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Post by RosaRL on Jan 30, 2004 20:13:20 GMT -5
Some questions:
What role, if any should religion have in a Socialist society? For example, I oppose the idea of just banning religious beliefs, however where do you draw the line?
What if someone feels it is their religious obligation to oppose abortion and organize against it or to inforce religious law within their own family?
How should socialist education deal with the issue of religion?
Should religion be represented in the arts? If so, what social impact would this have?
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Post by redstar2000 on Jan 30, 2004 23:16:33 GMT -5
In my opinion, the crucial objective is to altogether remove religion from public life.
What nonsense people want to believe privately is up to them; but under no circumstances should it be permitted to have "a public presence" in post-capitalist society.
In particular, I think all religious architecture should be demolished. If people want to meet in a group to "worship god", let them use their basements.
All public religious ceremonies should be abolished...as well as religious holidays--"holy days".
Place names with religious connotations should be changed--farewell San Francisco, hello Yerba Buena!
A new calendar should be established...counting our years from the birth of a country preacher (and counting them incorrectly at that) is inexcusable.
The mass production and sale of religious paraphernalia should cease...though if someone wished to privately make such things, I see no problem with that. (You want to chow down on "the body of Christ"--bake it yourself!)
No more "holy books" should be printed...except for scholarly editions like The Anchor Bible (only more critical). Existing "holy books" can just be allowed to "wear out".
Taking money from people to perform religious rituals should be a criminal offense (fraud).
Street-preaching--disturbing the peace--should be a misdemeanor.
Indoctrinating children (under the age of 12) with religious views should be considered Class A Felony Child Abuse.
Since I've advocated these steps in many threads on other boards, I can easily anticipate some of the responses.
For example, "you can't possibly do this all at once".
Agreed, I think the struggle against superstition will be lengthy and occasionally tumultuous. And it will take time to demolish all those buildings.
But I think we have to be clear (a lot clearer than many) that religion is a major source of reactionary ideas in post-capitalist society. Indeed, since the capitalists have been presumably deprived of the opportunity to directly influence the working class, religion may be the major source of counter-revolutionary ideas and the motivation for spreading those ideas.
We can't "fool around" about this...or it will come back to bite us in the ass.
In Poland, the bite was fatal.
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Post by hopeful on Jan 31, 2004 0:03:22 GMT -5
if rs was being serious. i dissagree to the fullest.
i mean, yes. religion is a huge problem and it's what were fighting...
but we can't just strip it away from everyone, including their right to free speech. that's just, prepostrious....
if people can't say what they want on the street, whether or not it's about religion, what kind of scioety is that!?
the thing is, not everysingle person will ever be happy with the system. you'll always have protests against anythign and everything. but there's nothing wrong with that. where would we be with out protests?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2004 1:14:31 GMT -5
if rs was being serious. i dissagree to the fullest. Sadly, he is dead serious and has expressed this opinion on many occasions. As soon as I saw the topic of this thread, the phrase "uh oh" came to mind.
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Post by lil bit o che on Jan 31, 2004 11:49:06 GMT -5
I don't know how to settle accounts with religions, especially less institutional "folk" religions. Due to the long history of genocide and cultural genocide, folk religion is often tied to resistance among first nation peoples. The ghost dance comes to mind. The AIM often has pow wows durring their week of resistance every columbus day week.
I think it is a little more complicated than "get rid of it all!" Comming off like that negates important differences in religions.
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Post by redstar2000 on Jan 31, 2004 12:11:27 GMT -5
power2thepeaceful wrote: the thing is, not every single person will ever be happy with the system. you'll always have protests against anything and everything. but there's nothing wrong with that. where would we be with out protests?
Actually, I didn't say anything about protests, for or against.
I think of that as a different topic for a different thread.
But since you asked, it's pretty obvious that there are different kinds of protests with different kinds of motivations.
Some would be acceptable--or at least grudgingly tolerated--by post-capitalist society...and others would not.
Demonstrations and protests from the left urging more working class democracy or faster progress towards communism or stronger measures against racism or patriarchy ought to be not only permitted but encouraged.
Demonstrations and protests from the right--the Neo-Nazi Party, the League to Restore Capitalism, the Male Supremacy League, etc.--will be almost certainly suppressed, formally or informally.
Where do religious demonstrations and protests fit in here? Clearly, on the right.
power2thepeaceful wrote: i mean, yes. religion is a huge problem and it's what were fighting...but we can't just strip it away from everyone, including their right to free speech. that's just, prepostrious...
Read more carefully...nothing is said about stripping away people's beliefs. People can believe anything they wish--when you stop and think about it, there's no way to "stop" people from believing whatever they wish. I'd love to be able to press a "universal delete key" and permanently erase all superstitious beliefs from every mind on the face of the Earth.
Sadly, that can't be done. Thus I offer a more limited option: to wipe superstition out of public life.
That's something that can actually be done...with a lot of hard work.
I think a word about "free speech" is in order here: that everyone who says they "believe in free speech" doesn't really mean it.
Everyone has a list of "forbidden viewpoints" which they would suppress (with violence) if they had the chance to do so.
Not even the smug and self-righteous at the American Civil Liberties Union believe in free speech for "everyone"...you won't find them in court defending people who've been charged with possession of child pornography, for example.
When people say they believe in "free speech", they really mean speech that they agree with and speech that they don't care about one way or the other.
When it comes to something that people think is really important, they are quite prepared to discard "free speech" if they think that will help them to win.
The internet with its tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of message boards and forums is without a doubt the greatest arena of free speech in human history.
But don't kid yourself; say the "wrong thing" at any message board...and you will be banned.
Not to mention that certain boards are banned in every country and authorities actually shut down boards (if they can) that they don't like.
I think as communists we should face reality and tell the truth: there's no such thing as "absolute" freedom of speech...nor will there ever be such a thing.
Perhaps that's unfortunate...but it's a fact.
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Post by redstar2000 on Feb 1, 2004 10:50:53 GMT -5
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Post by wait on Feb 1, 2004 11:11:33 GMT -5
First I want to say that I dont think we should approach religion as if we are afraid of it. We don't have anything to fear from it because they don't have any foundation that can hold up. We need to be willing to take it on boldly in debate and we should welcome that debate. Marxism is wrangling-ism.
second.. here is something from Bob Avakian on some of the issues that rs2000 is raising in this thread.
"Not to long ago, in preparing to write an article on religion, I went back and read Marx and Engels -- some writings of theirs on religion. It struck me that they express a very strong insistence about the folly of attempting to outright suppress religion. There is no better way, they insist, to give life to religion than to drive it underground and to make it illegal or something "subterranean." It is far better to let it out in the open.
Not that Marx and Engels are arguing that religion should be allowed to be used as a cover for exploitation and oppression and counterrevolution and so on, but that the religious sentiments of masses of people are not something that should be outlawed "by decree," that people cannot move beyond religious superstition and prejudice by being ordered to do so. People can't move beyond that by having atheism imposed on them. They have to be led, but they have to be relied on fundamentally to cast this off as they carry forward the transformation of society. At the same time, of course, you have to carry out, as Lenin said, a very militant struggle for atheism and, in a more all-around sense, for materialism -- dialectical materialism.
There is a strategic confidence in what Marx and Engels write about this: why should we feel any need to drive this underground? That's ridiculous. Driving it underground only aids the dead hand of the past. It doesn't help to break with the dead hand of the past.
Strategically this is very important, not only in terms of religion but more generally in terms of the dead hand of the past. We have to move on it, but we have to have strategic confidence in what we are doing and strategic contempt for that dead hand of the past, so that we are not afraid of it and don't seek to suppress it in ways which only help to bring back the past and strengthen that dead hand of the past. Bob Avakian -- Radical Ruptures, or Yes, Mao More Than Ever
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Post by hopeful on Feb 1, 2004 12:13:04 GMT -5
i was talking to thefutile yesterday.
we decided that God and all his little kids are Hallmark marketing scam. think of how many cards you need for holidays brought upon you by God...
oh man.
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Post by hopeful on Feb 1, 2004 12:23:23 GMT -5
if you outlaw something so many people strongly believe in, you're fucked.
those people, since they aren't few and far between, will rise back up and crush you. in some japanese or china country [the name slips my mind, but it's in that area] christianity was outlawed. but still, the people met and prayed and held services. not to mention, their anger toward the gov't and it's opressive views, grew.
you cannot supress a huge group of people. because, like defiants, they will rise up, sooner or later. and take back what you stole.
it's not as simple as just making religion illegal. you cannot opress half a nation of people. things just arent that easy.
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Post by Andrei_X on Feb 1, 2004 13:18:41 GMT -5
I agree with Marx and Engels on the folly of banning religion outright. We must uphold people's freedom of religion and realize that religion won't just "disappear" with a few decrees and the snaps of a few fingers- however we must not allow religion to be used as a cover for counterrevolutionary or violently reactionary. The proletariat should be able to monitor the activities of all religious activities and organizations to make sure they are not doing anything that would lead to such activities, or to prevent such things from becoming capital. Communists are atheists, but we must wage an ideological struggle over this question and rely on those among the masses who hold such beliefs to cast them off on their own, rather than forcing them to do so. Eventually, as more and more people are trained further in the science of Marxism and all other sciences, and as the new order encourages atheism and rational/critical thought, they will cast off more and more of these superstitions. Some good ideas on where to start: 2changetheworld.info/docs/part2-08-dictatorship-democracy-rights-en.php#a08r
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Post by redstar2000 on Feb 1, 2004 20:09:47 GMT -5
Bob Avakian wrote: It struck me that they [Marx & Engels] express a very strong insistence about the folly of attempting to outright suppress religion. There is no better way, they insist, to give life to religion than to drive it underground and to make it illegal or something "subterranean." It is far better to let it out in the open.
This is a good example of how to treat Marx and Engels as "scripture". It ignores the actual experiences of 20th century socialist countries...as if they never happened.
If Marx and Engels had had the opportunity to actually observe the counter-revolutionary activities of the Catholic Church in Poland and the Protestant Church in East Germany (GDR), what do you think they would have concluded about the role of religion in post-revolutionary societies?
What do you think the Catholic Church is telling its followers in Cuba today?
As to the "folly" of driving religion "underground", there are many historical examples on both sides of the question.
Did the Temple of Isis have a big turnout in your neighborhood today? How about Marduk...are His congregations growing where you live?
No? You don't have any worshipers of Isis or Marduk where you live? Me neither!
Those religions and almost all of the religions that have ever existed were suppressed...that is, removed from public life. They subsequently withered and died.
The violent suppression of Christianity in Japan worked...Christianity was never able to recover and while the Japanese celebrate Christmas today as a commercial holiday, the number of Japanese Christians remains trivial.
Bob Avakian wrote: ...the religious sentiments of masses of people are not something that should be outlawed "by decree," that people cannot move beyond religious superstition and prejudice by being ordered to do so. People can't move beyond that by having atheism imposed on them.
This is true but misleading. You cannot "order" someone to be an atheist, even at gunpoint. He will lie and secretly still believe. It's an exercise in futility.
What can be done is to remove the "public role" of religion. If there are no religious buildings, books, paraphernalia, place names, etc.--nothing to signify that religion is a "normal" part of public life--then religion is forced back on its own private resources (such as they are).
The social reasons for professing belief are gone...and, as we know, the people who are susceptible to serious belief in the absence of social support are few in number.
There will be some and, as long as they don't make a public nuisance of themselves, I'm all for leaving them to their follies.
A draconian persecution of believers would indeed be counter-productive; putting people in jail simply for believing would just create martyrs.
It's better for the new society to be "matter-of-fact" atheist, coolly and methodically removing the public symbols of religion on a deliberate basis.
And it doesn't have to be done "all at once". The important thing is to begin doing it at once and keep at it.
Finish the job!
power2thepeaceful wrote: you cannot suppress a huge group of people. because, like defiants, they will rise up, sooner or later. and take back what you stole.
By the time proletarian revolution is a realistic possibility, it may not be such "a huge number". The numbers of people who are really serious about religion are declining and have been for a couple of centuries.
The material conditions of capitalism "eat away" at the ideological foundations of religion--which is quite ironic, since capitalist ideologues are extremely appreciative of religion as a "social glue" that helps to contain class struggle.
But in the crunch, "Mammon" always beats "God".
In western Europe, the most likely site of proletarian revolution in the 21st century, church attendance has fallen enormously in the last 50 years. This is having symbolic repercussions: France's Chirac has proposed the banning of ostentatious religious clothing and symbols in French public schools. The large crucifixes in Italian public schools--relics of Mussolini's fascist regime--are finally being removed.
Even the pope is whining about the fact that there is no mention of (much less tribute to) Christianity in the new draft constitution of the European Union.
In a continent of 400,000,000 people, a few million die-hard believers will be a problem but perhaps not a serious public problem.
We'll see.
Andrei_X wrote: The proletariat should be able to monitor the activities of all religious activities and organizations to make sure they are not doing anything that would lead to such activities, or to prevent such things from becoming capital.
They did that in Poland, the GDR, etc. It didn't work! (Even under Stalin, it didn't work!)
Cuba is doing it right now--they have a "Ministry of Religion" that is supposed to keep track of what the believers are up to.
Would you really want to bet a black-market peso that their "oversight" is doing anything to reduce the counter-revolutionary sentiments that are being quietly communicated by the clergy to believers?
One of the Cuban bishops actually publicly referred to the Batista regime as "the golden age of Catholicism in Cuba".
He was, I think, telling the truth!
Andre_X wrote: Communists are atheists, but we must wage an ideological struggle over this question and rely on those among the masses who hold such beliefs to cast them off on their own...
It's hard to find anyone with any revolutionary aspirations who's "against" ideological struggle.
But I've noticed a marked reluctance to engage in ideological struggle over superstition prior to the revolution. I have the impression that many think that first we'll overthrow the capitalist class and then we will begin an ideological struggle against religion (and patriarchy and racism and...whatever).
That's not going to work. Real communists have to engage in ideological struggle against all of the oppressive aspects of class society now.
This will certainly reduce the short-term appeal of our ideas...we will inevitably alienate some people who might have been "pro-communist" had we not trampled on their own favorite form of dominance/submission.
In the long run, when communist ideas begin to spread more widely among the masses, it will be the whole package that spreads. People will understand--even if they don't agree at first--that communism means dismantling the totality of class society.
And it's hard to over-estimate the importance of that in the whole revolutionary process. The more the masses understand the need to dismantle class society completely, the easier the revolutionary process will go and the less matters will depend on the chance emergence of revolutionary leaders.
Most people will not only know that religion is "going to go" but will be "just fine with that".
The dumpster of history is commodious.#nosmileys
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Post by changetheworld on Feb 2, 2004 14:50:00 GMT -5
hey, this is exactly what ive been tellin everyone for years. most communists are atheists, for me its because i hate organised relgion, in fact i hate all religion full stop. its fine if they have their own relgion privately, in their own homes, but don't preach on the streets, dont waste money on churches and statues etc, dont idolise anyone who doenst exist,or has been given successive power over the fools. the money churches spend could be used in many better ways than glorifying a figment of their imagination, a product of FEAR. i wont apologise for offeneding anyone, im new here, but i wont apolgise for my views, i wont apologise for being me. these people seem to need to seek comfort in god, seek comfort i knowing youre living in a perfect world, a post-capitalism world, that youre doing things for the common good, that your helping your neighbour, and so on, not in a person or whatever that you cant see and makes no obvious differences to your lives.
communism is inevitable, why not join the party
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Post by eat the world on Feb 2, 2004 18:13:30 GMT -5
i think we need to make distinctions between religion (as ideology) and religion (as organized churches and even various political movements).
As humanity moves from "the relm of necessity to the realm of freedom" -- religion will lose its material basis, and people will lay it down.
This will of course involve real struggle over ideas. Along with the changing of the horrible social conditions that make people (in desperation) pray for help and hope for "a better life after this one."
You can break up reactionary organizations by coercive means. But you ultimately can't defeat ideas that way.
So the question is not whether to fight religion but how.
First, we need to be firmly atheist now, and win more and more radical poeple to thorough going materialist understandings of the world (including things like evolution, but also a historical materialist understanding of why oppression exists etc.)
Second, we need to expose and oppose the moves toward theocracy and christian-fascism (in the u.s.).
Third, we need to set our sights on a socialist society where the struggle against both religion (as an ideology) and reactionary religious forces (as political movements) will take place on a whole new and more powerful level.
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Post by readpunk on Feb 3, 2004 19:55:23 GMT -5
I don't know if everyone here is completely disconnected from the meaning of the words they are using but it doesn't seem like the religion issue completely understood. Opinions, then information, then idea's follow:
Opinions.
Redstar, if you think that some black clad, pistol carrying fuck bearing your communist party emblem on his right arm is going to punish me in anyway for standing on a street corner yelling whatever the fuck I want, then I certainly want nothing to do with any political group you may be involved in.
Now with that I want to take a gun and ram it down you anti-freedom types throats and make it clear that I can't stand someone denying me personal or collective egalitarianism and freedom, on to some facts.
Information.
I don't know when the words "communist" and "marxist" in regards to religion became divorced from what they used to mean.
Going way back of course a "communist" was someone who believed in the final extension of what Marx felt was the final evolution after the revolution. A "marxist" was someone who took the word of Marx to a near but not complete fundamental truth in their heart.
Over time though, the distinction between a "marxist" and a "communist" strengthened to mean different things. A major difference was religion. To be a "marxist" meant that one was almost certainly an atheist. A "communist" on the other hand was usually one who could not be bound to a party or group as easily. This is why so many anarchists of the past, though vehemently opposed to different "revolutionary" communist parties still used the word "communist" to describe themselves. Continuing with this, the important difference was and is still religion. For the "communist", the commune is a spiritual experience. It is something powerful, that is beyond a logical and scientific rational.
A decent book I read a while back, which if I am not mistaken is part of the California reading curriculum if some of you happen to be in a California public school, is "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". Now in the book, there are two characters, one is a "communist" the other is a "marxist" and although the way they appear in the novel can be at times not in line with their views, what is gathered is that they are both humans struggling to be better and blah blahblah. Point being the book illustrates the "communist" and spirituality (of some kind) and the "marxist" and athiesm/science rather well.
Ideas.
Also a note of interest, Jesus Christ, who in his day was very much a revolutionary was basically promoting a patriarchical world (not so revolutionary) that held only the authority of god (no men/women oppressing other men/women) as well as egalitarian economics. My point being is that spiritual people as well as religious people can be revolutionaries. In the future, the teachings of a dead anti-racist/anti-sexist/anti-homophobe/anti-authoritarian/"anti-hierarchical social institutions" communist may be seen as divine and spark a real revolution.
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