In my view, one isn’t really an atheist if they are a liberal (or conservative, but I repeat myself) as it is effectively another religion, with Capital as it’s “god”, it is kind of like those liberals that call themselves “socialist” and support controlled opposition, compatible “leftist”, and friend of epstein, bernie sanders.
Edit: for some reason I can’t see the rest of the comments while logged in, so I’ll put it here: I think a more accurate and inclusive phrase would be “freedom of religion or atheism”, as it would be shitty if one had to declare some religion or another without just “none” as an option.
Edit: Edit: From the rest of this thread I think people may be confused, you cannot just “ban” the “opiate of the masses”, as long as people are in pain they will seek a painkiller, and denying it to them just turns those very people against you, if the world becomes your enemy you have little chance.
To reach synthesis you must collapse the contradiction by combining elements of thesis and anti-thesis in such a manor that it favors the non toxic elements of both and becomes stable.
For Lukács, liberalism is the more dangerous ideology because it is hypocritical: it promises emancipation while delivering exploitation. But calling it a “religion” is analytically sloppy. Religion, for Marx, is the “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world.” Liberalism offers no such sigh; it offers a rationalization of the heartless world.
I agree, that liberalism is more dangerous than religion, but for a different reason: liberalism is by definition pro-capitalist. Religious institutions are only actually almost always pro-capitalist in our time, but they don’t need to be this way for ever and some have been revolutionary, but were quickly crushed or dismantled, because of their attachment to hegemonic religious hierarchy (liberation theology in Brazil).
Historical materialism tells us, that offering a rationalization of existing power structures is the historic reason religious institution were allowed to exist and to grow and to incorporate into state structures. It’s their whole thing. Those that tended to be counter hegemonic were destroyed.
Also, most organized religious institutions are deeply liberal: pro-capitalist, reformist at best, tending towards fascism at worst.
The big weakness of the Islamic political movements like in Iran, Lebanon, India and Pakistan is their liberalism and idealism that continuously causes them to make mistakes in judgement and seek alliances with western imperialism. They are still anti-imperialist because they represent national capitalist interests. Those capitalists are the ones who lead the religious political movements. They couldn’t do that without drawing power from unorganized proletarian interests. But because if the liberal leadership, the front tends to be divided and they mostly fail at uniting the proletariat across confessional lines. Yes, it’s a fight for national liberation, which is good. But it’s not a national front with organized communist forces, because those aren’t allowed / are to weak to organize at scale.
Especially western religious communists in the imperial core have a duty to try and build independent institutions of worship that are truly revolutionary, rather than rest on the laurels of the Islamic revolution, that they did nothing to contribute to. The Catholic Church, the protestant and evangelical mega churches, those are powerful and influential institutions that are entirely in reactionary hands. Western comrades who are religious need to demonstrate their ability to build alternative institutions or capture the current ones or, if they fail to do so, reject any participation in organized religion (which does not mean become atheist).
Unfortunately, most organized religions are evil. Exceptions are very rare and include Liberation Theology in Latin America in 1960s and Islamic socialism from 1930s to 1990s.
There was also a progressive religious movement in Vietnam, though maybe not revolutionary. In medieval times, some of the hussites and later, during the reformation the movement around Thomas Müntzer was revolutionary. During the Arab spring, there were Islamic anarchist currents. The original historic movement around figures like John the Baptist, Jesus and others was anti Roman occupation, anti taxation (that benefited only a tiny urban minority) and anti collaboration. But they didn’t reject the main contradictions of their time: slavery and tribalism. It remained a movement for only Jewish, free men. Slaves and non-jews were excluded on racist, religious and conservative grounds, thus they couldn’t build a large enough base and were crushed.
I admit it may be sloppy, it is something my mind came up with long before I ever started reading Marxist Leninist Theory.
I am almost certainly also biased on the topic as a result of childhood trauma that screwed me over for life. (I’ve made massive progress on overcoming it with help from my Therapist, but it isn’t fully resolved.)
I see your point, but it is important to realise that humans in general are creatures of belief. A person can make claim to have no beliefs, but it only takes a moment of observation to see through and identify what a person revolves their lives around.
Secular states, as I’ve noticed, are prone to falling into identity cults, whether it be Nazi Germany, North Korea or even modern day America, just to name a few.
The underlying problem to me, isn’t religion but cultism itself and I identify cultism as an obsession to the point of causing harm to oneself and others.
Cults can exist in every religion but not every cult has a religion.
We live in an age of material cults, or profit cults as I call them. They won’t stop their behaviour even when the graph rising doesn’t make any sense nor as their companies fall apart because that’s where their instinctive obsession lies.
I’m not sure if any here is claiming to not have any belief, belief is not the same as religion, when you look at a mountain you believe there is actually a mountain there, it’s not exactly some metaphysical, supernatural event happening to you.
The difference isn’t in the existence of belief, but whether it is backed up by actual evidence or not, whether experimentation supports it or not, it has to be supported by concert reality, or it isn’t real. (or at least it isn’t reasonable to believe it is real unless new evidence comes forward that changes that and makes it reasonable)
As humans aren’t omniscient infinite all knowing beings, we are force to make assumption IE “believe our eyes and ears” just to be able to function in reality, it is a perpetual imperfect information game, so to speak.
BTW you’ve been feed a lot of lies and nonsense from Capitalist controlled propaganda, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is an actual democracy, unlike Capitalist countries like the US, the DPRK has a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (working class)
instead of the inherently anti democratic Dictatorship of the Bourgeois (capitalist class, those who own capital, which isn’t the same as money, IE “believing in capitalism” doesn’t make you a capitalist) that every Capitalist country has by the nature of it being Capitalist.
I don’t not see cults as being fundamentally different to religions, only superficially, aesthetically, in insignificant ways that doesn’t actually matter.
“Material cults” doesn’t make sense, our very existence is entirely within the framework of physics, of the mass and energy of our universe, and there aren’t components outside of this nor could there be, as it is the very connections between things that makes reality in the first place, anything unconnected is the same as not existing as far as we are concerned, and the moment you are influence by said hypothetical unconnected thing, it is longer unconnected and therefore part of reality, “Material”.
As for “profit cults”, this isn’t metaphysical “greed” popping into existence from contradictory non-existence that cannot exist by definition and therefore can’t a a source for which things (like “greed”) can come, but the economical, political, and class nature of the social fabric that exists in Capitalism, and especially in it’s Monopoly IE Imperialist stage.
The material conditions determines conscious, so in Capitalist society people grow into a conscious in support of exploitation, cut throat competition, zero sum “win/lose”, in other words, so called “greed”.
However, the vast majority is under the boot of being exploited above and over any opportunity to exploit others, so this oppression also serves as a source of pressure for the pursuit of a different ways of doing things. It is part of the dialectical opposition between the interests of the capitalist class and the working class that makes it a matter of “who is on top, a few capitalist parasites, or the vast majority who is doing all the work anyways” until the existence of class itself can finally fade away in the process of building Communism.
P.S. Also the falling apart company profit stuff is because Capitalism is inherently unsustainable, and would happen regardless.
If I said that in my view, one isn’t really an atheist if they are a communist as it is effectively another religion with Historical Materialism as it’s “god”, you’d probably consider that a pretty brain-dead take.
Can we leave the no true Scotsman fallacies to the religion defenders, please?
The problem with that is that it is a false equivalence, Dialectical and Historical Materialism is a part of the Socialist Scientific method, where as Liberalism is not Scientific or based on it, using those who are incorrectly treating Marxism Leninism as dogma to argue that it is a religion is the same as pointing to Scientologists pseudo-science cult as proving that Science is a religion.
The biggest difference between a religion and a science, such as Marxism Leninism, is one is at odds with reality and the other explains it and has been proven through experimentation (putting Theory into Practice and refining the Theory based on the results in MLs case).
The amount of Reddit Atheists showing up here who would wish China was actually putting Uyghur Muslims in extermination camps is off the charts.
In my view, one isn’t really an atheist if they are a liberal (or conservative, but I repeat myself) as it is effectively another religion, with Capital as it’s “god”, it is kind of like those liberals that call themselves “socialist” and support controlled opposition, compatible “leftist”, and friend of epstein, bernie sanders.
Edit: for some reason I can’t see the rest of the comments while logged in, so I’ll put it here: I think a more accurate and inclusive phrase would be “freedom of religion or atheism”, as it would be shitty if one had to declare some religion or another without just “none” as an option.
Edit: Edit: From the rest of this thread I think people may be confused, you cannot just “ban” the “opiate of the masses”, as long as people are in pain they will seek a painkiller, and denying it to them just turns those very people against you, if the world becomes your enemy you have little chance. To reach synthesis you must collapse the contradiction by combining elements of thesis and anti-thesis in such a manor that it favors the non toxic elements of both and becomes stable.
For Lukács, liberalism is the more dangerous ideology because it is hypocritical: it promises emancipation while delivering exploitation. But calling it a “religion” is analytically sloppy. Religion, for Marx, is the “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world.” Liberalism offers no such sigh; it offers a rationalization of the heartless world.
I agree, that liberalism is more dangerous than religion, but for a different reason: liberalism is by definition pro-capitalist. Religious institutions are only actually almost always pro-capitalist in our time, but they don’t need to be this way for ever and some have been revolutionary, but were quickly crushed or dismantled, because of their attachment to hegemonic religious hierarchy (liberation theology in Brazil).
Historical materialism tells us, that offering a rationalization of existing power structures is the historic reason religious institution were allowed to exist and to grow and to incorporate into state structures. It’s their whole thing. Those that tended to be counter hegemonic were destroyed.
Also, most organized religious institutions are deeply liberal: pro-capitalist, reformist at best, tending towards fascism at worst. The big weakness of the Islamic political movements like in Iran, Lebanon, India and Pakistan is their liberalism and idealism that continuously causes them to make mistakes in judgement and seek alliances with western imperialism. They are still anti-imperialist because they represent national capitalist interests. Those capitalists are the ones who lead the religious political movements. They couldn’t do that without drawing power from unorganized proletarian interests. But because if the liberal leadership, the front tends to be divided and they mostly fail at uniting the proletariat across confessional lines. Yes, it’s a fight for national liberation, which is good. But it’s not a national front with organized communist forces, because those aren’t allowed / are to weak to organize at scale.
Especially western religious communists in the imperial core have a duty to try and build independent institutions of worship that are truly revolutionary, rather than rest on the laurels of the Islamic revolution, that they did nothing to contribute to. The Catholic Church, the protestant and evangelical mega churches, those are powerful and influential institutions that are entirely in reactionary hands. Western comrades who are religious need to demonstrate their ability to build alternative institutions or capture the current ones or, if they fail to do so, reject any participation in organized religion (which does not mean become atheist).
Unfortunately, most organized religions are evil. Exceptions are very rare and include Liberation Theology in Latin America in 1960s and Islamic socialism from 1930s to 1990s.
There was also a progressive religious movement in Vietnam, though maybe not revolutionary. In medieval times, some of the hussites and later, during the reformation the movement around Thomas Müntzer was revolutionary. During the Arab spring, there were Islamic anarchist currents. The original historic movement around figures like John the Baptist, Jesus and others was anti Roman occupation, anti taxation (that benefited only a tiny urban minority) and anti collaboration. But they didn’t reject the main contradictions of their time: slavery and tribalism. It remained a movement for only Jewish, free men. Slaves and non-jews were excluded on racist, religious and conservative grounds, thus they couldn’t build a large enough base and were crushed.
I admit it may be sloppy, it is something my mind came up with long before I ever started reading Marxist Leninist Theory. I am almost certainly also biased on the topic as a result of childhood trauma that screwed me over for life. (I’ve made massive progress on overcoming it with help from my Therapist, but it isn’t fully resolved.)
Sorry to hear that. I hope you will feel better as time goes by.
I see your point, but it is important to realise that humans in general are creatures of belief. A person can make claim to have no beliefs, but it only takes a moment of observation to see through and identify what a person revolves their lives around.
Secular states, as I’ve noticed, are prone to falling into identity cults, whether it be Nazi Germany, North Korea or even modern day America, just to name a few.
The underlying problem to me, isn’t religion but cultism itself and I identify cultism as an obsession to the point of causing harm to oneself and others.
Cults can exist in every religion but not every cult has a religion.
We live in an age of material cults, or profit cults as I call them. They won’t stop their behaviour even when the graph rising doesn’t make any sense nor as their companies fall apart because that’s where their instinctive obsession lies.
I’m not sure if any here is claiming to not have any belief, belief is not the same as religion, when you look at a mountain you believe there is actually a mountain there, it’s not exactly some metaphysical, supernatural event happening to you. The difference isn’t in the existence of belief, but whether it is backed up by actual evidence or not, whether experimentation supports it or not, it has to be supported by concert reality, or it isn’t real. (or at least it isn’t reasonable to believe it is real unless new evidence comes forward that changes that and makes it reasonable) As humans aren’t omniscient infinite all knowing beings, we are force to make assumption IE “believe our eyes and ears” just to be able to function in reality, it is a perpetual imperfect information game, so to speak.
BTW you’ve been feed a lot of lies and nonsense from Capitalist controlled propaganda, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is an actual democracy, unlike Capitalist countries like the US, the DPRK has a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (working class) instead of the inherently anti democratic Dictatorship of the Bourgeois (capitalist class, those who own capital, which isn’t the same as money, IE “believing in capitalism” doesn’t make you a capitalist) that every Capitalist country has by the nature of it being Capitalist.
I don’t not see cults as being fundamentally different to religions, only superficially, aesthetically, in insignificant ways that doesn’t actually matter.
“Material cults” doesn’t make sense, our very existence is entirely within the framework of physics, of the mass and energy of our universe, and there aren’t components outside of this nor could there be, as it is the very connections between things that makes reality in the first place, anything unconnected is the same as not existing as far as we are concerned, and the moment you are influence by said hypothetical unconnected thing, it is longer unconnected and therefore part of reality, “Material”. As for “profit cults”, this isn’t metaphysical “greed” popping into existence from contradictory non-existence that cannot exist by definition and therefore can’t a a source for which things (like “greed”) can come, but the economical, political, and class nature of the social fabric that exists in Capitalism, and especially in it’s Monopoly IE Imperialist stage. The material conditions determines conscious, so in Capitalist society people grow into a conscious in support of exploitation, cut throat competition, zero sum “win/lose”, in other words, so called “greed”. However, the vast majority is under the boot of being exploited above and over any opportunity to exploit others, so this oppression also serves as a source of pressure for the pursuit of a different ways of doing things. It is part of the dialectical opposition between the interests of the capitalist class and the working class that makes it a matter of “who is on top, a few capitalist parasites, or the vast majority who is doing all the work anyways” until the existence of class itself can finally fade away in the process of building Communism. P.S. Also the falling apart company profit stuff is because Capitalism is inherently unsustainable, and would happen regardless.
If I said that in my view, one isn’t really an atheist if they are a communist as it is effectively another religion with Historical Materialism as it’s “god”, you’d probably consider that a pretty brain-dead take.
Can we leave the no true Scotsman fallacies to the religion defenders, please?
The problem with that is that it is a false equivalence, Dialectical and Historical Materialism is a part of the Socialist Scientific method, where as Liberalism is not Scientific or based on it, using those who are incorrectly treating Marxism Leninism as dogma to argue that it is a religion is the same as pointing to Scientologists pseudo-science cult as proving that Science is a religion. The biggest difference between a religion and a science, such as Marxism Leninism, is one is at odds with reality and the other explains it and has been proven through experimentation (putting Theory into Practice and refining the Theory based on the results in MLs case).