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One could say the same about the bourgeois class. What about them? Will they have "equality"? No. There shall be no bourgeois class at all.
So for reactionary religious people who want to set up a clerical class system, caste system or whatever, the same applies. There shall be no such class hierarchy. This has to be one of the "checks and balances" kept by the proletarian democracy whenever such a thing forms.
What about religious people who don't believe in such a system? Will they still be restricted? It seems a lot of people on this forum think so. I think it is a bit rich to say the goal of socialism is equality when that is defined as 'equality for all those who agree with us'. It is fine if it is NOT defined as such, but with the way many people talk, I sometimes doubt that talk of equality goes further than their lips.
On the wings of green birds our martyrs fly..
What might eventually happen is that capitalist, religious and other kinds of reactionaries team up and oppose the workers' revolution. All of them, even if they don't team up, will have to be defeated one way or the other.
My idea of a socialist society allows full freedom for everyone as long as that freedom does not impinge the freedom of others. So, if we allow "freedom" for capitalists to set up wage slavery or religious fanatics to set up a clerical hierarchy, that will not make any sense. Your freedom ends where my nose begins.
If people want to be religious they can worship whatever the hell they want on one condition: It must be in the privacy of their own homes. No preaching! There's nothing I hate more than preachers, especially the ones who say that non-believers are going to burn in hell for being non-believers(I have heard this from personal experience).
Economic Left/Right: -9.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.15
"There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen." - Lenin
Surely they have freedom of speech :P
On the wings of green birds our martyrs fly..
ye we would be no better than the society will live in now if we didnt let them say what they want.
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Ní Neart Go Cur Le Chéile
One revolutionary act a day can change the world
Formerly - Rise As One
Without hierarchy religion (especially organised religion) could not exist however this doesn't unfortunately mean belief in supernatural nonsense will disappear.
thats a good point, mans belief in the supernatural will probably not end because some people feel good for some reason at the idea that there is an invisible person in the sky watching us and caring about what we do
"Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." - Lenny Bruce
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." -Oscar Wilde
I believe that organized religion can not exist without a class system, the arguements are easy to pull up as well. Most religion creates a class system in its own ranks not to mension uses the economic classes are used as "poaching" grounds. They use the poor as a great tool for building useless and wasted support by granting the poor with "some magical place in th clouds where they will live happily ever after." as for belief in the supernatural, I do not see how this is a problem. I know some people tend to think that the supernatural is BS but to be honest all truely supernatural things are easily explained by real-hard science. Ghosts are just bioelectrical impulses left over from someone who has died in an extremely signal heavy environment (like being angry or sad, or something) hence why you can detect them with an EMF machine. See the supernatural is explainable, some try to say it is unreal or unexplainale simply because they don't want it to be.
[FONT=System]Welcome to the Revelution Line. Where we're on all the time. Giving a new meaning to "Red State."[/FONT]
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[FONT=System]"A revelution never comes with a warnin', a revelution never sends you an omen. A revelution just arrives like the mornin', sound the alarm and wake up the snorin' " - Micheal Franti[/FONT]
There is no "good reason" to believe in religion - ever. The only reason which is remotely reasonable is fear.
- August
If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.
- Karl Marx
I wasn't saying that it was a good reason i was saying that some people feel better believing in that kind of crap.
"Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." - Lenny Bruce
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." -Oscar Wilde
Heck yeah it can: the Christian community in Acts, the New Monastic movement, this stuff proves that we can follow G-d without domination... if anything because domination is counter to G-d.
Previously Green Apostle
[FONT=Arial]A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. --Henry Rollins[/FONT]
Organized religion maybe but whatabout un-organized? Modern examples show that it's possible and in my opinion, desirable.
Previously Green Apostle
[FONT=Arial]A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. --Henry Rollins[/FONT]
There should be no freedom of speach for reactionaries.
At least you are honest.
So what is it that gives you a mandate to decide whom is and who is not, reactionary? Considering that the vast majority of the world, and indeed the vast majority of the working class, believe in some form of 'higher power', where does your democratic mandate exist to tell anyone else what to believe?
What makes you make that assertion? I am yet to talk to a religious person who, when asked 'why do you believe in God' replies; 'fear'. Regardless, what is it that such a supposed fear produces? I know that 'fear not of humanity' is an Islamic doctrine that makes believers not submit to any system imposed by individuals.
Amina Wadud gave an interesting analogy. In any given interaction between people, Allah makes a horizontal or vertical plane, upon which She is always the highest point. As distance is not an attribute of God, and therefore such a 'highness' is absolute, it means that any interaction between two humans must be made equal:
......Allah
me.....you
or alternatively,
you
.........Allah
me
So in this case, the hierarchy that exists creates equality, not oppression.
Speaking of hierarchies, this is how I see it in your head:
Atheists
Theists
On the wings of green birds our martyrs fly..
Of course not - religious individuals do not have reasons for their faith... that's why it's called "faith." Faith is, by definition, 'belief without reason/evidence.' (This is partly why it's so problematic.)
The reason why people have faith is indoctrination, conditioning, fear, guilt, etc...
The fear of which I speak is the fear of the unknown, fear of existence, an inability to cope with material reality, etc... Why else would you invent an imaginary being who is always watching you, always your friend, punishes those who don't think like you and don't like you, etc... it's like an all-powerful teddy bear.
Well that's nice and slightly poetic, but "Allah" is an imaginary figure, so all that really means quite little...
- August
If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.
- Karl Marx
To begin with, faith is not really used in the Islamic lexicon (the closest word being 'iman' but that does not really translate the same).
Secondly, which of those reasons describes me?
As my Sheikh said, 'God is not something you can put into your pocket and call your buddy'... if anything, Islamic 'faith' is defined by fear (taqwa) of God as much as it is by knowledge of rahma (mercy). I found Islam at a point in my life where I had LEFT the dangerous situation I was in. I had lived with the 'knowledge' that I would probably not live to see 21, was stabbed and shot at both, yet I scorned religion still.
This discourse of 'fear' defines religion as weakness, justifying the superiority complex of those who hold it. The religious are described as lacking agency, ignorant and unable to decide for themselves, there beliefs being defined by 'indoctrination'. This is a rhetoric of superiority, patronissing, dismissive and wholly arrogant.
It speaks of 'crutches' and 'blindfolds', ignorant of the power that taqwa can bring to an individual.
A brother I know was car jacked, had a gun shoved in the face of him and his wife both. The man demanded that they get out of the car. He looked the jacker straight in the eyes and told him 'I only fear God, what do you fear?'. The man was so shaken that he dropped the gun and ran. If this is the crutch that religion gives, no fear of creation, then I am happy with it.
This was not a debate about whether Allah exists or not, it is about whether or not religion can exist in a classless society. To which I would hope that her point was entirely pertinent.
On the wings of green birds our martyrs fly..
Yes
Both Islam and Christianity can go on a classless society, that is because both religions is beliving that one human is equal to an other human. but of course when we talk about Hindusim where there is classes, there it would be huge difference.
BTW im a beliving Muslim, and a not-fullblood communist.
"Can religion exist in a classless society?" Yes. Religion isn't generated by the class division of society. Religion is generated by the fact that some people talk themselves into believing, or trying to believe and pretending to believe, whatever suggestion seems comforting to them. Human beings are the only animals that know that they have to die, and this conflicts with the instinct for survival that all animals have. This conflict makes people feel fear and seek a resolution. As soon as they learn about the hypothesis that death is not an ending, but a trip to another world, where a spirit goes after departing from the material body, some percentage of the people are immediately comforted by that suggestion. They also teach that story to their children to provide a quick and easy answer to difficult questions: "Grandma went to a happy place called heaven." The holding onto a package of easy answers is addictive. There's nothing in this process that will end due to the construction of a classless society. There will be quantitative differences, probably a smaller percentage of the people being driven to take comfort in mythological stories. Since this difference has to be quantitative, the answer has to be yes, religion will exist.
There should be limited freedom of speech for these people. I don't want to hear their false fairy tale fantasy crap.
Economic Left/Right: -9.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.15
