed by the various religious creeds throughout the ages. I would not want to leave them standing anymore than I would want to leave Nazi architecture standing. As for worship, no one is prohibiting it in private, but in public it is a completely different matter as we are talking about public property which the public as a whole have a say in how it is to be used. And I can think of much better uses for ex-religious buildings than for some meaningless ceremonies.


I don't think religion will vanish either, nor do I care. It will resettle at whatever level suits a socialist society. What matters is it fits with that, a subject I shall shortly turn to. To attempt to eliminate it smacks of oppression. It is not my business, nor is it yours what others believe or practice. I don't believe in God and will attempt to convince others as to that position, but if I fail to do so I must absolutely not resort to force to try and force them to accept my position.
Really? It isn't our business what other people practise? So when the devout Jew or Muslim attempts to follow their religious creed by dutifully circumcising their child this isn't our business? Or when they attempt to indoctrinate their children to their dogma? Or when they preach hate on the street corner? Or attempt to undermine the right to abortion?

And, again, who is talking about force? I never suggested we employ force. What I want is the expropriation of religious property, and either its destruction (followed up by replacing it with something more useful), or it being recommissioned into something more useful. For any church I'd much rather have a school, a hospital, or, hell, even a pub. All of those would do more good.

Likewise, I would also see religious programming taken off the air. Let the religious say whatever they wish, just as the ex-capitalists can call for capitalist restoration, but we don't have to keep Fox News or the 900 Club around.


Well the HiV thing is outrageous, but remember there are many priests-particularly Jesuits-out there trying to make condoms widely available to stop the spread of the disease, again religion is not a monolithic entity seeking a single goal.
Yes, but the task would be so much easier without religion standing in our way.


Now to come back to my point about religion changing (and Quakers) and change from capitalism to socialism would be an enormous change in the nature of society and would have major knock on effects. Just as the change from Feudalism to Capitalism did, and this will affect religion. When feudalism died we saw the reformation. It is from there that many churches take their liberal structures. For instance the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland functions like an old fashioned version of elitist representative democracy. That happened because the church changed to a system reflecting the way society changed. It is my belief that churches will have to change again to make themselves democratic and those that are hierarchical will need to rid themselves of the reactionaries in charge of such a system. Churches looking at lot like the Quakers could well be the result.
And I doubt that the functioning of groups like the Quakers would be much affected by anything I've proposed.


To take the Catholic Church for instance, an institution in desperate need of a clean out given it still hasn't gotten rid of all its feudal practices, there will have to be a "revolution" of sots within it changing the structure to a democratic church that can function in a modern socialist society. However that change will have to come from Catholics themselves, not from you or I, we can't impose change from the outside. If you poke about the internet you will find small groups of Catholics advocating exactly what I propose, a removal of the Church hierarchy and a democratic church. As society itself changes and churches adapt to reflect this, such groups will grow and the churches will change their nature. I think the outcome will be churches that have far fewer members and are far more democratic and progressive. No matter how progressive they become of course, they should not be allowed to participate in deciding public policy but they should also be free of any oppression.
You know, I think we can come to a compromise, if, e.g., the Catholic Church is fine with us using the Vatican for a gay BDSM orgy on Saturday night, they can have the use of it on Sunday for mass. Fair, don't you think? Not to mention, the place is practically already set up for such an event, what with all those crucifixes of Jesus around the place, with his washboard abs. And if we can throw a pork BBQ at the Kaaba on Thursday, the Muslims can have it on Friday for prayer. And I've always really wanted to have a pissing contest on the Wailing Wall, and so long as we wash the place it should be free of any smell in time for Jewish prayer.

[Robert]

proselytise the existence of a wrathful, giant imaginary thingThere are a few rural churches that still preach fire and brimstone, but I really think you have to go looking for them. If that's all that Christianity were based on, no one would attend. Modern Catholics, Methodists, and Episcopals don't go there at all, especially the urban ones.

I don't believe that modern Jews think of their god in terms of "wrathful" either. Whether they do or don't, their religion and relation to god is such an
inextricable component of their worldview that you'd have to eliminate them all to eliminate Judaism.

Islamic Hell is admittedly a pretty warm place. :lol:

But Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism? Not so much.

[Demogorgon]

Well the Norwegian state church does go to an extra length to piss people off. The latest being making everyone not a member of another "life-view organisation" after 1991 is a member of the church. But yeah, religion is already dead and it's just trying to stay afloat with some top-down measures.

I mostle agree, I just get pissed when people try to portray most folks as red-necks in furious defence of their religion. The welfare state has already done a splendid job abolising religion. I see no reason why more wouldn't abolisish completely.

There are no grass roots religious movements here. I understand folks if they torch a church after suddenly discovering they are a member of the church after doing everything possible to avoid it.
I agree that the welfare state has seen enormous decline in religious practice, as good an example of why anti-theism is wrong as any I might add (proving religion reflects society, not the other way around), and a more egalitarian society will reduce it further. I don't think it will go completely, but it will be much smaller.

There are of course problems concerning the likes of the Norwegian State Church due to some laws on the statute books surrounding it. The presumption of membership in it is the main problem I think, though it isn't so bad because at least Norway doesn't collect tithes unlike some places. That has to go as do some of the other laws. However some of the really offensive stuff like half the cabinet having to be members of the church might not matter at al now because they will have been rendered unenforceable anyway. Norwegians I have spoken to reckon the law will simply be abolished as soon as a Cabinet without the requirement is gone, but it seems to me it could already be gone, the same way as the theoretical British ban on a Catholic being Prime Minister is. Norway, like Britain, has signed the European Convention of human rights after all.

I digress though, basically Norway needs major changes in the law concerning the state church, but that doesn't really affect the debate on religion in general. When we come to the church burnings, those cannot possibly be supported because of who is doing them. of course to a large extent it is teenagers looking to impress their friends and imitate what happened in the early nineties, but the ideology behind them is despicable, they hold to national romanticism and want to create fascist societies based on Nordic religion. They mostly associate with a music scene that makes great music, but they have a very poor political outlook indeed.

They are actually a lot like people such as The Anarchist Tension I suppose, people who just want to hate for the sake of hating and live in their own dream worlds as a result. That is what I mean by tis being something that crops up in all ideologies. And is the reason I have no further intention of engaging with TAT, doing so could only possibly involve descending to his level. Apart from anything else his simultaneous rejection of materialism and criticism of others for doing so renders his arguments pretty loopy anyway.

I really don't see what there is to be gained from the expression of reactionary views.It is a question of what is to be lost by suppressing them. Any society that clamps down on freedom of speech sets itself down the road to tyranny. Their policies must never be enacted because that would be terrible, but so would stopping them from saying what they wish.

Again though, religion is a different anyway because it is not linked to any particular ideology.


I don't think people should be deceived, and religion is deceitful. As such I don't think we should provide a public place for its practise, no more than we would, say, homeopathy, or any other pseudoscience. Just as we should take active measures to teach people to reason, to combat pseudoscience, so too we should do the same with superstition. By deceitful you mean it is a lie, and by a lie you mean its proponents are deliberately misleading others. Which is a load of rubbish of course, because they genuinely believe what they say. Meaning they are wrong, but not deceitful. Do you propose we ban things we see as incorrect? And if so, how do we decide what is incorrect? Virtually all new ideas that turned out true started with people largely dismissing them. To restrict people to following things we regard as true, you invite stagnation.

Not to mention you will encourage self censorship in all fields. Restricting religion will create a chilling effect.


Who's proposing censorship? I just wouldn't want us to aid in its distribution.
As fine a justification of censorship as might be seen. I don't want to aid in its distribution ether, but others may want to. You have an odd view of a democratic economy, I will return to that shortly.


What do any of those have to do with religion? I'm perfectly happy that certain members of even the clergy rebel against their own dogma, but that doesn't absolve the dogma.
We aren't talking about a lone priest rebelling against his dogma. We are talking about the retired head of the Episcopalian Church in Southern Africa and one of the world's most formidable theologians. It is thanks to him and his supporters that the Church there has been so progressive on the rights of women and the LGBT community for instance. In the case the Church is probably more progressive than society in general. Are you saying that that is a misuse of public buildings?


I would think the allocation of resources is something to be decided and debated publicly, and decided democratically. Now, I think the example of printing Bibles is somewhat antiquated, what with e-books and all, but let's run with it. Every Bible printed is a waste of paper inasmuch as that paper could have been put to printing something of some real value. Likewise for every church constructed.
And here you have a very strange idea of democracy. It does not mean that nothing can be made unless it has the permission of 50%+1 people. It is about satisfying a wide spectrum of desires. If, say, 30% of people want x and 70% do not, then enough of x should be made for those 30% of people. So if a minority of people want bibles then enough should be made for that minority.


A church or synagogue or temple or mosque or whatever left standing is an insult to all those who have been oppressed by the various religious creeds throughout the ages. And if you tear it down, it will become a symbol of oppression against religious people. The purpose of Communism is not to see if we can become more oppressive than our predecessors.


Really? It isn't our business what other people practise? So when the devout Jew or Muslim attempts to follow their religious creed by dutifully circumcising their child this isn't our business? A large number of people are circumcised for a large number of reasons. Perhaps you will have panels set up to scrutinise each case to make sure you approve of the reasons?


Or when they attempt to indoctrinate their children to their dogma? Or when they preach hate on the street corner? Or attempt to undermine the right to abortion?Exactly what percentage of religious people do you think go out and preach hate or whatnot? You sound incredibly paranoid.


And, again, who is talking about force? I never suggested we employ force. What I want is the expropriation of religious property, and either its destruction (followed up by replacing it with something more useful), or it being recommissioned into something more useful. For any church I'd much rather have a school, a hospital, or, hell, even a pub. All of those would do more good. But if a substantial number of people want a church? (And they will). What then? A pub for instance is a lot more useful to someone like me. But a Church will be more useful for other people. Society will have to incorporate both groups of people.



And I doubt that the functioning of groups like the Quakers would be much affected by anything I've proposed.
Well except of course you would take away their Friend's Meetings Houses, because after all religious buildings are ipso facto useless, aren;t they?


You know, I think we can come to a compromise, if, e.g., the Catholic Church is fine with us using the Vatican for a gay BDSM orgy on Saturday night, they can have the use of it on Sunday for mass. Fair, don't you think? Not to mention, the place is practically already set up for such an event, what with all those crucifixes of Jesus around the place, with his washboard abs. And if we can throw a pork BBQ at the Kaaba on Thursday, the Muslims can have it on Friday for prayer. And I've always really wanted to have a pissing contest on the Wailing Wall, and so long as we wash the place it should be free of any smell in time for Jewish prayer.
Why don't we also have Nazi rallies at Holocaust memorials, AWB rallies on Robben Island and Cross Burnings at civil rights monuments?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The problem that I see with this is that is treats religion as something that is, or can be, apolitical. Quite the contrary, religion is, and has always been, political: either directly itself (such as when the clergy attempt to exercise power), or, indirectly as a tool for the ruling class. As such, it is reactionary. And presumably we would oppose and attempt to eradicate other reactionaries, after all, I doubt anyone here is keen on rights for fascists or anything of the sort. Nor for that matter rights for capitalists. Why is it that religious institutions should be held sacrosanct (pun intended)?

And, once again, this isn't to imply that we will go after believers, nor for that matter after what people believe. But, just as we will abolish capitalists by abolishing private property in the means of production, so too we abolish religion by abolishing the public exercise thereof which makes it possible for religion to maintain and propagate itself. An ex-capitalist would still be quite free to hold whatever opinions they wished, just as a believers would be free to worship in private, but what both would be prohibited from doing is expressing these reactionary views publicly.

This isn't to imply that we'd have some sort of formal police force responsible for punishing those who express reactionary views. This isn't either desirable nor necessary for our ends. Rather, what we would do is deny all reactionaries, religious or otherwise, access to public life by depriving them of, among other things, access to means of communication, public buildings, etc. So, just as we wouldn't print Mein Kampf (except perhaps for academic purposes), so too we can stop the waste of paper that goes to printing Bibles, Korans, etc. Likewise, no more religious, or other reactionary, broadcasts on mass media. Nor churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, or whatever. We can find much better uses for these buildings. Not to mention some interior decorators, some of them are quite ghastly.

This is how we kill religion, by suffocating it. By depriving it of what keeps it going: both by the abolition of the material conditions which give rise to religion, but as well by abolition of the public exercise of religion.

What about the odd "liberation theology" religious groups (regardless of original religion) and their assets, then? :confused:

Maybe the "Great Patriotic War" Stalin treatment might not be a bad "transitional" measure for this one.

[ckaihatsu]

Religion can be a symptom of alienation that occurs under capitalism, therefore people reach up to a higher being to strengthen them (which ties in nicely to the description of it as "The opium of the people").


As others have pointed out, the hyper-individuation and lack of a fully humanistic society under capitalism *are* very alienating dynamics -- it's no wonder that many people feel powerless *and* rudderless in such a world as the current one.

Religion, like *any* mass cultural product -- like talk shows or movie characters -- gives the *illusion* that there is a warm, cozy "universal togetherness" threaded through all members of humanity when in fact the functioning of the real world is far more complex than that illusion.

Our modern entertainment, like religion, makes for excellent avenues of escapism, which *is* understandable for *anyone* to turn to at times as a relief from the frustrating stress that results from interacting with the larger, capitalist world in an active way.

The *problem* with *any* illusion, whether it be a cultural good, a religious / philosophical formulation, or a chemical drug, is that it *cannot be relied on* -- these are *not* sentient, conscious beings with the ability to serve as friendly supports -- they are *palliatives* at best, immobile shelters that cannot be *lived* under.





I must say, for some people, religion is all that gives them hope in life; they would have an emotional breakdown without it.


In this *particular* case I'd say that the person hasn't really accepted their own existence in the world -- their religion functions as an "emotional womb" to make them feel specially protected instead of facing up to the fact that they're in the same boat, as a part of society, like the rest of us.





Personally, I think religion tends to be in correspondence with the Psychological happiness of the indivdual.


And in *this* particular case I'd say that the person's experience has been a feeling of *total unification* with the rest of existence -- particularly humanity -- like a feeling of being part of the water of an ocean.

But this, too, is problematic, since this Eastern-type construction is too atomistic -- reality is *more clumped* and cohesive in places than the "particle-as-part-of-the-whole-universe" conception.





So having said this, religion would most likely wither away in a post-revolutionary society. Couple this with the abolition of class antagonisms and the division of Labour (which religion historically speaking, serves to justify) and there is a convincing case that religion would cease to exist post-capitalism. [/FONT][/COLOR]


Religion / mass culture is *directly* a result of the class structure of society -- it's inherently a one-to-many relationship, with the roles of *producer* and *consumer* cleanly divided, with the producer taking an active, labor-oriented role, and the consumer taking a passive, leisure-oriented role (at best).

The Information Revolution has brought us the historical advent of the *many-to-many* relationship -- like that of this message board -- wherein the roles of producer and consumer are blurred, with an intermixing of activity and passivity in a context of massively parallel participation. It has the potential to displace large segments of mass commercial culture since it *enables* the individual's self-agency within a *non-hierarchical* context of *inter-cognitive* collaboration.

By its *very mode* it *displaces* the routinized, gauzy, ritualized practices of older modes that attempted to provide some life-pattern stability through repetition alone.

We, as revolutionaries, need to build on the Information Revolution and urge a Materialist Revolution that brings this many-to-many agency into the realm of the real material world as well, displacing *all* one-to-many (or oligarchic) relationships that are the basis of elite rule.





I actually think the opposite might happen. I've seen a lot of people drop religion not due to not needing it but due to great hardship causing them to no longer believe. With the alleviation of this I think there would be less and less people to drop religion. I don't think it would boom or anything, but I certainly don't think it would go away. Not all religions...just a lot of them.


The *only way* to make people give up their teddy bears is to give them *an active, equal stake* in the running of the real material world -- and *not* through the intermediary of capital, either.





Yeah maybe good point, but perhaps not a rise or growing acceptence of 'organised' religion, but a rise in spirituality. Perhaps this 'spirituality' would be extremly different to the organised religion we see today, again because the organisation wouldn't be needed as class antagonisms would cease to exist. The difference between spirituality and religion would need to be clarified I guess.


'Sprituality' is a dodge -- either an intellectual, abstract conception has some basis in reality, or it doesn't. If it does, then it's a fact, or a scientific investigation towards fact -- if it *isn't* oriented towards fact then it's *imaginative*.

Religion / spirituality is intellectual 'spackle' -- it fills in the gaps above the level at which the person has decided to give up pro-active thinking for themselves -- somone who has a *real* (rational-materialist) explanation *doesn't need* to resort to myth and legends, except in the use as a tool by those who are in power to justify their rule to everyone else.

The rise of religion corresponds to the rise of class (elitist) rule -- it necessarily infantilizes people because it forcibly replaces fiction for fact in their minds, either actively depriving them of self-agency, or else "explaining away" the fact that they are deprived of access to self-agency.





There's an immediate assumtpion here that we either allow religious belief to go unchallenged, or we suppress it.


'Belief' and 'knowing' are mutually exclusive cognitive states -- if you "believe" something then it means you're not quite sure -- you have to rely on "faith", which is the acceptance of something without fully knowing why. If you *know* something then you can *explain* your basis for the knowledge, and, most likely, it will be verifiable by other people's active, rational investigations.





Well i'm with neither camp, i'm an anti-thiest and as such I believe religion is anti-materialist, irrational and manifests itself in the most reactionary of ways. That doesn't lead me to hate religious people, or want to repress them, but I tinhk in the here and now there is an important function for the left, and that is one of propaganda. The fight against reactionary ideas necessitates the fight against religious belief, in that vein I think the promotion of secularism and athiesm should be a touchstone standard of leftist groups.


The tricky part is that we don't want to *punish* people for simply being *wrong* -- if anyone has not fully done their homework, or they have harbored a bad intellectual habit without picking it apart to understand their basis for having accepted it, then that's sloppy thinking, at worst. We should treat these conditions as we would someone who's going through a medical trauma -- with understanding, care, and assistance.

If a forceful approach works, fine, but it may not always be the best approach. For some we may have to be more patient and give individualized attention and disinterested counseling to help them work through their underlying assumptions.





Sadly the oppositie is true, much of the British and US left are too busy tailing reactionary religious customs and traditions, distancing themselves from LGBTQ liberation and defending some of the most draconian acts done in the name of faith.


Yeah, I agree -- there's no point in *surrendering* to that which is backward -- it's a self-contradicting two-step stagist strategy that attempts to "fit in" before "revealing" its true aims. This approach may work in the realm of chemical-biological processes but *not* in the realm of collectively sentient, social-political ones.





I agree that the left should be involved with the promotion of secularism, but I don't agree that it should, on an organizational level, explicitly promote atheism.




I don't see anything good coming out of disseminating anti-religious propaganda.


Secularism deals with *active*, administrative- and labor-related activities while atheism is more of a philosophical-cultural construct that defines itself *in relation to* theism, or religious belief.

In anything pro-active we should wholly support a secular, or materialist, practice of science, including politics -- this can be done by *anyone*, regardless of their worldview, simply by using the scientific method.

Atheism, as a whole, though, entails much more, especially when brought to various individuals' varying socio-cultural worldviews -- I would say that, from the point of politics, we *don't* have an interest in people's varying worldviews -- they would *only* be a social (political) concern if they interfered with people's duties in their roles in labor and administrative practices.

In a word this is defined as 'professionalism', and people generally have a very good understanding of this, and they adhere to it -- capitalist materialist relations have been very good for advancing this kind of discipline since capitalism deals with tangible, scientific quantities. What would change under workers' rule would only be the macro *orientation* of the outputs of work -- (away from private concentrations of ownership and management) -- professionalism would still be the watchword for whenever on the job while, at the same time, people could certainly carve out whatever ritualistic clubs and groups that they wanted to, in their leisure, with their own personal resources.





[It] seems that it would be a much more effective strategy to firstly introduce broader issues such as class, exploitation, discrimination, etc.


I agree here, because -- ironically -- it's more *material* to address personal, *experiential* concerns like class, exploitation, discrimination, etc., than to come across as being more esoteric by discussing materialism / atheism.





"The only church which illuminates is a burning one" - Buenaventura Durruti.

With religious belief we have to persistently engage our fellow workers in debate and propagate an atheist, rationalist and materialist world view as part of our revolutionary 'duty'. With religious institutions and organisation, we have to smash it with the same ferocity we would smash fascism and capitalism.


In the *political* realm / context I agree entirely here -- but many people will prefer to *never* be explicitly political. In those cases I refer to my treatment of 'professionalism', above.


Chris





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[The Feral Underclass]

They are actually a lot like people such as The Anarchist Tension I suppose, people who just want to hate for the sake of hating and live in their own dream worlds as a result.It's quite incredible the debating tactics you employ.

Instead of actually engaging with me, you'd rather attribute emotions to my argument for the convenience of your own. Just accuse me of being hateful, that's the easiest option, that way you can just dismiss me. It's far easier than actually bothering to understand my position. Don't let facts or reality cloud your views.

You're so fucking primitive! :rolleyes:


That is what I mean by tis being something that crops up in all ideologies. And is the reason I have no further intention of engaging with TAT, doing so could only possibly involve descending to his level

Don't engage me, fine. I suppose distorting my views or just making things up about me is a far better substitute.


Apart from anything else his simultaneous rejection of materialism and criticism of others for doing so renders his arguments pretty loopy anyway

I can guarantee this assertion is based on a lack of understanding my position and philosophical materialism. As clearly demonstrated by you accusing me of hate, you're not as clever as you think you are.

[spiltteeth]

As others have pointed out, the hyper-individuation and lack of a fully humanistic society under capitalism *are* very alienating dynamics -- it's no wonder that many people feel powerless *and* rudderless in such a world as the current one.

Religion, like *any* mass cultural product -- like talk shows or movie characters -- gives the *illusion* that there is a warm, cozy "universal togetherness" threaded through all members of humanity when in fact the functioning of the real world is far more complex than that illusion.

Our modern entertainment, like religion, makes for excellent avenues of escapism, which *is* understandable for *anyone* to turn to at times as a relief from the frustrating stress that results from interacting with the larger, capitalist world in an active way.

The *problem* with *any* illusion, whether it be a cultural good, a religious / philosophical formulation, or a chemical drug, is that it *cannot be relied on* -- these are *not* sentient, conscious beings with the ability to serve as friendly supports -- they are *palliatives* at best, immobile shelters that cannot be *lived* under.





In this *particular* case I'd say that the person hasn't really accepted their own existence in the world -- their religion functions as an "emotional womb" to make them feel specially protected instead of facing up to the fact that they're in the same boat, as a part of society, like the rest of us.





And in *this* particular case I'd say that the person's experience has been a feeling of *total unification* with the rest of existence -- particularly humanity -- like a feeling of being part of the water of an ocean.

But this, too, is problematic, since this Eastern-type construction is too atomistic -- reality is *more clumped* and cohesive in places than the "particle-as-part-of-the-whole-universe" conception.





Religion / mass culture is *directly* a result of the class structure of society -- it's inherently a one-to-many relationship, with the roles of *producer* and *consumer* cleanly divided, with the producer taking an active, labor-oriented role, and the consumer taking a passive, leisure-oriented role (at best).

The Information Revolution has brought us the historical advent of the *many-to-many* relationship -- like that of this message board -- wherein the roles of producer and consumer are blurred, with an intermixing of activity and passivity in a context of massively parallel participation. It has the potential to displace large segments of mass commercial culture since it *enables* the individual's self-agency within a *non-hierarchical* context of *inter-cognitive* collaboration.

By its *very mode* it *displaces* the routinized, gauzy, ritualized practices of older modes that attempted to provide some life-pattern stability through repetition alone.

We, as revolutionaries, need to build on the Information Revolution and urge a Materialist Revolution that brings this many-to-many agency into the realm of the real material world as well, displacing *all* one-to-many (or oligarchic) relationships that are the basis of elite rule.





The *only way* to make people give up their teddy bears is to give them *an active, equal stake* in the running of the real material world -- and *not* through the intermediary of capital, either.





'Sprituality' is a dodge -- either an intellectual, abstract conception has some basis in reality, or it doesn't. If it does, then it's a fact, or a scientific investigation towards fact -- if it *isn't* oriented towards fact then it's *imaginative*.

Religion / spirituality is intellectual 'spackle' -- it fills in the gaps above the level at which the person has decided to give up pro-active thinking for themselves -- somone who has a *real* (rational-materialist) explanation *doesn't need* to resort to myth and legends, except in the use as a tool by those who are in power to justify their rule to everyone else.

The rise of religion corresponds to the rise of class (elitist) rule -- it necessarily infantilizes people because it forcibly replaces fiction for fact in their minds, either actively depriving them of self-agency, or else "explaining away" the fact that they are deprived of access to self-agency.





'Belief' and 'knowing' are mutually exclusive cognitive states -- if you "believe" something then it means you're not quite sure -- you have to rely on "faith", which is the acceptance of something without fully knowing why. If you *know* something then you can *explain* your basis for the knowledge, and, most likely, it will be verifiable by other people's active, rational investigations.





The tricky part is that we don't want to *punish* people for simply being *wrong* -- if anyone has not fully done their homework, or they have harbored a bad intellectual habit without picking it apart to understand their basis for having accepted it, then that's sloppy thinking, at worst. We should treat these conditions as we would someone who's going through a medical trauma -- with understanding, care, and assistance.

If a forceful approach works, fine, but it may not always be the best approach. For some we may have to be more patient and give individualized attention and disinterested counseling to help them work through their underlying assumptions.





Yeah, I agree -- there's no point in *surrendering* to that which is backward -- it's a self-contradicting two-step stagist strategy that attempts to "fit in" before "revealing" its true aims. This approach may work in the realm of chemical-biological processes but *not* in the realm of collectively sentient, social-political ones.







Secularism deals with *active*, administrative- and labor-related activities while atheism is more of a philosophical-cultural construct that defines itself *in relation to* theism, or religious belief.

In anything pro-active we should wholly support a secular, or materialist, practice of science, including politics -- this can be done by *anyone*, regardless of their worldview, simply by using the scientific method.

Atheism, as a whole, though, entails much more, especially when brought to various individuals' varying socio-cultural worldviews -- I would say that, from the point of politics, we *don't* have an interest in people's varying worldviews -- they would *only* be a social (political) concern if they interfered with people's duties in their roles in labor and administrative practices.

In a word this is defined as 'professionalism', and people generally have a very good understanding of this, and they adhere to it -- capitalist materialist relations have been very good for advancing this kind of discipline since capitalism deals with tangible, scientific quantities. What would change under workers' rule would only be the macro *orientation* of the outputs of work -- (away from private concentrations of ownership and management) -- professionalism would still be the watchword for whenever on the job while, at the same time, people could certainly carve out whatever ritualistic clubs and groups that they wanted to, in their leisure, with their own personal resources.





I agree here, because -- ironically -- it's more *material* to address personal, *experiential* concerns like class, exploitation, discrimination, etc., than to come across as being more esoteric by discussing materialism / atheism.





In the *political* realm / context I agree entirely here -- but many people will prefer to *never* be explicitly political. In those cases I refer to my treatment of 'professionalism', above.


Chris





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You'd say alot of things, but noone I know, and I am an orthodox Christian, would say religion functions that way.

I'm curious what people think of morals here.

These illusions you keep on about, I assume it also includes notions of right and wrong?

So if a person thought it 'wrong' to be a cannibal, you would disabuse them of this silly illusion?
Or if a father wanted to have sex with his kid AND the kid was perfectly willing. That also, would be fine.
What about all these lies and deceits?

The odd thing is everyone here is talking about specifically right Christians, some fundie muslims etc and ignoring janeists, Zensters etc and actual have no understanding of their dogma or how it functions.
Unless religious folk are stringing up gay people then they are going 'against' their dogma, since the people here know their beliefs better than their own priests!


Anywho, what about all these ignorant superstitious beliefs in right and wrong?

[spiltteeth]

You know, I think we can come to a compromise, if, e.g., the Catholic Church is fine with us using the Vatican for a gay BDSM orgy on Saturday night, they can have the use of it on Sunday for mass. Fair, don't you think? Not to mention, the place is practically already set up for such an event, what with all those crucifixes of Jesus around the place, with his washboard abs. And if we can throw a pork BBQ at the Kaaba on Thursday, the Muslims can have it on Friday for prayer. And I've always really wanted to have a pissing contest on the Wailing Wall, and so long as we wash the place it should be free of any smell in time for Jewish prayer.[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure what your point is here, has it been specifically the catholic church you've been talking about?
I don't see why you think gay BDSM orgies and religion are opposed. There could be a gay orgy and then a mass, or a mass then a gay orgy, or it can be combined.
There are literally THOUSANDS of religious rituals that involve orgies, homo- and hetero- sexual encounters, even masturbation as a spiritual exercise. Not obscure ones either, Hindu...

Basically people are saying religion is oppressive.
Sometimes. Sometimes not. But when its not you all just say well their fighting against their own dogma so that dose'nt count.

Then you say religion is bad because its not true. What about morals? We must make sure everyone has a 'correct' 'coherent view.'
I have a marxist understanding of history and society, but an 'idealist' understanding of God. Is this unacceptable because it incoherent? Then the real root of the matter is its unacceptable to be incoherent, even if it doesn't effect your scientific views (look at all the god -believing nobel laureates) and even if it oppresses nobody, it is just that fact of not holding a complete and whole coherent picture of everything. Now, I have only mat a handful of people that can say this, usually they are way above average in intelligence and very educated. What about 98% of everyone else?

Oh, and I also think Jesus has nice abs. For monks in my religion, orthodox christianity, they must be celibate. But men without sex become very neurotic over the years, so they focus all their sexual longings onto Christ himself, which is I assume a blasphemy to many western Christians, and then they eventually transform that into a feeling of empathy, love etc
It's fascinating psychologically. But in the society you are describing it looks like there will be no psychologists...

[The Feral Underclass]

Anywho, what about all these ignorant superstitious beliefs in right and wrong?

Why do you keep hammering this home when it's been refuted dozens of times. Do you have some mental problem? If you do, then of course I'm not aiming to ridicule you in anyway, I'm simply trying to understand why you keep repeating yourself. It's as if you're trying desparately to hang onto this line, thinking the more you say it the more it's true. We're not going to accept this as a defence or qualification for your belief in god, no matter how many times it's posted.

[Hyacinth]

It is a question of what is to be lost by suppressing them. Any society that clamps down on freedom of speech sets itself down the road to tyranny. Their policies must never be enacted because that would be terrible, but so would stopping them from saying what they wish.
While Marx's expression "the dictatorship of the proletariat" has been misinterpreted and misused, he intended to use it to contrast bourgeois democracy, i.e. the dictatorship of the bourgeois, with proletariat democracy. But, it is quite apt in many respects, as I'm sure that the ex-bourgeois and other reactionaries will think of it as tyrannical: we're denying them their right to property, their freedom to spread their reactionary ideas around, in short, we're just repaying the favor that they've bestowed upon us. If reactionaries think our policies are tyrannical, good, it shows that they're working.

What do you propose instead, that we play nice, allow an equal playing field for reactionary ideas?


Again though, religion is a different anyway because it is not linked to any particular ideology.
Really? So you're denying that the dominant ideas of an age are those of the ruling class? You've given examples of instances of religious individuals, even clergy, breaking away from the reactionary creeds and institutions, but one can cite countless more examples where religion not only rendered its assistance to the forces of reaction, but been at the vanguard thereof. Do you honestly think that, e.g., the Catholic Church will after the revolution embrace a woman's right to control her own body, and perhaps set up abortion clinics and hand our contraception after mass? The problem with religion is that it is not only a reflection of bourgeois ideology, inasmuch as religion had to adapt to compete against bourgeois ideology, but that at the core of it is it a reflection of the ideas of the ruling class going back to feudalism and before. Hence, in many respects it is even worse than the bourgeois ideology, which is far more progressive than religion: bourgeois ideology at least recognize the right to abortion, gay rights, etc.


By deceitful you mean it is a lie, and by a lie you mean its proponents are deliberately misleading others. Which is a load of rubbish of course, because they genuinely believe what they say. Meaning they are wrong, but not deceitful. Do you propose we ban things we see as incorrect? And if so, how do we decide what is incorrect? Virtually all new ideas that turned out true started with people largely dismissing them. To restrict people to following things we regard as true, you invite stagnation.
I'm sure that there are sincere fools out there, but so too with knaves. Do you really think the top of the Church practices what it teaches? Jesus did say that "t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", it doesn't stop the Pope from wearing designer shoes. Or not long ago that American Baptist preacher—very homophobic—who was caught, if I recall correctly, doing cocaine off of a male hookers chest. Hypocrisy is the professional occupation of most religious leaders. They preach one thing to their followers, and practice quite another themselves.

As well, as stated before, it isn't only that these ideas are false (I don't even think that, I think most of what religion says is nonsense), but, harmful and reactionary. As Bertrand Russell aptly put: "To question the truth of a religion is one thing, to question its usefulness is quite another. I am as firmly convinced that all religions are false, as I am that they are harmful."


Not to mention you will encourage self censorship in all fields. Restricting religion will create a chilling effect.
I would certainly hope it would create a chilling effect on reactionary ideas, that would sort of be the goal. But why would it create a chilling effect otherwise?

And, again, all I'm arguing for is their exclusion from public life. If they went to have an internet forum to discuss their ideas, let them. That isn't really our concern. It would be about as much of a threat to us, as we [this forum] are to the bourgeois.


As fine a justification of censorship as might be seen. I don't want to aid in its distribution ether, but others may want to. You have an odd view of a democratic economy, I will return to that shortly.
I don't expect a revolution to occur until a large portion of the working class have abandoned reactionary ideas, religion included. So I don't imagine that there would be many people who would want to aid in the distribution of reactionary material. That being said, yes, there might be some that would want to, as I'm sure that there might be some who would want to distribute capitalist or fascist tracts. I don't see why we should let them.


We aren't talking about a lone priest rebelling against his dogma. We are talking about the retired head of the Episcopalian Church in Southern Africa and one of the world's most formidable theologians. It is thanks to him and his supporters that the Church there has been so progressive on the rights of women and the LGBT community for instance. In the case the Church is probably more progressive than society in general. Are you saying that that is a misuse of public buildings?
If he wants to preach religion, yes. If all his sermons consists of opposition to oppression of LGBT, women, etc. then I'm all for it. But what of all his other contemporaries in the Anglican church who have threatened a split over the issue of sanctioning gay marriage, allowing a gay bishop, etc. What of them? Or of his contemporaries in the Catholic Church who still stand firm in their breeding program to make as many children to indoctrinate into their dwindling dogma that they are willing to ignore the pernicious effects that their opposition to contraceptives is having on the spread of HIV? Or the many Muslim mullahs who make some of their Christian kin look positively progressive?


And here you have a very strange idea of democracy. It does not mean that nothing can be made unless it has the permission of 50%+1 people. It is about satisfying a wide spectrum of desires. If, say, 30% of people want x and 70% do not, then enough of x should be made for those 30% of people. So if a minority of people want bibles then enough should be made for that minority.
And if 30% of people want Mein Kampf enough, we should make enough for them? I'm afraid I'd be seriously worried if 30% wanted either the Bible or Mein Kampf.


And if you tear it down, it will become a symbol of oppression against religious people. The purpose of Communism is not to see if we can become more oppressive than our predecessors.
I think we'd have to work hard to do that. What I'm proposing is no worse than how the bourgeois relegate real opposition to the backwaters of the internet (though, of course, they tend to be much more brutal when they feel actually threatened). Nor, for that matter, does it even begin to resemble the myriad of crimes committed by the clergy over the centuries. This isn't oppression, it is justice long overdue, and some would even say, we're letting them get off easy.


A large number of people are circumcised for a large number of reasons. Perhaps you will have panels set up to scrutinise each case to make sure you approve of the reasons?
Well, actually, for the most part it is medically unnecessary except in a very small number of cases. When it is practices [I]en masse it is usually for religious purposes, or, in America, it has its roots in the anti-masturbation movement. It was thought that cutting off the foreskin reduces masturbation, this antiquated justification has fallen out, but the practice still persists for aesthetic and cultural reasons (e.g., everyone else does it, I don't want my son to look different). So, yes, I really would like a panel of experts, i.e. doctors, to scrutinize each case to make sure that it is actually medically necessary. Otherwise it is just mutilation of children's genitalia.


Exactly what percentage of religious people do you think go out and preach hate or whatnot? You sound incredibly paranoid.
Fortunately for us most do not, they don't really take the stuff seriously. It is the clergy that tend to do the preaching, and it is the texts that they preach from that call for the harm.


But if a substantial number of people want a church? (And they will). What then? A pub for instance is a lot more useful to someone like me. But a Church will be more useful for other people. Society will have to incorporate both groups of people.
I have serious doubts that a substantial number of people who want a church would carry out a revolution.


Well except of course you would take away their Friend's Meetings Houses, because after all religious buildings are ipso facto useless, aren't they?
They can meet in someone's basement, can't they?


Why don't we also have Nazi rallies at Holocaust memorials, AWB rallies on Robben Island and Cross Burnings at civil rights monuments?
So what you're telling me is that Nazi and AWB rallies, and cross burnings are equivalent to gay orgies, BBQs, public urination?

[Hyacinth]

What about the odd "liberation theology" religious groups (regardless of original religion) and their assets, then? :confused:
If you take a look at the wikipedia page on liberation theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology#Liberation_theology_in_practic e), the "in practice" part shows what all their rhetoric really amounted to:


One of the most radical parts of liberation theology was not the writing of highly educated priests and scholars, but the social organization, or re-organization, of church practice through the model of Christian base communities. Liberation theology, despite the doctrinal codification by Gutiérrez, Boff, and others, strove to be a bottom-up movement in practice, with Biblical interpretation and liturgical practice designed by lay practitioners themselves, rather than by the orthodox Church hierarchy. This type of church community resembles the Independent type of Protestantism, which is extremely common in the United States though there associated with the right more than the left.


...



Furthermore, with its emphasis on the "preferential option for the poor," the practice (or, more technically, "praxis" to use a term from Gramsci and Paulo Freire) was as important as the belief, if not more so; the movement was said to emphasize "orthopraxis" over "orthodoxy." Base communities were small gatherings, usually outside of churches, in which the Bible could be discussed, and mass could be said. They were especially active in rural parts of Latin America where parish priests were not always available, as they placed a high value on lay participation. As of May 2007, it was estimated that 80,000 base communities were operating in Brazil alone.
In other words, nothing. Hardly a movement worth preserving.



Maybe the "Great Patriotic War" Stalin treatment might not be a bad "transitional" measure for this one.
I think the Maoists had a saying, something to the effect of "Stalin killed a lot of people he shouldn't have, and he didn't kill a lot of people he should have." In this instance the preservation of the Orthodox Church, and other religious institutions, are a grave error. Especially considering that in the early USSR there was great enthusiasm for anti-theism. A lot of churches were expropriated and turned into schools, museums, meeting halls, etc. by the local communities of peasants that were one oppressed by the clergy. They should have harnessed these sentiments further to eliminate religion altogether, rather than letting it fester, and grown into the cancer that it has now in Russia.

[spiltteeth]

Why do you keep hammering this home when it's been refuted dozens of times. Do you have some mental problem? If you do, then of course I'm not aiming to ridicule you in anyway, I'm simply trying to understand why you keep repeating yourself. It's as if you're trying desparately to hang onto this line, thinking the more you say it the more it's true. We're not going to accept this as a defence or qualification for your belief in god, no matter how many times it's posted.

No not as "a defence or qualification for your belief in god, no matter how many times it's posted."

I've never used it that way. In fact I find it strange that people always have that kneejerk reaction.

So....how do you propose to deal with morals that are incorrect. Also, which ones are those again?

[spiltteeth]

[QUOTE=Hyacinth;1532658]
Really? So you're denying that the dominant ideas of an age are those of the ruling class? You've given examples of instances of religious individuals, even clergy, breaking away from the reactionary creeds and institutions, but one can cite countless more examples where religion not only rendered its assistance to the forces of reaction, but been at the vanguard thereof. Do you honestly think that, e.g., the Catholic Church will after the revolution embrace a woman's right to control her own body, and perhaps set up abortion clinics and hand our contraception after mass? The problem with religion is that it is not only a reflection of bourgeois ideology, inasmuch as religion had to adapt to compete against bourgeois ideology, but that at the core of it is it a reflection of the ideas of the ruling class going back to feudalism and before. Hence, in many respects it is even worse than the bourgeois ideology, which is far more progressive than religion: bourgeois ideology at least recognize the right to abortion, gay rights, etc."

So we are not talking about religion, just reactionary views, since many religions do not hole reactionary views correct?


"I'm sure that there are sincere fools out there, but so too with knaves. Do you really think the top of the Church practices what it teaches? Jesus did say that "[i]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", it doesn't stop the Pope from wearing designer shoes. Or not long ago that American Baptist preacher—very homophobic—who was caught, if I recall correctly, doing cocaine off of a male hookers chest. Hypocrisy is the professional occupation of most religious leaders. They preach one thing to their followers, and practice quite another themselves."

Most religious leaders? Proof please. I think your getting your religious info from Fox or that absurd religious channel or the bourgeois media.

"As well, as stated before, it isn't only that these ideas are false (I don't even think that, I think most of what religion says is nonsense), but, harmful and reactionary. As Bertrand Russell aptly put: "To question the truth of a religion is one thing, to question its usefulness is quite another. I am as firmly convinced that all religions are false, as I am that they are harmful."

OK. So what if the religious beliefs are not harmful, as many, many of them are not. In that case, again, we are not talking about religion, but harmful ideas.


"If he wants to preach religion, yes. If all his sermons consists of opposition to oppression of LGBT, women, etc. then I'm all for it. But what of all his other contemporaries in the Anglican church who have threatened a split over the issue of sanctioning gay marriage, allowing a gay bishop, etc. What of them? Or of his contemporaries in the Catholic Church who still stand firm in their breeding program to make as many children to indoctrinate into their dwindling dogma that they are willing to ignore the pernicious effects that their opposition to contraceptives is having on the spread of HIV? Or the many Muslim mullahs who make some of their Christian kin look positively progressive?"

We jail them, but not for beliefs, for publicly preaching or writing about such hate. Again, we are talking ideas.

Really, you misunderstand a lot of religion. You are talking about a specific type of right fascist religious people, and then accusing everyone of being like them. People should be educated before on believers ACTUALLY believe before voting about them. You would need to take quite a few classes.

[red cat]

While I agree, I am fairly certain that there is also no proof specifically against the existence of the human soul.

Do you have any proof against the existence of unicorns or mermaids or even Lord Voldemort??

And as for the attitude of a socialist state towards religion, I think that

1) All those works of art will be taken out of places of worship and placed in museums.

2) All property belonging to religious institutions will be confiscated.

3) The working class worshippers will be asked to elect a committee to maintain the places of worship, without state fundings.

4) Everyone will be allowed to practice their own religion, until it is harmful to others.

5) The government will organize propaganda campaigns to challange the logical validity and expose the historical oppressive role of every religion.

6) Religion will not be taught at school.

Due to these measures taken during socialism, all religions will wither away by the time communism starts.

[Demogorgon]

While Marx's expression "the dictatorship of the proletariat" has been misinterpreted and misused, he intended to use it to contrast bourgeois democracy, i.e. the dictatorship of the bourgeois, with proletariat democracy. But, it is quite apt in many respects, as I'm sure that the ex-bourgeois and other reactionaries will think of it as tyrannical: we're denying them their right to property, their freedom to spread their reactionary ideas around, in short, we're just repaying the favor that they've bestowed upon us. If reactionaries think our policies are tyrannical, good, it shows that they're working. No, it shows that they are tyrannical. They might use those words to describe the removal of their property, but that would be rubbish, because that is removing their ability to cause harm and allowing for greater public good and not doing their person any actual harm. Stopping them from expressing themselves is a different thing entirely. Not to mention the fact than never in history has suppressing the speech of a particular enemy stopped there, it always moves on to hit other people as it comes clear that restricting the speech of your political opponents will get rid of them. If you decide "reactionary" speech is to be restricted then everyone will start calling everyone else reactionary in a bid to shut them up. We se it time and time again in history. Very much including previous attempted Communist revolutions. Isn't it about time we learn from past mistakes?


What do you propose instead, that we play nice, allow an equal playing field for reactionary ideas?
Well why not? I'm not proposing they be allowed to carry out their policies, only discuss them publicly. Unless of course you think most people are too simple to hear those nasty reactionaries talk without leaping to join them. We their intellectual superiors must shield the poor innocent masses from nasty ideas in case their innocent little minds can't handle them?

Again history tells us where that road leads.


Really? So you're denying that the dominant ideas of an age are those of the ruling class? Heaven's no. I think that is exactly how ideas come to the fore. Religion will reflect general attitudes in society same as anything else does. Which makes it all the sillier to somehow blame religion for being a source of reactionary ideas, or to propose wiping it out. Unless of course you want to wipe out anything that can reflect prevailing ideas, because after all it will at one point or another reflect those of capitalism.

So yes, society is dominated by the ideas of the ruling class and religion has survived through plenty of different ruling classes showing it has no inherent ideas of its own. It just reflects society.


You've given examples of instances of religious individuals, even clergy, breaking away from the reactionary creeds and institutions, but one can cite countless more examples where religion not only rendered its assistance to the forces of reaction, but been at the vanguard thereof. Do you honestly think that, e.g., the Catholic Church will after the revolution embrace a woman's right to control her own body, and perhaps set up abortion clinics and hand our contraception after mass? The problem with religion is that it is not only a reflection of bourgeois ideology, inasmuch as religion had to adapt to compete against bourgeois ideology, but that at the core of it is it a reflection of the ideas of the ruling class going back to feudalism and before. Hence, in many respects it is even worse than the bourgeois ideology, which is far more progressive than religion: bourgeois ideology at least recognize the right to abortion, gay rights, etc. I think you will find plenty of bourgeoisie reject birth control, lgbt rights and so forth. Just as some religion supports it. You need to break from thinking that everything is a monolithic entity and see some shades of grey in the world.


I'm sure that there are sincere fools out there, but so too with knaves. Do you really think the top of the Church practices what it teaches? Jesus did say that "t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", it doesn't stop the Pope from wearing designer shoes. Or not long ago that American Baptist preacher—very homophobic—who was caught, if I recall correctly, doing cocaine off of a male hookers chest. Hypocrisy is the professional occupation of most religious leaders. They preach one thing to their followers, and practice quite another themselves. Well of course they are hypocrites. Hypocricy is part of humanity. I didn't say they were good people like pure lives, I said they genuinely believed in God. I think when it comes to the Christian Right as you see it in the United States there is a lot of cynicism, maybe even some non believers using it to further their own ends, but mostly it is very nasty people using religion to ease their consciences. Prosperity Theology for instance has no basis whatsoever in scripture, but it is a fantastic way of making yourself feel better about being a millionaire while millions starve. So people use it. Like I say religion can be used for anything.


As well, as stated before, it isn't only that these ideas are false (I don't even think that, I think most of what religion says is nonsense), but, harmful and reactionary. As Bertrand Russell aptly put: "To question the truth of a religion is one thing, to question its usefulness is quite another. I am as firmly convinced that all religions are false, as I am that they are harmful."
Come on, ideas harmful in of themselves?


I would certainly hope it would create a chilling effect on reactionary ideas, that would sort of be the goal. But why would it create a chilling effect otherwise? Because once again, all cases of suppressing free expression spread. People become afraid to say what they think in case they are the next victim.


I don't expect a revolution to occur until a large portion of the working class have abandoned reactionary ideas, religion included. So I don't imagine that there would be many people who would want to aid in the distribution of reactionary material. That being said, yes, there might be some that would want to, as I'm sure that there might be some who would want to distribute capitalist or fascist tracts. I don't see why we should let them.
Are you going to be happy to ask for permission for what you may or may not read? No, neither am I and nor is anyone else. It is never a question of why you should "let someone do something". The default position is always to let people do things unless there is a specific compelling reason not to allow it.


If he wants to preach religion, yes. If all his sermons consists of opposition to oppression of LGBT, women, etc. then I'm all for it. But what of all his other contemporaries in the Anglican church who have threatened a split over the issue of sanctioning gay marriage, allowing a gay bishop, etc. What of them? Or of his contemporaries in the Catholic Church who still stand firm in their breeding program to make as many children to indoctrinate into their dwindling dogma that they are willing to ignore the pernicious effects that their opposition to contraceptives is having on the spread of HIV? Or the many Muslim mullahs who make some of their Christian kin look positively progressive?As I have said again and again, you find religion on every side of a conflict and you have just proved my point by talking about the looming Episcopalian split. That shows the church is not in agreement on the issue of gay rights, is fundamentally divided, in other words exists on both sides of the conflict.


And if 30% of people want Mein Kampf enough, we should make enough for them? I'm afraid I'd be seriously worried if 30% wanted either the Bible or Mein Kampf.
Are you really saying wanting the Bible is the same as wanting Mein Kampf? That is extraordinarily offensive, I have to say.


I think we'd have to work hard to do that. What I'm proposing is no worse than how the bourgeois relegate real opposition to the backwaters of the internet (though, of course, they tend to be much more brutal when they feel actually threatened).
For all your paranoia you will find nobody will stop you expressing your ideas in public. In a period of imminent revolution they might, but as a rule, anything you can say can be freely expressed. In the Scottish media for instance you can easily find Marxists expressing their opinions. The main broadsheet has a few as columnists and they daily publish letters from the same. I've been published myself actually.

Generally speaking freedom of speech is in relatively good health where I am just now. I want to see that expanded with a more diverse media, socialists producing our own mainstream papers rather than having to make do with a couple of pages in other ones and so forth. I do not want to see a contraction in freedom of speech.


Nor, for that matter, does it even begin to resemble the myriad of crimes committed by the clergy over the centuries. This isn't oppression, it is justice long overdue, and some would even say, we're letting them get off easy. So the best way to undo centuries old crimes is to repeat them in the modern age. You might as well murder millions of German civilians to avenge the Holocaust.


Well, actually, for the most part it is medically unnecessary except in a very small number of cases. When it is practices [I]en masse it is usually for religious purposes, or, in America, it has its roots in the anti-masturbation movement. It was thought that cutting off the foreskin reduces masturbation, this antiquated justification has fallen out, but the practice still persists for aesthetic and cultural reasons (e.g., everyone else does it, I don't want my son to look different). So, yes, I really would like a panel of experts, i.e. doctors, to scrutinize each case to make sure that it is actually medically necessary. Otherwise it is just mutilation of children's genitalia.
If you like, but it plays a major role in many cultures. You aren't going to get much support proposing to get rid of it. Unlike female circumcision which is a horrific thing it doesn't actually do any harm. Just live and let live.


I have serious doubts that a substantial number of people who want a church would carry out a revolution. Do you have proof of that? Certainly when there have been real revolutions, religious belief has never been very relevant.


They can meet in someone's basement, can't they?Christ, I thought you would avoid that one by saying you'd exempt Friend's Meeting Houses. Perhaps you don't know what they are used for as a rule, but unless there is a chronic shortage of buildings and no possibility of new ones being built, it is very hard to see how such buildings could be better used.


So what you're telling me is that Nazi and AWB rallies, and cross burnings are equivalent to gay orgies, BBQs, public urination?
If they are used for the same purpose, sure. There is nothing inherently offensive about a piece of burning wood for instance, it is the hatred and the violence it symbolises that is the problem. Similarly you propose to use harmless activities as a means to humiliate and mock religious communities. That makes you no better than people who through pigs blood at Synagogues (or perhaps you support that?) There is a time and a place for everything and you can not have a decent society unless people show respect and sensitivity for the feelings of others.

No society founded on the principle of getting to restrict things we don't like just because we don't like them is going to hold, nor is any society where public acts of humiliation are seen as acceptable. A free society is a live and let live society.

[Demogorgon]

Really, you misunderstand a lot of religion. You are talking about a specific type of right fascist religious people, and then accusing everyone of being like them. People should be educated before on believers ACTUALLY believe before voting about them. You would need to take quite a few classes.
That is a very good point. So many people want to hate religion and refuse to find out what it actually is. How can anyone claiming to be a rational person feel justified in spouting off on a subject they don't understand or even want to understand.

That's what I mean by people raging at the world wanting something to hate.

[Radical]

Complete seperation from state. I wouldent allow or build the traditional churches we see on every fucking block.

Churches take up whole blocks of streets. They have huge golden painted windows. This is fucking sickening. God does not need these huge infrastructures to talk to me.

Tupac pretty much sums up the whole truth - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edfsC6WrdlI

Fuck the Christian church. While builiding these huge expensive churches for a MINORITY, they are watching thousands of children starve to death, who they could be saving.

[The Feral Underclass]

No not as "a defence or qualification for your belief in god, no matter how many times it's posted."

I've never used it that way. In fact I find it strange that people always have that kneejerk reaction.

So....how do you propose to deal with morals that are incorrect. Also, which ones are those again?

I don't accept morality as a legitimate code in which to live your life. I agree they are arbitrary and pointless. But that does not make them superstitions like your belief in god.

[The Feral Underclass]

That's what I mean by people raging at the world wanting something to hate.

Who are these people? Is this really how you understand anti-theism? That it's based on hate. How can you realistically aim to refute its ideas when you attribute such a primitive analysis to it. Your attitude is no less narrow-minded than the one you are seemingly accusing us of having.

I don't hate religion, nor do I hate religious people. To try and make that claim is just a flat out lie founded on your own ignorance and prejudice towards people who oppose religious belief.

You're a fucking hypocrite.

[Hyacinth]

I'll respond in more detail when I have the time, but let's clear up one confusion: I've made it clear that I'm not talking about religious beliefs as such, which I could care less about, but religious practises and institutions. A belief in it of itself is not harmful except insofar as it affect how one behaves. And religion most certainly has a tendency to breed reactionary practises and institutions. Presumably we will seek to eliminate, among other things, sexism in a socialist society; how is this aim compatible with permitting the existence of clearly sexist institutions such as, e.g., the Catholic Church (I pick on them, and Christianity, not because of any particular animosity toward them, but rather because I am more familiar with them, and they are most likely to be familiar to a Western audience)?

[Demogorgon]

I'll respond in more detail when I have the time, but let's clear up one confusion: I've made it clear that I'm not talking about religious beliefs as such, which I could care less about, but religious practises and institutions. A belief in it of itself is not harmful except insofar as it affect how one behaves. And religion most certainly has a tendency to breed reactionary practises and institutions. Presumably we will seek to eliminate, among other things, sexism in a socialist society; how is this aim compatible with permitting the existence of clearly sexist institutions such as, e.g., the Catholic Church (I pick on them, and Christianity, not because of any particular animosity toward them, but rather because I am more familiar with them, and they are most likely to be familiar to a Western audience)?
I answered that several posts back. The Catholic Church will be faced with an "adapt or die" dilemma. If we get to the point where enough people want a revolution for us to actually have one then those amongst us who still believe in God are unlikely to want to associate with what they see as a reactionary church and will either change it or go and find a better one. I suggested earlier the church could become a democratic and egalitarian organisation. That is one possibility. Another is that it become a tiny fringe group. Personally I think it will do the former owing to survival having always been its overriding instinct. But who is to know.

[Hyacinth]

Revolutions are bloody affairs, even with the overriding support of the majority of the working class there will be a capitalist attempt to prevent it, and in the aftermath of a successful revolution there will counter-revolutionary activities supported both by organizations within the country, as well as any remaining capitalist forces outside. In such a context, which side do you think the religious institutions of today will be? If history is any indication, they will, as they have time and again, side with the existing ruling class. The reason being is that a successful socialist revolution means the death of their religious institutions. Be it a slow sort of death that you envision, or a swifter execution that I seek. The sort of reforms you envision aren't really reforms in the sense that they would leave nothing left of the structure of the Catholic Church. If you get rid of the hierarchy, the Synod of Bishops, the College of Cardinals, the Vicar of Christ, what is left? The clergy aren't so stupid as not to realize this, and this is why they would oppose us. And in the immediate aftermath of a revolution, with the counter-revolutionaries still around, we need to secure our victories, lest they be undermined from within or without. In such a circumstance it is simply tactically stupid to allow our enemies an equal playing ground, as though they have something meaningful to contribute to the construction of a socialist society.

[Demogorgon]

Revolutions are bloody affairs, even with the overriding support of the majority of the working class there will be a capitalist attempt to prevent it, and in the aftermath of a successful revolution there will counter-revolutionary activities supported both by organizations within the country, as well as any remaining capitalist forces outside. In such a context, which side do you think the religious institutions of today will be? If history is any indication, they will, as they have time and again, side with the existing ruling class. The reason being is that a successful socialist revolution means the death of their religious institutions. Be it a slow sort of death that you envision, or a swifter execution that I seek. The sort of reforms you envision aren't really reforms in the sense that they would leave nothing left of the structure of the Catholic Church. If you get rid of the hierarchy, the Synod of Bishops, the College of Cardinals, the Vicar of Christ, what is left? The clergy aren't so stupid as not to realize this, and this is why they would oppose us. And in the immediate aftermath of a revolution, with the counter-revolutionaries still around, we need to secure our victories, lest they be undermined from within or without. In such a circumstance it is simply tactically stupid to allow our enemies an equal playing ground, as though they have something meaningful to contribute to the construction of a socialist society.Well I admire your ability to see into the future and tell how a revolution might play out (throughout history they have come in all sorts of varieties from extraordinarily violent to completely peaceful), you are still guilty of black and white thinking. You ask which side religion will be on. The answer is simple: both! Once again it is not a monolithic entity.

[Hyacinth]

No, it shows that they are tyrannical. They might use those words to describe the removal of their property, but that would be rubbish, because that is removing their ability to cause harm and allowing for greater public good and not doing their person any actual harm. Stopping them from expressing themselves is a different thing entirely. Not to mention the fact than never in history has suppressing the speech of a particular enemy stopped there, it always moves on to hit other people as it comes clear that restricting the speech of your political opponents will get rid of them. If you decide "reactionary" speech is to be restricted then everyone will start calling everyone else reactionary in a bid to shut them up. We se it time and time again in history. Very much including previous attempted Communist revolutions. Isn't it about time we learn from past mistakes?
That's all I'm proposing: removing the ability of reactionary forces (religion included) to do harm, allowing for greater public good, none of which does any actual harm to their persons. Nor would they be prohibited from expressing themselves, they would have as much right to do so as we currently enjoy—in the backwaters of the internet. What I would do away with its the public expression of religion: now, this doesn't imply that we have to oppose an idle conversation on the subject at a local cafe, but rather that religious and reactionary discourse would be excluded from the media and public life.

Also, I think you're giving people far too little credit. Most of the time what is reactionary is rather self-evident. There may well be borderline cases which will require public debate, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a means of demarcating a reactionary from revolutionary position.


Well why not? I'm not proposing they be allowed to carry out their policies, only discuss them publicly. Unless of course you think most people are too simple to hear those nasty reactionaries talk without leaping to join them. We their intellectual superiors must shield the poor innocent masses from nasty ideas in case their innocent little minds can't handle them?
Again, the exclusion from public life is not quite the same as discuss them publicly. Let them talk all they want at the cafe or pub or during walks in the park or whatnot, but I see no reason why we should devote any time, energy, and effort to presenting reactionary positions in the media and legitimizing them as part of acceptable public discourse. Anymore than we should allow racists their 15 minutes to explain the inherent biological superiority of those with this sink color or that.


I think you will find plenty of bourgeoisie reject birth control, lgbt rights and so forth. Just as some religion supports it. You need to break from thinking that everything is a monolithic entity and see some shades of grey in the world.
But there's nothing in bourgeois ideology as such which calls for restriction of birth control, LGBT rights, etc. The bourgeois are indifferent to these matters, they ultimately care about money. This is to be contrasted with the principled opposition to abortion by some religious groups on the grounds that it is a sin, or some other nonsense. Such a principled opposition is clearly reactionary.

That being said, what would you do about the reactionary religious institutions and practices? Let's set aside for a moment, for the sake of argument, whether religion can be progressive, and grant that some of it can. But what of those which are reactionary?


Come on, ideas harmful in of themselves?
Harmful inasmuch as they lead to harmful behavior.


Because once again, all cases of suppressing free expression spread. People become afraid to say what they think in case they are the next victim.
That doesn't follow. If racism is made unacceptable as part of public discourse I really doubt this would have a chilling effect on non-racist speech. People aren't so stupid as to be unable to distinguish between what is reactionary and what isn't.


Are you going to be happy to ask for permission for what you may or may not read? No, neither am I and nor is anyone else. It is never a question of why you should "let someone do something". The default position is always to let people do things unless there is a specific compelling reason not to allow it.
Who said anything about prohibiting people from reading certain material?


Are you really saying wanting the Bible is the same as wanting Mein Kampf? That is extraordinarily offensive, I have to say.
Well, the genocidal crimes of the Biblical deity are of such astronomical proportions as to make Hitler look like an amateur. And, as Mark Twain put it, "Morals in the Bible are like diamonds in a dungheap." There is very little of value in that book among all the reactionary trash.


For all your paranoia you will find nobody will stop you expressing your ideas in public. In a period of imminent revolution they might, but as a rule, anything you can say can be freely expressed. In the Scottish media for instance you can easily find Marxists expressing their opinions. The main broadsheet has a few as columnists and they daily publish letters from the same. I've been published myself actually.

Generally speaking freedom of speech is in relatively good health where I am just now. I want to see that expanded with a more diverse media, socialists producing our own mainstream papers rather than having to make do with a couple of pages in other ones and so forth. I do not want to see a contraction in freedom of speech.
This is where we party way. I have no fondness for such abstractions as freedom of speech. I cannot recall which bourgeois journalist said this, but it was quite an apt observation that freedom of the press is freedom for those who own the press. If the capitalist media were to disappear tomorrow to be replaced solely by socialist media this would be a step in the right direction.


So the best way to undo centuries old crimes is to repeat them in the modern age. You might as well murder millions of German civilians to avenge the Holocaust.
Yes, because closing down and/or converting religious buildings into something more useful, and making the discussion reactionary ideas unacceptable as part of public discourse is equivalent to genocide.


If you like, but it plays a major role in many cultures. You aren't going to get much support proposing to get rid of it. Unlike female circumcision which is a horrific thing it doesn't actually do any harm. Just live and let live.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision

So you're fine with what in effect amounts to the mutilation of the genitalia of male infants for cultural reasons? It is an unnecessary surgical procedure which carries no benefits (except in a small amount of cases where the foreskin is actually fused), and a number of drawbacks. Not to mention, and most importantly, it is allowing the parents to decide something on behalf of a child which is incapable of consenting. And I for one don't think children are the property of parents, nor should be treated as such, and hence that their bodily autonomy should be respected.

Sexism and homophobia are equally major parts of many cultures. I see no reason not to oppose these.


If they are used for the same purpose, sure. There is nothing inherently offensive about a piece of burning wood for instance, it is the hatred and the violence it symbolises that is the problem. Similarly you propose to use harmless activities as a means to humiliate and mock religious communities. That makes you no better than people who through pigs blood at Synagogues (or perhaps you support that?) There is a time and a place for everything and you can not have a decent society unless people show respect and sensitivity for the feelings of others.
I'm not particularly concerned with the feelings of reactionaries.

Gay orgies, BBQs, and urination don't symbolize hatred nor violence. And if they are found to be offensive by religious communities it is because of their antiquated superstitions.

[spiltteeth]

In such a context, which side do you think the religious institutions of today will be? If history is any indication, they will, as they have time and again, side with the existing ruling class.

I do not feel history justifies this at all. Look at Christianity, it started as some non-hierarchal washing of feet small sect, opposed the state, opposed the military, and then when it got popular the ruling class took it, set up a specific structure and used it as a means of oppression and called it catholic.

Look at Catholic Christianity, the ruling class used it to oppress people and set things up to protect their own interests then a guy called Luther came along...

Look at America some small weird sect -fundamentalist Christians- have grown and is now used by the ruling class to exploit so now Sojourners and other progressive, pro-gay, socialist, sects have sprung up. If THEY get popular presumably in a capitalist society then they will be used by the ruling class to control...

Look at the Brahmins. The ruling class set up the brahmin class to oppress others and then a guy named buddha came along another sect was formed which opposed the repressive Brahmins ...

Look at Buddhism. In India buddhists begged for food. In China begging was a no-no, so they set up little communities independent of the sate. Then in some parts of the world the ruling class set up Buddhist religious institutions for their own benefit (Amida and Tibetan) etc...

Look at communism...

I'm just saying how these institutions function in society changes within the specific historical circumstances. There is a process that some might say is Marxist or dialectical. In a communist/socialist society the oppressive nature of these institutions would greatly change.

Hell, even my church, Orthodoxy, officially supported Stalin!

[spiltteeth]

"Well, the genocidal crimes of the Biblical deity are of such astronomical proportions as to make Hitler look like an amateur. And, as Mark Twain put it, "Morals in the Bible are like diamonds in a dungheap." There is very little of value in that book among all the reactionary trash."

1)I thought you consider the biblical deity imaginary?
2) Have you read the bible?
3)Have you read the bible correctly? As far as I know the GREAT majority of Christians DO NOT read it literally. Just the fundies.

Basically nothing you say is correct UNLESS you are the one who decides what Christians believe or should believe.
Now, no disrespect to your incredible theological prowess, but it seems to me both you and Pat Robinson seem to have the exact same reading of the bible, and I must say, Pat Robinson's a fucking evil bastard.
IF you ever want to know what people ACTUALLY believe, not this bizarre fantasy of what you think they believe, there are several books I can recommend. Actually, didn't I al;ready quote the main Orthodox theologian and a couple recent ones about how they ACTUALLY read the bible? What -do you just forget or ignore the evidence that contradicts you?
Here it is AGAIN :
Many Christians understand this perfectly well. Your talking about primarily those Christians most easy to mock in order to push your own point. Here, however, are two quotes from typical priests of the third largest Christian denomination, Orthodox Christianity, Fr. Andrew Anglorus and Fr. Stephen Freeman:

"…lack[ing] a Patristic understanding of the Scriptures…they do not understand the Scriptures spiritually, ascetically, allegorically, poetically, but only literally. We call such an understanding 'fundamentalist'"

"Genesis, properly read, is not a science text book. It is about Christ and reveals Him as the very meaning and purpose of creation - as well as explicating His Pascha. If you don’t see that when you read the first chapter of Genesis, then no one ever taught you how to read Scripture as the primitive Church read Scripture….Scripture functions as a verbal icon - and like an icon requires an understanding of its spiritual grammar to see it correctly"
Nor is this simply a way for modern Christians to excuse obviously unscientific biblical passages. St. Maximus the Confessor, living in 500-600 A.D. wrote, “Ignorance, in other words, Hades, dominates those who understand Scripture in a fleshly (literal) way”

Their is very little value? I disagree, alot of people do. So who ought to decide what is of value? You? I think there's little of value in those Hobbit books. Thats your criteria? I think your confusing communism with a dictatorship where you decide what people ought to find valuable.

[Demogorgon]

That's all I'm proposing: removing the ability of reactionary forces (religion included) to do harm, allowing for greater public good, none of which does any actual harm to their persons. Nor would they be prohibited from expressing themselves, they would have as much right to do so as we currently enjoy—in the backwaters of the internet. What I would do away with its the public expression of religion: now, this doesn't imply that we have to oppose an idle conversation on the subject at a local cafe, but rather that religious and reactionary discourse would be excluded from the media and public life. Well your position is more moderate and less oppressive than I initially thought, so I apologise for some of what I said, but you are still wrong. There is no harm to be had from religious ceremonies. Those are just something people do. I have heard it suggested that they just be seen as another form of entertainment. If people wish to engage in harmless activity, let them.


Also, I think you're giving people far too little credit. Most of the time what is reactionary is rather self-evident. There may well be borderline cases which will require public debate, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a means of demarcating a reactionary from revolutionary position.
Its not a question of being able to tell, but a question of what happens when speech is suppressed. There is nothing reactionary about the various strains of Communism suppressed by the Soviet leadership, but the fact that reactionary speech was being oppressed gave them the opportunity to get rid of their political enemies by calling them reactionary.


Again, the exclusion from public life is not quite the same as discuss them publicly. Let them talk all they want at the cafe or pub or during walks in the park or whatnot, but I see no reason why we should devote any time, energy, and effort to presenting reactionary positions in the media and legitimizing them as part of acceptable public discourse. Anymore than we should allow racists their 15 minutes to explain the inherent biological superiority of those with this sink color or that.
As a rule I wouldn't have them on the media either. But if a branch of the media did let such a person express themselves I would not have them punished in any way for it. Nor would I stop racists from having their own websites and such.


But there's nothing in bourgeois ideology as such which calls for restriction of birth control, LGBT rights, etc. The bourgeois are indifferent to these matters, they ultimately care about money. This is to be contrasted with the principled opposition to abortion by some religious groups on the grounds that it is a sin, or some other nonsense. Such a principled opposition is clearly reactionary. Given capitalism's track record with gender equality, I think you are being rather generous to the bourgeoisie, but that aside, again you talk about religious ideology when there is no such thing. There are lots of religions with lots of ideologies. They cannot all be grouped together.


That being said, what would you do about the reactionary religious institutions and practices? Let's set aside for a moment, for the sake of argument, whether religion can be progressive, and grant that some of it can. But what of those which are reactionary?
What do you mean by this? Do you mean religions that continue to hold reactionary beliefs? In that case nothing. Such institutions would hardly thrive in a revolutionary society anyway. If you mean practices (female circumcision for instance), I would make the practice itself illegal, but not the religion. So individual members of the religion who carry out the practice would be punished but those who do not would be free to carry on with their modified version of their religion.


That doesn't follow. If racism is made unacceptable as part of public discourse I really doubt this would have a chilling effect on non-racist speech. People aren't so stupid as to be unable to distinguish between what is reactionary and what isn't.
It would though because it sets a precedent. Not least because it is the easiest thing in the world to deliberately misconstrue somebody's words to get at them. Again though, racist policies must never be allowed to be carried out, but simple racist speech ought not to be restricted. Such people should be treated with contempt but not criminal sanction.


Who said anything about prohibiting people from reading certain material?
I'm sorry, but you keep being ambiguous with your words. I interpreted your statement as meaning if the majority disapproved of a book (the Bible) they could stop the minority from producing or reading it. If you meant something else, then I am sorry.


Well, the genocidal crimes of the Biblical deity are of such astronomical proportions as to make Hitler look like an amateur. And, as Mark Twain put it, "Morals in the Bible are like diamonds in a dungheap." There is very little of value in that book among all the reactionary trash.
Come on, what is the difference between God and Hitler (hint: one of them existed). A large part of the old testament is pure mythology no different from First Creator and Coyote or Odin and Thor. Apart from the loony right in America, modern Christianity draws little from them, seeing them as allegories or sometimes just records of ancient jewish belief (which is a lot different from the modern version-even very Orthodox varieties). See some of the Catholic Church's documents on the subject to say what they believe.

That makes it rather different from a concrete programme of genocide. Mind you Mein Kampf should also be produced albeit in more limited numbers. It is an important historical source and is needed to understand the period.


This is where we party way. I have no fondness for such abstractions as freedom of speech. I cannot recall which bourgeois journalist said this, but it was quite an apt observation that freedom of the press is freedom for those who own the press. If the capitalist media were to disappear tomorrow to be replaced solely by socialist media this would be a step in the right direction.
Freedom of Speech isn't abstract, it is very real indeed when you see it clamped down on. I teach English as a foreign language and as a result work with refugees a lot. Often they have had to flee their homes precisely because someone didn't like what they or a family member had to say. When you get that kind of first hand experience of what restrictions on free speech mean you learn to be glad that we have more of it. To be sure we do not have enough. Not by a long shot. Opposition expression is marginalised. You are preaching to the choir here. But the solution is more freedom of speech, not less.


So you're fine with what in effect amounts to the mutilation of the genitalia of male infants for cultural reasons? It is an unnecessary surgical procedure which carries no benefits (except in a small amount of cases where the foreskin is actually fused), and a number of drawbacks. Not to mention, and most importantly, it is allowing the parents to decide something on behalf of a child which is incapable of consenting. And I for one don't think children are the property of parents, nor should be treated as such, and hence that their bodily autonomy should be respected. You are confusing my feelings on the subject with my belief it isn't a good idea to enforce these feelings on others. Female circumcision is despicable enough to be worth forcing a ban. Male circumcision simply isn't harmful enough for that.


I'm not particularly concerned with the feelings of reactionaries.

Gay orgies, BBQs, and urination don't symbolize hatred nor violence. And if they are found to be offensive by religious communities it is because of their antiquated superstitions.
No, it is because places sacred to them are being desecrated. It is a matter of respect. I have no religious belief whatsoever, but when I go into a Synagogue I wear a skullcap and when I enter a Mosque I take off my shoes. Why? Because I would be insulting others if I did not do so. There are plenty of places to have orgies or Barbecues. You don't need to do it in the few places where it will cause upset.

[ckaihatsu]

You'd say alot of things, but noone I know, and I am an orthodox Christian, would say religion functions that way.

I'm curious what people think of morals here.

These illusions you keep on about, I assume it also includes notions of right and wrong?


We certainly don't need to be *dependent* on religious-based traditions to have the know-how on the best ways to do things. Knowledge that is time-tested is called wisdom, and there are plenty of resources these days that can help out anyone looking for information, discussions, and best practice on any given topic.

People shouldn't think that the process of looking into life-living practices is in any way different from any other kind of research -- one develops a "huh" kind of feeling, realizes one's ignorance on something, and goes to find pre-existing information -- hopefully wisdom -- on the matter.

The problem with religion is that it has historically had a monopoly on the body of knowledge related to life-living that would conventionally be used in widespread practice. These days, and especially with the Information Revolution, people can both easily access a much wider base of knowledge, *and* have discussions and add their own input into the record for everyone else to see. This is the democratization of info-sharing and knowledge-making and it cuts against the monopolization of the culture of life-living that is usually dominated by the clergy, and, more recently, talk show hosts and other assorted celebrities.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think the Maoists had a saying, something to the effect of "Stalin killed a lot of people he shouldn't have, and he didn't kill a lot of people he should have." In this instance the preservation of the Orthodox Church, and other religious institutions, are a grave error. Especially considering that in the early USSR there was great enthusiasm for anti-theism. A lot of churches were expropriated and turned into schools, museums, meeting halls, etc. by the local communities of peasants that were one oppressed by the clergy. They should have harnessed these sentiments further to eliminate religion altogether, rather than letting it fester, and grown into the cancer that it has now in Russia.

I didn't mean to imply that Stalin's support for the ROC was a good thing. Another precedent could be the Bolsheviks' Living Church stuff and cozying up to Protestants in the civil war... against the ROC.

[spiltteeth]

Originally Posted by Hyacinth
I think the Maoists had a saying, something to the effect of "Stalin killed a lot of people he shouldn't have, and he didn't kill a lot of people he should have." In this instance the preservation of the Orthodox Church, and other religious institutions, are a grave error. Especially considering that in the early USSR there was great enthusiasm for anti-theism. A lot of churches were expropriated and turned into schools, museums, meeting halls, etc. by the local communities of peasants that were one oppressed by the clergy. They should have harnessed these sentiments further to eliminate religion altogether, rather than letting it fester, and grown into the cancer that it has now in Russia.

Oppressed by the clergy? You are aware that a major impetus toward the Russian revolution was led by an Orthodox priest who lead thousands of believers to march to the palace and make demands, and when the guards opened fire that was when all hell broke loose. Also, I wonder if you are aware that Lenin zealously courted this Orthodox priest, trying to woo him to the bolshevik side.

Why is the preservation of the Orthodox church a grave error?

[Hyacinth]

Well your position is more moderate and less oppressive than I initially thought, so I apologise for some of what I said, but you are still wrong. There is no harm to be had from religious ceremonies. Those are just something people do. I have heard it suggested that they just be seen as another form of entertainment. If people wish to engage in harmless activity, let them.
I'm glad we're on the same page over what we disagree on at least.


Its not a question of being able to tell, but a question of what happens when speech is suppressed. There is nothing reactionary about the various strains of Communism suppressed by the Soviet leadership, but the fact that reactionary speech was being oppressed gave them the opportunity to get rid of their political enemies by calling them reactionary.
There is no need to establish any sort of state machinery that has the potential to be misused in order to enforce what I have in mind. I would leave the enforcement to workers directly. Such that, e.g., workers in the media would be the ones who would themselves refuse to broadcast, or assist in the broadcasting of, reactionary views. We might want an ad hoc demarchic body that is, in the early period after the revolution, responsible for monitoring reactionary activities, but I wouldn't vest them with any real power, their role would be purely advisory. To monitor and report on what they perceive as reactionary activities, and it would be up to workers themselves to decide whether or not such activities are indeed reactionary or not. Likewise for what is to be done with religious buildings; I would certainly hope for, and agitate for, their demolition or recommissioning, but it isn't up to me to decide what is to be done with them. I don't see how a model like this is at all liable to be misused along the lines you fear.


As a rule I wouldn't have them on the media either. But if a branch of the media did let such a person express themselves I would not have them punished in any way for it. Nor would I stop racists from having their own websites and such.
I concur. I never spoke of any punishment whatsoever. But, re: the website bit, presumably the website would have to be hosted somewhere, and if the IT workers there refuse to have such material on their servers—and I would hope that they would—I won't shed a tear.


What do you mean by this? Do you mean religions that continue to hold reactionary beliefs? In that case nothing. Such institutions would hardly thrive in a revolutionary society anyway. If you mean practices (female circumcision for instance), I would make the practice itself illegal, but not the religion. So individual members of the religion who carry out the practice would be punished but those who do not would be free to carry on with their modified version of their religion.
What would you want to have happen to, say, some cleric who gets on their podium and talks about the sin of homosexuality, calls for women to be subservient to their husbands, demands we put an end to abortions, etc.?


It would though because it sets a precedent. Not least because it is the easiest thing in the world to deliberately misconstrue somebody's words to get at them. Again though, racist policies must never be allowed to be carried out, but simple racist speech ought not to be restricted. Such people should be treated with contempt but not criminal sanction.
Again, I concur. Nowhere did I propose criminal sanction. Seeing people that express such views treated with contempt, socially ostracized, etc. is all that I think necessary, and this is what I take removing reactionary views from public life to consist in: make their expression unacceptable, not in a criminal sense, but in the sense that it would carry social consequences. I would see all reactionary views treated with such contempt. And the way to make that happen is by delegitimizing these views, by fiercely attacking them in the media, and in the education system.


I'm sorry, but you keep being ambiguous with your words. I interpreted your statement as meaning if the majority disapproved of a book (the Bible) they could stop the minority from producing or reading it. If you meant something else, then I am sorry.
From producing it, yes, I do think we have the right to do that. From reading it, of course not. It is none of our business what people do or do not read, but what is our business is how the means of production are utilized.


You are confusing my feelings on the subject with my belief it isn't a good idea to enforce these feelings on others. Female circumcision is despicable enough to be worth forcing a ban. Male circumcision simply isn't harmful enough for that.
It's an unnecessary surgical procedure preformed on the unconsenting, what more do you need? By what right ought parents be allowed to make such a decision when there is no medical basis for it?


No, it is because places sacred to them are being desecrated. It is a matter of respect. I have no religious belief whatsoever, but when I go into a Synagogue I wear a skullcap and when I enter a Mosque I take off my shoes. Why? Because I would be insulting others if I did not do so. There are plenty of places to have orgies or Barbecues. You don't need to do it in the few places where it will cause upset.
This presumes that religion is worthy of respect, I fail to see why.

[spiltteeth]

[
Hyacinth;1533053]
This presumes that religion is worthy of respect, I fail to see why.

You purposely ignore everything good about it. To ignore historical evidence is a fatal flaw for any Marxist specifically, but for all intellectuall investigations in general.
Hopefully willful Prejudice like yours will wither away as people are educated outside the bourgeois media and learn to develop critical thinking skills.
It is quite an intellectual failure. I wonder if your eyes grow dim when evidence to the contrary is presented?

[Hyacinth]

Oppressed by the clergy? You are aware that a major impetus toward the Russian revolution was led by an Orthodox priest who lead thousands of believers to march to the palace and make demands, and when the guards opened fire that was when all hell broke loose. Also, I wonder if you are aware that Lenin zealously courted this Orthodox priest, trying to woo him to the bolshevik side.

Why is the preservation of the Orthodox church a grave error?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_church

It has hardly played a progressive role in Russian history. An apt observation from the Financial Times (quotes from the wikipedia page) "While the church had been a force for liberal reform under the Soviet Union [meaning that the FT likes that the Church opposed the Soviet regime], it soon became a centre of strength for conservatives and nationalists in the post-communist era."

Also, what Lenin did or tried to do, or who he tried to woo, isn't of any of my concern. I'm not a Leninist, and even if I was, that wouldn't make me a slavish followed of whatever Lenin did.

[Hyacinth]

You purposely ignore everything good about it. To ignore historical evidence is a fatal flaw for any Marxist specifically, but for all intellectuall investigations in general.
Hopefully willful Prejudice like yours will wither away as people are educated outside the bourgeois media and learn to develop critical thinking skills.
It is quite an intellectual failure. I wonder if your eyes grow dim when evidence to the contrary is presented?
And you've yet to offer anything good about it. In fact, I'll make the concession right now, there are some goods things about religion, even Marx observed this when he called it the opiate of the masses, an opiate being something that dulls the pain. What I question is the need for the opiate, and like many narcotics, religion does far more harm than it does good. And, to carry on with the medical metaphor, once we have eliminated the disease (material conditions) which result in such widespread suffering as to require an opiate like religion, the continued administration of the treatment is irresponsible.

[shadowmare]

Well... personally I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and so far I've been pretty cool with any other Communists I meet :p

[Hyacinth]

I didn't mean to imply that Stalin's support for the ROC was a good thing. Another precedent could be the Bolsheviks' Living Church stuff and cozying up to Protestants in the civil war... against the ROC.
I'm much more fond of the Society of the Godless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless). I think that a much better way of carrying out the fight against religion (and by extension—as the motto of the society goes—for socialism) than by setting up an alternative church. After all, communists aren't in the business of deceiving people.

[ckaihatsu]

I have heard it suggested that [religious ceremonies] just be seen as another form of entertainment. If people wish to engage in harmless activity, let them.
Its not a question of being able to tell, but a question of what happens when speech is suppressed.


As others have pointed out, religious practice is *not* apolitical. (We can well be advised of the *strictest* definition of struggle -- that *any* activities, like leisure, that are not in constant, active opposition to the capitalist status quo are, by default, allowing the class enemy to dictate terms for that period of time.)

If religious practice *is* considered to be entertainment and leisurely at most, then we -- in a socialist / communist administration -- should make *positively certain* that there would be *zero* claims to explicit political activity or specially recognized material privileges stemming from the religious organization.

The point at which that social contract is breached is the extent to which a workers administration can then treat the organization as a *political* one and use political methods like physical interventions to introduce the larger political will into the now-political religious organization.





If you mean practices (female circumcision for instance), I would make the practice itself illegal, but not the religion. So individual members of the religion who carry out the practice would be punished but those who do not would be free to carry on with their modified version of their religion.


It might be preferable to just get a statement of policy from that denomination that explicitly forbids the practice. The denomination *as a whole* would have *internal responsibility* to adhere to that policy, under the *external enforcement* of the socialist / communist administration.





As a rule I wouldn't have [racists] on the media either. But if a branch of the media did let such a person express themselves I would not have them punished in any way for it. Nor would I stop racists from having their own websites and such.


This contradictory practice would make a *mockery* of *any* administration -- which is it: are racist statements allowed unpunished on the public airwaves or aren't they? Are racist webmasters to be officially ignored?

I absolutely part ways with you on this issue, Demogorgon, because I do not think that we, as revolutionaries, should give the *slightest* accomodation to backward, reactionary speech like racist speech. As far as we have the numbers and ability -- preferably through a mass workers' socialist / communist administration -- to forcibly *suppress* the communication of such speech, that's what we should feel free to do.

Racist speech is *absolutely political* and is definitely *not* "entertainment". It attempts to section off one part of the working population for discriminatory, oppressive treatment and is anti-working class as such.

[The Feral Underclass]

You purposely ignore everything good about it.

There's nothing "good" about religion. All the ideas about love, forgiveness, peace etc are not "religious" ideas, they're human ones. They're what is "good" about being a human and religion is irrelevant when it comes to those things. You don't need to believe in god to be "good" and in fact it's better if you don't.

[Zolken]

The religious concept of God is based on the premise that only a select few 'chosen people' are blessed, ... after all, who would wish to embrace a deity that does not first embrace them? The entire foundation of the religious concept of God is build upon prejudice and hatred, its the basis of we and them ... and due to this basic mindset one is encouraged to despise all others. In a word, when God hates everything and everyone the person himself hates then its relatively easy to discern who created who.

[Demogorgon]

There is no need to establish any sort of state machinery that has the potential to be misused in order to enforce what I have in mind. I would leave the enforcement to workers directly. Such that, e.g., workers in the media would be the ones who would themselves refuse to broadcast, or assist in the broadcasting of, reactionary views. We might want an ad hoc demarchic body that is, in the early period after the revolution, responsible for monitoring reactionary activities, but I wouldn't vest them with any real power, their role would be purely advisory. To monitor and report on what they perceive as reactionary activities, and it would be up to workers themselves to decide whether or not such activities are indeed reactionary or not. Likewise for what is to be done with religious buildings; I would certainly hope for, and agitate for, their demolition or recommissioning, but it isn't up to me to decide what is to be done with them. I don't see how a model like this is at all liable to be misused along the lines you fear.
Well I would hope people in the media would not want to broadcast racist rubbish either. But in reality someone somewhere is always going to do it. Never underestimate people's fascination with crackpot theories. They should be free to do so.

As for religion there is no justification for taking away already existing religious buildings. People need to have a right to be protected from these kind of arbitary decisions.



What would you want to have happen to, say, some cleric who gets on their podium and talks about the sin of homosexuality, calls for women to be subservient to their husbands, demands we put an end to abortions, etc.?
Nothing. He should be allowed to say whatever he pleases and people should free to choose whether to listen to him or not.



From producing it, yes, I do think we have the right to do that. From reading it, of course not. It is none of our business what people do or do not read, but what is our business is how the means of production are utilized.
You will stop those wishing to produce it from doing so? Again, production cannot be subject to 50%+1 approval. Things should be produced in proportion to how many people want them.


It's an unnecessary surgical procedure preformed on the unconsenting, what more do you need? By what right ought parents be allowed to make such a decision when there is no medical basis for it?Well the jury is still out on its use. Certainly it helps with cleanliness for instance. But don't ask me. Ask those who have actually received circumcision whether they approve or not.



This presumes that religion is worthy of respect, I fail to see why.
People are worthy of respect. Carrying out acts to offend them and insult their culture for the sake of it is not decent behaviour.

[spiltteeth]

And you've yet to offer anything good about it. In fact, I'll make the concession right now, there are some goods things about religion, even Marx observed this when he called it the opiate of the masses, an opiate being something that dulls the pain. What I question is the need for the opiate, and like many narcotics, religion does far more harm than it does good. And, to carry on with the medical metaphor, once we have eliminated the disease (material conditions) which result in such widespread suffering as to require an opiate like religion, the continued administration of the treatment is irresponsible.

Throughout this thread I have meantioned the role of the Orthodox church in the Russion Rev, Luther, Sojourners, numerous churches world wide and here in america fighting for gay rights, someone else mentioned Desmond TU TU, Liberation Theology, etc see? This is what I mean by ignoring. I really do think your eyes grow dim whenever evidence to the contrary is presented.

And what happened to the Orthodox Church in Russia is a good case in point. I posted this yesterday but somthing must have gotten in your eyes to read it so here it is again :


Originally Posted by Hyacinth
In such a context, which side do you think the religious institutions of today will be? If history is any indication, they will, as they have time and again, side with the existing ruling class.


I do not feel history justifies this at all. Look at Christianity, it started as some non-hierarchal washing of feet small sect, opposed the state, opposed the military, and then when it got popular the ruling class took it, set up a specific structure and used it as a means of oppression and called it catholic.

Look at Catholic Christianity, the ruling class used it to oppress people and set things up to protect their own interests then a guy called Luther came along...

Look at America some small weird sect -fundamentalist Christians- have grown and is now used by the ruling class to exploit so now Sojourners and other progressive, pro-gay, socialist, sects have sprung up. If THEY get popular presumably in a capitalist society then they will be used by the ruling class to control...

Look at the Brahmins. The ruling class set up the brahmin class to oppress others and then a guy named buddha came along another sect was formed which opposed the repressive Brahmins ...

Look at Buddhism. In India buddhists begged for food. In China begging was a no-no, so they set up little communities independent of the sate. Then in some parts of the world the ruling class set up Buddhist religious institutions for their own benefit (Amida and Tibetan) etc...

Look at communism...

I'm just saying how these institutions function in society changes within the specific historical circumstances. There is a process that some might say is Marxist or dialectical. In a communist/socialist society the oppressive nature of these institutions would greatly change.

Hell, even my church, Orthodoxy, officially supported Stalin!

[spiltteeth]

There's nothing "good" about religion. All the ideas about love, forgiveness, peace etc are not "religious" ideas, they're human ones. They're what is "good" about being a human and religion is irrelevant when it comes to those things. You don't need to believe in god to be "good" and in fact it's better if you don't.

I thought you didn't believe in such superstitions as 'good' and 'bad' and 'right' and 'wrong' ?
Kant needed god, but everyone needs some metaphysical construct, unless good is whatever you feel like doing.

[spiltteeth]

The religious concept of God is based on the premise that only a select few 'chosen people' are blessed, ... after all, who would wish to embrace a deity that does not first embrace them? The entire foundation of the religious concept of God is build upon prejudice and hatred, its the basis of we and them ... and due to this basic mindset one is encouraged to despise all others. In a word, when God hates everything and everyone the person himself hates then its relatively easy to discern who created who.

Is this just some crazy that spilled out of your head - or do you have proof that the religious concept of God, and I wasn't aware there was just one, is based on that.

[The Feral Underclass]

I thought you didn't believe in such superstitions as 'good' and 'bad' and 'right' and 'wrong' ?

I think there is a limitation to our language that can't accurately describe what it means, but "good" and "bad" will have to suffice.


Kant needed god, but everyone needs some metaphysical construct, unless good is whatever you feel like doing.

I don't think the idea of not purposefully and arbitrarily causing negativity towards someone is metaphysical at all. It's purely objective in that causing someone misery or anguish creates a whole range of problems which are not productive to the functioning of humans and society.

Love, forgiveness etc create positivity that makes human beings and society function more productively, so on an objective level it's far better for the world and for ourselves if we strive to do "good" as you call it.

And if you want to call that "good" and "bad" that's up to you.

[spiltteeth]

I think there is a limitation to our language that can't accurately describe what it means, but "good" and "bad" will have to suffice.



I don't think the idea of not purposefully and arbitrarily causing negativity towards someone is metaphysical at all. It's purely objective in that causing someone misery or anguish creates a whole range of problems which are not productive to the functioning of humans and society.

Love, forgiveness etc create positivity that makes human beings and society function more productively, so on an objective level it's far better for the world and for ourselves if we strive to do "good" as you call it.

And if you want to call that "good" and "bad" that's up to you.

Thats a pretty good response.
Obviously, as a Christian I believe all good comes from God.
Although, it's still somewhat problematic when it comes down to individuals, because if some act didn't negatively affect the functioning of society then it wouldn't be bad. I can think of things like sex with kids or young boys that the greeks indulged in. And of course, if you do negatively affect society, as long as it's a side affect, and not purposeful, such as pollution etc it would be fine in that sense, and in another it would be Ok since the thing might be helping some people, even if its harming others.
Really, I think, your defining 'good' as what's best for the society as a whole, which means a minority might still suffer, even if that minority is %48 of the population. In practice I'm not really sure such a view is compatible with communism.

[ckaihatsu]

Really, I think, your defining 'good' as what's best for the society as a whole, which means a minority might still suffer, even if that minority is %48 of the population. In practice I'm not really sure such a view is compatible with communism.


The reason that we even *have* to consider "society as a whole", in a detached, hypothetical way is because we *don't* have collective control over the structuring and running of society in a pro-active, collaborative way.

Shouldn't we *really* be in a position to put this topic forward as part of a mainstream, worker-driven decision-making process so that it winds up on people's laps as they page through the latest edition of the newspaper? Or that it is scheduled for a roundtable discussion on TV, with a call-in portion or RevLeft-like board discussion immediately following, that *** actually determines policy ***?!!!

Instead we're left to individually -- or through baby-sitting cultures like the church, daytime TV, etc. -- *ruminate* over the *abstraction* of 'society', far removed from any role of active participation in its makeup.

It's *no wonder* the concept of 'god' may feel so familiar to people -- it, too, like society, is a detached, aloof, omnipotent power whose existence is known more through rumor than accessibility...!

[spiltteeth]

The reason that we even *have* to consider "society as a whole", in a detached, hypothetical way is because we *don't* have collective control over the structuring and running of society in a pro-active, collaborative way.

Shouldn't we *really* be in a position to put this topic forward as part of a mainstream, worker-driven decision-making process so that it winds up on people's laps as they page through the latest edition of the newspaper? Or that it is scheduled for a roundtable discussion on TV, with a call-in portion or RevLeft-like board discussion immediately following, that *** actually determines policy ***?!!!

Instead we're left to individually -- or through baby-sitting cultures like the church, daytime TV, etc. -- *ruminate* over the *abstraction* of 'society', far removed from any role of active participation in its makeup.

It's *no wonder* the concept of 'god' may feel so familiar to people -- it, too, like society, is a detached, aloof, omnipotent power whose existence is known more through rumor than accessibility...!

Well, i don;t see how that engages anything I said but God is a personal presence in my daily life that improved its quality, not abstract at all.

Yea, what yr saying is ridiculously obvious, I'm sure everyone here would rather effect directly the policies of society instead of talk about them.
You *can* ***add*** as *many* stars as *you* wish, it won't make what you write ant less fatuous.

[The Feral Underclass]

Although, it's still somewhat problematic when it comes down to individuals, because if some act didn't negatively affect the functioning of society then it wouldn't be bad. I can think of things like sex with kids or young boys that the greeks indulged in. And of course, if you do negatively affect society, as long as it's a side affect, and not purposeful, such as pollution etc it would be fine in that sense, and in another it would be Ok since the thing might be helping some people, even if its harming others.

I think we can safely say that child abuse and the destruction of the planet are indeed going to negatively effect society...

As an anarchist I understand these dynamics through the principle of everyone being free to do what they want, providing that freedom does not encroach on the freedom of others. In other words, we can do what we want, so long as it doesn't stop others from doing what they want.


Really, I think, your defining 'good' as what's best for the society as a whole, which means a minority might still suffer, even if that minority is %48 of the population. In practice I'm not really sure such a view is compatible with communism.

The best for society as a whole is to allow people the freedom to do as these please, so long as what they do does not effect the freedom of others. This includes child abuse and the destruction of the planet.

[Hyacinth]

Well I would hope people in the media would not want to broadcast racist rubbish either. But in reality someone somewhere is always going to do it. Never underestimate people's fascination with crackpot theories. They should be free to do so.
I don't propose having any independent enforcement mechanism apart from the workers themselves. If a media outlet decides to broadcast reactionary views, I would hope that other segments of the working class would take measures to prevent them from doing so. Perhaps those working at the power company would cut off their power. Insofar as communism is based on free association, if someone wishes to freely voice their reactionary views, those of us who don't want to associate with such people ought to be able to withdraw from association with them, including withdrawing any economic support from their activities.


As for religion there is no justification for taking away already existing religious buildings. People need to have a right to be protected from these kind of arbitary decisions.
Well, actually, there is a justification for taking them away: we want to. Presumably you don't propose leaving these buildings in the hands of the church as private property, as such, given that they will be made public property, the public will get to decide how they are to be used.


Nothing. He should be allowed to say whatever he pleases and people should free to choose whether to listen to him or not.
He can say whatever he likes, but I, as a member of the community, have every right to object to his use of a public building, and his use of public resources, for the airing of his views.


You will stop those wishing to produce it from doing so? Again, production cannot be subject to 50%+1 approval. Things should be produced in proportion to how many people want them.
So you would force people to engage in work that they do not wish to?


Well the jury is still out on its use. Certainly it helps with cleanliness for instance. But don't ask me. Ask those who have actually received circumcision whether they approve or not.
No, the jury is not still out on this one. Any male with a foreskin knows damn well how to clean in. Cleanliness is hardly a sufficient medical justification for an unconsensual surgical procedure.


People are worthy of respect. Carrying out acts to offend them and insult their culture for the sake of it is not decent behaviour.
All people are worthy of respect? Should we respect fascists or capitalists? Offending reactionaries might not be decent, but I could care less about being decent to reactionaries.

[Hyacinth]

Kant needed god, but everyone needs some metaphysical construct, unless good is whatever you feel like doing.
No, Kant didn't need god (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/%29;)); in the entire article on Kantian ethics god is mentioned only one, it is not central to Kantian ethics, and contemporary Kantians certainly make do with out it.

Also, there are many varieties of goodness (http://www.questia.com/library/book/the-varieties-of-goodness-by-georg-henrik-von-wright.jsp): Instrumental good (good for some end or task), hedonic good (pleasure), wellbeing (good for humans), utilitarian good, medical good, etc. It's been a while since I've last read von Wright's excellent book (linked above) on the subject, but to date it is the most comprehensive account of the multitude of ways in which something can be good. And none of them are remotely metaphysical.

[Hyacinth]

Throughout this thread I have meantioned the role of the Orthodox church in the Russion Rev, Luther, Sojourners, numerous churches world wide and here in america fighting for gay rights, someone else mentioned Desmond TU TU, Liberation Theology, etc see? This is what I mean by ignoring. I really do think your eyes grow dim whenever evidence to the contrary is presented.
The participation of one priest in protests against Tsarism hardly demonstrates that the Orthodox Church, or the Orthodox creed, was itself progressive. I don't deny that those who are believers, and even clergy at times, can be progressive (Desmond Tutu is not a bad example here), but that hardly shows that religion is progressive. I would still maintain that it is in spite of religion, not because of it, that individual religious people adopt, and fight for, progressive causes. Religion itself, as a whole, still remains a reactionary force. And even in instances where you have certain relatively progressive (relative to the mainstream religion) movement within a religious community (e.g, liberation theology) it doesn't amount to much. With regards to liberation theology, all they effectively did was organize prayer meetings among rural peasants, the capitalist class must have been cowering. Christianity emerged as a reaction to big city Judaism, and the perceived corruption of urban Judaism by a rural preacher; Lutheranism was a similar reaction against the perceived corruption of the Catholic Church. It is all well and good to fight such corruption, but this doesn't make either of these movements socially progressive. What both Jesus and Luther (the notorious anti-semite and opponent of the peasant's rebellion) wanted, if anything, was a stricter adherence to religious creed, against the clergy that were more relaxed on the enforcement of the creed for both practical purposes, and in order to enrich themselves. But I fail to see how any of this makes religion overall good, and worth preserving.

[ckaihatsu]

As an anarchist I understand these dynamics through the principle of everyone being free to do what they want, providing that freedom does not encroach on the freedom of others. In other words, we can do what we want, so long as it doesn't stop others from doing what they want.




The best for society as a whole is to allow people the freedom to do as these please, so long as what they do does not effect the freedom of others.





Insofar as communism is based on free association, if someone wishes to freely voice their reactionary views, those of us who don't want to associate with such people ought to be able to withdraw from association with them, including withdrawing any economic support from their activities.





I'm sure everyone here would rather effect directly the policies of society instead of talk about them.


I really don't think that a worker-run society would be so much in constant flux, as TAT and Hyacinth are indicating -- I think, for the purposes of visualization and argument, it's convenient to posit a more "libertarian", or free-flowing, conceptualization of a liberated society, with "free associations" among (working-class-power-derived) participants.

In practice, though, I would really think that *organizations* and *institutions* would still exist, though they would be far more accountable to the rank-and-file than the way things are now. Even so, I would much rather see a political landscape of agreed-upon *regulations*, or policy, with an appointed administration to tend to the same, than one of ground-level "free associations" of individuals forever careening into each other like water molecules with agreements forming and dissolving every second of the day.

To me, the *point* of a (socialist / communist) political economy is to *have* worker-formulated policy so that the politics of the day are *answerable* to the rank-and-file, but it should also be a society that is not forever *obligating* people to deal with political matters for every little thing.

[The Feral Underclass]

It's quite amazing how people extrapolate my opinion.

I never mentioned organisation or institutions nor the lack of them, so where has your post come from? I was talking about "morality" for want of a better expression. Clearly the principle I mentioned is not going to organise the buses, is it. :rolleyes:

[ckaihatsu]

It's quite amazing how people extrapolate my opinion.

I never mentioned organisation or institutions nor the lack of them, so where has your post come from? I was talking about "morality" for want of a better expression. Clearly the principle I mentioned is not going to organise the buses, is it. :rolleyes:


Hey, relax, nothing personal meant by it -- I was just using that as a point of departure to make a new point, admittedly digressing and off-topic....

[Demogorgon]

I don't propose having any independent enforcement mechanism apart from the workers themselves. If a media outlet decides to broadcast reactionary views, I would hope that other segments of the working class would take measures to prevent them from doing so. Perhaps those working at the power company would cut off their power. Insofar as communism is based on free association, if someone wishes to freely voice their reactionary views, those of us who don't want to associate with such people ought to be able to withdraw from association with them, including withdrawing any economic support from their activities.
Yes, but there will always be someone will to provide support. Free association would actually increase that because it promotes pluralism (a good thing). As long as they aren't going out and attacking people, they should just be left alone to humiliate themselves without our help.


Well, actually, there is a justification for taking them away: we want to. Presumably you don't propose leaving these buildings in the hands of the church as private property, as such, given that they will be made public property, the public will get to decide how they are to be used.
Well of course they wouldn't be private property, private property is a legal construct and Communism would needless to say get rid of the laws to that effect. However buildings can still be allocated to private groups though for housing or whatever. There is no shortage of buildings in the world and it is easy enough to build more, we don't need to take buildings away from churches other than mean spiritedness. Of course as congregations fall, the churches will use fewer and fewer of those buildings anyway, so they will be converted then, in terms of the bigger ones to Museums I would hope, the smaller ones can make good pubs as it happens (a fair few here have already met that fate), but for those still in use there is no good reason to take them. It would simply be unfair.

Incidentally, I would rather the buildings were turned over to the churches for them to deal with rather than remain under community control (of course we might want them to provide the community with something in return). Let them worry about upkeep and whatnot


So you would force people to engage in work that they do not wish to?
People should be free to choose their occupation, but what occupations there are has to be determined by what is wanted and needed. No economy can possibly function when what it makes is not related to what people feel they require.


All people are worthy of respect? Should we respect fascists or capitalists? Offending reactionaries might not be decent, but I could care less about being decent to reactionaries.
You should never seek to humiliate someone, but at any rate you are yet again trying to paint all religious people as reactionary, when they blatantly are not. Not showing basic human decency to potential allies is tactically stupid as well as plain bad behaviour.

[ckaihatsu]

Yes, but there will always be someone will to provide support. Free association would actually increase that because it promotes pluralism (a good thing). As long as they aren't going out and attacking people, they should just be left alone to humiliate themselves without our help.




Well of course they wouldn't be private property, private property is a legal construct and Communism would needless to say get rid of the laws to that effect.


This is again on something of a tangent to the topic of this thread -- I'd just like to again address the issue of *administration* and *policy* in a revolutionary post-capitalist society.

Considering that we now have mapped every square inch of the earth's surface and have ready access to it through GPS technology I think we can talk about a potentially post-private-property world in which the working class could *consciously decide* how each particular building and parcel of land is to be used.

We *shouldn't* have "pluralism" for pluralism's sake -- we should grip the reins and figure out what's what -- either the broadcast (one-to-many) media should be designated for non-hateful speech, or else I'd say we have an *unresolved* political issue of policy on our hands.

'Communal', or mass-public property in a post-capitalist world would also be a "legal" designation -- meaning one that is at some point *officially* agreed-on and accepted as such. It could be untouched wilderness land, or factories, or skyscrapers, or empty, available lots -- what matters, though, is that there is some kind of *conscious decision-making* that has then been recorded as such and generally accepted -- until the issue may be re-introduced for a renewed round of public consideration again.

I'm *very adverse* -- (as is rather apparent) -- to the least bit of a "hands-off" approach when it comes to the political arena -- my understanding is that the *whole point* of a revolution is to take *conscious political control* over the administration of society, especially out of the hands of private interests. We as revolutionaries should not hesitate to exercise a revolutionary will over all matters that pertain to rank-and-file control. This would include land, asset, and resource management, collectively, including all kinds of media and the political content that it carries.

[Hyacinth]

Yes, but there will always be someone will to provide support. Free association would actually increase that because it promotes pluralism (a good thing). As long as they aren't going out and attacking people, they should just be left alone to humiliate themselves without our help.
I'm happy to allow them the freedom to humiliate themselves, but that's quite different from facilitating the airing of their reactionary views.


Well of course they wouldn't be private property, private property is a legal construct and Communism would needless to say get rid of the laws to that effect. However buildings can still be allocated to private groups though for housing or whatever. There is no shortage of buildings in the world and it is easy enough to build more, we don't need to take buildings away from churches other than mean spiritedness. Of course as congregations fall, the churches will use fewer and fewer of those buildings anyway, so they will be converted then, in terms of the bigger ones to Museums I would hope, the smaller ones can make good pubs as it happens (a fair few here have already met that fate), but for those still in use there is no good reason to take them. It would simply be unfair.

Incidentally, I would rather the buildings were turned over to the churches for them to deal with rather than remain under community control (of course we might want them to provide the community with something in return). Let them worry about upkeep and whatnot.
Fair enough, and I disagree, we're not going to be setting policy for future socialist societies on this forum, this is a decision that will be democratically made after a revolution.


People should be free to choose their occupation, but what occupations there are has to be determined by what is wanted and needed. No economy can possibly function when what it makes is not related to what people feel they require.
Again, sure, but what has this to do with what I've proposed? I'm quite a fan of economic planning, as my extensive posts on the subject ought to show, but one way of ensuring that the planning and coordination committees do not stand in a different relation to the means of production to the workers is by having all of their decisions subject to democratic oversight. Since it would be unfeasible to vote on absolutely every economic decision, the way to have de facto democracy is by giving workers the right to simply refuse to comply with the suggestions of the coordination committees. So, for instance, if the economic planning and coordination committee happens to be stacked, for whatever reason, with those who are soft on reaction, and propose that resources be allocated to the construction or maintenance of churches, then it is perfectly within the workers' prerogative to ignore the committee and not waste their time and effort on such things.


You should never seek to humiliate someone, but at any rate you are yet again trying to paint all religious people as reactionary, when they blatantly are not. Not showing basic human decency to potential allies is tactically stupid as well as plain bad behaviour.
That there are certain segments of the clergy and the religious who are opposed to capitalism in some shape or form, or imperialism, hardly makes them our allies. The enemy of my enemy is just as soon my next enemy. And again, why shouldn't we never seek to humiliate someone? Public humiliation is an effective form of punishment which can ensure social segregation, and I think it perfectly acceptable to use against reactionaries. And, again, I never said that all religious people are reactionaries, what I maintain is that religious institutions and creeds are. That some member of the bourgeois (e.g., Engels) is capable of expressing sympathy and support for our cause hardly makes capitalism an ally, or makes it progressive.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm quite a fan of economic planning, as my extensive posts on the subject ought to show, but one way of ensuring that the planning and coordination committees do not stand in a different relation to the means of production to the workers is by having all of their decisions subject to democratic oversight. Since it would be unfeasible to vote on absolutely every economic decision, the way to have de facto democracy is by giving workers the right to simply refuse to comply with the suggestions of the coordination committees. So, for instance, if the economic planning and coordination committee happens to be stacked, for whatever reason, with those who are soft on reaction, and propose that resources be allocated to the construction or maintenance of churches, then it is perfectly within the workers' prerogative to ignore the committee and not waste their time and effort on such things.


As an aside here I think that our technologically enabled society *could* very well make politicial discussions and decision-making accessible to all workers, for every single issue.

Especially considering that a post-capitalism, factory-collectives world would have the incentive to automate production as much as possible it would follow that the typical worker's role could very well be more of a *political* one rather than a hand-on-the-machine-lever one.

I think if we replace our current newspaper-reading and TV-news-watching routine (and Internet-use routine) with the same, adding an interactive, grassroots-participation feedback loop, we'd have a daily societal culture that has fully integrated the running of the workplace, by its workers, into daily life.

The issues of one's immediate locality would take precedence, of course, with higher-level, inter-workplace issues possibly being more of a specialty -- but still openly accessible -- interest, in the vein of journalistic reporting. Those who consciously *make* it their business would be in the de facto political circles for those particular issues, wherever they may be. And throughout there would be the pertinent discussions, polling on the issues, and mass decision-making processes constantly rolling around, precluding the need for reliance on any sort of politicians or representative abstraction through professionalized decision-making positions.

I would have no problem with employing an *administrative* layer to deal with tending to the particulars of the policy enacted, but it would be solely limited to a functionary role.

[spiltteeth]

I think we can safely say that child abuse and the destruction of the planet are indeed going to negatively effect society...

As an anarchist I understand these dynamics through the principle of everyone being free to do what they want, providing that freedom does not encroach on the freedom of others. In other words, we can do what we want, so long as it doesn't stop others from doing what they want.



The best for society as a whole is to allow people the freedom to do as these please, so long as what they do does not effect the freedom of others. This includes child abuse and the destruction of the planet.

I hear what yr saying, and I agree to a large extent. I'm just saying it's not as simple as that. I wasn't talking about child abuse at all. The greeks had sex with young, willing boys. Ny friend, a prominent violinist, once told me his sister had sex with him repeatedly from age 6-9. I was horrified and kept expressing mu disgust until he said, "actually, I enjoyed it." Which horrifies me even more!
I'm sure your aware that many cultures have sex with children and the children take it as a normalcy. I'm not talking about abuse.
And pollution is problematic because so many things pollute! Which affects society as a whole. I think pollution will be dealt with much more efficiently in communism, but nearly every factory will pollute. And what of cars, private buisness, individual actions etc

[9]

I hear what yr saying, and I agree to a large extent. I'm just saying it's not as simple as that. I wasn't talking about child abuse at all. The greeks had sex with young, willing boys. Ny friend, a prominent violinist, once told me his sister had sex with him repeatedly from age 6-9. I was horrified and kept expressing mu disgust until he said, "actually, I enjoyed it." Which horrifies me even more!
I'm sure your aware that many cultures have sex with children and the children take it as a normalcy. I'm not talking about abuse.

Oy, gevalt............:blink:
I cannot believe I am reading this.....
An adult having sex with a child, even if the child "gives consent", regardless completely of whether or not it is supposedly "normalcy" by virtue of "culture", is absolutely child abuse. To virtually all children, adults - if only by the mere fact that they are "grown up" and the child is not - occupy a position of authority relative to the child. The sheer inevitability of psychological intimidation and manipulation due to such a position of authority renders, in and of itself, the act abusive. In addition, the child's brain is not fully developed, nor is sexual maturation completed, so an informed decision with complete understanding of all factors involved in such a relationship on the child's behalf is extremely unlikely, if achievable at all.
Long story short, an adult engaging in sex with a child is profoundly abusive and, frankly, completely fucked up.

[spiltteeth]

Oy, gevalt............:blink:
I cannot believe I am reading this.....
An adult having sex with a child, even if the child "gives consent", regardless completely of whether or not it is supposedly "normalcy" by virtue of "culture", is absolutely child abuse. To virtually all children, adults - if only by the mere fact that they are "grown up" and the child is not - occupy a position of authority relative to the child. The sheer inevitability of psychological intimidation and manipulation due to such a position of authority renders, in and of itself, the act abusive. In addition, the child's brain is not fully developed, nor is sexual maturation completed, so an informed decision with complete understanding of all factors involved in such a relationship on the child's behalf is extremely unlikely, if achievable at all.
Long story short, an adult engaging in sex with a child is profoundly abusive and, frankly, completely fucked up.

I'm not if you read the rest of the posts, so I'm positing this in the context of others saying parents will have no rights over their children, they can leave home, decide if they want to eat broccoli or not, and since parents will have little or no authority over kids the kids won't have such a psychological intimidation etc, so parents would not, it has been argued by others, be in a position of authority.
As far as a child's not able to make informed decisions, that was my argument, expressed as "Kids are sometimes idiots," on why it would be, to say the least, problematic if children themselves were able to choose what they wanted to eat and no adult could impose their authority on this decision, a kid would probably eat candy all the time.
I'm not sure what sexual maturation has to do with anything, so if a 10 yr old sexually matured then it would be ok?
In other words, giving a child freedom to eat whatever he/she wants, live anywhere, leave home, indulge in sexual play (which every child does anyway, constantly, usually with other kids tho) based on no other morality then, 'as long as its the kids choice and it doesn't hurt anyone' is, in my opinion, extremely problematic.

[Hyacinth]

In other words, giving a child freedom to eat whatever he/she wants, live anywhere, leave home, indulge in sexual play (which every child does anyway, constantly, usually with other kids tho) based on no other morality then, 'as long as its the kids choice and it doesn't hurt anyone' is, in my opinion, extremely problematic.
So allowing people—and children are people—to do whatever they want provided no harm is done, is "extremely problematic"? Sill us, being concerned with the emancipation of children when churches might be closed.

[Hyacinth]

As an aside here I think that our technologically enabled society *could* very well make politicial discussions and decision-making accessible to all workers, for every single issue.

Especially considering that a post-capitalism, factory-collectives world would have the incentive to automate production as much as possible it would follow that the typical worker's role could very well be more of a *political* one rather than a hand-on-the-machine-lever one.

I think if we replace our current newspaper-reading and TV-news-watching routine (and Internet-use routine) with the same, adding an interactive, grassroots-participation feedback loop, we'd have a daily societal culture that has fully integrated the running of the workplace, by its workers, into daily life.

The issues of one's immediate locality would take precedence, of course, with higher-level, inter-workplace issues possibly being more of a specialty -- but still openly accessible -- interest, in the vein of journalistic reporting. Those who consciously *make* it their business would be in the de facto political circles for those particular issues, wherever they may be. And throughout there would be the pertinent discussions, polling on the issues, and mass decision-making processes constantly rolling around, precluding the need for reliance on any sort of politicians or representative abstraction through professionalized decision-making positions.

I would have no problem with employing an *administrative* layer to deal with tending to the particulars of the policy enacted, but it would be solely limited to a functionary role.
Excellent point.

[spiltteeth]

So allowing people—and children are people—to do whatever they want provided no harm is done, is "extremely problematic"? Sill us, being concerned with the emancipation of children when churches might be closed.

Yes, and I've even added content to why I think that!


Sill us, being concerned with the emancipation of children when churches might be closed

Hmmmm. I have no idea what yr trying to say here. Obviously people ought to be concerned with the emancipation of kids, um...thats why I'm talking about it, in detail even.

I love this :

so allowing people—and children are people—to do whatever they want provided no harm is done, is "extremely problematic"?

so allowing people—and children are people—to have orgies whenever they want provided no harm is done, is "extremely problematic"?

But silly "us," being concerned with facts and content when meaningless statements can be made with no context.

[ckaihatsu]

Excellent point.


Thanks, Hyacinth.

I'd like to recommend checking out this simple, spreadsheet-enabled system for staying on top of political task group "bookkeeping", so to speak:


Affinity Group Workflow Tracker

http://tinyurl.com/yvn2xq

[tellyontellyon]

So long as a person who happens to have religious beliefs supports the revolution and is happy to live in a Marxist society... why give a shit?