Day by day I begin to wonder more and more if I can even call myself a communist anymore. Its becoming hard to really reconcile my faith with communism if the ideology itself is theorically opposed to it. Bukharin's book, "ABCs of Communism," has an entire section on Chapter 11 that directly talks about why religion and communism are incompatible. Communists believe history is driven by class struggle and material conditions. Religious people believe in stuff like divine intervention or divine will. A communist would probably look at islam (my faith) and be like "No prophet was sent a message by God and acted upon it, it was their material conditions that made them act." I don't see how one could believe both, it feels like its either or.
Sure, it is perfectly possible for religious people to largely agree with Marxists on such things as historical materialism and present-day class struggles, not to mention struggles for national liberation, against racism, etc. It is possible be anti-capitalist and fight for a classless, moneyless, and stateless society where MOP is colletively owned but at the end of the day, there is philosophical tension.
I feel at best, I can be an ally, but the way I see it, I will never be one of them. I do not belong. My voice does not count equally and my beliefs make me suspect. I have faced hostility from leftists that are atheist and hostile towards religion and been called a revisionist. If this is how me and others are gonna be treated just because of our faith, I'd rather die than simply be used as cannon fodder in a revolution.
You're reacting to the anti-religious antics of people who don't have enough of an identity that they need performative atheism to feel superior to others. That's not communism, and it's certainly not limited to communism. Lots of capitalists behave the same way.
Yes, Marxism is a materialist philosophy. It does not allow for things like morality and the supernatural to be used for explanatory purposes. That doesn't mean you can't believe in those things and it doesn't mean you can't practice organized religion. What it means is that you can't use the contents of your religious beliefs as the basis for supporting an argument.
This should be pretty obvious for any plural society though. You can't say that the reason we should have Law 4815-D is because it's God's will. You can't say that the reason we should execute this prisoner is because of crimes against God. That will only work in a society where everyone believes mostly the exact same things. As soon as two or three religions coexist in a society, they're going to disagree on what God's Will is or what constitutes a crime against God. How do you build a pluralistic society in this case?
So go ahead and be religious and also be a communist. But understand that communism is a scientific analysis of the way society actually functions. It doesn't care why a specific prophet said a specific thing at a specific time (though it may have an opinion). It cares about what we need to do to build a sustainable society of liberated people. It's like any science. How can you be a rocket scientist and be religious? How can you be a cancer researcher and be religious? How can you study chemical catalysts and be religious? You simply don't use your religion as the analytical tool for that domain. You don't say the rocket launch failed because it was God's Will - you study the data and run experiments. The same is true of communism.
Once you come to terns with that, let the performative atheists know that they're harming the revolution.
Thank you, you give me some hope and relief. I once though brought up your point about scientists and other professionals still believing in religion to an atheist and they responded with "There is a cognitive dissonance. Relativity of simultaneity automatically rules out most religious metaphysical interpretations."
Again, because these performative atheists are acting like scientists who are religious are constantly battling with interpretations like "the rocket moved because God pushed it with his hand".
And listen, if you're belief system is that God personally intervenes in everything and nothing can be understood except by interpreting everything as God personally does each thing, then yeah you're going to have a hard time in communism, but also in capitalism, and in any science, and honestly anything you ever do. Why did he break up with me after I betrayed his trust, is it because God made him do it?
Try not make everything about whether people accept your beliefs. Believe what you believe. Keep your beliefs within your community of belief. Share with people outside that community after you trust them. For people who just voluntarily say things like "religion should be eradicated" go ahead and push back, but for the most part, treat your religious life as mostly separate from the practical workings of society while simultaneously integrating it into everything you do. It's a difficult process but it's not cognitive dissonance. It's the real life experience of humanity to exist in multiple interpretative layers of reality simultaneously.
You have summed it up perfectly. Also people who are saying that religion was co-opted by reactionaries in the past, the same is true for Islam as well. Each and every muslim country today is a servant to the US empire and its interests and they staunchly oppose communism. So it’s kinda ironic how OP has an issue not with the whimsical fantasies of Islam but people who rightly point out the hypocrisy
All of the above countries contradict your boldly-stated claim. There were many liberationist and pan-arab movements that were independently stomped out by the US / EU, causing hundreds of millions of deaths in the region via land invasion, drone strikes, or economic blockades.
While you could argue that many Muslim states are western puppets, many of those states were literally created by the British drawing lines on a map after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, only legitimizing those who fall in line to the "international community".
Why would the west spend trillions of dollars toppling socialist governments or resistance factions in WANA?
We have seen dozens of instances where resistance in any form has been met with total annihilation of these countries societies. Libya was a flourishing Muslim nation that wanted to unify Africa and steer away from the unipolar world order. They were bombed, starved, public infrastructure completely decapitated, and now they have literal slave markets.
Gee, I wonder why the other countries have fallen in line with western hegemony.
This is just smug, redditor-level atheism that I don't even want to entertain at this hour.
Thank you for handling that
You have summed it up perfectly. Also people who are saying that religion was co-opted by reactionaries in the past, the same is true for Islam as well. Each and every muslim country today is a servant to the US empire and its interests and they staunchly oppose communism. So it's kinda ironic how OP has an issue not with the whimsical fantasies of Islam but people who rightly point out the hypocrisy