122

Dude’s an ultra

Bonus: https://nitter.net/uncle_authority/status/1721967810241335347#m

I guess the Deprogram guys are the Three Stooges now? But the joke doesn’t really work

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're basically right, but note even in the formerly AES countries, despite plunging into deep crisis, the number of atheists remain at much higher levels than it was before socialism - even in country like Poland. It's most visible in Czechia iirc. So it does work. Few more generations (it was like not even 2 basically) and much more would disappear, though probably not entirely (see Japanese christianity emerging after Meiji restoration, though it emerged 95% reduced and heavily influenced with buddhism).

I think there isn't much problem with disorganised and decentralised religions, at least as the party remains strictly atheist, but something like the catholic church is immense danger, the worse that every move against them, even for completely nonrelated reasons (again look at Poland where some priests were arrested for spying and other antisocialist activities) will be always portrayed as attack on religion, so the socialist country would necessarily have aim to remove their political power, most likely by expropriation of their property - something that for example again Poland failed to do (PRL even gave them some of postgerman land!) which caused unending trouble.

There are many reasons people claim religions including national heritages, family history, spiritual connections to some practice, or genuine superstition. Education can address the latter but struggles with the former.

All those aren't as immutable as you probably see it, there are historical examples of all this changing more or less rapidly. I think it's again that socialism simply did not had enough time and had too much outside opposition to properly adress that.

Lenin once wrote interesting article "On the significance of militant materialism"

[-] JamesConeZone@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

Czechia seems to be an outlier according to the data I've seen (link), but granted that Estonia also has a near majority of atheist. But yeah, observance of actual religions rites are very sparse. But I really care more about how people identify as that is a powerful form if self-identification, especially post-revolution.

Re: Catholcism, I agree 100%. In that document I referenced above, the Chinese government talks about the danger of imperial influences in religions:

Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism, which occupy a very important place among our national religions, are at the same time ranked among the major world religions, and all exercise extensive influence in their societies... At the present time, contacts with international religious groups are increasing, along with the expansion of our country's other international contacts, a situation which has important significance for extending our country's political influence. But at the same time there are reactionary religious groups abroad, especially the imperialistic ones such as the Vatican and Protestant Foreign-mission societies, who strive to use all possible occasions to carry on their efforts at infiltration "to return to the China mainland." Our policy is to actively develop friendly international religious contacts, but also to firmly resist infiltration by hostile foreign religious forces.

We must be vigilant and pay close attention to hostile religious forces from abroad who set up underground churches and other illegal organizations. We must act resolutely to attack those organizations that carry out destructive espionage under the guise of religion. Of course, in doing so, we must not act rashly, but rather investigate thoroughly, have irrefutable evidence at hand, choose the right moment, and execute the case in accordance with lawful procedures.

The entire document is worth reading, but this in particular was pertinent to avoiding reactionaries within religions. It still asserts that Marxism and religions are contradictory but that religion isn't going anywhere even though it's been illegal for over a a generation.

But as I mentioned to the other poster, we're basically in agreement. I just don't think that religiosity will ever just fall away like Marx & Engel's optimism, but who knows. I'd be glad to be wrong, especially if China's model of the long game in followed.

this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
122 points (100.0% liked)

the_dunk_tank

15909 readers
102 users here now

It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS