Discrimination against religious.

[Hiero]

Notice: I used the word religious, not religion. Religious people come from all classes.

There has been constant religious bashing on this forum. What has occured is that it is no longer against religion, but against the religious. The problem is, the majority of the world are religious. And of course the majority of the world are proletariat.

The problem is that the religion is a tool of understanding the world. It allows people to understand the world and how it was created. Religion is based on idealist theory. Now people need an understanding of the world around them, all people have some form of understanding of the world. Understanding does not mean truth however. Understanding is how you think things are and occur. For instance witchcraft religions in Africa, such as in the Azende understand that if a building is infected with termites and it collapses, the termites were the cause. This is correct understanding. However if a building collapses when someone is insides, they understand this as witchcraft. The reason it collapsed at that time was because someone hated the person inside. This is incorrect, though the Azend see it this way and it shapes their actions.

Now all people adobt an understanding of the world. You are born into a already built soceity and culture. This is consumed and creates the individual. However with education, you may challenge these ideas and created new understanding of the world. Such is the case of Marxism, where you understand the world from the materialist perspective, which is correct.

So religion is adobted by the proletariat, where religious is prominant or offers understanding where one is lacking. The proletariat with no innate ideas, adobt this without choice. Just as a lumpen proletariat will adobt criminal culture. So in the case of both people, they are victims of society. To attack these people, is to attack victims. So as communist we attack capitalism. As communist we attack religion. We don't attack the religious.

What has happened on this forum, and with many "Socialists" parties, is they have attacked the religious. They blame the proletarait for their ignorance. In the case of Islam, they help the bourgeois by singling out people for their religion. The christian right in return emphasis it's own truth and holiness. And the bourgeois emphasise it's succesfull society. The muslims become the anti-thesis of organised, succesfull, democratic and christian society. We promote the highest form of society, while you muslims wish to destroy it. Ultimatly no one questions religion and capitalism.

I have quoted Love Underground, as he has summarised this oppurtunist, anti-materialist and chauvinist attack against the oppressed proletarait. He makes no distinction between the religious oppressed and religious oppressors. He has now turned the attack against religion, into the battle of atheist and religious.


I have no problem with offending religious people, the fact that they are offended by the presance of a dead pig does nothing but amuse me. They chose to adopt this absolutely absurt bullshit, so it's their problem. There's no reason to be offended by pork, but they are anyway. Boohoo. But as I said, insulting religion, is clearly not the best way to combat it, this incident certainly won't shake their faith. So, im pretty indifferent

You're not just insulting a religion, your insulting a way life. You're insulting the proletariat. Society and cultures is not something we chose. We are born into a already made society and culture. This includes religion. Would you say that people choose their class, their education, their life outcomes. If a poor man comes a criminal, has he made the choice to adobted criminality?

"Religion is the opiate of the mases" doesn't mean the masses are superstitious idiots. It means that religion is a prominant part of the capitalist society. It helps the masses understand the world around them based on idealist philosophy. While at the same time regulates morals in society. People born in a religious country don't chose to adobt religion. They just adobt religion.

The fight against religion, is the fight against the religious elites by the proletariat. It is not just a fight against the religious. The religious proletariat in time must change their religious understanding of the world, for materialist understanding of the world. You on the other find all religious people culprits of ignorance.

Im sure you wouldn't claim the proletariat are capitalist for participating in a capitalist society. That's because they are born into that society and are proletariat by nature and are forced to be proletariat for survival.

So I don't understand why you don't see poor religious people as the oppressed not the oppressors. Because you have not made any distinction between oppressor and oppressed. You lump all religious people into one group. When you do this you make the proletariat the enemy. This is victim blaming, the religious proletariat are the victims here, not the oppressors.

Religion can divide people, because they don't identify themselves as proletarait, the identify themsevles as Muslim, Christain etc. But in reality they stand in contradiction with bourgeois and in alliance with the proletariat. But when you attack religious people, you only conform their idealism. It reinforces their idea that they are not a class of people, rather they are religious people.

On the other hand when attacking religion, using materalism, this emphasis class. The proletarait must throw away religion for materialism. In this way they defeat religion. Rather then arrogant non-materalist atheists defeating the religious.

[Hiero]

Is anyone going to respond?

[SPK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 11:00 PM
Notice: I used the word religious, not religion. Religious people come from all classes.
Hiero, are you drawing a distinction between religious institutions like the church, on the one hand, and religious belief / religious people on the other hand? I think many people on RevLeft would support challenging religous institutions like a church. I think people (not necessarily me) would be more flexible on the question of challenging religious belief, in terms of ideological campaigns, and so forth.

Is that the distinction you were noting?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

All religious people are ignorant - at least when it comes to their believing in religion. The proletariat are victims of religion, in many cases, however, and need to be helped.

[Acid]

Thats a reeally sickening post in my opinion

Im no r eligous, but my father is a priest. I am a rebel towards most apects of life and am very very different towards my dad. However the quote


All religious people are ignorant

How can you even dare to say that. To me thats just an openly racist remark about a persons beliefs, and the proletariat are not a victim of religion. Religion can help them in so many ways. from giving them money to helping them get through an area of life emotionally.

[Vinny Rafarino]

Is anyone going to respond?

To what?

Your religious apologist ramblings?

I've found that the prime defenders of "the faith" are those that also carry superstitious beliefs; I don't bother arguing these cats.

This gem in particular really cracked me up:

"The problem is that the religion is a tool of understanding the world. It allows people to understand the world and how it was created."

:blink:

[LSD]

There has been constant religious bashing on this forum.

Really? "Constant"? I don't suppose you could provide a link in which someone attacks religious people and/or proposes that they be oppressed in some manner.

I've been Mod of Religion for over a year now and from what I've seen, pretty much everyone on this board recognizes that religious workers are workers too.

Many of us, however, are unwilling to "tolerate" religious excesses to the degree that many in the left are. We don't by into this postmodern myth that cultures are "relatively" formulated and that some people "like" to be oppressed.

Women in the middle east are not "expressing their culture", they are victims of the worst appartheid system in the history of the world.

If acknowledging that fact constitutes "religious bashing" in your eyes so be it. As I see it, though, it's standing up for an oppressed minority.

You know, the thing that communists are supposed to do.


The problem is that the religion is a tool of understanding the world. It allows people to understand the world and how it was created.

No, it allows people to delude themselves and oppress others.


In the case of Islam, they help the bourgeois by singling out people for their religion.

Who are you talking about? People on this board are far more likely to attack Christianity than Islam. Indeed, if anything there's a disturbingly pro-Islam bias here.

That's rather typical of the modern left, however. We're all so afraid of "chauvinism" and "neo-colonialism" that we'd much rather attack Euroamerican whackos than "southern" ones. Islam, however, is thorougly deserving of condemnation, whether its "politically correct" to admit that or not.

And personally I don't mind that people here are willing to attack the barbarism that is modern political Islam. It's one of the more encouraging things about this board! :)


We are born into a already made society and culture. This includes religion.

It also includes politics.

Does that mean that a conservative isn't "responsible" for his political views just 'cause his parents imbued him with them when he was young?

Adolf Hilter was born into a culture and society that were rabidly anti-semitic, so were many other leading Nazis. That doesn't make the National Socialist party any less despicable nor does it excuse its actions.

Obviously people are born into religion. But people are also born with brains and the ability to use them. I'm not saying that rejecting one's "belief system" is easy, but it's certainly doable and it's nothing like changing class or ethnicity.

Besides, my real complaint with religious people is not their beliefs. I find them ludicrous as hell, but I respect their right to privately think whatever they want. My problem is with their actions.

I object to their repressions, to their bigotries, and to their discriminations. "Tolerance" cannot extend to the oppressor.

When a Muslim man raises his daughters to demean themselves and think of their bodies as "dirty" and "sinful", he's crossed the line between private belief and abuse; and, you're damn right, I won't "tolerate" that kind of crap.

Does comdemning this father's misogynist actions risk "offending" or "alienating" him? Perhaps, but our allegiance must be with the child first and with him second. Yes, even if he's a worker.

We must fight for the working class, but we cannot adopt every biggotry and prejeduce of that class as our own. Otherwise we're no better than the SACP.

I mean think about it, there are a lot of homophobic workers out there, must of them driven by religion. Should we "respect" this homophobia? Should we "tolerate" it our of a fear of "dividing" the working class?

Marx called relgion an "opiate", the religious call it "salvation". These two views are fundamentally incompatible.

One cannot be a Christian (or a Muslim or a Jew...) if one rejects religious teachings on homosexuality and the role of women; but then one cannot be a Communist if one accepts relgigious teachings on homosexuality and the role of women.

Religion teaches that suffering is nescessary, Communism teaches that it is wrong. Indeed, communism is predicated on ending oppression and suffering, while religion tells us to tolerate our misery because God will "reward" us in "heaven".

It dulls us by convincing us, not only that there's nothing we can do, but that there's nothing we should do. It tells us that our material lives don't matter, because "God" is just waiting for us on the other side of death.

It's understandable how tempting that can be, but understanding religion is not the same thing as accepting it.

We should not discriminate against religious workers nor consider their plight any less our business. But we have no obligation to "respect" their nonsense.


Religion can divide people, because they don't identify themselves as proletarait, the identify themsevles as Muslim, Christain etc. But in reality they stand in contradiction with bourgeois and in alliance with the proletariat.

Tell that to the Afghant Mujahidin.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 10:49 PM
Thats a reeally sickening post in my opinion

Im no r eligous, but my father is a priest. I am a rebel towards most apects of life and am very very different towards my dad. However the quote


All religious people are ignorant

How can you even dare to say that. To me thats just an openly racist remark about a persons beliefs, and the proletariat are not a victim of religion. Religion can help them in so many ways. from giving them money to helping them get through an area of life emotionally.
Ignorant: lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact.

And religious people are not ignorant how? They believe something that is unproven and has little or no logical justification. They are technically ignorant.

I'm ignorant about some things, I am sure, and I am not afraid to admit that. Why do you get offended when I suggest people who are incorrect are ignorant? After all, they do lack knowledge about what reality is. Or are you some fairy worshiper yourself?

Religion takes money from people just as it gives money to others. There is no reason to suggest the positive aspects of religion (giving money to the poor) could not be replaced with a secular organization method that avoids the illogical belief and cult-like nature of religion.

As for the issue of emotion, psychiatrists try to actually solve someone's problem. They deal with material reality and try to come to a solution for a patient. Religion feeds them lies. Emotional support comes from individual interaction that occurs within churches. The whole nonsense of God is only a mutual activity the can participate in to form a bond. If that activity were grounded in material reality, people would be much more successful when it came to achieving help.

[SPK]

Hiero, I'll speak about the situation here in the u.s.:

Religion or spirituality strictly as a set of ideas -- I'm not speaking of institutions, like churches, sects, mosques, or synagogues here -- is backwards, i.e. it is indeed an opiate of the people, one designed to comfort the masses and cause them to submit to their everyday oppressive conditions. Revolutionaries believe that these ideologies will have to be challenged and overcome, through a long process of struggle, after the overthrow of capitalism. This should be done in a peaceful way, and force or violence should not be used, since we're only talking about a set of conscious, subjective ideas in someone's head at this point.

Revolutionaries have a harsher view of certain religious institutions: specifically, those churches, sects, and so forth that actively support the capitalist state or support the reinstitution of the capitalist state after a revolution. By "active" here, I mean that these institutions on a day-to-day basis provide practical, concrete, material support to the bourgeoisie. In the u.s., there are thousands of churches involved in the direct organizing of the most extreme forms of political reaction:
- Organizing support for campaigns to physically block access to women's health and abortion clinics.
- Getting out the vote in favor of electoral referenda to roll back equal rights for queer people.
- Rallying support for further u.s. imperialist interventions: Pat Robertson’s agitation against, and his lunatic call for the assassination of, Hugo Chavez is one example of this.
- As the example of Robertson indicates, many televangelists and other reactionary religious leaders have close ties to the highest echelons of the bourgeoisie and the political elites.

There are also thousands of churches that have directly taken over those social responsibilities and obligations that have, up until the recent past, been considered the proper tasks of the state:
- Schooling students and prisoners. Under the rubric of "neoliberalism", the u.s. government is systematically abandoning the responsibility for such tasks and putting them into the hands of the private sphere, which in the majority of these cases means organized religion. While prisoners and students learn how to read and write, they are also, of course, being indoctrinated into reactionary clerical ideologies.
- Things like providing food and housing assistance to the poor, and job training or job searches for the unemployed. Again, as part of neoliberal privatization, many u.s. government programs that once helped the working class and poor with the basic necessities of life have been abolished or cut back (in some cases they have been replaced by punitive and anti-working class "workfare" programs, where people must labor at substandard wages to receive their benefits). These programs include unemployment insurance, housing vouchers, funds for the construction of affordable housing, food stamps, and so on. Again, when religious groups take over these tasks, they use them as vehicles for indoctrinating people with their theocratic ideologies.
- The campaign to push these governmental responsibilities into the hands of religious institutions – which include not only churches, but mosques, synagogues, and other sects as well – has, again, been facilitated by ties between those religious institutions and the highest echelons of the bourgeoisie and political elites. This is particularly true under the current Bush administration.

These (mostly) Christian fundamentalist reactionaries began developing their own independent political movements decades ago, starting basically in the seventies. Since that point, the u.s. ruling class has systematically utilized them as a tool to further divide and attack working class and oppressed peoples, to increase its extraction of surplus value and profits, to bolster its ailing imperialist adventures abroad, and to prepare a mass, popular base for a fascist movement – should the bourgeoisie come to believe that option is necessary, and I think they are clearly moving in that direction. This is the strategy the ruling class chose decades ago, and it has paid off quite handsomely for them. In short, the maintenance of the capitalist state in the u.s. is, at this point, inextricably tied to religious reaction.

This is not going to magically change. Briefly: many liberals and reformists in the u.s. believe that the basic infrastructure of a social democratic / social welfare state can be rebuilt, and that the kind of divisive politics practiced by the theocratic right can be eliminated or significantly attenuated. Many in the Democratic Party believe this horseshit. This is an absolute fantasy, a total illusion, and a political dead-end. Social democratic systems are in retreat globally, because of the pressures of international capitalism – they have been attempted historically and have essentially failed, succumbing to the ceaseless attacks of the bourgeoisie (if folks in the u.k., ireland, australia, canada, or other countries represented on RevLeft believe that they are immune to the process seen in the u.s., just wait, because your turn will eventually come as well :( ). There will be no attempts here to buttress the capitalist state by “re-unifying” the people, granting further bourgeois democratic rights, or placating the working class through concessions. The ruling elites chosen strategy is one of division and polarization, i.e. lining up a minority of people, primarily but not exclusively in the petty bourgeoisie, to ram through their program. And this means the continuance of the organic relationship between the theocrats and the bourgeoisie.

I’ll draw an obvious conclusion from everything I’ve said about the u.s. Organized religion is not merely a vehicle for ideological mystification and obscurantism, with only indirect or intermediate effects on the functioning of the capitalist system. Organized religion is and will continue to be in ever-expanding ways a direct, immediate arm and tool of the capitalist state. That it is not formally or legally a part of the state is not decisive – its objective function and utility for the state is decisive. It actively builds the political reaction that is the core strategy of the ruling class. It performs a vast number of social tasks related to the basic necessities of life and the day-to-day reproduction of the working class and does so in a way designed to perpetuate the capitalist system. To smash the capitalist state requires the destruction of these elements of organized religion.


Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 11:00 PM
The fight against religion, is the fight against the religious elites by the proletariat. It is not just a fight against the religious. The religious proletariat in time must change their religious understanding of the world, for materialist understanding of the world. You on the other find all religious people culprits of ignorance.

In thinking about how to smash these theocratic elements, it is almost impossible to envision a scenario in which religious leaders are somehow eliminated by revolutionary elements without simultaneously, in parallel, requiring the elimination of much of their base, i.e. their followers. These people are going to fight tooth and nail against the revolution, because the revolution requires that their churches, mosques, synagogues, and sects be eliminated. They think that they have a god on their side, and they are not going to roll over. In this respect, the religion question may problematize long-standing left-wing answers to the traditional questions of (historically secular) bureaucratic state apparatuses, the police, and the military. Adherence to the state or a nation is being supplanted or replaced by adherence to a god, of which the state is imagined to be its representative. This religious approach is a much stronger form of ideological cohesion and unity than the secular alternatives.

There are obviously many other questions underneath all of this, but its time for me to go to bed. -_-

[Hiero]

I wrote a long response early, but my computer restarted on me. So i'll make it short.


Really? "Constant"? I don't suppose you could provide a link in which someone attacks religious people and/or proposes that they be oppressed in some manner.

People are always making dumb statements on this forum. In one thread people condone the throwing of a pigs head into a Somali Mosque.


And personally I don't mind that people here are willing to attack the barbarism that is modern political Islam. It's one of the more encouraging things about this board!

Barbarism is a bourgeois word. The only people who use the term wish to to create tension between their civilisation and others. Communist use the term reactionary.


If acknowledging that fact constitutes "religious bashing" in your eyes so be it. As I see it, though, it's standing up for an oppressed minority.

Woman in the Middle East are not a minority.


Obviously people are born into religion. But people are also born with brains and the ability to use them. I'm not saying that rejecting one's "belief system" is easy, but it's certainly doable and it's nothing like changing class or ethnicity.

Then why isn't the world atheist.


When a Muslim man raises his daughters to demean themselves and think of their bodies as "dirty" and "sinful", he's crossed the line between private belief and abuse; and, you're damn right, I won't "tolerate" that kind of crap.

Does comdemning this father's misogynist actions risk "offending" or "alienating" him? Perhaps, but our allegiance must be with the child first and with him second. Yes, even if he's a worker.

Here is a huge problem. This revolutionary romanticism is just foolish. You want to believe that Muslim men have this conspiracy to oppress their daughters. The problem is it's just not men doing this. Woman pass this down to their daughters, and daighters believe this and promote it.

Woman are not just waiting for the Atheist man to come along and pull they veil from their head and start getting it on. Woman pick up these gender roles from older women. It is from their own gender Muslim woman dress and act in accordance to the dominant culture.

That is your problem, you don't see how far religion is embodied in some people. Espically in the Middle East.


Tell that to the Afghant Mujahidin.

So you saying if you're religious, regardless if your proletariat, you have no interest in overthrowing capitalism. You're basically repeating the propaganda used by the right wing church against Communism during the cold war. "You're not a working, your a Christian".

My whole arguement is not about tolerance. Tolerance implies that we not promote materialism and Communism, in case of offending certain people. Something you want to believe I promote.

However this is not the case, I merely asked what do you do with the religious proletariat. Should we target religious proleteriat as oppressers?

I condemn Islam, I condemn Christianity, I condemn all religions. However I do not latch on to the right-wing chauvinist movement against Islam. I do not condone attacking or segerating religious people from the proletarait movement.

Both you (Ace Ironbody) and SPK adressed me as if I am an apologist for religion. This is completly wrong. Religion must be opposed. Im interested in the religious proletariat abandoning religion for Marxism. You two want to attack all religious people as equal of oppression.

Every proletariat is a possible revolutionary, regardless of religion, ethnicity or nationality. Religion in the proletariat, should be considered as a contradiction amongst the people, and dealt as such. You're looking at the proletariat as they should be, not as they currently are.

[Eleutherios]

Religion is a mind virus and needs to be treated like we treat any other disease in our society.

[Intifada]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 10:49 PM

All religious people are ignorant

How can you even dare to say that.
Religious people are ignorant because they choose to follow institutions that regard the "word of God" as being truth, even though they have never seen or heard "God".

They are living a life that is completely dependent on the unproven belief that there is life after death.

At best this is naive, at worst it is ridiculously ignorant.


To me thats just an openly racist remark about a persons beliefs

Correct me if I am wrong, but most religions encompass people of various races, do they not?

Take Mecca for example, a place where you would witness the coming together of white people and black people, not just one or the other.

The statement was by no means "racist".


and the proletariat are not a victim of religion.

Yes they are.

By embracing religion they are instead seeking "deliverance" in the "afterlife", when they could instead seek the cause and the solution to their earthly problems in economic terms.


Religion can help them in so many ways. from giving them money to helping them get through an area of life emotionally.

That is great, but giving them money is only a short-term fix.

Why not overthrow the current system that promotes poverty instead of equality?

[Umoja]

Give me somthing religion provides, that say... Secular Humanism doesn't?

Religion isn't necessary, and for the most part 99% of it isn't true.

[LSD]

People are always making dumb statements on this forum.

Well that's the nature of the interent, people say stupid shit. But you're asserting something more than that, that this board has a biased attitude towards Muslim workers and that we encourage discrimination against them.

I am still waiting for some evidence of that claim.


Woman in the Middle East are not a minority.

First of all, yes they are. The sex ratio of the middle east is somewhere around 1.05 men to women. But, besides, I'm using the term "minority" in the classical feminist meaning of the word (http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/courses/womminor.html).

If that's too confusing for you, just replace it with the phrase "oppressed group". My point stands regardless.


Then why isn't the world atheist.

I don't understand your question.

The fact that people are capable of rejecting religion does not mean that they do. Any more than the fact that they are capable of embracing communism mean that there are no conservatives.

As you say, religion perpetuates itself across generations and because most people's parents are religious, so is the majority of the world.

But that does not mean that religion is "like race". Lots of things are promulgated by the family, including politics, something to which religion is far closer than "race" or "ethnicity".

Your attempts to link religion with race and therefore anti-religion with racism is simply disingenuous. The reason that it matters that religion is a choice is because it indicates what religion is:

It's an opinion.

Accordingly, this is a freedom of conscience issue and not a "discrimination" issue. Muslims who are actively prejeduced against have had their basic democratic freedoms violated, but it is still not comparable with segregation or slavery.

You see, race does not exist. And so anti-racism is about fighting the very foundations of the racial paradigm. Religion, on the other hand, is very much real. Not only is it a valid social construct, but it has its own set of implicit social and cultural values.

That makes addresing this issue much more complex. Black or asian or South American people do not oppress anyone by virtue of their "race", nor do they attempt to use their "race" as justification for any acts. Accodingly, any attempt to link "race" to behaviour is clearly racist hyperbole.

Religion, however, is a set of beliefs and so it is very much about
beehavour.

We can't simply "ignore" that truth because it's not politically convenient

As long as religion exists, so will religious prejeduce. There's nothing that we can do about that. Religion by itself nescessitates intolerance because it is predicated on "divine" supremecy as its foundation.

There is no excuse for discrimination, whether it is based on "race", "religion", or both; but there is a serious difference between racism and "faith" and to pretend otherwise is a incredibly foolhardy.

Religion is not "harmless" and it is not "personal". Accepting the premise that religon is "just like" race takes us down a very dangerous road. We must not allow attacks on free expression to occur, but we likewise cannot allow ourselves to be duped into supporting religion in any way.


You want to believe that Muslim men have this conspiracy to oppress their daughters.

I never said anything about a "conspiracy", I merely pointed out the objective fact that Muslim culture is implicitly misogynist and those who perpetuate that culture perpetuate misogeny as well.

It's right there in black and white arabic for anyone to read. The Koran is not "subtle" in commandments, nor does it shy away from "politically correct" issues.

Yes, in recent years many "liberal" Muslims have begun "re-interpreting" their holy texts to make them more compatible with contemporary sensibilities. But did you notice that this only happened once it became an issue? That until people began talking about rights, no one thought to "find" them in the Koran?

For twelve-hundred years, the "holy word of God" was taken to mean one thing and only once that thing became especially anachronistic, did anyone think of "re-interpretation".

No Muslim schollars spoke of "women's rights" in the 15th century. When the read that "men are above women", they assumed it to mean what it said!

Now, we are told that this is "alegory" and "hyperbole" and that "Allah didn't really mean it that way"... :rolleyes:

Sorry, but if this is the "word of God" we're talking about here, you can't "re-interpret" it to suit a political agenda. Islam, as written is a fiercely sexist, homophobic, and intolerant religion.

That not all Muslims choose to actually follow Islam in all its commandments is certainly true, but that doesn't mean that Islam is "tolerant", it just means that there are a lot of "bad Muslims".

Again, we cannot abide any persecution, no matter the "reason" given. But likewise, we cannot allow inherently reactionary dogmas to be promulgated unobstructed.

It is our responsibility to be honest and forthright in our message and that means opposing reaction wherever it lies. Even if it's not particularly "sensitive" to "religious values".


Woman are not just waiting for the Atheist man to come along and pull they veil from their head and start getting it on.

No, they're not, but then I'm not talking about women, I'm talking about girls.

What people choose to think is their own business and any attempt by the state or bougeoisie to intercede must be opposed. But the anti-"islamophobia" crowd goes much much further than that.

They say that not only do Muslims have a right to think what they want, but they also have a right to act on those thoughts. That "freedom of religion" is "inalienable" and that any attempt to stop reactionary behaviour is "intolerable western chavinism".

I'm still not sure if this paradigm applies to other religions. It seems to me that most of these "defenders of religious freedom" are less likely to be heard when the religion in question is less "sensitive".

So, while there are literally dozens of members on this site ready to speak up in the name of a Muslim father's "right" to cover his daughter in a burka. Not a soul is willing to stand up for the Morman father's "right" to marry off his 13 year old.

I guess that defending white fanatics is less "politically sexy" than defending minority ones. Kind of like how Israel is the "big cause" on the left even though, relatively speaking, it's remarkably unimportant.

In this post-colonialist subjectivist environment, it's easy to buy into the myth that "cultural values" really are "important" and that "western chauvinism" is as bad as "western imperialism".

The truth though is that "chauvinism" is really not the issue. No one here is suggesting that progressive ideas are better because their "western"; we're saying that they're better because they're progressive. And these rationaly superior ideas should be promoted instead of objectively inferior ones.

As I recall, you agreed with me on this question and conceded that there is a need to oppose "religious freedom" when the rights of others are at stake. Well, that's all I'm talking about.

Again, I do not support prejeduce against anyone. But I will also not tolerate oppression in the name of "faith".

Look, if a man, a non-muslim man, decides to dress his daughters in garbage bags with I am a piece of shit labeled on the front, and furthermore teaches them that they "must" wear these garbage bags at all times outside the house and that unless they wear them an invisible man in the sky will strike them down and make them suffer for all eternity... is that child abuse?

What about when the children become teenagers and "want" to wear the piece of shit bags?

Does "religious" freedom still apply? Are these teenagers' "rights" violated if we make them take these bags off? What if it's only in school?

That's basically the big "headscarf" controversy these days. No one's really saying that the police should break into people's homes to see what they're wearing, but many people (and the French government) are in favour of outlawing oppressive garments when in school.

Now, bviously, the best solution would be to not allow this man to raise children. To catch him from the beginning and prevent him from ever indoctrinating his daughters to believe the misogynistic crap he believes.

But, unfortunately, that's simply not an option in this case.

I, again, do not trust the state enough to allow it to unilaterally remove Muslim children from their homes. Likewise, I do not trust anyone enough to give them the power to universally examine all homes for signs of coercive indoctrination.

In the context of liberal capitalism, there is simply no means of "nipping" this problem "at the bud" and so, unfortunately, we are forced to act less directly.

School, you see, is already a public instition. One in which the rules differ greatly from society in general. Most schools have a dress code of some description and expanding that code to prohibit religious symbols, one of which is particularly oppressive, is not an unreasonably act.

It may not be pretty, it certainly isn't pefect, but it's basically the only option available to us at this point.


So you saying if you're religious, regardless if your proletariat, you have no interest in overthrowing capitalism.

I'm saying that very often the highly religious have a parallel interest in preserving their religion and their religious hierarhcy. That like nationalism, religious offiliation can act as a substitute identity which can undermine class awareness.

Due to its tendency to perpetuate anachronistic "cultural" values, religion can have a political effect disconnected from class relations. This means that class interests that once existed can still impact the present even if such motivations are no longer related to current economic conditions.

No one has a class interest in seeing young Muslim girls subjugated. Certainly the bourgeosie does not bennefit by having these potential employees cut off from the work-force and mainstream society; nor does it relish the prospect of not having them as consumers.

The proletariat certainly gains nothing as a class. There is no advantage to the workers, be they male or female, in having girls raised in such an abhorrent manner.

So which "class interest" is being served here? What social force is motivating these actions?

The answer, clearly, is religion.

Religion is not playing an "independent" role, but it is playing a detatched one. The anti-progressive stultifying effect of religion is such that it can persist moral norms, even once they've become fully irrelevent to material reality.

Society is simply more complex than class. Class is an essential feature no doubt, but it is oversimplistic to imagine that all social forces can be reduced to current class relationships. The echos of the past do not disappear that quickly.


However this is not the case, I merely asked what do you do with the religious proletariat. Should we target religious proleteriat as oppressers?

No.

But we should recognize that members of the proletariat are fully capable of oppressing others and that when they do so they should be opposed. Obviously that does not include the entire religious proletariat, but it very often does include specific religious proletarians.

I am adamently in favour of supporting Muslim workers when they are attacked, just like I am in favour of supporting all other workers when they are attacked. It doesn't matter if the workers in question are religious, racist, sexist, or all three. Their subjugation on class issues cannot be tolerated. But that does not mean that I am going to organize a "communists againt anti-racism" campaign!

Racism should be fought, even if a good number of racists happen to be working class. And when these working class racists appear on the wrong side of a protest, I will gladly and loudly condemn them for it.

Now, these racists could, rightfuly, complain that I am not maintaining "solidarity" with them. That I am failing to maintain "class unity" by condemning their "white pride" parade. After all, they see themselves and their "race" as the "victim" of "racial politics" and "Jewish conspiracy". Shouldn't I "support" them in their "struggle"?

The answer, clearly, is no. But from your logic, one would not conclude that.

Rather, the inevitable result of your line of argumentation is that all workers should be supported in everything they do, regardless of the specifics involved.

Otherwise, you claim, we risk "alienating" them from "class unity".

Well, frankly, the kind of people we're talking about here are not liable to be "united" with us anyway. Those Muslims who accept secular values and practice at least marginal rationality can and will be our allies. But those parents who would raist their daughters to subjugat themselves; who would teach them to "believe" such disgusting barbarism; the kind of people that you fear this headscarf law will "alienate"; they are already so "alien" from materialistic class struggle, that it's really not an issue.

These people are, after all, almost universally sexist, homophobic, and intolerant. They view Muslim society as "superior" and consider "degenerate" behaviour to be "deadly sin".

Until this worldview is discarded, they will have no place within a revolutionary movement and so their "alienation" should not be a concern.

That is not to say that these workers are not deserving of our support on class issues, of course they are, but they are simply too wrapped up in primative superstition to play a progressive role in combatting capitalism.


You two want to attack all religious people as equal of oppression.

Really? I do? Could you kindly point out where I said anything of the sort? Because as I recall, I specifically said the opposite, that I consider all proletarians, regardless of "belief" to be part of the revolutionary class. That I emphatically support the rights of working Muslims.

All that I reject is the use of their religion as a blanket excuse for oppressive actions on their part. It's much in the same way to how I oppose sexism but will still work with sexist workers on working-class issues.

I will gladly stand side to side with a striking factory worker as he fights for his right to fair treatment. But if returns home and beats his wife, I will stand by his wife as she has him arrested.

Class solidarity is not universal, it exists only on issues of class. And until the proletariat is rid of reactionary and regressive values, we will never be able to fully support every worker in everything that they do.

At this point in history, there's simply still too much cultural "baggage" for the kind of line you're promoting.At this point in history, there's simply still too much cultural "baggage" for the kind of line you're promoting.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Ace Ironbody+Sep 9 2006, 08:51 PM--> (Ace Ironbody @ Sep 9 2006, 08:51 PM) I don't suppose you could provide a link in which someone attacks religious people and/or proposes that they be oppressed in some manner. [/b]
Why do you make this kind of sophistical nitpick, when you know perfectly well what Heiro's referring to?

Stuff like this:

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2006, 03:38 PM

Andy [email protected] 26 2006, 11:37 AM
So if the FN was to gain power in France, and decreed an end to the construction of Mosques, would you back it?
Better still...demolish the ones that already exist!

Who needs that crap?

If Muslims responded by destroying Christian churches, that would be even better! :D

Everything that hurts religion helps us!

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
thread link (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=47911)

Now you're free to agree with that, or disagree with it. But you can't honestly pretend that it doesn't exist....

What's more, it's pretty apparently you disagree with those who oppose the persecution of people for their religion, and advocate that communists should fight against, for example, discrimination and police repression targeting Muslims.

A while back I started
this thread on why communists should oppose the persecution of people for their religion. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46523&st=0) A thread I recommend for anyone interested in this topic.

n your usual passive-aggressive way, you showed your disagreement by moving it (from Discrimination to the Religion subforum of Opposing Ideologies.).

And then, lo and behold, Hiero starts a thread to oppose discrimination against religious people...and you do the same thing again!

Just as you moved a thread criticizing anarchism to "Learning" with a snide comment, etc.

So why not just come out and say you support discrimination against religious people, already? Or at least that you don't want anyone to oppose it....

*****

Your approach is the approach of "apolitical atheists" - to quote the member title of Umoja, in this thread.

It's an approach I outgrew when I was about 14 years old, myself, which is why I have little patience with it sometimes. It's understandable as a brief reaction by someone's who's just realized the falsity of religion. But at some point you should grow up, get over that initial emotional reaction, and get on with politics in the material world.

Communists have the opposite approach - Marx summed it up:

I requested further that religion should be criticised in the framework of criticism of political conditions rather than that political conditions should be criticised in the framework of religion, since this is more in accord with the nature of a newspaper and the educational level of the reading public; for religion in itself is without content, it owes its being not to heaven but to the earth, and with the abolition of distorted reality, of which it is the theory, it will collapse of itself. Finally, I desired that, if there is to be talk about philosophy, there should be less trifling with the label “atheism” (which reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man), and that instead the content of philosophy should be brought to the people.

For a communist, the fight against religion is subordinated to the political class struggle. Only when material exploitation is ended can its ideal reflection, religion, be ended.

You have the opposite approach: the political class struggle is subordinated to apolitical atheism. Your theological views are allowed to become an obstacle in the way of wholeheartedly joining the fight against the perseuction of, for example, Muslims in the imperialist countries....a fight which necessarily includes the demand for the free excercise of religion.

****

Hiero's been criticized for saying that religion is a way of understanding the world.....well, religion is a stage in the development of that understanding. Even the most primitive superstitions are an attempt to explain events.

[LSD]

Now you're free to agree with that, or disagree with it. But you can't honestly pretend that it doesn't exist....

Like I said, people on message boards sometimes say stupid shit, but I wouldn't say that comments like that represent the mainstream of this forum or that they are part of a "constant attack" against religious people ...would you?


What's more, it's pretty apparently you disagree with those who oppose the persecution of people for their religion, and advocate that communists should fight against, for example, discrimination and police repression targeting Muslims

The grammer of that sentence was somewhat confused, so I'm having a little trouble deciphering it, but are you saying that support attacks on religious people?

That's somewhat bizarre considering that in the very thread you linked to I indicate my opposition to such attacks.


Originally posted by me+--> (me)
Severian
In all these cases, the only conceivable communist position is to oppose the division and oppression.

Absolutely.

Our duty is to the international proletariat, the entire international proletariat.

The workers of the world deserve liberation no matter what reactionary ideas they happen to hold. That doesn't mean, though, that we shouldn't try and sway them from these bad ideas.

Much of the proletariat today is homophobic and sexist, but these values cannot be part of any post-revolutionary society.

As communists, we should not buy into religious "labeling" and view seperate religious groups as distinct "races" or "peoples". That would be accepting the paradigmatic lie of the romantic nationalist.

Rather, we must view religion like we view racism and sexism, as beliefs to be argued against, but not as justifications for oppression.[/b]


[i]n your usual passive-aggressive way, you showed your disagreement by moving it (from Discrimination to the Religion subforum of Opposing Ideologies.).

:lol:

There's nothing "passive-aggressive" in my moderation of this board. Topics related to religion belong in the Religion forum. So do topics about religious people.

Discrimination is intended for discussions regarding "social discrimination"; i.e., those based on race, gender, sexuality, etc...

After all, any political issue could be thought of as an issue of "discrimination". The word is just that broad. And accordingly not every topic related to discrimination can be in the Discrimination forum, otherwise we'd hardly have any activity in any other forum!

The question of whether religious discrimination is appropriate or not ultimately comes down to the question of what is religion and what is its social role.

As I see it, that's more appropriate for this forum than Discrimination. You can disagree, but I was the one elected as an administrator of this forum and I was the one appointed to mod Religion.

As I recall, you were so pissed of the last time this happened, you tried to shut down the Religion forum completely. Hopefully, this time you'll respond more maturely.

But I'm not going to change my opinion on this subject just 'cause you don't like it.

Sorry.


Just as you moved a thread criticizing anarchism to "Learning" with a snide comment, etc.

Did I? I don't actually recall that. :P

I would guess, though, that it was probably a rather ignorant attack on Anarchism. That's the only reason that I would move it out of Theory.

You're not going to try to shut down Learning now, are you? :rolleyes:

[Severian]

Originally posted by Ace [email protected] 11 2006, 08:34 PM

Now you're free to agree with that, or disagree with it. But you can't honestly pretend that it doesn't exist....

Like I said, people on message boards sometimes say stupid shit, but I wouldn't say that comments like that represent the mainstream of this forum or that they are part of a "constant attack" against religious people ...would you?
Who (besides you) said anything about mainstream? I don't think this board even has one.

But I'd say that Redstar-like views are frequently if not constantly expressed, yes. Especially in this subforum. You haven't noticed that a fair number of posters tend to repeat his ideas?

You seem semi-influenced by 'em yourself.

I'm gonna ignore the snide remainder of your post...why not, for once, be straight-up and say where you stand?

Should communists fight for the freedom to worship, and express religious beliefs? Should communists fight against the persecution of religious minorities? Should communists fight against discrimination on the basis of creed as well as "race"?

Or not?

[Guest1]

I think this needs to be salvaged from the religion forum. This is a theoretical debate on how we can not make ourselves irrelevant to the religious proletariat by just attacking them, and instead try to reach out to them and bring them out of religion by convincing them patiently of our ideas and our methods of action.

With your permission, ace, I'd like to move this to theory.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I don't see why communists should defend people from religious persecution any more than is neccessary. For instance, the Holocaust was unnecessary and a horrible genocide. Again, I must stress that religious people are victims. We should actively attempt to eliminate religious belief without alienating the religious proletariat. Someone who is a Nazi, for instance, is also a victim of indoctrination - they are not thinking logically. It is essential that we actively attempt to eliminate the Nazi ideology. However, physically assaulting Nazis is not the answer. Violence is a tool to be used when neccessary. It is not the cure to an ideological issue. The material/social conditions revolving around that issue must be dealt with first.

[Guest1]

I don't think this relates to Nazism.

This is about reaching out to normal, working people. Not crazy middle-class and lumpen nuts who shoot workers.

[LSD]

Who (besides you) said anything about mainstream?

Hiero, in his original post:

Originally posted by Hiero+--> (Hiero)What has happened on this forum, and with many "Socialists" parties, is they have attacked the religious. They blame the proletarait for their ignorance. In the case of Islam, they help the bourgeois by singling out people for their religion.[/b]

His complaint was not that the occasional member makes disparranging comments regarding religion, but that "what has happened" on this board is "constant religious bashing".

Insofar as "redstar-esque" views, while they happen, far more people seem to adhere to the soft Marxist approach of viewing the religious as victims rather than "enemies".

Especially when it comes to Islam, most people on this board appear perfectly willing to stand by religous comrades. Again, if you contend the opposite, please provide some examples of posts in which members of this board (other than redstar) advocated religious persecution.


...why not, for once, be straight-up and say where you stand?

I already did.


Should communists fight for the freedom to worship, and express religious beliefs?

Communists should fight for the freedom of conscience and association. Obviously that includes religious belief and expression.

But, no, we shouldn't conduct a special "fight" for "religious rights" as, from a communist perspective, there is no such thing.


Should communists fight against the persecution of religious minorities?

Of course.


Should communists fight against discrimination on the basis of creed as well as "race"?

Again, that's a matter of freedom of conscience, so yes.


Che y Marijuana
I think this needs to be salvaged from the religion forum. This is a theoretical debate on how we can not make ourselves irrelevant to the religious proletariat by just attacking them

No it's not. It's a discussion about how "discrimination against [the] religious" is "anti-materialist" and about how religion is "just like race".

Moved back!

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Nazism was an extreme example. But the same type of reasoning applies. Someone who is the victim of propaganda should be treated like a victim, but, in cases where they threaten the liberty/security of others, they should be dealt with (using violence in extreme circumstances) in the most appropriate and fair manner.

Still, I feel it is essential that the left distance itself from religion. It is inherently irrational.

[Hiero]

First of all, yes they are. The sex ratio of the middle east is somewhere around 1.05 men to women. But, besides, I'm using the term "minority" in the classical feminist meaning of the word.

If that's too confusing for you, just replace it with the phrase "oppressed group". My point stands regardless.

It's not confusing, it's just retarded. Minority implies a significantly small percentage.


Really? I do? Could you kindly point out where I said anything of the sort? Because as I recall, I specifically said the opposite, that I consider all proletarians, regardless of "belief" to be part of the revolutionary class. That I emphatically support the rights of working Muslims.

Only after I asked the question. But still there has been not real Marxist answer from the dogmatic anti-religious on how to deal with the religious proletarait.


No it's not. It's a discussion about how "discrimination against [the] religious" is "anti-materialist" and about how religion is "just like race".

Moved back!

Don't be stupid. Who ever said it is like race?

The thread is about what action should Communist take against religious proletariat. It's theoritical, not theological or pro-religion.

It's just some people are idiots when discussing religion, they can't talk about it in context of the discussion.


Give me somthing religion provides, that say... Secular Humanism doesn't?

Religion isn't necessary, and for the most part 99% of it isn't true.

Great Work, you pointed pointed out to a Communist the errors of religion. Well done.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Ace Ironbody+Sep 9 2006, 08:51 PM--> (Ace Ironbody @ Sep 9 2006, 08:51 PM) I don't suppose you could provide a link in which someone attacks religious people and/or proposes that they be oppressed in some manner.[/b]

Next, I do exactly that, so....


Originally posted by Ace Ironbody+Sep 11 2006, 10:58 PM--> (Ace Ironbody @ Sep 11 2006, 10:58 PM)Again, if you contend the opposite, please provide some examples of posts in which members of this board (other than redstar) advocated religious persecution.[/b]

Heh. No true Scotsman puts sugar on their porridge, huh? How specious.


[email protected]


Severian
Should communists fight for the freedom to worship, and express religious beliefs?
Communists should fight for the freedom of conscience and association. Obviously that includes religious belief and expression.

But, no, we shouldn't conduct a special "fight" for "religious rights" as, from a communist perspective, there is no such thing.

So your opposition to discrimination against religious people....is so qualified as to be meaningless. In practice, and when it comes down to concrete cases, it sometimes turns into the opposite.

Also, your administrative actions speak louder than your equivocal, hedged words.

[LSD]

Heh. No true Scotsman puts sugar on their porridge, huh? How specious.

You're right, I asked a question and you answered it.

It still doesn't prove Hiero's initial accusation, however, namely that those kind of comments are "constant" or define "what has happened on this forum".


So your opposition to discrimination against religious people....is so qualified as to be meaningless.

Nonsense.

I oppose any unjustifable violation of fundamental freedoms, I honestly couldn't care whether the expression or association or whatever being violated is secular or religious.

I'm not going to go out of my way to defend religion, but I have no patience for discrimination of any kind.

And despite your insinuations, you've still to provide a single example where I indicated otherwise.

This is your latest game, isn't it Severian? Instead of responding to what people say, you respond to what you think they "really mean".

Whether it's TC's "right-wing-ness", my "prejeduce", or my secret "liberalism" (or was it fascism? You've called me so many names at this point, it's getting hard to keep track), you never actually present your allegations outright, you just throw a whole bunch of names against the wall and hope that no one challenges it.

Well, it's getting tiresome.

This thread is supposed to be about discussion religion, religious people, and the relationship thereof. Instead, and for no apparent reason, you've decided to turn into a thread about me and about how much you don't like me.

Not that I'm surprised, mind you, it's become your style lately. It's really quite sad, actually. I remember when you were one of the better posters on this board, now you spend your time calling people names and starting endless threads to "reveal" members' "secret politics".

It's really got to stop.

[SPK]

Originally posted by Hiero+Sep 11 2006, 06:35 AM--> (Hiero @ Sep 11 2006, 06:35 AM)Both you (Ace Ironbody) and SPK addressed me as if I am an apologist for religion. This is completely wrong.[/b]
Hiero, I did not accuse you of being an apologist for religion. The purpose of my post was to show how the most reactionary, politically engaged tendencies in religion -- in the u.s. -- are a direct, immediate arm of the capitalist state and must be smashed along with the capitalist state during a revolutionary process. It was a statement about the objective, day-to-day function and purpose of these religious institutions, i.e. their current, institutional role as a core bastion of support for the bourgeoisie.


[email protected] 11 2006, 08:45 PM
For a communist, the fight against religion is subordinated to the political class struggle. Only when material exploitation is ended can its ideal reflection, religion, be ended. You have the opposite approach: the political class struggle is subordinated to apolitical atheism. Your theological views are allowed to become an obstacle in the way of wholeheartedly joining the fight against the persecution of, for example, Muslims in the imperialist countries....a fight which necessarily includes the demand for the free exercise of religion.

Yes, the question of religion must be subordinated to the political class struggle. Meaning, our approach to that question cannot be determined, as Severian has noted, merely by an abstract understanding of the anti-objective, anti-scientific character of religion or by an “apolitical atheism”. Instead, our approach must be determined by the requirements for developing revolutionary movements, overthrowing the capitalist state, and building a communist society. In the u.s. context, that means, indisputably, that the dominant religious institutions must be seriously challenged before any revolution is going to happen and that they must be smashed during such a revolutionary process.

In reading the rest of this thread, as well as the thread to which Severian put a link in his first post, it seems (?) that most of the controversy arises when the question of the oppression of Muslim peoples in the western countries arises. Or, more generally, when the question of discrimination against certain religions arises.

The interesting question, I think, is this. We in the u.s. must smash the most reactionary religious institutions supporting capitalism and the ruling elites – and this means a lot of churches and tens of millions of their most ardent followers. How do we do that at the same time that we support the bourgeois democratic rights of those followers of oppressed religions? Or, to put this question more abstractly. In the state or legal sphere, religion will be treated in one way, i.e. according to the principle of equality, i.e. bourgeois democratic right. However, in the sphere of the revolutionary political struggle, religion must be treated very differently and not according to some abstract principle where all religious institutions are rendered equivalent or the same. A revolutionary political struggle will treat religious institutions with power (in terms of their integral relationship to the bourgeoisie) one way, i.e. they will be smashed. The revolutionary political struggle will treat those without that power another way: let’s say, for sake of argument (I’m obviously skeptical about how this can work), that the bourgeois democratic rights of those religious institutions will be supported. This difference in approach is strategic. We can’t simply declare that all religion is reactionary, or otherwise we’ll end up in a position where we have to shoot a lot more people. That is not likely possible and is not at all desirable anyway. Neither can we simply decide that the question of religious institutions is neutral or moot and ignore the power of certain religious institutional strata that are now central to the continuation of the capitalist system. As my previous post indicated, I don’t think we will ever reach a revolutionary situation with that kind of approach.

Now how are those two differing approaches going to work out in practice? How will this bifurcated strategy play out in the real world?

[Forward Union]

as you quoted me I'll make a responce...


You're not just insulting a religion, your insulting a way life.

This really, is unnavoidable. Communism itself offends most religious people, materialism is the complete antithesis of religious spiritualism. We want to abolish organised religion, and debunk all the bullshit lies and inherant sexism, homophobia etc.. in their religious books. How insulting is that?


You're insulting the proletariat

No im not, im insulting Islam. A very anti-working class construction.



Society and cultures is not something we chose

I wasn't attacking society or culture (directly) I was attacking religion. I know a lot of people who are complete cultural chauvinists, anti-multiculturalists, etc. Who are stone cold atheists. You can love your culture, and reject the attached religion. I was brought up in a western culture, and have been more than able to reject my religious and superstitious upbringing, without much outside influence. I rejected God, just by thinking about it a bit.


We are born into a already made society and culture. This includes religion. Would you say that people choose their class, their education, their life outcomes. If a poor man comes a criminal, has he made the choice to adobted criminality?

You can't rationalise your class status, and then decide based on all the evidence, your rich. Or decide whether you should or shouldn't steal, you do it because you have to survive. You don't however, need god. You can think about god, weigh up the evidence, and decide it's absurd to believe in superstition and consequently reject it, (Like pretty much everyone here on this forum has) religion isn't attached to any particular class, and being religious is not an inherant part of what it means to be working class - we all have acess to scientific argument, if you ignore it, you are completely accountable for your superstitions. Unless your suggesting the working class is too stupid to reject elements of it's culture?

To say 'offending religious superstition and dogma is offending the proletariat' is absolute bollocks of the highest caliber.

If you were to say that offending religion isn't a very good way of attackign religious dogma, and may in some cases just alienate the religious proletariat. Which is bad. Then I'd agree. But that's not what you said.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Ace [email protected] 12 2006, 05:06 PM

Heh. No true Scotsman puts sugar on their porridge, huh? How specious.

You're right, I asked a question and you answered it.

It still doesn't prove Hiero's initial accusation, however, namely that those kind of comments are "constant" or define "what has happened on this forum".
Neither would another one more quote. So you'd just be back demanding one more, then one more....


This thread is supposed to be about discussion religion, religious people, and the relationship thereof. Instead, and for no apparent reason, you've decided to turn into a thread about me and about how much you don't like me.

Oh, come off it. You could have responded to Hiero's points, and you still could. Instead you've chosen to start a specious debate about what other people on this board think. Plus deliver a lecture about how religion is bad, which everyone already knows.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 12:34 AM
Yes, the question of religion must be subordinated to the political class struggle. Meaning, our approach to that question cannot be determined, as Severian has noted, merely by an abstract understanding of the anti-objective, anti-scientific character of religion or by an “apolitical atheism”.
Glad you agree; and thanks for going on to engage the political issues. Though I don't agree with you on them, on the plus side your approach is political rather than theological.


Instead, our approach must be determined by the requirements for developing revolutionary movements, overthrowing the capitalist state, and building a communist society. In the u.s. context, that means, indisputably, that the dominant religious institutions must be seriously challenged before any revolution is going to happen and that they must be smashed during such a revolutionary process.

"Indisputably"?
I can and do dispute that, particularly the second part. I might point out, for starters, that's been the pattern in few if any victorious revolutions, historically.

Those priests and bishops who declare themselves enemies of the revolution, or aid the armed counterrevolution, sure. Rightist or other pro-capitalist political movements which cloak themselves in religion - definitely. But then, part of opposing those is ripping off that cloak to reveal the class and political reality of those movements - not accepting their claim to represent Christianity, Islam, etc.

That many people on this board agree with the ultrarightists' claim, by saying (meaninglessly) that all "really" religious people support reactionary political positions....is a huge political blunder. Aiding the ultrarightists by helping keep the cloak on, rather than ripping it off.

I can only explain this blunder by concluding these people aren't really thinking about politics at all - rather they're thinking about theology. Proselyzing for atheism is more important than the political struggle, for them.

I think this is all overly abstract, anyway. Trying to express in the most general way what will happen "during the revolutionary process" - when we face these questions today.

Answer those questions today, in the living class struggle, and communist theory flows from that. Not the other way around.

Keeping that in mind, it's a lot easier to answer questions like this:


In reading the rest of this thread, as well as the thread to which Severian put a link in his first post, it seems (?) that most of the controversy arises when the question of the oppression of Muslim peoples in the western countries arises. Or, more generally, when the question of discrimination against certain religions arises.

The interesting question, I think, is this. We in the u.s. must smash the most reactionary religious institutions supporting capitalism and the ruling elites – and this means a lot of churches and tens of millions of their most ardent followers. How do we do that at the same time that we support the bourgeois democratic rights of those followers of oppressed religions?

In practice, is it hard to tell the difference between "Operation Save America" and similar "Christian" ultrarightist gangs - and the religious minorities they target?

Nope, not unless you start inventing unnecesary problems. One attacks the other: we defend the victims against the pogromists. And in the process, enlist Muslim workers in the ranks of the workers' movement.

The rest of your post, I think, poses a question wrongly because it starts from these wrong premises. I might add, also, that I don't see any point in creating a dichotomy between "legal/state" and "revolutionary political struggle" unless you plan to recognize rights on paper but not in practice. Rather, the state and its laws are instruments of revolutionary political struggle.....

[Delta]

So many good responses here there is very little to add. It is of course absurd to say that we shouldn't absolutely oppose religious superstition and decision-making based on "faith" just because many members of the working class have been unable to shrug this off. If we treated every issue like that, we'd also be sexist, racist, and support capitalistic exploitation and imperialistic wars.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 10:23 PM
It is of course absurd to say that we shouldn't absolutely oppose religious superstition and decision-making based on "faith" just because many members of the working class have been unable to shrug this off.
Who suggested that?


If we treated every issue like that, we'd also be sexist, racist, and support capitalistic exploitation and imperialistic wars.

Now this does have something to do with the thread; it does illustrate a common fallacy of the theology-over-politics crowd.

In that sentence, you're comparing being religious to being "sexist, racist, and support capitalistic exploitation and imperialistic wars."

But one of these things is not like the others. Your examples are all political positions. Religion is not, and religious people have a range of political views.

[Axel1917]

We should not discriminate against them. It is not like most religious people are Pat Robertson types anyway. Don't listen to those mindless redstar2000 drones. They are extremely sectarian and are totally opposed to Marxism.

I am short on time at the moment, so I would recommend a bit of reading on the subject at hand:

V.I. Lenin: Socialism and Religion. Online at http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm

Alan Woods: Marxism and Religion. Online at]
http://www.marxist.com/Theory/marxism_and_religion.html

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2006, 03:36 AM
They are extremely sectarian and are totally opposed to Marxism.
:lol:

[ichneumon]

Religion teaches that suffering is nescessary, Communism teaches that it is wrong. Indeed, communism is predicated on ending oppression and suffering, while religion tells us to tolerate our misery because God will "reward" us in "heaven".

that is an interesting observation. "so long as any sentient being continues to suffer, i shall not pass into nirvana" - the boddhisattva vow.

the big question being, what is suffering and how does one end it?

[Cryotank Screams]

All religious people are ignorant - at least when it comes to their believing in religion. The proletariat are victims of religion, in many cases, however, and need to be helped.

Well said.


To me thats just an openly racist remark about a persons beliefs, and the proletariat are not a victim of religion. Religion can help them in so many ways. from giving them money to helping them get through an area of life emotionally.

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."-Nietzsche.

Yes, the working class, and society in general are all victims of religion; the force themselves into what Freud would describes it as a father-complex, and believe in such utter nonsense, no matter how “noble,” said idiocy maybe.

If they get through something emotionally with a spectral crutch take that crutch away and their back to where they started, give them worldly ways to get over said psychological issues and nothing can take that away and they would be stronger.

"The gods retain the threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruetly of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them."-Freud.

How intelligent does it sound to believe that all of human intelligence came from eating a piece of fruit 5,000 years ago that was offered to us by a talking serpent? How intelligent does it sound, that a plant, or a cat is really a relative? How intelligent is it to believe that some imaginary brat sitting on a useable throne on high, created this human ant farm for the sole purpose of the human species to bow down to him and be his servants?

Yet, for thousands of years, millions, even billions of people have been tortured, killed, and oppressed all for the sake of religion. Hundreds of scientific advances have been stopped in the name of religion. How long must we allow these fools to keep and defend their precious Meme?!

"Lycurgus, Numa, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, all these great rogues, all these great thought-tyrants, knew how to associate the divinities they fabricated with their own boundless ambition."-Sade.

"To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell."-Sade.

"It is only through the influence of individuals who can set an example and whom masses recognize as their leaders that they can be induced to perform the work and undergo the renunciations on which the existence of civilization depends."-Freud.

[Ka'aria]

I dont know that much about marxism but that is why im am here. to learn and to become no igrant about the subject. I consider myself muslim and i sugjest that you look around in a muslim forum. maybe then you will learn that TRUE islam is all about brother hood. muslim are some of the most classless people. why do you think during the pilgramige everyone were the same thing. and when you go into mosque you have to take off all symbals of power or money.

i think the islam you are refering to is the leaders of islamis contrys that only clam to be muslim so there people will go alone with what they say. maybe some day you will make it to mecca as some1 that wants to learn and be unigrant. you will see a brotherhood there like no other. every color and race 2gether as one. one voice.

i am by no means trying to convert or endorce. and this will probley be one of my only posts concering my religion but im just trying to defend.

i am by no means trying to say that islam as a structure is flawless but nothing is in my oppion.

im just trying to let you know that the brotherhood of islam at its TRUE form, that it was ment to be at, is a classless socity. it is not at that point now becaue of greed and coruption. but we are working on it.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Ka'[email protected] 2 2006, 07:29 PM
I dont know that much about marxism but that is why im am here. to learn and to become no igrant about the subject.
Good. 'Course, not everybody on this board considers themselves Marxist, and those who do have disagreements about what that means. The best way to learn about Marxism may be to read Marx directly, starting with the Communist Manifesto.


I consider myself muslim and i sugjest that you look around in a muslim forum. maybe then you will learn that TRUE islam is all about brother hood.

Who determines that one thing is "TRUE islam" and the other isn't? There are plenty of disagreements among people who consider themselves Muslim - unless you have a direct pipeline from God, who are you to say what is and isn't "TRUE islam"?


muslim are some of the most classless people. why do you think during the pilgramige everyone were the same thing. and when you go into mosque you have to take off all symbals of power or money.

That doesn't make anyone classless. It just means they're pretending they're classless.

Some people still have more money and power than others. When you pretend they don't, it just makes it harder to change things. The first step in correcting a problem is to admit it exists.


i think the islam you are refering to is the leaders of islamis contrys that only clam to be muslim so there people will go alone with what they say.

Even more, people may be referring to the "Muslim" opposition groups which claim to represent "true Islam" against the current governments. When they've succeeded in setting up their own governments, it's often been even worse - as in Afghanistan, Sudan, in many ways Iran. Certainly their concept of sharia is worse.

But since you mention those governments, isn't most of the Muslim (especially Sunni) clergy on their payroll? So again, why is your version "TRUE islam" and not theirs?


maybe some day you will make it to mecca as some1 that wants to learn and be unigrant. you will see a brotherhood there like no other. every color and race 2gether as one. one voice.

Really? I could give examples of violence among Muslims right there in Mecca, during the pilgrimage.

In July 1987, 400 people died as a result of Saudi riot police violently breaking up a protest by Iranian pilgrims. Just to give one example.

And even when people do act like "brothers" there in Mecca, they go home and go right back to exploiting each other.


i am by no means trying to say that islam as a structure is flawless but nothing is in my oppion.

Certainly nothing is perfect. Unfortunately, some people seem to think their religions are perfect - the eternal and unchanging word of God.


im just trying to let you know that the brotherhood of islam at its TRUE form, that it was ment to be at, is a classless socity. it is not at that point now becaue of greed and coruption. but we are working on it.

Islam's been around for many centuries. If it was going to produce a classless society, wouldn't it have done so by now? If preaching religion was going to make people stop being greedy and corrupt, wouldn't that have worked by now?

But when greed and corruption are the only way to survive and prosper, in a society based on exploitation, no amount of preaching will change that. It's necessary to organize society and the economy in such a way that it encourages cooperation, not dog-eat-dog competition.

In contrast, Marxism explains that it takes more than an idea or a belief to produce a classless society.

Marxism explains how material, economic conditions produced class society, thousands of years ago - and how capitalism today is producing the material, economic conditions that make it possible to end class society. And the modern class of wage-workers which can only end its exploitation by making that possibility a reality.

[Ka'aria]

when i say muslims i mean the true muslims and when i say true muslims or true islam i mean the ideal of the to that is stated by the quran. as i said its not perfict.

but like i said im not here to endorce.

and yes islam has been around for so long, maybe thats why its so mest up? going for 2 long in the wrong derection?

Was it plate or socritese that talked about the endless cycle of revolution and restart. 2 long in the rong derection can cause were islam is at now, and christaity for that mater. maybe all islam needs in 2 restart but use the quran and reinturpit it. maybe thats what the whole world needs a restart and reinturprataion of life in gernal