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(If this is in the wrong forum, I apologize)
I know that Marx had his theory on religion, and I know the basics of that, but right now I've got my religion and I strongly believe in it. Does this mean I cannot be a real communist since I've got religion?
Short answer: yes.
Listen to the worm of doubt for it speaks truth.
The Redstar2000 Papers
Also see this NEW SITE:@nti-dialectics
no, of course you can still be a real communist! communism is about love, and as long as your interpretation of religion is not blind obediance to dogma, but is rather something like a personal relationship/understanding with a higher level of consciousness/being, then you are welcome to join the communist cause. religious and anti-religious dogmatism are one in the same.
"logic - the dance of those impotent to create"
tristan tzara
"to the degree that necessity is socially dreamed, the dream becomes necessity. the spectacle is the bad dream of enchained modern society which ultimately expresses only its desire to sleep. the spectacle is the guardian of this sleep."
guy debord
Don't worry about these eurocentric dogmatic marixst leninst. You can be religous, spiritual and still want rights for the proleteriat. There is no contradiction.
Well, Marx saw communism being an era were that established religion sort of faded away.
I personally beleive that religion is acceptible, but some communist don't.
The question is, what do you think?
"We are now becoming a mass party all at once, changing abruptly to an open organisation, and it is inevitable that we shall be joined by many who are inconsistent (from the Marxist standpoint), perhaps we shall be joined even by some Christian elements, and even by some mystics. We have sound stomachs and we are rock-like Marxists. We shall digest those inconsistent elements. Freedom of thought and freedom of criticism within the Party will never make us forget about the freedom of organising people into those voluntary associations known as parties."
--Lenin
Socialist Party (Debs Tendency)
I think U would be a BETTER communist without the chains of tradition and religion.
I find it hard to find a compromise between religion and reason. But as long as u leave religious teachings out of ur thought pattern, u can still be a good comrade.
Do not say that we have nothing,
We shall be masters of all under heaven!
My take on it:
Marxism is anchored in philosophical materialism, the view that the material world is primary and ideas are reflections of matter. It necessarily follows from this perspective that religion/god(s) were ideas created by man. I'm not sure if this view could be combined with religious beliefs without some sort of conflict.
As for being a communist, anyone who advocates a stateless, classless society and the abolition of private property is a "real communist," regardless of their religious beliefs. As a historical movement, communism (small c) existed before Marx/Engels.
I was really hoping that I would escape the duty of giving the "long answer".
So much for that.
Let's look at these "answers"...
If anything, it's much more about hate...the feeling that a slave has for the situation of being a slave as well as for her master.
Indeed you can...but that does not make you a communist.
It doesn't even make you "pro-communist".
An ordinary bourgeois liberal can "want rights for the proletariat".
This suggests that religion is just "a difference of opinion"...completely ignoring the reactionary social history of religion.
How anyone who considered themselves to be a communist could "overlook" something so glaringly obvious is a good indication that there is very little substance to their "communism".
Something, of course, that no human can ever do.
The idea that your brain is composed of boxes (or compartments) that have an "independent existence" is simply absurd.
What you think about one thing has a strong influence over what you think about a lot of other things and maybe everything.
Religion is a world-view -- it summarizes the way you look at the whole universe and everything in it.
And, realistically, there's no room for modern communism in that view.
Indeed it did...and still does, here and there. Why does it go largely unnoticed/unmentioned? Because it never amounted to anything...it never "caught on" in a significant way.
Why not? Because there was no science in it...it existed as a "moral appeal" and even a "religious appeal".
Can you imagine appealing to a feudal lord or a modern capitalist to "give up your power and wealth"?
Because "it's the right thing to do"?
Modern communism is based on the historical materialist paradigm first discovered by Marx and Engels -- there's "no room in it" for appeals to the supernatural of any kind.
The supernatural does not exist!
Religion does exist...as a social phenomenon. Its social role has been near-universally reactionary.
Accordingly, serious communists reject it totally...and urge everyone who really wants to struggle against capitalism and wage-slavery to scrap it!
And that (whew!is the "long answer".
Listen to the worm of doubt for it speaks truth.
The Redstar2000 Papers
Also see this NEW SITE:@nti-dialectics
i think a communist movement stressing the eventual realization of a stateless, classless society should be fundamentally based on love for humanity, for the people, and on the consequent desire to really deal with societal problems (and thus the consequent action).
hatred implies self-interest. self-interest implies the exploitation of man by man (as in capitalism). a stateless society, therefore, motivated by self-interest is an oxymoron. as long as man is interested in helping himself before others, indeed, at all, then it is inevitable for some sort of heirarchy to be produced.
i understand that you are a veteran here, and are well-respected by the community, but, please, can you be a little less arrogant and a little more humble in your responses?
"logic - the dance of those impotent to create"
tristan tzara
"to the degree that necessity is socially dreamed, the dream becomes necessity. the spectacle is the bad dream of enchained modern society which ultimately expresses only its desire to sleep. the spectacle is the guardian of this sleep."
guy debord
That's pretty perceptive...you have (unknowingly) hit on the precise difference between modern communism (Marxism) and its predecessors.
Instead of a moral appeal or a religious appeal or an appeal to "love" or "selflessness", Marxism is actually grounded on the individual self-interest of the worker.
How?
1. Every worker wants to escape from wage-slavery...having to labor and enrich others simply in order to survive.
2. But individual escape is difficult...not many manage to do it.
3. Worse, even if you do manage to escape, the threat of being re-enslaved is always "in the back of your mind" as long as wage-slavery as a social institution still exists.
4. Your only real hope, therefore, is the abolition of wage-slavery. You cannot be re-enslaved if slavery no longer exists.
5. Therefore, it is in your own best (most rational) self-interest to abolish wage-slavery!
No...that's "not in the cards". :P
The reason my responses sound "arrogant" to some people is that I have strong convictions and evidence to support them...and this upsets some people who have very weak opinions and little or no evidence to support those opinions.
If you want to see me "act humble", watch what happens when I get into a discussion with someone who knows a lot more about a subject than I do...I still cringe when I remember an occasion (on another board) when some wise-guy took my thoughtful and carefully-written post and sliced and diced it into catfood.
Man, did I get humble!
There was no other possible response...he "knew his shit" a hell of a lot better than I did.
Listen to the worm of doubt for it speaks truth.
The Redstar2000 Papers
Also see this NEW SITE:@nti-dialectics
As opposed to the collective self-interests of the workers of the Proleteriat lower-classes, as it was presumed in the Communistic Manifesto? Each invidual worker might have secular and even more selfisher reasons, such as becoming dictators in return for all the opression they have been trough! :P
Ultimately, I believe the answer is "no", but I also believe that human understanding develops in stages of consciousness and religion is tolerable if said religious people are interested in the plight of those in poverty. In many cases, especially Catholic cases, this is true, and I feel that tolerance towards religion should be acceptable where it is politically expedient to accept it. I feel religion can be phased out naturally on its own accord, not according to militant atheism which celebrates bigotry for no good reason.
What it might mean to "phase out" religion "naturally on its own accord" is too vague to merit a response.
But when you say that "militant atheism celebrates bigotry", what is that supposed to mean?
Is it "celebrating bigotry" to oppose wage-slavery, imperialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.?
Should we content ourselves with "phasing them out naturally"?
Is it a "bad thing" to be bigoted against bigots?
Why?
Listen to the worm of doubt for it speaks truth.
The Redstar2000 Papers
Also see this NEW SITE:@nti-dialectics
Please don't post on RevLeft under the influence of drugs.
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Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin
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Well, I do feel that political expedience should be considered when forming party lines. For example, Catholicism recognizes "social justice" in a way that is consistent with Marxist sympathies and the fact that Catholicism is simply the largest faith in the world should not be taken lightly. I believe that religion can be a distraction from proletarian concerns, but it is not the largest distractions and I feel that i can be fostered to our benefit where necessary. Hence my "phase out"/"naturally on its own accord" statement: we'll cross that bridge when it is necessary to cross it.
While I believe that religion can be a stumbling block to proletariat consciousness and that religion itself can be a celebration of bigotry, we should not be quick to judge the faithful. And, as I said before with Catholics, there are rare cases when the Marxist shares a common goal with the faithful.......for purely political purposes, we should not demean the philosophy of a potential ally. I am an atheist and I realize the potential negatives religion can portray. It is not necessary for anyone to convey these concerns to me. Yet, at the same time, the atheist Marxist should realize the inherent value of the religious. I feel the average atheist is a tad close minded to this possibility. If I am wrong, then I will feel quite happy....
No, no, you are correct in this regard.....we should not compromise our ideals...I simply feel that where common goals exist, common allies should be made....nothing more or less...I feel that if, for example, Catholics can make common cause with us, then we should align ourselves with them for as long as it is politically expedient for us to do so. Let us discuss the question of a god at a later time, when gains have been made....
By the way, your questions are excellent, and I take them quite to heart. I hope you don't perceive my disagreement with you as belligerence. Your questions are quite profound.
1. I would agree that Communistic thought is more about love than hate. Love of your fellow man, and the want for everyone to have what they need. That doesn't sound like "hate" to me.Originally posted by redstar2000+May 18 2005, 11:25 PM--> (redstar2000 @ May 18 2005, 11:25 PM)
I was really hoping that I would escape the duty of giving the "long answer".
So much for that.
Let's look at these "answers"...
If anything, it's much more about hate...the feeling that a slave has for the situation of being a slave as well as for her master.
Indeed you can...but that does not make you a communist.
It doesn't even make you "pro-communist".
An ordinary bourgeois liberal can "want rights for the proletariat".
This suggests that religion is just "a difference of opinion"...completely ignoring the reactionary social history of religion.
How anyone who considered themselves to be a communist could "overlook" something so glaringly obvious is a good indication that there is very little substance to their "communism".
Something, of course, that no human can ever do.
The idea that your brain is composed of boxes (or compartments) that have an "independent existence" is simply absurd.
What you think about one thing has a strong influence over what you think about a lot of other things and maybe everything.
Religion is a world-view -- it summarizes the way you look at the whole universe and everything in it.
And, realistically, there's no room for modern communism in that view.
Indeed it did...and still does, here and there. Why does it go largely unnoticed/unmentioned? Because it never amounted to anything...it never "caught on" in a significant way.
Why not? Because there was no science in it...it existed as a "moral appeal" and even a "religious appeal".
Can you imagine appealing to a feudal lord or a modern capitalist to "give up your power and wealth"?
Because "it's the right thing to do"?
Modern communism is based on the historical materialist paradigm first discovered by Marx and Engels -- there's "no room in it" for appeals to the supernatural of any kind.
The supernatural does not exist!
Religion does exist...as a social phenomenon. Its social role has been near-universally reactionary.
Accordingly, serious communists reject it totally...and urge everyone who really wants to struggle against capitalism and wage-slavery to scrap it!
And that (whew!
2. You are right, wanting rights for the proletariat does not make you inherently communist. But, their point was you can be spiritual and still agree with communistic thought otherwise.
3. So because of a "reactionary social history" of the major religions, we should stomp out and condemn ALL religion? What a fucking bandaid approach.
4. You CAN NOT CLAIM that "the supernatural does not exist," because you HAVE NO PROOF. I also have no proof that it does, but I do not claim that it exists. I simply believe it does. And just because no proof exists that there is divinity/supernatural, one can ASSUME it does not exist, but one does not KNOW.
No, I think the Catholic idea of "social justice" is limited to advising rich Catholics to "be nicer" and poor Catholics to "obey your masters".
A Catholic can't really grasp the idea of class struggle because "we are all brothers in Christ". Naturally, that "trumps" all "earthly concerns".
More interesting is your point about the extent to which religion is a distraction from proletarian (revolutionary) concerns.
I lack the resources to do a serious sociological study of this question, but I would offer a working hypothesis:
In any large population sample, religious belief is positively correlated with reactionary political opinion and negatively correlated with radical or revolutionary opinion.
The more religious a population is, the more opposed it is to any kind of revolutionary change of a radical nature and the more supportive it is of conservatism or reaction.
The less religious a population is, the more supportive it is of such revolutionary change and the more opposed it is to reaction.
We've all been taught that "correlation doesn't mean cause" -- but I am prepared to go "out on that limb".
I think Marx, Engels, and all the later "big names" in communism have drastically underestimated the effects of religion on the working class...how surprisingly and devastatingly effective it has been in keeping our class enchained!
I think it is the vital sub-text of all religious ideologies that is the "causal link" in this process: obedience to authority.
Of course, class society has many mechanisms for delivering that message -- parents, schools, the media, etc.
But those are all obviously human mechanisms; only religion can drag in the "cosmological justification" for obedience to authority.
Consider the "Book of Job". Job has no problem with dismissing his human critics and even employs some sarcastic wit in the process. But when he has a personal encounter with the storm-god himself, he ends up prostrate in the muck swearing unconditional obedience.
If you are, beginning in childhood, subjected to this conditioning -- this sense that the whole universe is ultimately the "Will" of a "Divine Führer" -- then how will you ever develop the self-confidence to rebel even against the most oppressive conditions?
Obviously, it can be done and has been done to a limited extent...but nearly always by those who had already overthrown the "Divine Führer" in their own minds.
In other words, by atheists.
And I'm even willing to go a little further out on that limb. If you actually studied the history of past revolutionaries, I'm willing to wager that nearly all of them were atheists first...and then became communists.
Starting with Karl Marx himself.
And including me. :P
I don't think they are or will ever be our "ally". They may pretend such a role on occasion...but they will stab us in the back at the first opportunity.
What religions really want is some form of clerical fascism with themselves in the driver's seat.
They have none. They are "on the side" of reaction and will stay there "to the bitter end".
That would be plain common sense if there was ever any likelihood of that happening. If Catholics "do something progressive" (a very rare occurrence), fine. But their overall goals are reactionary...and there's no practical reason to spread any illusions about that or to pretend that they've "changed their spots".
They haven't.
PS: I don't regard your remarks as at all "belligerent"...indeed, considering some of the superstitious muck that I have to shovel in this sub-forum, intelligent commentary is positively refreshing.
Listen to the worm of doubt for it speaks truth.
The Redstar2000 Papers
Also see this NEW SITE:@nti-dialectics
And speaking of superstitious muck...
Yes...that's the idea.
A whole world without gods.
Scares you, doesn't it?
In three centuries of scientific research, no one has ever run across any evidence for the "supernatural".
No evidence = no existence.
That's good enough for me.
Listen to the worm of doubt for it speaks truth.
The Redstar2000 Papers
Also see this NEW SITE:@nti-dialectics
In the name of freedom, all people who believe differently from us (me) shall be imprisoned or killed.
I do not see the irony in this position.
-Signed,
The average Revolutionaryleft.com communist
I have met neither a religious fanatic nor a hard-core leftist whose arguments did not make me laugh.
The reason is that their arguments are actually one and the same: "it'll work because I believe in it, even though all available evidence is to the contrary."
