The role of organized religion today: beyond opiates?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Discuss (I used Google Translate):

"I am a passionate mushroom picker" (http://www.welt.de/die-welt/politik/article7623882/Ich-bin-ein-leidenschaftlicher-Pilzesammler.html)

"I have never put this question this way to myself for a simple reason. I am convinced that the socialist idea would not have come into existence without Christianity. Christianity is the religion of charity. The politically correct word for charity is solidarity. Karl Marx saw this somewhat differently. He called religion 'opiate for the masses.' That is what he calls it in his Theses on Feuerbach. Religion at the time of Karl Marx played a different role than it does today. Today the question arises who in society is responsible for the promotion of values. Supermarkets cannot replace cathedrals." (Oskar Lafontaine)

[leftace53]

"I have never put this question this way to myself for a simple reason. I am convinced that the socialist idea would not have come into existence without Christianity. Christianity is the religion of charity.

Tzedakah in judaism is charity, and since judaism came before christianity, wouldn't that be a more feasible "origin" of socialism? Also the people who instilled charity in these religions must have thought charity to be a good thing, so really the idea of charity predates abrahamic religions.


The politically correct word for charity is solidarity.
:blink: Really? Say it ain't so!

I'd think that while religion has slightly evolved from the opiate of the masses, being the opiate of the masses is definitely a main "function" of organized religion, even today.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

How much can we trust this guy if he can't even get the source of Marx's famous 'opiate' quote right?

[Hit The North]

Moved to Religion.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How much can we trust this guy if he can't even get the source of Marx's famous 'opiate' quote right?

Good catch! Why did he mention that specific work?

[GreenCommunism]

by the way someone pointed out that opiate in karl marx time were used for pain relief, not drugs. so when he says opiates of the mass he doesn't mean drugs.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It depends. Pain relief medication can be turned into addictive drugs if they're abused. Opium is also a tad toxic, like tobacco.

[GreenCommunism]

yes i know. i guess your right, and opium was used recreatively in karl marx times too. but i think the main use was still pain killer and that was the way marx meant it.

[turquino]

I don’t know who this Lafontaine character is, nor can I understand German, but he badly misconstrues Marx’s views on religion in that little bit.

Contrast it to what Marx had to say about Christian values and communism

The social principles of Christianity have now had eighteen hundred years to be developed, and need no further development by Prussian Consistorial Counsellors.

The social principles of Christianity justified the slavery of antiquity, glorifies the serfdom of the Middle Ages and are capable, in case of need, of defending the oppression of the proletariat, with somewhat doleful grimaces.

The social principles of Christianity preach the necessity of a ruling and an oppressed class, and for the latter all they have to offer is the pious wish that the former may be charitable.

The social principles of Christianity place the Consistorial Counsellor’s compensation for all infamies in heaven, and thereby justify the continuation of these infamies on earth.

The social principles of Christianity declare all the vile acts of the oppressors against the oppressed to be either a just punishment for original sin and other sins, or trials which the Lord, in his infinite wisdom, ordains for the redeemed.

The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submissiveness and humbleness, in short, all the qualities of the rabble, and the proletariat, which will not permit itself to be treated as rabble, needs its courage, its self-confidence, its pride and its sense of independence even more than its bread.

The social principles of Christianity are sneaking and hypocritical, and the proletariat is revolutionary.

So much for the social principles of Christianity.

[GreenCommunism]

what about when christianity says that the poor is better than the rich. the rich are corrupted or so.

[Philzer]

Hi comrades!

TO:


The role of organized religion today?-->> the most important function of the traditional religions today and for the bourgeoisie is to keep them as a part of the "freedom of opinion"

-->> remember: principle "freedom of opinion":

-> millions of "opinions" (personally, religious, scientifics) rise mutually
(egalize each other)
-> only one strenght is left: the capital (result: the owner says what to do)


furthermore as a part of its traditional functions:

-> the same like in all other religions (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1692105&postcount=125) as the form of consciousness which every oportunistic (greed controled/ threedimensional etic) formation needs

-> the religion of the capitalism (& bourgeois) isnt one of the "old" traditional religions, it is the modern pantheism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1705854&postcount=3)

-> democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?p=1705854#post1705854) is the being of pantheism (needs "common" material corruption of the mass instead "common" religious-truth in pre-capitalistic-formations to bundle the interests of the mass)

Have a nice day!

[Raúl Duke]

The politically correct word for charity is solidarity.Yes and no...

Solidarity occurs beyond relative equals only...charity can occur between a master and a slave.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here is what Wikipedia says:


The sense in which the metaphor "opiate" is used has been interpreted in several ways, some of which may differ from the way opium is thought of today. At the time when Marx wrote this text, opium was legally available in some parts of the world, although there were attempts to regulate, legislate and prohibit its use, sale and production, due to the negative effects the substance had on individuals and society in general. According to McKinnon (2005), there seemed to have been five primary senses which opium could be used as a metaphor in the mid nineteenth century:

1.Opium was an important medicine. It was used as a painkiller or sedative, but also for a wide range of ailments, including combatting cholera.
2.Opium was a keyword for widespread social conflict, particularly the Opium Wars.
3.It was the source of an important "social problem", one of the first "public health" concerns, known as "baby-doping" (giving a child opium to keep them quiet.)
4.Opium was the source of fantastic visions of the "opium eaters" (De Quincey, the Romantic Poets, etc.)
5.Morphine, the principal and most widely known and widely produced opiate of the day—at the time called morphium -- has at its etymology "dream-inducer". In this sense, opium is what someone is given to induce them to experience a fantasy instead of a reality. This is related to, but distinct from, the above baby-doping usage.

McKinnon, Andrew. M. “Reading ‘Opium of the People’: Expression, Protest and the Dialectics of Religion” in Critical Sociology, vol. 31 no. 1/2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people

[Red]

Religions are a joke, all of them. I love it how christians use the term "christian charity" as if they invented it. You don't call it "Islamic Algebra" even though algebra was invented by them. No religion can claim human actions or ideas, especially those based on common sense or even the smallest amount of science.

And let's be honest, religions are based on stories some dudes wrote a long time ago. The fact that christians say the world is only 4,000 years old is a serious sign that they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. If I wrote a book today that said that I would be laughed at, but because all their ridiculous stories were written 2,000 years ago, WEAK people cling to every word and base their entire fucking lives on them.

I have lost a dozen old friends to christianity. They have morphed into these empty-headed morons that think they need to memorize little snippets out of some old best-seller. Their minds are GONE. They were good people before religion, now they're just Stepford Wives living a lie.

I am offended that in the USA, we are controlled by these people living this lie. Censorship is my biggest gripe. I am treated like a child by the media who don't allow me to hear swear words that anyone can hear on the streets every day, or nudity of any kind that most of us see of our mates every day. They're get-down affects MY get-down, and it has angered me as I get older. Christians, Islamics, Jews, and Hindus are what's holding us back as a species. Time and again society has to go through turbulence to progress past these idiot's walls that they put up. I will never follow. Destroy religion!:thumbup1:

[Invincible Summer]

Verbal warning to tradeunionsupporter - stop spamming. If you like the thread, okay, but no need to make a post with 2 words in it.