Causation and correlation in regards to religion

[Dean]

Get it straight. It's a correlational relationship, not a causal one. People need to be judged outside of their religious doctrine and inregards to their worldy beliefs and worldly acts.

[Goatse]

Why?

[ComradeOm]

Of course they do. If I see a man who insists that the earth is flat I will conclude that his capacity for logic is... well I'll assume that the man is an idiot. Would I respect his opinion on other matters that require logical or reasonable judgements? Not likely.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 02:33 PM
Of course they do. If I see a man who insists that the earth is flat I will conclude that his capacity for logic is... well I'll assume that the man is an idiot. Would I respect his opinion on other matters that require logical or reasonable judgements? Not likely.
isn't that an unfair generalization on his ideas? what if he had something philosophical to offer as well that made you understand your ides more?

[Jadan ja]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 02:33 PM
Of course they do. If I see a man who insists that the earth is flat I will conclude that his capacity for logic is... well I'll assume that the man is an idiot. Would I respect his opinion on other matters that require logical or reasonable judgements? Not likely.
I know that this is off-topic, but I just wanted to inform you that there really are people who believe that Earth is flat and they are called Flat Earth society.

I agree that it would be very hard to respect someone's opinion on something if he really thinks that Earth is flat.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 03:24 PM
isn't that an unfair generalization on his ideas? what if he had something philosophical to offer as well that made you understand your ides more?
Not really. If someone has proven to be incapable of making logical judgements in one situation, what makes you think he's capable of doing the opposite in another? For example, would you take marriage advice from someone with a dozen divorces? Or would you let someone incapable of winding a clock design a new type of car?

It is possible that someone with deranged views has something useful to offer in another field. However its safe to say that these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

[Dean]

Originally posted by ComradeOm+Apr 16 2006, 04:56 PM--> (ComradeOm @ Apr 16 2006, 04:56 PM)
[email protected] 16 2006, 03:24 PM
isn't that an unfair generalization on his ideas? what if he had something philosophical to offer as well that made you understand your ides more?
Not really. If someone has proven to be incapable of making logical judgements in one situation, what makes you think he's capable of doing the opposite in another? [/b]

For example, would you take marriage advice from someone with a dozen divorces? Or would you let someone incapable of winding a clock design a new type of car?

It is possible that someone with deranged views has something useful to offer in another field. However its safe to say that these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Religion has become to many a very passive, nearly secular activity. Many people don't go any further than a belief in god. Einstein was religious, supported socialism and opposed violent Zionism. Most religious people I've met are down - to earth in most other ways, which says a lot since i live in Virginia.

Taking advie doesn't mean utilizin git as prescribed, so I would definitely take marriage advice from someone with a lot of knowledge of how to fuck one up! the same goes to the car design issue. Am I to say, ok, this mechanical idiot can design for me a car? of course not, but that doesn't exclude his potential for good input (though that's an extreme case. religion is, again, practiced very secularly. most of them in the U.S. drive cars, even stick shift. many scientists that have had great breakthroughs have been religious. this dogmatism against the religious is arguable worse than the dogma behind religious belief. nobody is perfect, nor should they be treated as such - Noam chomsky once told me that we should recognize the good and bad of past philosophers - arguing against my usage of the term "marxism" to describe myself. I agree with him on the issue)

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 06:43 PM
Religion has become to many a very passive, nearly secular activity. Many people don't go any further than a belief in god. Einstein was religious, supported socialism and opposed violent Zionism. Most religious people I've met are down - to earth in most other ways, which says a lot since i live in Virginia.
And those people are not truely religious. They accept religion because they see no reason not to. How many Christians have actually read the Bible? This is comfortable faith that requires no commitment and cannot challenge science.

[Goatse]

As I said in another thread...

If you're not out there killing homosexuals, you're not a real Christian.

[Dean]

And those people are not truely religious. They accept religion because they see no reason not to. How many Christians have actually read the Bible? This is comfortable faith that requires no commitment and cannot challenge science.

If those are the really non-religious, and we know that there are preachers that preach true Christian (leftist) ideals, why do we claim that religion itself is bad, or rather, why do you fight the idea as a vague one and not simply go after the real enemies to communist development? Isn't communism about making "heaven on earth"?

You think I like religion? last night I told my manager that if her god really existed and would send me to hell if I didn't believe in 'him,' I'd rather go to hell than live in the kingdom of such an evil god. And I argued for the nonexistance of god in saying that she had no evidence to support it. It is extremists that make their life around religion the enemy, but banning churches will only garner hatred for communist development - [i]we have to be populists, and let people make their own decisions, not violently oppose them for their belief structure.[/i---]

[redstar2000]

So, Dean, you argued with your boss about "God"...and you were so convincing that she became an instant atheist and then began to ask you serious questions about how to go about making a communist revolution.

Didn't happen that way? :lol:

If you want to "be populist", go right ahead. No one is stopping you...much less "cutting your dick off" as you so eloquently phrased it.

Anyone here with a burning desire to suck up to the godracket is always free to do so. Only when they come here and advocate that do they run into "difficulties"...namely, that they've consciously allied themselves with known reactionaries!

Among modern revolutionaries, that's a big "no no". :lol:

The argument that "some" ("many"? "most"? "nearly all"?) godsuckers are "not really" reactionaries and may even be "progressives" is so lame that few people here even bother to raise it anymore.

The indisputable point is that ordinary godsuckers follow their spiritual leaders...and those bastards are reactionaries!

No exceptions!

Any "strategy" that involves "tolerance" for reactionaries is, from a communist standpoint, doomed to catastrophe.

Ask the Poles and the East Germans, for example. :o

So, go on back to your new home and talk to them about your "populism".

They might be very receptive to the idea. :blink:

We aren't! :angry:

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[Dean]

Is it not reactionary to oppose any form of complete communism, than? What of those who support a messianistic state that would wither away and create a communist society? Are they reactionary for supporting communist goals?

I don't mean to say that religion is a good thing; I find it an awful disregard for the truth. But so is the idea that many have that, for instance, we never landed on the moon. That doesn't necessarily make them reactionary, just wrong. Most christians I know never defend their religion - because they don't care. Religion is largely practiced in a secular manner today, and hence outlawing it or posing other sactions against self-proclaimed theists is fighting a problem that is both widespread and not really much of a threat. There are even Christian groups for communism! Though I do not know their specific ideas on communism, I know for a fact that many religious people are extremely leftist. You can't force an idea out of someone's mind, and you shouldn't anyways.

I emailed that essay to a very religious family that I'm close friends with, and they were proud that I put in the email that they are both the most christian people I know and that they act like secular humanists - hardly reactionary, given their ideas on jesus as a revolutionary as described in that song I posted. btw, I put Phil Och's version up instead of the original author because I felt it was easier to relate to, not because I was ignorant.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Dean
Religion is largely practiced in a secular manner today, and hence outlawing it or posing other sactions against self-proclaimed theists is fighting a problem that is both widespread and not really much of a threat.

A recent CBS poll suggested that 31% of the American people have a "positive" view of Christian fundamentalism. :o

That's "threat" enough for me.

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[Trotsky.jr]

I really feel that the Revolutionary left administrators think that they can bring about a socialist revolution in a country with only the commie club members alone and I don’t think that’s possible. I am with Dean regarding this issue and it is very disappointing to see people like readstar2000 who are actually isolating people with revolutionary ideas from ordinary people.

I don’t think religion has anything to do with socialism or revolution, religion or god is only a person’s personal belief and as communists we should respect other people’s beliefs. I don’t believe in religion but I don’t want to add my views regarding this issue in to communism on the whole. Because things like this will eventually create a wrong image in the minds of religious people on communism on the whole. When ever I talk to religious people about communism they don’t want to listen to me just because they think that communism means anti-god.

Our main aim is to unite all the workers and it is not good to encourage splits like this.Don’t create an image that communists are against religion and god and don’t impose the administrators ideas on the members of this discussion board.

This might be of some use to our discussion.

http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905...sm-churches.htm (http://marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/socialism-churches.htm)

[RedStarOverChina]

When ever I talk to religious people about communism they don’t want to listen to me just because they think that communism means anti-god.

Well, it does mean that.

Marx once said that his life-long goal was to "dethrone God and overthrow capitalism".

So I fear the resentment from the religious is justified. :P

[violencia.Proletariat]

I really feel that the Revolutionary left administrators think that they can bring about a socialist revolution in a country with only the commie club members alone and I don’t think that’s possible.

:lol: This is a first. This is a DISCUSSION board, it can be used for networking, etc. It's not a vanguard, we will leave that to the leninists.


I don’t think religion has anything to do with socialism or revolution

Your exactly right! It has nothing to do with revolution or marxism, therefore we must get rid of the notion that "liberation theology", etc, are good ways to convince people to "our side."


and as communists we should respect other people’s beliefs

Why?


Because things like this will eventually create a wrong image in the minds of religious people on communism on the whole

What wrong image? Communists ARE NOT RELIGIOUS!


just because they think that communism means anti-god.

Well, there right. Marxism is materialist. Things are/changed based on the material conditions of things, not faith or gods.


Don’t create an image that communists are against religion and god

We don't have to, it's rooted in the idea itself.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Trotsky.jr
I don’t think religion has anything to do with socialism or revolution, religion or god is only a person’s personal belief and as communists we should respect other people’s beliefs.

On "respecting other people's beliefs"...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48850

On the Rosa Luxemburg article...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1292015001 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=6238&view=findpost&p=1292015001)

Now here's a question: what is it with Trotskyists and the godracket these days?

The people who repeatedly speak up here for "tolerance for the godracket" are either part of that racket or...Trotskyists.

Why is that? :blink:

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[RevMARKSman]

Dean, you're fighting the good fight here.
I think Mr. Spock defined communism at its roots:

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one."


Notice that he said nothing about religion or personal beliefs. Communism comes from the root word COMMUNE, which means a group of people. Again, nothing about violent intolerance for those with spiritual beliefs.

Oh, and I noticed that in this forum there is a rule against anti-Semitism, but none against anti-Christianity or anti-Islam. That says a lot about the ideals of people like redstar in general. They practice "selective tolerance." They speak of tolerance with those that have been oppressed, but those who haven't recently been on the short side of things they simply dismiss. Remember that Christians were persecuted for more than a century after Christianity started?

While you're answering that, what happened to true communism? This is supposed to be a government that conforms to its people, not one that makes its people conform to itself.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by MonicaTTmed
Oh, and I noticed that in this forum there is a rule against anti-Semitism, but none against anti-Christianity or anti-Islam.

Do you understand what "anti-semitism" has been historically?

It posits that Jews are a "race", and moreover, a "parasitical race" that secretly "takes over" the social institutions that rightfully belong to "productive races", engaging in a "global conspiracy" to make the Jews the "rulers of the world".

This was the "justification" for the Holocaust.

So we do not permit such views on this board.

That has nothing to do with the superstition that we know as Judaism...which is just as freely criticized and opposed as Christianity and Islam.

For example...

The LORD moons Moses (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=34347)

Enjoy. :lol:

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[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Believing that religion and communism are not mutually exclusive is foolish. Religion is founded upon hierarchy, which has God at the top and everyone else at the bottom. If hierarchy is good enough for our creator, people assume it is good enough for them. Furthermore, all major religions have reactionary elements (hating homosexuals, hating abortion, et cetera) that are abhorrent and unacceptable under communism. Belief in God stems from weakness and/or a lack of sensibility. Communism seeks to enlighten people, and, as such, they should always be encouraged to believe what is true. Religion is a weapon designed to be used by capitalists, and it can be only used it that manner. Disarming one of the most powerful reactionary tools is essential in achieving communism. Don't even get me started on the idea of an afterlife - just read some basic writings by Marx.

Also, this does not mean I support banning religion, but I actively encourage fighting against it with the belief that logic will extinquish and equality ar ethe means to extinquish religion.