this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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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.
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?