Question about the Church

[Catillina]

Most of you knows the Marx quote: "Religion is the opiate of the people", and Lenin said "Religion is the opiate for the people"

The main problem was, i think, that the church promised the people a paradise after life, but Communism promises a paradise on earth!

Well how does the Modern Communists stands to the Church nowadays?
Today, there are lesser and lesser people who believe in god, and nobody(perhaps some Amish people) is distraced as much as that by the church, to ignore the pursuite of Paradise ON earth.

What do you people think about that?

[Palingenisis]

Most of you knows the Marx quote: "Religion is the opiate of the people", and Lenin said "Religion is the opiate for the people"



Marx also said that religion was the heart of a heartless world.

Im suspicious of people who are too anti-religious.

[A.R.Amistad]

Marx and Lenin were staunch atheists, and earlier in his life Lenin called for a "militant materialism," but even Lenin was not as anti-religious as one may think. First of all, the context of Marx's quote is, as Palingenesis laid out, a praise of the role of religion in people's lives given the harsh realities of class inequality. Engels attacked an ultraleft section of anarchists for their campaign against religion, and stressed that the role of the atheist revolutionary should be to understand why people created religion, and what is necessary for it to be eliminated. Political repression won't eliminate religion, only the genuine move toward classless society. And by then, it is up to individuals to decide their spiritual beliefs. Lenin was actually quite welcoming to religious revolutionaries in the party. I recommend you read his The Attitude of the Worker's Party to Religion. While he still upholds atheism, he says that the party "must not only admit workers who preserve their belief in God into the Social-Democratic Party, but must deliberately set out to recruit them; we are absolutely opposed to giving the slightest offense to their religious convictions, but we recruit them in order to educate them in the spirit of our programme, and not in order to permit an active struggle against it." A little known fact, but Lenin was one of the few revolutionaries who defended the anti-Tsarist priest Father Gapon. Father Gapon had been accused by some revolutionaries in the 1905 revolution of being a counter-revolutionary trojan horse, but Lenin said that Gapon had been a sincere revolutionist and deserved praise, not disdain.

When dealing with religion, one should approach it as a Marxist. This will help give people a more tolerant stance for criticising it, as well as preserving freedom of religion in a worker's state.

[x371322]

I'm an atheist, but not what you would call a militant atheist. I understand why people are attracted to religion. I think the problem is not religion itself, but the use of religion by the ruling class, to keep the people in oppression. By telling them to behave and follow certain rules, and they'll be rewarded with heaven in the afterlife, most people are willing to accept their present conditions, no matter how bad off they are, in hopes of glorious eternal riches.

There's nothing wrong with having faith or belief, but those in power have a tendency to exploit that faith for their own gains.

[Palingenisis]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lnr/index.htm

[Palingenisis]

I know Im going to get into trouble for this but I dont believe that belief in God is or should a class dividing line.

[Robocommie]

I know Im going to get into trouble for this but I dont believe that belief in God is or should a class dividing line.

You're not alone, there are liberation theologists on this board. And I myself am a very spiritual leftist.

[Zanthorus]

I have to agree with Bakunin on this issue.


We think that the founders of the International showed great wisdom in eliminating all religious and national questions from its program. They purposely refrained from injecting their very definite antireligious and national convictions into the program because their main concern was to unite the oppressed and the exploited workers of the civilized world in one common effort. They had necessarily to find a common basis, and formulate a set of elementary principles acceptable to all workers regardless of the political and economic aberrations still infecting the minds of so many toilers.

The inclusion of the antireligious and political program of any group or party in the program of the International, far from uniting the European workers, would have divided them even more than they are at present.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Materialism is necessary for effective socialist theory and praxis.

Disestablishment of religion is necessary to establish proletarian rule.

Loudmouthed anti-clericalism is either a useless hobby for bourgeois posers, or else it's actively reactionary (cf. historical American and British anti-Papism, or current Islamophobia). See for example Bill Maher's latest shitty film, which is a scum-sucking propaganda piece for liberal hawkery.


Most of you knows the Marx quote: "Religion is the opiate of the people", and Lenin said "Religion is the opiate for the people"

Here's what people don't get about that line: an opiate is a painkiller. The point is to remove the pain, not to be puritan douchebags about drug use.

[Palingenisis]

I believe politics and religion should be kept seperate..That doesnt mean I want to wipe out religion, just that I dont think it has a place in politics.

[Invincible Summer]

Most of you knows the Marx quote: "Religion is the opiate of the people", and Lenin said "Religion is the opiate for the people"

The main problem was, i think, that the church promised the people a paradise after life, but Communism promises a paradise on earth!

Well how does the Modern Communists stands to the Church nowadays?
Today, there are lesser and lesser people who believe in god, and nobody(perhaps some Amish people) is distraced as much as that by the church, to ignore the pursuite of Paradise ON earth.

What do you people think about that?

I am a fairly militant atheist (so I've been told). I think that religion has no place in this day and age where we know that floods and rainbows aren't signs from a "god" but natural phenomena, etc. They especially have no place in a system that is, in my opinion, inherently and thoroughly humanist and secular. Communism involves human liberation for the purpose of a better life HERE and NOW, not human liberation so they can go on to find ways to prepare for some mystical, magical "afterlife" since they're unhindered by poverty and exploitation.

Pre-occupation with superstitious rituals and beliefs that have little to no basis in reality is harmful to furthering humanity and society. How can you count on your neighbor to contribute to the material world when he/she cares more about seeing some dead guy up in the clouds somewhere?




Here's what people don't get about that line: an opiate is a painkiller. The point is to remove the pain, not to be puritan douchebags about drug use.

I've never heard it used in the "anti-drug" way. That's kinda funny.

[bob1988]

I believe religion is basicly a problem, but so is any instuttion where its members are overly zealous.churches can serve as a communty center to help those in need in the comunity though most do so superficialy and more so to recruit new members then actuly help people .Some are are good people though just perhaps misguided.

[The Gallant Gallstone]

I'd say that religion is only a problem to the extent it is sufficiently organized to be a significant rival to a socialist movement. The older organizations, such as the Catholic Church, shouldn't be antagonized yet for two reasons.

1) They don't have the power they once had; their zealous anti-leftist, anti-Communist ideas seem to have dried up in the face of self-preservation; essentially, they are entirely "on defense" right now.

2) They can make valuable ad hoc partners, especially in agitating against the nonsense in Arizona.

Individual spirituality might, as Helios+ noted, enervate an individual's resolve, but unless you're organizing in a very pious Red state, you probably have more formidable opposition to contend with.

We've got to pick our battles efficiently.