/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4505384]

In hindsight, Marx's decision to make atheism a central tenet of communism was profoundly stupid.

He fell prey to the tendencies of the very bourgeois he railed against, the tendency of the well-educated, well-off people to underestimate the importance of religion to the lower classes. Atheism correlates with higher socioeconomic status, and if you go lower down the ladder, you get the reverse. Even today, in our enlightened age, poor people are far more likely to be religious than rich people, and it was even more pronounced in Marx's day, when the population as a whole was more religious.

If Marx had avoided taking an anti-religious stance, his economic principles would have won far more support. Marxism would have been discussed before and after Sunday services throughout the world. Biblical scholars would have pointed out that the Apostles themselves practice a form of primitive communism in the Book of Acts. More leftist preachers would have expounded on the virtues of Marxism from their pulpits.

If Karl had just kept his fucking mouth shut about religion, huge swaths of the world today would be communist. That is what I truly believe.

[Anonymous No.4505388]

>>4505384
>In hindsight, Marx's decision to make atheism a central tenet of communism was profoundly stupid.
B-but he didn't

[Anonymous No.4505397]

communism sux t. /pol/

[Anonymous No.4505400]

I don't think that's why communism failed.

[Anonymous No.4505417]

>>4505400
>communism failed

>if I keep saying it it'll be coherent

[Anonymous No.4505426]

>>4505417
Have you been to a commune? Do you know how fucking boring they are?

[Anonymous No.4505429]

>>4505417
Yes, you should try being coherent.

[Anonymous No.4505458]

Communism failed because they integrated it in Russia, which wasn't industrialized yet at the time.

[Anonymous No.4505511]

>>4505384
Meh, that extremely militant anti-religious sentiment that is associated with Marxism is actually the result of heavy party propaganda by several early communist parties. Engels and Marx themselves acknowledged that they were heavily influenced by Hegel's philosophy and especially his philosophyh of mind and history. They pretty much put Hegel's eschatological concept into a more materialist concept, but they kept the whole concept of redemption to a certain part. The kingdom of God in heaven will be made reality on earth. Pretty much all Young Hegelians employed a secularised Christian philosophy, Engels explicitely admits this.

[Anonymous No.4505519]

>>4505384
>In hindsight, Marx's decision to make atheism a central tenet of communism was profoundly stupid.
You don't understand the opium of the people quote at all.

[Anonymous No.4505539]

>>4505519
This, Hess was trying to explain that Jesus feels good injected in ur veins

[Anonymous No.4505553]

Communism failed because it's supposed to be a natural end to the process that is socialism, it's not supposed to be forced.

[Anonymous No.4505557]

>Marx
>economic principles
>implying Marx's theories have any basis in economics

[Anonymous No.4505567]

Marxism is a materialist ideology at it's very core. It can not coexist in a religious society

[Anonymous No.4505573]

>>4505567
Cool pic of Bruce Willis.

[Anonymous No.4505583]

>>4505557
>implying Marx isn't one of the most well known and influential economists of all time

[Anonymous No.4505592]

I know you've read it a hundred times but it's beautiful and I cry every time. Marx was not computable with the spirituality of his time and was a stern materialist. But why be so orthodox it's not like he's a prophet is it?

>Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

>Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

>The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

>Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. . .

It seems there is place for a religion that honors the material reality and emancipation of man after all doesn't it?

[Anonymous No.4505601]

>>4505539
Marx put forward religion exists as a refuge for the constant and endless exploitation in the captalist system, yes.

[Anonymous No.4505628]

I agree to a certain extent with OP

To me, a lot of Christian and Communist principles seem to overlap. Look at liberation theology for example,

In communism being "godless", it was a bit of a PR backfire, and made it easy to stigmatise etc, especially when religion still meant a lot to people back in those days (and still does in 3rd world places like south america/ africa/ USA).
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”


― Father Hélder Câmara,

[Occult Fascist No.4505633]

>>4505384
>In hindsight, Marx's decision to make atheism a central tenet of communism was profoundly stupid.

Something tells me you have a profound misunderstanding of the goals of communism and how it would have to/is being achieved...

[Anonymous No.4505663]

>>4505429
I agree, but capitalists don't see the wisdom in it.

[Anonymous No.4505966]

>>4505567
Just because you would need to transition to communism through the system doesn't mean it's suddenly a materialist ideology. It's anti-materialist at it's core.

Also, as another person quoted in here, Karl Marx was a religious person himself and noted the significance of religion in his writings, he did not deride it.

[Anonymous No.4505992]

>>4505966
This. Remember that in his time, opium was used as a cure for pain.

[Anonymous No.4505993]

Religion being part of the superstructure of class society, it only exists as long as the material conditions it rests on exist. Marxists understand that religion will vanish when the material conditions it rests on are gone.

Enforced atheism is highly un-Materialist and has fuck all to do with the destruction of class society (Communism/Socialism).

[Anonymous No.4506047]

>>4505993

The material condition that religion rests on are biology, and man's need to confront his own mortality.

You would need to have humans evolve to lose any sense of spirituality, as religion was an adaption to improve in-group cohesiveness, and you would have to solve the problem of man's origins, the origins of the universe, existence, and what happens when you die.

As long as you have no answer for those things, there will always be room for guessing, and therefore religious extrapolation.

You could eugenically remove people who wonder about those things from the population, but then who wants to live in a world populated by aspies who go around tipping their fedora and never having a sense of wonder about anything and blindly following science (which is paradoxical in that it in itself is a religion).

Look at the beauty that religious love inspires...the works of michelangelo, leonardo da vinci, countless beautiful sculptures, paintings, chapels, etc...

There is more than just "Does a sky man exist who saved me and my mom comes from a rib" there's a whole world out there to think about.

I'm an atheist myself but you have to remember what a fucking idiot you are and in the 20-odd years you've been alive it is impossible to learn much about anything outside of your very small milieu. If only I could have been born a rock and gotten to see millions of years pass...alas.

[Anonymous No.4506059]

>>4505966
>anti-materialist
>brags about turning Hegel's idealism on its head through his philosophy of dialectical materialism
>inspired by Feuerbach, a materialist

Huh?

[Anonymous No.4506063]

>>4506047
>You would need to have humans evolve to lose any sense of spirituality
This. Humans have an innate need to rationalize their existence. It has nothing to do with materialism.

[Anonymous No.4506080]

>>4505583
>Marx
>economist

[Anonymous No.4506086]

>>4506059
Yes but you must realize he significantly diverged from Feuerbach's ideas and notions. He has lengthy writings on which he derides what he actually stood for.

He was more inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche than Feuerbach's ideals, but you're right that Feuerbach had a huge impact on his early writing in the 1840s.

And Karl Marx, not only founding the dialectical materialist philosophy wrote historical conceptions of it and how the materialist philosophy manifested, but he showed why it wasn't, by definition, in the proletariat best interest through the utilization of expanding production forces, and thusly, the lower labor force

[Anonymous No.4506095]

>>4506080
He was an economist, a journalist, a philosopher, and a political activist.

As well as being a genius.

[Anonymous No.4506099]

>>4505628
Forcing people to give you food and things is not very Christian.

>It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

>People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

[Anonymous No.4506104]

>>4506047

You sounded like a reasonable individual until

> but then who wants to live in a world populated by aspies who go around tipping their fedora and never having a sense of wonder about anything and blindly following science (which is paradoxical in that it in itself is a religion).

Science is NOT a religion. It creates no object of worship, it has no dogma, save the scientific method, which isn't a doctrine of belief, but rather a doctrine meant to guide people wishing to inquire about the quantifiable, classifiable, physical aspects of the universe.

The "doctrines" of science are reasonable as they are set in place to prevent the preconceptions, beliefs, biases, and misconceptions of a scientist from interfering with the validity of his research. That is: A scientist can believe that atoms are all created by fairies, and he can even bring that to an experiment as a hypothesis (though he probably won't get funded), he just can't fudge data to support his hypothesis if it doesn't.

In addition to having little-to-no dogma (depending on your criteria for what dogma IS), science has nothing to do with "fedora-tipping" or "new Atheism" so please stop making these misleading comparisons. that hinge on 4chan fads.

Science also isn't a religion on the grounds that its purpose isn't to comfort or shepherd people through life. It doesn't have political or economic goals. Science is purely EMPIRICAL philosophy, its sole purpose is presenting an efficient method for gathering knowledge. Whether the knowledge, once gathered, is used for political, economic, social, or religious goals is completely dependent on the entities funding/performing the science. Those entities are widely depending on context in the larger world.

Also, the body of knowledge science has discovered can at any time be refined or changed based on new data. Outside of the METHOD of science, the body of knowledge undergoes so many changes that it cannot possibly be accused of being anything like religious dogma, which resists change regardless of new data.

As for your bits after that sentence, do you really believe that a person can't have a secular love for the univerese? A secular appreciation of art? A secular sense of beauty and love completely independent of both science and religion?

Btw, you will never hear me reduce religion to "jealous skydaddy" or "gullible retards in one room" I understand the context of religion historically, scientifically and philosophically and I understand the variation in the concept of God across religions, sects of religions, languages, and expanses of Earth. I'm not here to ridicule religion, I'm just here to ask why are you reducing science to it? It's a cheap trick people use in order to call science hypocritical, or at the very least, the wide variety of people performing it.

It also suggests that a scientist can't hold their own set of complex philosophical views outside of their job.

[Anonymous No.4506107]

>>4506095
Thanks wikipro

[Anonymous No.4506111]

>>4506047
I agree with this post

[Anonymous No.4506126]

>>4506104

Sounds like you worship in the church of science, bro. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.4506127]

>>4505426

Do communes have to be exciting and entertaining 24/7 to be worthwhile?

[Anonymous No.4506131]

>>4506111

You agree that science is religion, and that a less religious world would somehow represent an increase in people with aspergers who wear fedoras, and that can only be inspired to great intellectual heights by religious principles?

Because I think that's a wee bit silly.

[Anonymous No.4506134]

>>4506127
Yes, what the fuck kind of stupid question is that?

[Anonymous No.4506144]

>>4506131
It's not silly at all, it's pretty much the most obvious conclusion you can make given the circumstances.

[Anonymous No.4506145]

>>4506126

Sounds like you didn't read my post and enjoy reducing a nuanced explanation to an oversimplified version of what you want to hear.

Sorry bro.

[Anonymous No.4506148]

Science and Religion are definately not diametrically opposed. They both fall under the sphere of introspective pursuits, be it philosophy, science, religion, or art. Marxist Materialism falls under the sphere of extrospective, it includes the pursuits in the realm of Technology, War, Politics, and Economics. When a culture has exhausted its youthful vigor it begins to lose its respect for religion, and embraces its own version of Nihilism, which is born in the Metropolis. Marxism and Ethical Socialism are Western man's attempts at redemption, due to the naturalized and secularized ideas which were born in the Enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.4506151]

>>4506099
>charity is Christian

>Having a system in place which renders such charity useless is anti-christian

It's always amusing when capitalists think their system is compatible with christian values

[Anonymous No.4506152]

>>4506145
>nuanced explanation
You think very highly of yourself, don't you?

[Anonymous No.4506158]

>>4506148

Good post.

I think people have altruistic drives, and in a world where "God is dead" we still have a sense of morals (Moral realism), and therefore we replace traditional religion with something akin to communism.

[Anonymous No.4506160]

>>4506151
Would Jesus want you to give Charity because you are forced at gunpoint, or because you love god? Which do you think Jesus would logically prefer?

[Anonymous No.4506159]

>>4506099
>giving charitably to those in need is christian
>providing them with what they need in the first place so they don't need to rely on charity is evil godless anti-christian heresy

[Anonymous No.4506161]

>>4506151
That quote is from an atheist.

[Anonymous No.4506163]

>>4506144

Why is science a religion.

Better yet, make a list of criteria as to what qualifies a religion. Point out how science shares those qualities, and tell me how other secular philosophies, like Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, etc. aren't religions (or are you going to tell me they are too.)

Also tell me what the word secular is even for, if a secular philosophy is really just a Godless religion, as you suggest.

And once you're done, please elaborate on how all of this is SO OBVIOUS. Is my child just supposed to "wake up" and have all this occur to him one day, without any external prompting from institutions and authorities?

[Anonymous No.4506164]

>>4506158
The altruistic drives exist to get you allies and so that people feel that they owe you and won't stand in your way as you fight for dominance

rate

[Anonymous No.4506168]

>Talking about Marx
Fuck, I'll even give you
>Talking about Marx in any way besides his observations on the situation at hand during the Industrial Revolution

At this point, it's worthless. You're better than this, /lit/

[Anonymous No.4506169]

>>4506164
D- Apply yourself.

[Anonymous No.4506171]

>>4506145

Well it's just that you make some points I disagree with; science has lots of dogma, just look at how it is conducted...it is extremely ritualistic and hierarchical (academe), there is a lot of groupthink, and you say it is empirical, which is another word for scientific- seems somewhat like circular logic, and it's debatable whether science is the "most efficient way to gather knowledge". It sounds like you're giving talking points and are about to offer me 72 virgins if I can figure what a null hypothesis is.

[Anonymous No.4506172]

>>4506158
So you're saying that we have replaced God with "the state"?

[Anonymous No.4506175]

>>4506160
False choice.

Jesus would rather people weren't starving to death and living in degrading, impoverished conditions in the first place.

To think he would endorse a socioeconomic system which produces these conditions is delusional

[Anonymous No.4506177]

>>4506163

You wrote his post for him.

Science --> secular religion

Capitalism/communism/socialism are all dogmatic and do not represent the totality of "economics" and are religious in nature as well.

Any system based on faith is "religious", including science; this is due to a failure of the majority of so-called scientists of actually being scientists, and more like priests, and a failure of science to address it's reliance on certain metaphysical assumptions.

[Anonymous No.4506180]

>>4506172

Well, look at the cults of personality like Stalin or Hitler or Obama.

The all giving father that will provide for you and wrap you in his warm embrace, only requiring your submission.

[Anonymous No.4506181]

>>4506086
He did diverge from Feuerbach, in fact, he wrote that Feuerbach wasn't materialist enough (I believe it was in The German Ideology and The Theses on Feuerbach where he says this).

I don't think he was inspired by Nietzsche at all, or even heard of him. Nietzsche was hypercritical of democracy and socialism - seeing it as a type of secularized Christianity, a type of decadent offspring.

[Anonymous No.4506186]

>>4506175
>They brought the coin, and he asked them, "Whose image is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied.

>Then Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And they were amazed at him.

Clearly Jesus doesn't give a shit what economic system there is in place in society, the point is that he transcends humanity and the earthly world

[Anonymous No.4506190]

>>4506169
Give me one good reason not to believe it's so and I'll become a fedora-tipping atheist monk

[Anonymous No.4506193]

>>4506186
So taxes aren't bad then.

[Anonymous No.4506201]

>>4506152
No, not necessarily. But that's not what we were talking about.

I meant nuanced as in, I got into details that made my post longer than it probably had to be. I simply meant my argument was detailed, and that I prematurely anticipated certain counter-arguments, and tried to address them ahead of time to save you the trouble, OR WHATEVER.

(like right now I'm anticipating you greentexting the "save you the trouble" part and saying something like "Oh, so you think you're saving me trouble, how arrogant." and then not saying anything else with your post)

I'm not sure how my opinion of myself is supposed to effect the validity of what I said, and I'm not sure why you're drawing conclusions about such irrelevant things as my opinion on myself.

My point stands SCIENCE is not a religion.

1. There are religious scientists. Their religion is not changed by their profession.

2. There are agnostic scientists, and atheist scientists, and pantheist scientists. Their religous views or lack-thereof might be BECAUSE of information brought by scientific discoveries, but it is not the scientific method itself that MAKES them nonreligious. It is a conscious choice of their own.

3. Science has no dogmas, tradition, cultural practices, sects, priesthood, and its body of knowledge (not considered sacred) changes with new data.

ADDRESS.

[Anonymous No.4506202]

>>4506163
I'm just typing bullcrap, man, but I do believe there's no real difference in political ideology and religion. If Confucianism is a religion, I don't see why Marxism, Constitutionalism, Libertarianism, etc. aren't.

[Anonymous No.4506203]

>>4506190

Another theory is that altruism is so that people with similar genes to you survive. If your neighbor is closely related to you (as he was in most of human history) and needs help, you help him. Therefore your genes live on through him. This is why people are most helpful to blood relatives, and people are less altruistic in multicultural societies full of people that don't share your DNA.

[Anonymous No.4506206]

Marx should only be viewed in his own historical context. He is an offspring of Enlightenment philosophy. In the west, the idea of Progress (which originated with Christianity) was naturalized, rationalized, and secularized, to which we can conclude that modern man today believes that the holy trinity of Equality, Materialism, and Democracy will usher utopia for man. Marx is simply the extension of this concluding sentiment of Ethical Socialism.

[Anonymous No.4506212]

>>4506201
>3. Science has no dogmas, tradition, cultural practices, sects, priesthood, and its body of knowledge (not considered sacred) changes with new data.

>implying


Also, for example, I had a professor who was an evolutionary biologist, who openly insulted religion, despite it having nothing to do with evo-bio. Religion answers where life came from, and evo-bio picks up to show how humans diversified, and they are in no way incompatible, but he ignorantly believed they were.

He also believed that race was a social construct and the only reason (excuse me for going full /pol/) for disparate incomes among "races" were because of social inequality, rather than natural results of evolution.

That kind of ignorance is endemic.

[Anonymous No.4506219]

>>4506186
>clearly
>two lines of scripture that can be interpreted in various different ways
>clearly Jesus doesn't give a shit what economic system there is in place
>And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
- Jesus
Leviticus 25:35–38: "If one [...] becomes poor [...] help him [...] so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God [...] You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit.
"Acts 4:32–35, "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had [...] there were no needy persons among them [...] the money [...] was distributed to anyone as he had need." As well as Acts 2:42–47, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching [...] to the breaking of bread [...] everyone was filled with awe [...] all the believers were together and had everything in common [...] they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they [...] ate together with glad and sincere hearts"

- This is from the acts of the apostles, and rather than just being an airing of an opinion, it's part of the law of Moses, and as such is seen as a commandment.

To suggest capitalism is compatible with christianity is laughable

[Anonymous No.4506220]

>>4506177

I wrote no such thing for him.

> Science --> secular religion

1.
of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests.
2.
not pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to sacred ): secular music.
3.
(of education, a school, etc.) concerned with nonreligious subjects.
4.
(of members of the clergy) not belonging to a religious order; not bound by monastic vows (opposed to regular ).

IT IS NOT A RELIGION. YOU ARE DOING A DISSERVICE TO BOTH RELIGION AND SCIENCE BY MISUSING THE WORDS SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS.

I mean, I'm seriously facepalming 'cause I know no matter what I say you guys are gonna go pour this shit in your kids' ears.

Four definitions of secular. They all completely render the notion of "secular religion" and oxymoron, a misnomer. Science doesn't exist to say things about the supernatural, or to comfort people in the face of death. Its discoveries can inadvertently do this for some people, but the method itself, empirical in nature, does not exist to do so.

"Jimmy, science is a religion, never let anyone tell you otherwise." BLEH.

[Anonymous No.4506224]

>>4506203
Yes, but even then you generally still want to be top Englishman, Swede, Jew, Chinamen, etc.

[Anonymous No.4506227]

>>4506134
Are you serious? Consider camping or something. I'm not even trying to be condescending, I think it'd show you life doesn't have to give you 100% stimulation for every hour you're awake.

[Anonymous No.4506232]

>>4506227
Doesn't have to, but it's more fun that way

[Anonymous No.4506235]

>>4506047
>evo psych

Not even once

[Anonymous No.4506244]

>>4506232
Actually it's really, really horrible, but you have to stop being a junkie before you can see the ill affects addiction has on your physical and mental health.

[Anonymous No.4506251]

>>4506168
>implying he didn't elaborated the fundamental structures and tenets of a capitalist society and why these will earlier or later screw society as a whole because of the crises that are immanent within capitalism

[Anonymous No.4506255]

>>4506220

>"...not man, not woman, not beast can you trust...but science, science you can trust..."

[Anonymous No.4506256]

>>4506177

Science has gradually relied on less and less metaphysical assumptions. Hence the separation of genuine scientific disciplines (like chemistry and astronomy), employing the scientific method, from proto-sciences (like alchemy and astrology) which variably used faith-based, cultural, and empirical methods, for arbitrary, inherited reasons.

And regardless of the shortcomings of scientISTS, science as a method makes no metaphysical assumptions.

The shortcomings of individual scientists should no more dissuade you of the usefulness of science's METHOD than priests molesting children should dissuade you of God's existence. They're independent issues, to be tackled and discussed separately. Any scientist's shortcoming is likely based on him performing science incorrectly, by letting his or her own metaphysical views effect his or her research.

As for the whole "faith" thing, yes, there is an element of faith required for believing in even the most obvious things, like the existence of the universe, or the self. Yes, science does take a couple of very basic things for granted, but those things are its subject matter of study. As an empirical philosophy, science leaves other branches of philosophy to debate about whether what science is studying (the universe) even exists, or what its relationship with God, or the Great Void, or the higher power, or this or that or whatever is.

Also, those things that science takes for-granted are more accurately described as "trust-based" than "faith-based" but this requires pages and page of further debate, I imagine, especially with people who, for varying reasons, want to convince me that science is a religion.

[Anonymous No.4506257]

>>4506244
I'm physically in okay shape and exactly where I wish to be mental-wise, usually. Sometimes I feel humbled, and that's pretty annoying, but it's not too hard to get over.

[Anonymous No.4506265]

>>4506256
>no metaphysical assumptions
Cartesian subjects
Occam's Razor
Inductionism
World as a fact

[Anonymous No.4506269]

Not really, most great tales fail. He needed to be there to throw the basis of functional systems, and maybe move forwarth nonpower driven historic studies.

[Anonymous No.4506270]

>>4506256
>"trust-based" than "faith-based"

just stop.


>
The shortcomings of individual scientists should no more dissuade you of the usefulness of science's METHOD than priests molesting children should dissuade you of God's existence. They're independent issues, to be tackled and discussed separately. Any scientist's shortcoming is likely based on him performing science incorrectly, by letting his or her own metaphysical views effect his or her research.

Actually this is a great argument for the failure of systems. Why should I be a Catholic if I'm going to get molested? Why be a student of science if my professors are going to fill my head full of lies and leftist rhetoric?

[Anonymous No.4506307]

>>4506212

> I had a professor who was an evolutionary biologist who openly insulted religion.

Yes, and my girlfriend had a religious biology teacher here in Florida who would only discuss evolution after laughing at it and making it very clear that he thought it was ridiculous. He was religious despite being trained in scientific disciplines. Science was most certainly not his religion, and that wouldn't change even if he was exactly like your anecdotal teacher.

> despite it having nothing to do with evo-bio.

Right, the shortcomings of an individual performing science says nothing about science's method, which remains the same regardless of the bias of the people performing it.

> . Religion answers where life came from, and evo-bio picks up to show how humans diversified, and they are in no way incompatible, but he ignorantly believed they were.

I'm sorry that he felt that way. It says nothing about the scientific method, and it suggest nothing about science being a religion.

> He also believed that race was a social construct and the only reason (excuse me for going full /pol/) for disparate incomes among "races" were because of social inequality, rather than natural results of evolution.

No, race isn't a social construct, but it's not full-blown speciation either. All humans are (likely) descended from a seed population of approx. ten thousand humans left after a catastrophic volcanic eruption that wiped most of us out, early in our evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

The speciation of homo sapiens took hundreds of thousands of years of gradual evolution, so the idea that features emerging only halfway through our tenure as a species really separates us all that much is a little ridiculous. Also, conclusions about race are difficult to make because interracial breeding is pretty much universal, and is only becoming moreso. Any important differences race creates are likely to be eliminated, stirred-up, made indistinguishable, eventually. And while race isn't a social construct, I would still say it's not as important as the distribution of natural resources, the distribution of manufactured resources, political, economic, and military events. But this is a separate discussion from our first, isn't it.

[Anonymous No.4506341]

>>4506270

> just stop

Just say something substantive. Telling me to stop doesn't convince me to.


Actually this is a great argument for the failure of systems. Why should I be a Catholic if I'm going to get molested?


> Why be a student of science

to learn science.

>if my professors are going to fill my head full of lies and leftist rhetoric?

This isn't a GIVEN. Some will even fill your head with right-wing rhetoric, heh-heh.

That was my whole point. The failure of someone to PERFORM a given method, or teach a given method, does not reflect a failure of the METHOD itself.

If I make a recipe to bake a cake, and someone performs 3 out of 5 steps properly, it says nothing about my recipe.

You cannot discredit SCIENCE by discrediting various people who have failed to teach and perform science. There will always be the problem of the actual not living up to the ideal, but that does not mean we should scrap the ideal as a standard to strive for.

You cannot propose a better method for gathering knowledge about the physical universe than controlled experiments, loyal recording of data, and encapsulation of physical phenomena into quantitative formulas and jargon. I'm sorry.

[Anonymous No.4506346]

>>4506270

Obviously

>Actually this is a great argument for the failure of systems. Why should I be a Catholic if I'm going to get molested?


should've been greentexted.

and my reply would've been, "IT'S NOT A GIVEN.

[Anonymous No.4506356]

You're listing others' ideas without saying how they support your ideas.

You might as well have been yelling harry potter spells.

[Anonymous No.4506406]

Excellent thread, assuming the presumption that Marx was anti-religion holds true, but has anyone provided any supporting evidence of this stance?

>>4505511

This man seems to know what he's talking about. Anyone know enough to refute his point? Or is he just right?

[Anonymous No.4506410]

Why is everyone in this thread talking about communism as if it was Marx advocated?

Communism is the ultimate stage of human history which was supposed to follow socialism and a workers' state.

Marx advocated socialism. The question of whether or not communism has or has not failed is completely irrelevant seeing as socialism has not even been established yet.

Jesus Christ

This is like people criticizing Jesus Christ for not establishing his kingdom on Earth even though he hasn't even finished the part where he returns for a second time.

This thread is full of a bunch of retards whose grasp of Marxist theory is derived from its Wikipedia page.

[Anonymous No.4506416]

Oh, and the whole critique of atheism being a bourgeois virtue is complete bullshit.

This is akin to saying that because having a full stomach and being unoppressed are traits exclusive to non-proles Marx should have advocated famine and oppression.

[Anonymous No.4506420]

>>4506410
>This thread is full of a bunch of retards whose grasp of Marxist theory is derived from its Wikipedia page.

>seeing as socialism has not even been established yet.

And you sound like a pedantic newbie Trotskyite.

[Anonymous No.4506492]

What portions of my posts convinced you that I was a Trot?

If you are looking for pedantry than your best bet is someone who randomly affixes the label of Trotskite in order to make it sound like they know anything about Marx.

[Anonymous No.4506512]

>>4506410
>ultimate stage of human history
>muh perfect idea
hegel ur dum

[Anonymous No.4506520]

I'm not saying that Marx was right about communism being the final stage of human history.

All I am saying is that it is stupid to debate why communism has failed just as it is stupid to debate why Jesus's kingdom on Earth has failed.

It would be more productive if we actually understood what Marx advocated during his life time if we are going to talk about Marxist theory.

Ergo it is important to talk about why socialism has failed.

[Anonymous No.4506527]

>>4506410

lmao

Socialism IS Communism unless you subscribe to Marxism-Leninism. Marx was a Communist because and by virtue of the fact that he supported the destruction of class society at the hands of the proletariat. Have you even read The Principles of Communism?

You sound like a utopian socialist who believes that socialism is something to be worked towards and "constructed". If you were a good Marxist you would know that the Socialism represents the victory of the proletariat in its historic role as the champion class of history, which will annihilate bourgeois society -and hence itself as a class- and through this titanic destruction of our capitalist economic base- our material conditions , give birth to Communism.

[Anonymous No.4506540]

>>4506527
Communism is buns
Prove me wrong

[Anonymous No.4506543]

>>4506527

Dear God

The Principles of Communism was written by Eduard Bernstein who was a social democrat. He disagreed with Marx on so many topics it isn't even funny.

Please go back and read the Communist Manifesto or something which was actually written by a Marxist before you cite non-Marxist literature as examples of Marxist thought.

Marx's beliefs regarding the construction of a socialist society were extremely mechanical, unlike that of Utopian socialists who were focused on small scale personal achievement of socialist communities.

Jesus Christ this hurts

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4506552]

>>4506410
I liked yer post :B

[Anonymous No.4506556]

>A benevolent Kryptonian that is imperceptible to the manipulations of the international bourgeoisie will never land in Soviet Ukraine and champion the ideals Communism

[Anonymous No.4506612]

I can't believe that at this point no one has actually given any bits of Marx's writing on religion at this point seeing as this entire topic is devoted to this topic, but here goes.

"Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to
himself, or has already lost himself again. But, man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man
is the world of man — state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted
consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this
world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, it
enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and
justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired
any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world
whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real
suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of
soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.
To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition
that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears
of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that
chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.
The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man
who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own
true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve
around himself.
It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this
world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask
self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been
unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into
the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics"

It's from his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critique_of_Hegels_Philosophy_of_Right.pdf

It's in the introduction.

[Anonymous No.4506641]

>>4506612
someone did, actually

[Anonymous No.4506732]

>>4506543

>>4506543

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

>Frederick Engels 1847

>Engels
>Not a Marxist
>Implying

[Anonymous No.4506756]

>>4506148
How is science introspective when it is the study of how the universe works? Even thought experiments within the domain of science use scientific discourse.

[Anonymous No.4506768]

>>4506151
Christianity can be subjectively interpreted to be compatible with any ideology. It is commonly said that Jesus came to disavow the "eye for an eye" saying, yet Christians especially on the Right use biblical verse to justify violence, patriotic war, the destruction of the enemy, etc., in political discourse.

[Anonymous No.4506790]

>>4506556
A benevolent Kryptonian that is imperceptible to the manipulations of the international Jew will never land in Vichy France and champion the ideals Nationalism

[Anonymous No.4506806]

>>4506181
>or even heard of him
Confirmed for not being aware of how influential philosophers are.

And no, he contradicted many of Feuerbach's ideals completely like the notion religion should shape or impact the laws of the state. This showed he had a distaste for the materialist regime, but Feuerbach's ideal regime was the current one.

Dialectical materialism isn't really taking a stance on materialism, it's just rationalizing the impacts it has on science, ethics, and the real world we live in.

[Anonymous No.4506885]

>>4506256
Science makes assumptions, they are just very productive ones.

[Anonymous No.4506912]

Marx defines ideology as anything which obscures class struggle. "Religion is the Opium of the Masses". The capitalist uses religion as a means to distract the proletariat from rising up ("The first will be last and the last will be first and the meek will inherit the earth","The rich man is more likely to pass through the eye of a needle than enter the gates of heaven" etc).

So the goal for Marx wasn't to win more support by a populist appeal to religion. Class Struggle necessitates struggling against religious ideology.

[Anonymous No.4507070]

>>4506756
Science is viewed in younger cultures as "okay god created all this stuff, Its my responsibility to understand the world and therefore God" but later that becomes Technology "lel im just ganna make the best tools and gadgets to fuck shit up".

[Anonymous No.4507081]

>>4506768
>implying Jesus could be anything but a Libertarian today
>implying he wouldn't support non aggression principle
>implying he didn't give humanity free will for the same reason
> implying he wouldn't support property rights, as will as self ownership

[Anonymous No.4507083]

>>4506912
That's the number one thing about Marxism that I find silly
>The only thing stopping the supremacy of my ideology is the existence of other ideologies!

[Anonymous No.4507097]

>>4505384

Was Marx writing to inspire and move individuals, or attempting to describe historical truth as he interpreted it?

The two are not mutually incompatible, but remember that he was a political/economic philosopher and a theorist, not a politician or leader. Your criticism of his stance on religion might be be legitimate, but the idea that he ought to have misrepresented his own beliefs for the sake of broader support seems out of sync with Marx's motives as an individual.

[Anonymous No.4507190]

Clearly you know nothing about the intellectual climate in which Marx' ideas came about. Atheism is actually more imporatant than communism in the earlier phases of the development of Young Hegelian thought.

[Anonymous No.4507710]

>>4507081
>this american delusion

Be a libertarian or be a Christian, stop trying to make them compatible

>Jesus supporting property rights

hahaha


>self ownership
yeah, Communism

[Anonymous No.4507728]

>>4507081
>non aggression principle
>having any logical coherence whatsoever throughout libertarian "philosophy"

[Anonymous No.4507739]

>>4506180
>seriously comparing obama to hitler or stalin

[Anonymous No.4507742]

>>4505384
> If Marx had avoided taking an anti-religious stance, his economic principles would have won far more support. Marxism would have been discussed before and after Sunday services throughout the world. Biblical scholars would have pointed out that the Apostles themselves practice a form of primitive communism in the Book of Acts. More leftist preachers would have expounded on the virtues of Marxism from their pulpits.
But that is what Tolstoy did with anarchism.

Now I don't know how popular Christian Anarchist was even after The Kingdom of God is in You but I believe it was always very obscure.

[Anonymous No.4507744]

>>4505384
Marx was trying to shift the focus to the creation of heaven on earth. Any modern religion should honor this aim.

[Anonymous No.4507749]

>>4506235
b-b-but aslong as it sounds plausible that pre-historic man did this you cant UNprov e it!

[Anonymous No.4507753]

>>4507739

[Anonymous No.4507759]

>>4507739
>>4507753
>no one can stop me from shitposting outside of /pol/

[Anonymous No.4507760]

>>4507759
>implying they can stop me from shitposting inside of /pol/

[Anonymous No.4507772]

that’s it, i’m tired of those gun nuts and conservashits using the constitution to justify mass murder and holding our ecomomy hostage! according the conserashlocks, everything is in violation of the constitution. the constitution was written hundreds of years ago, and is toatlly outdated you dumb conservacunts! we need to stop this degeneracy. just stop
it’s time we become a civilised country like britain, sweden and other first world countries. here’s some stuff we should be doing
1. confiscate all civilian owned firearms, and move them to government centers. ban all semi-automatic machineguns ownership! you do not need a full auto machine gun you tiny dicked conservadorks!
2. the constitution needs repealed and replace with something less racist, sexist, homophobic, and bigoted
3. mandatory healthcare. if you aren’t paying taxes, you belong in prison. that’s it. done. end of discussion. we must advance ourselves as a society, and the healthcare mandate is one step forward
4. mandatory circumcision and rfid chips injections
5. mandatory flu shots, mandatory shots for kids. if you don’t get the shots, you should be imprisoned in fear that you may cause an epidemic because of your extremist beliefs
6. strong penalties for gun ownership. if a gun is discovered on your person, a mandatory prison sentence of 40-80 years should be installed. decrease crime 99.99%
7. detain/execute individuals who conspire to fearmongering the stockmarket with their hypocritical extrmemist beliefs, people like ron paul who want to destroy the government.
8. we need more police funding, instead of blowing it in the middle east, we should be bringing it home, and donating the tanks, humvees, and the mtracks to the police, the people the need it
9. we need to make it easier for third world emigrants to emigrate america and europe and get monetary and social assistance from the government

[Anonymous No.4507775]

>>4507772
stromweenire status: REKT

[Anonymous No.4507788]

Except that as far as I know Marx was not trying to incite revolution. He merely concluded that it was inevitable.

But you are right, the Catholic Church foremost amongst the enemies of leftist thought has little else to justify its attacks by if not the explicit anti-theism expressed by most leftists themselves.

[Anonymous No.4507790]

>>4506885
Yes, and they aren't metaphysical, either.

And they're very basic assumptions like "stuff in the universe is real, and behaves according to predetermined laws which can be discovered by repeatedly observing controlled situations.."

[Anonymous No.4507794]

>>4507775
YOU'RE HILARIOUS

[Anonymous No.4507795]

>>4507790
>science
>real

[Anonymous No.4507797]

>>4507795
Yes, I am.

But you're a troll.

[Anonymous No.4507798]

>>4507794
thanks, friend :^)

[Anonymous No.4507799]

>>4506171

>It's debatable

SAYS THE ASSHOLE LITERALLY MOOCHING OFF THE WORK OF COUNTLESS "DOGMATIC" SCIENTISTS.

It's debatable that you have a sincere interest in somehow different "epistimelogies" and instead are confronted by a vast world of knowledge disseminated throughout human society that compromise the "sciences" and instead of being humble and trying to start from the beginning, are frustrated by your inability to dominate it all with simplistic turns of phrases.

Fucking miserable asswipes.

[Anonymous No.4507804]

>>4507742

Tolstoy is not was well regarded Christian. The christian churches, were forever intimate with the ruling classes and could be themselves considered a separate ruling class. And theirs is the most blatant hierarchy of all. They would still have been opposed anarchism and communism.

They might however have aligned themselves with revolutionary statists had the latter not been keen to declare themselves enemies of the church.

[Anonymous No.4507807]

>>4507772
>we need more police funding, instead of blowing it in the middle east, we should be bringing it home, and donating the tanks, humvees, and the mtracks to the police, the people the need it

oh god no. I'm all for cutting funding to the middle east, but giving that money to police is asinine. They have plenty of power as it is.

[Anonymous No.4507812]

>>4507807
what I meant is that the police would become part of the military

[Anonymous No.4507814]

>>4507807
he's joking you retard that's what people shitpost on /pol/
see post before his

[Anonymous No.4507820]

>>4507814
There are a lot of people on /lit/ that agree with a lot of those statements though.

[Black Supermacist !MQI.kgLxBg No.4507821]

I Beleieve That We Should Get Rid Of The White Problem For Socialism To Prosper

[Anonymous No.4507838]

>>4507820
>mandatory rfid chips

[Anonymous No.4507870]

I can't wait 'till they put the white flyover people into FEMA death camps and neuter them. Problem solved.

[Anonymous No.4507878]

>>4507820
How many statements do they agree with?

[Anonymous No.4507879]

>>4507821
HOLY SHIT WHITE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING METAL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oFyI5vlkec

[Anonymous No.4507882]

>>4507821
Doesn't another race just take their place as the current most prosperous?

[Anonymous No.4507886]

>>4507879
nop there's bad at dance and LAME! they're NERDS LOL!
stuff white people like:
>corn
>being lame
>bad things
>nerd things
>music that isn't Jazz or hip hop or R&B and so it's bad
LOL

I'm white by thae way and i don't see why people r offend LOL kill my race we suck!

[Anonymous No.4507892]

>>4507886
>you will never grow corn and dance badly on your reclaimed lebensraum farm

[Anonymous No.4507893]

>>4507882
This is the most anti-semitic comment I've ever seen
Back to /pol/, stormwad

[Anonymous No.4507898]

>>4507882
How? Do you mean another country will gain hegemony? Not necessarily, you know, for the most part of history the world have been multilateral with competition between many super powers it's only for the past 20 years It has been unilateral under American hegemony. It's politics, it has nothing to do with race you simpleton? Read a book. It's going back to the normal after a fluke.

[Anonymous No.4507903]

>>4507886
Turn off that projector.

[Anonymous No.4507905]

>>4507893
lol I literally didn't even think about semetic peoples when posting that.

I was basically coming from the whole Jared Diamond point of view, that some peoples were almost destined for prosperity, while others were destined to languish, due to factors of their environs, that it was luck of the draw that whites are where they're at, and that human nature is essentially the same regardless of race and that history would've likely played out in a similar fashion in regards to racism, genocide, inequality, etc, no matter which race happened to be the most prosperous.

[Anonymous No.4507911]

>>4507905
Yes, this is why it's so vital we start actually learning from the past, in the meager hope, that we might learn to become constructive about the future.

[Anonymous No.4507922]

Of course religion is the opiate of the masses. Just look how docile these masses are.

[Black Supermacist !MQI.kgLxBg No.4507944]

>>4507922
>Pretending That Picture Is Real And Not Stage By The KKK
>Not Knowing Islam Is A Religion Of Peace

[Anonymous No.4507949]

>>4507922
>>4507944
>implying either of these posts is relevant
>derailing with implied racism

>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.4507953]

>>4505384
Spoken like a true christfag.

[Anonymous No.4507955]

>>4507903
Turn off that bigotry.

[Anonymous No.4507958]

>>4507949
>relevance
>rlevance
>revance
>rvace
>race
You think white people are some fucking master race?
>>>/pol/
is THAT way ----------->

[Anonymous No.4507960]

>>4505384
>being this utterly and insanely retarded

[Black Supermacist !MQI.kgLxBg No.4507961]

>>4507949
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.4507963]

>>4507922

you know that's an effigy and not an actual person right?

[Anonymous No.4507972]

>>4507963
>rape think
>hate thought
Back to the /pol/, bigot

[Anonymous No.4507980]

>>4507963
>implying things have to be people to be people
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.4507991]

It's like I'm really on /pol/

[Anonymous No.4507992]

>>4507980
This
it's the TWENTY. FIRST. CENTURY. Is this really so fucking hard to comprehend?

[Anonymous No.4507998]

>>4507991
>objectifying asses for a crude joke
Daniel Tosh-tier rape culture
What are you even doing here, /pol/?

[Anonymous No.4508027]

>>4507998
I mean the thread started out really nice and informative with intelligible discussion between different opinions. After you came along it devolved into ironic post-modern shitflinging only surpassed by ideological news outlets like fox and msnbc. Can we get this post back on track or deleted pls.

Polite sage.

[Anonymous No.4508033]

>>4508027
>implying there's anything wrong with msnbc
>yfw
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.4508045]

>>4505557
holy shit are people really this dumb? Marx's Dialectic Materialism theory directly LINKS economics to political systems

[Anonymous No.4508087]

i can't tell if the /pol/ invaders think they actually pass as leftists

[Anonymous No.4508091]

I suspect Marx, Engels and Hegel were all Jesuit temporal coadjutors documenting the Jesuit reductions of South America and Paraguay in particular, an obvious reason for making them Jews as the Jesuits were expelled and soon under suppression for it all, but the reductions built the Spanish Empire that's why they were so important, communism.

The atheist bent was mainly to destroy the Russian orthodox church in Russia and attack eastern philosophy and Buddhism in China. Same reason its being used in the US today to attack protestant Christianity, the second great schism. religion is a means to an end, raw atheism is similar but its all the occult today anyway. The appeal of Jesuit controlled freemasonry.

[Anonymous No.4508095]

>>4508087
that's probably because you're stupid

[Anonymous No.4508098]

>>4508087
Ooh, if only I could be so refined! Truly, you are a higher class

[Anonymous No.4508333]

>>4506224
Also, dude, Chinamen is not the preferred nomenclature, Asian-American, please.

[Anonymous No.4508337]

>>4506556
Fighting for truth, the proletariat, and Soviety way!

[Anonymous No.4508338]

>>4508091
Marx was German and lived in London and had nothing to do with the Russians.