Higher Atheism= Higher Militancy

[TheCommunistManifestor]

Over the past decades, religion has started to lose ground in demographics all over the world. This is due to better education and scientific discovery. This trend will probably continue until religion is nonexistent.

Religion is the opiate of the people. It makes people put their faith in a power and not put any faith in themselves. If they are being oppressed then they will look to their god to help them instead of taking action themselves. That is the reason it took the United States so long to give women suffrage and outlaw slavery.

As religion starts losing its grip on the world, won't there be higher militancy and consciousness? Does that mean it will be easier for a communist revolution in the future?

[blake 3:17]

And it's the heart of a heartless world.

The short answer to your question is no.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Doesn't Sweden have the most atheists % wise with like 80% atheist? No, it doesn't increase militancy.

[G4b3n]

Atheism is not inherently militant. Militant atheism is generally derived from opposition to oppressive religious structures and traditions. Once these structures and traditions lose their place in bourgeois society, so will militant atheism.

Not to mention that liberal atheism, while it can be militant, lacks a historical understanding of the functions of religion and acts as a vampire toward Marxist atheism, sucking the revolutionary character right out of it.

[TheCommunistManifestor]

I don't mean that atheists are more violent. I just mean that they will take fighting oppression into their own hands instead of praying about it.

[Positivist]

I believe it will be helpful to clarify OP. As your question stands it could apply to several different issues. However, if I am correct in reading your post to ask "Has the decline of distracting religious devotion amongst the working class resulted in an elevation in class conscioussness?" then I feel it is important to point out that where religion has declined, it has been replaced by equally misleading ideologies. In the US the replacement for religion is most often libertine nihilism, a belief system guided by maxims of selfish indulgence, no more encouraging of class action than American christianity.

[#FF0000]

The US had some pretty explosive class violence and the folks committing it were often very, very religious.

I mean, the Molly Maguires made being a Catholic in good standing a requirement to join them, and they regularly ordered beatings and assassinations in coal country. You just had to confess on Sunday

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

So many issues with this thread!


Over the past decades, religion has started to lose ground in demographics all over the world. This is due to better education and scientific discovery. This trend will probably continue until religion is nonexistent.

Of course not and tbh honest, people have been saying since the French revolution and Darwin. The problem with the methodology of analysis is that it's based on the incredibly wrong presumption that Atheism, by default is right, is somehow inextricably linked and calls dibs on 'science,' that scientific discoveries invalidates Theism or Theistic arguments, faith, positions, etc, and a whole grocery list of logical fallacies and so on. Theism, like Atheism, is a philosophical assertion and answer to the God question and doesn't deal with the issues of science at all; in all actuality. Which is to say theories of abiogenesis, the Big Bang theory, theory of evolution, etc. do not negate the existence of Deity or the supernatural or the claims of the religious. They merely explain how the material world works.

You're also assuming that Atheists are more educated than Theists, which is laughable and wrong. So, not only is the answer to your question 'no' by the premise and framing alone it could never be yes. Not to mention the problems associated with this whole "obtaining levels of consciousness," esoteric crap.


Religion is the opiate of the people.

Tic-tac-toe is the opiate of the people; it causes people to become distracted and chose escapist frivolities over revolutionary study and action.


It makes people put their faith in a power and not put any faith in themselves.

So, you're saying there is a direct correlation between someone asserting the existance of Deity and self-worth/self-esteem? Elaborate, to the same token, does the lack of belief in a higher power lead to malignant narcissism, pathological individualism, delusions of grandeur, etc?


they are being oppressed then they will look to their god to help them instead of taking action themselves.

Assumptive conjecture.


That is the reason it took the United States so long to give women suffrage and outlaw slavery.

No, no it wasn't.


As religion starts losing its grip on the world, won't there be higher militancy and consciousness?

Define consciousness. How can this be measured? What does this mean? How does someone raise their consciousness? Are there levels? Is there a point system involved? I'm over 9,000 just FYI/ftr.


Does that mean it will be easier for a communist revolution in the future?

No, now and forever, no, no, absolutely not.


I don't mean that atheists are more violent. I just mean that they will take fighting oppression into their own hands instead of praying about it.

Why couldn't my religious belief fuel my conviction to combat oppression and slay the corrupt? See, more assumptions.

I think the way in which this is being framed is fundamentally wrong and perverts and hinders our full understanding of the topics on question.

[Sentinel]

Doesn't Sweden have the most atheists % wise with like 80% atheist? No, it doesn't increase militancy.

I would mostly agree with this statement. Sweden does have a high percentage of atheists, and agnostics (included in that 80%). But that is a result of having a historically, and still quite, powerful workers movement, with improved education, secularisation and weakened authority for the church - not the other way around.

While this is positive it won't spark a revolution because a) the workers movement was always dominated by reformists and later third way bureucrats (even though the revolutionary left also hasn't been insignificant) and b) because not all the atheist are left wing.

After the demise of social democracy as state carrying force we still have lots of atheists - but their political positions vary on the full spectrum between fascism and communism..

So in short, left wing policies make way for atheism, and atheism does make it simpler to understand the workings of marxism, a materialist ideology. But it doesn't make one a marxist or revolutionary by default.

[Thanatos]

I have heard both sides - my conclusion is that one has to be a militant atheist (I am using the term militant rather tentatively) to be Marxist, specifically. I do not see how it could be otherwise - Marxism is not just a political ideology. It is more comprehensive than that - it is a method of analysis, a way of understanding human history itself. Not merely an agenda - it may have an agenda (such as workers' control etc.), but that agenda is the result of the method. Not the other way around.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that Marxism requires that we understand history in the context of natural processes - rather than rely upon supernatural explanations. For instance, I can't be a Marxist and say, "It is god's will that there should be capitalism." On the contrary, as Marxists we try to understand the forces of antagonism that feudalistic structures created - and how these forces eventually led to capitalism.

So Marxism requires atheism - even militant atheism. But not other forms of socialism. Christian socialism is a good example.