US religious beliefs not allowing communism

[ckaihatsu]

If you don't get rid of money, there will be no progress. It is our final hurdle in the game of life. As I said, money has it's pluses, but it's downside horrendously outshades the good..

I think most open-minded people would agree with you here, JanPeter. Unfortunately I think most people would also leave it at that -- "let's get rid of money" -- instead of seeing the need for mass political action as a result. If anyone is serious about their revolutionary politics then they would agree that the communist revolution is the final revolution, since it would be by humanity, for humanity.

Please, household drudgery is absolutely miniscule compared to the advent of non-money thinking.

I used household drudgery as an example of a generic, long-term 'progress' -- I don't mean to go over to the commercials-for-household-products side of things -- I just mean that much about everyday living has changed in the past 100 years, arguably for the better regarding labor needed around the home.

No longer will girls 16 years old in Berlin have to give up all they have - their bodies to prostitution - to have to make enough money to eat food.

Yes -- people have to do things they don't want to do -- sometimes horrible things -- because of the nature of the system. Money means options and those without it have very few options.

Money has it's good parts, and it has it's terribly evil side which is why we must overcome our unnatural obsession with value and money.

I'll have to disagree with you here, JanPeter, on the "unnatural obsession" part -- yes, people do get caught up in acquisitiveness, which the system encourages for some -- those who are more privileged to begin with.

Here's my question: why should it matter? In other words, do we have a *political* interest in those who are rich, as rich individuals? My answer is not really. Of course we want to keep up with any news that happens around people's individual life developments, if it's newsworthy and has impact, the same more-or-less as any other newsworthy developments.

But the issue in front of us is how do we get rid of the *system* of exploitation? Progress would be in terms of how many people are able to get the social services they need (in the short term) and has the working class set up its own institutions for government over major industries?

Missing out on large-scale, revolutionary means consigns one to getting caught up in minutiae -- you may as well be religious at that point, because one's focus becomes so inward-oriented (if you're going to use terms like "obsession"). Yes, people can become obsessed, and yes, some people can be characterized as "evil", but getting caught up in personality traits is not what politics is about.

We aren't all here to stock up on material goods and find more and more ways to get rid of "household drudgery", at least I wouldn't like to say that we're that pointless.

Actually, it's imperative to eliminate as many laborious, time-consuming tasks as possible. Enough life-time has already been wasted with household drudgery, and all sorts of menial, grunt work. The more we can put mechanical power to work for us, the better. Capitalism purposes technology to turf wars on a global scale, though, so a revolution is needed.

Humanity has room for improvement and I think that we should at least realize what has happened the past 2k years (basically spread of religion, spread of power, spread of war) and learn from our mistakes..

I don't think there are any "mistakes" in the sense of people in positions of power making the _wrong_ decisions. Again, the problem is the system as a whole, not so much in particular people. You wouldn't tackle a severe weather problem by just employing one person to do just one thing -- the same goes for politics, where we have to talk in terms of the balance of forces.

The absolute poor must take the reigns of the world as destroy oppression completely, and then we can clearly contemplate what man's reason of being is.

Yes, the poor are the ones who can rise up most quickly, but those in advanced nations must be able to win over the working class of their own countries, against their own nations' imperialist wars. It didn't quite happen in Germany during WWI, which is what the Bolsheviks were looking for as essential to spread the Russian Revolution.

Man's reason of being is to control nature -- we, by the fact of being the most conscious creatures, are the only ones in a position to manage the earth's resources in a conscious way. Right now we rely on the market mechanism, and we see the disastrous results for human life as the downside, for not taking full, conscious control over managing value (economics, finance).

Not when CNN and NBC and yata yata yata are filling your heads with countless acts of hatred, war, and lies!!

Yup, the right wing is always jingoistic and war-mongering.

Most people may not want to give up consumer comfort, but they will give up all their freedom before they get rid of brooms and vacuums? Seriously, think about it...

JanPeter, can you elaborate here? I don't think I get your meaning.



Chris

[fire_mat99]

Money is a method of control, follow it's roots. Weak-minded people consider money as the only order to the economic chaos, but the fact is, money is absolutely unnecessary.
 But to put my point into better clarity: consider what would not be possible without money.
 Corruption: those who print the money have an obvious advantage.. they could theoretically own everything in the world, but only by controlling the printing of a piece of paper (he who controls the press controls the past, he who controls the past controls the future).
 Control: the ultimate controlling factor in society is monetary value. The current system is basically a revised caste system, where the poor remain poor and the rich become ever richer. (very senseless system)
 
I'm just saying that if there was no money and everyone shared and intermingled with each other we wouldn't have these outbursts of animal nature from our crooked politicians.

Money is used for a supply a demad ,exchanged for goods and services and value from labor ..To we get to a advance society with out killing are self on wars over religion or culture we where have to use money .

[Bigjoe5]

Bigjoe5, this is exactly what I'm referring to when I use the term 'atomistic'. Yes, people *can* make less-than-beneficial judgments in their own lives, but when we see mass societal ills, that's where we have to use the class reality to explain how any charity should come to be needed at all. Functionally charity is just a delivery system for the necessities of life: food, etc. -- why should we have such a patchwork of services, subject to the ravages of profit and philanthropy, to provide something as standard as daily meals?

I mean, how bad-off and dysfunctional does a society have to be to where it has to rely on non-state, *religious* organizations to mop up somewhat after the damages of poverty and homelessness?

Indeed, but it is the religious organizations that are, for the most part, the ones attempting to fix the situation rather than the ones who are maintaining it.

I'll grant you the examples, but what of the centuries of monarchical and religious rule in Europe? The clergy and the state together acted as final arbiters for all lands under their dominion.

The fact that there were corrupt people in a religion doesn't make religion bad altogether.  If religion had not existed, it is more than likely that the monarchs would have taken power anyway.

I really have to disagree with your final statement here. If we go back to your first statement where you blame the upper class for creating conditions under which people can be poor, then *that's it* -- what mundane, everyday stories of suffering do we need, further? There's no mystery to why so many people are poor and losing out on their lives -- it's because of the rich. From that either we are able to take care of the problem, or we don't.

Well if it ends there, then there is only one option: get rid of the rich by either exterminating them or making them equal in wealth to everyone else.  But if you take it further and ask WHY they are still rich when so many people are suffering in poverty, you come up with the answer that they are not selfless enough to share their wealth with the poor.  If they had a good religion and adhered to it, this would not be the case.  This is one of the little details that affects the big picture.

Well, I'm glad to hear it. If people manage to somehow benefit from religion, then so be it -- all the better for them. On the other hand, religion by definition requires faith, and that is problematic. Educated guesses are understandable, but using faith is leaping beyond what your understanding can support and just seems too risky.

I disagree with your definition of religion in that it requires faith.  I require no faith to see that my religion is highly likely because of the logical processes that prove the existence of God and the massive amount of historical evidence in favor of the Catholic Church.  Most atheists are unaware of the existence of relics such as the Shroud of Turin, which has a perfect photographic negative of Jesus on it and has been proven conclusively to be sufficiently old to be the burial shroud of Jesus and to have been the work of no human artist.

And manipulation of one's faith from the outside becomes all too scrumptous for many to pass up.

True, unfortunately.  Many take advantage of others by appealing to their faith.  Religious people are often not careful enough to ensure that their religion is true before doing something drastic for it. (Muslims.)

The scientific method is the only proof, or process, rather, that I need to use to turn my back on religion. All religion is obsolete because we've developed past the need for a teddy bear while orienting ourselves to the wider world. The world's been international and multicultural for centuries now and none of us are pioneers or pilgrims, in the frontier sense. We can easily orient ourselves to the world based on the information we can tap into, and away we go!

Well then, I'd be intrigued to know how exactly you have used the scientific method to utterly disprove religion.  I have stated my reasons for being a Catholic in some depth.  How about you?

Bigjoe5, this is one case where religion and politics are *totally different things*. The focus on individual actions that you get from your Catholicism is at odds with your knowledge of the class divide.

I believe you're missing the  small details in the big picture again.  Classes are made up of individual people, are they not?

How can you urge people to follow a "moral road" while letting capitalism continue to rule, unopposed?

I don't.

I posted a quick run-down of some key political terms over on another thread -- see what you think:

- Communism: /theoretical/: _Communist Manifesto_, /historical/: Stalinist countries, /ideal/: a global commune with effortless, interdependent administration by the world's workers.

- Socialism: /theoretical/: a worldwide revolution of the working class to dispossess private property and provide worker-based command over the global economy, /historical/: a branding label for political parties that are in fact social democratic (bourgeois), /ideal/: mass nationalizations of major industries, in every country, particularly in First World countries, at about the same time.

- Liberalism: /theoretical/: providing a progressive, social-welfare-oriented capitalist state, /historical/: nation-state-based sections of the bourgeoisie which orient away from social programs in favor of going to war over rivalries for markets, /ideal/: a gradual bettering of social conditions until socialism is peacefully arrived at.

- Laissez-faire: /theoretical/: without government interference business concerns will grow to be their healthiest, and the health of the economy will benefit everyone, /historical/: deregulation has allowed business to ignore off-sheet "externalities" which includes union-busting, abuse of workers, child labor, environmental damage, and ducking taxes, /ideal/: businesses shrink in size to the point where everyone is delighted in running their own sole proprietorships -- government, downsized to a minimum, acts as a perfect referee and all business disputes are quickly resolved and settled.

http://discussion.newyouth.com/index.php/topic,2320.0.html

My knowledge of Socialism is entirely at odds with the theoretical definition of Socialism above.  To my knowledge, Socialism is any number of distinct economic systems that are mainly centrally planned and promoting economic equality, but not to the extent that the people who don't work get to eat.  Socialism must involve at least some disparity in wages between workers, and some private property or private enterprise or else it is essentially Communism.  Socialism does not require (and has not historically entailed) a revolution except in the case where there is a Communist revolution and a period of transition to Communism exists through a period of Socialism.  I learned this in Social Studies this semester.  The information I have seen on capitalism on other websites seems to back it up strongly.  I don't think Albert Einstein wanted a revolution, but his essay "Why Socialism" shows him to be in favor of Socialism.

Right -- again, religion and politics are different, because religion is very individual-oriented, whereas politics is about large-scale societal dynamics. People shouldn't have to put up with a religious substrate to their government -- *and*, government should be able to eradicate the backward conditions that exist in Third World countries, immediately.

But they don't.  And religion isn't stopping them.  Consider that all societal dynamics are constructed and maintained by people and that if enough individuals are of the type that want to change it, it will be changed.  This is where the individual affects society.

Ideologies don't change that quickly -- the linear directions of conservatism-or-progressivism don't change at all -- this relates directly to the class struggle.

People with new and different ideologies are always coming and going.  Would Russia have tried out Communism if not for Marx?

I appreciate your own sense of beliefs and values, Bigjoe5, if you find meaning in them. I assure you, though, the ills of society as a whole are because of political and economic dynamics, not personal ones. That's beyond whatever my beliefs or values may happen to be.

Than what kind of force would you say is affecting the social dynamics of our society?  The real control of the world is in the hands of human beings, and therefore it is people who change the political and economic dynamics of the world.  Political and economic dynamics do not exist without personal ones, and only the latter can change the former.  Are we here talking about changing the economic system of the world because we are swept into it by some political or economic dynamic?  No.  It is our personal belief that a change needs to occur.  Without that, nothing can happen to change politics and economics.

Okay, yes, in the short term we may have to take care of pressing, immediate, bad situations (as with charity or emergency aid), but the world will not go communist until the people of the world see the need for communism. That's not "just" a "political movement" -- it would be a conscious re-shaping of society by its own workers.

Which is where the personal dynamic of the workers comes in.  They have to consciously reshape the system.

I guess I was pretty slow replying to this.  I've been super busy.

Do people in Communist countries give each other presents on Christmas?

[fire_mat99]

Hay Bigjoe5 I don't relly know what you and ckaihatsu are disproving here other than is religious people good or bad.And a much of the other ranting that I have no idea what it is about.

I do know some religious people want communism like the monks but it is a different communism than what the USSR was suppose to be.

I despise any private property and if people can find a way to do away of money than go for it.My views on individualism should not effect the group like if you what 10 loads of bread a day it is okay but if you taking too much and other people do not have it this is no good.

My views on US materialism is flawed and why I say it just look at the pop stars and movie stars ,rich guys ,people who have a 30 bedroom house or more and why it is flawed it never stops.Give someone a 50 bedroom house and they will what more or give them $1,000,000,000,000,000 of money and they will what more.


Look how rich walmart is or bill gates and they are not happy they what more and more.Or someone owns 5 or 10 cars to show off or a rich guy has 3 homes and a big car collection.


Well collectives is the must and people have to learn to share and work in a collective way.
 

[fire_mat99]

Which is where the personal dynamic of the workers comes in.  They have to consciously reshape the system.

I guess I was pretty slow replying to this.  I've been super busy.

Do people in Communist countries give each other presents on Christmas

Communism is about sharing and people run things than a capitalist and are appose competition.And Communism do not hate religious people only the church or religious fundamentalist who is bad for religious people and non religious people ..

[JanPeter]

There's a reason that every socialist political philosopher brings up the elite rich: they seem to have an unnatural finger moving through politics and society and it's just wrong. They aren't highly educated (in most cases) and they tend to have very skewed world views after having grown up in an ultra-wealthy family. That is my (everyone's) problem with the ultra-rich. Those are the reasons you cannot trust them, or assume they will be using their money for the greater good, and not their own personal good.
 I'm not saying that religion is completely 100% and evil, controlling thing. It does allow people who are literally hopeless to hang onto something here. There is a good and bad side to that, because it distorts free people's minds when it comes to reality and science. Religion is not a precise and proven thing, it must be taken for what it is, and people like to get carried away with it.
 With money though, I will not change my position. Money is the root of all evil. For humanity to move on at this point, we really must get rid of money. A proposition for a replacement "economy"? Complete sharing. Complete. Yeah, that sounds hard, but so is capitalism and banking and credit and inflation, etc etc etc. Stop whining and saying that money is the only answer, that currency is the only thing that will keep food on the tables, because you're just plain wrong.
 Realize what is holding you back, and realize where humanity needs to go to finally overthrow those tethers!

[ckaihatsu]

BigJoe5, sorry I haven't gotten back to you -- I missed the update on this thread and I'm just seeing it now. I'll have to take some time, but I'll get to your points below. In the meantime, I'll just address one thing here from JanPeter:

For humanity to move on at this point, we really must get rid of money. A proposition for a replacement "economy"? Complete sharing. Complete. Yeah, that sounds hard, but so is capitalism and banking and credit and inflation, etc etc etc. Stop whining and saying that money is the only answer, that currency is the only thing that will keep food on the tables, because you're just plain wrong.
 Realize what is holding you back, and realize where humanity needs to go to finally overthrow those tethers!

I agree that the world has the *capacity* for *complete sharing* -- that's why it's not ridiculous to argue for communism.

Communism could have been enabled as early as the 1500s, arguably, when the moldboard plow was developed, because it led to a major increase in crop development.

Of course class hierarchies already existed by that point, and we still see them today, so that's the main obstacle to evolving into a classless society.

Complete sharing would be foolhardy today, however, especially on an individual basis. If one were to simply give away all of their possessions, they would then have to go onto welfare, or depend on charity, and nothing would change in the larger world.

We're beginning to see more regional, international trade networks develop, like the oil-for-doctors swap between Venezuela and Cuba, but these are the exception to the market-based transactions that are the norm. I think anything that can sidestep the U.S. dollar and other currencies is fine, as long as participants understand that it will not be a real solution to the problem of capitalism.


Chris







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[Zatoichi]

I think your not seeing the whole picture, religion isn't necesarrily the problem. It is the reactionary force created by religious groups. We trully can't call ourselves leftists if we don't support someone else's right to be incorrect :)

[ckaihatsu]

Indeed, but it is the religious organizations that are, for the most part, the ones attempting to fix the situation rather than the ones who are maintaining it.

Hey, the more people can help, especially in the wake of slashed state budgets, the better -- but should they *have* to? In other words if the basics of living are so difficult for so many, in our technologically sophisticated age, then we have a *systematic* problem that requires a *system-wide* solution.

Religious organizations should be superseded by state programs in every sector of public concern, especially in education. I'd shudder to consider schoolchildren dumped to the vagaries of the religious attitude towards science, in parochial schools, for lack of adequate public funding.

The fact that there were corrupt people in a religion doesn't make religion bad altogether.  If religion had not existed, it is more than likely that the monarchs would have taken power anyway.

You don't have history on your side on this one, Bigjoe5. We've seen consistent patterns of symbiosis between the state and the church, all throughout history, in all parts of the world. Religion provides the purported justification for a given person to have absolute authority, by chance of birth -- the 'divine right of kings'.

Sure people should not be repressed on the basis of their religious beliefs or non-beliefs, but neither should the state give special considerations and tax breaks to religious organizations, as it often does. And I think that a fully enlightened and liberated society would find much better things to do than religion. It's a relic that's stuck around since modern, Westernized culture is claimed to be so much worse, on "moral" grounds. Really it's just a battle of entertainment industries and these days people have far more access and customization than ever before. Religion stripped of its mysticism is history, literature, and myth -- fairly bland on the video game / Internet entertainment landscape...(!)

Well if it ends there, then there is only one option: get rid of the rich by either exterminating them or making them equal in wealth to everyone else.

Well, there's an *enormous* difference between your first option and your second one(!) Regarding the first option, I can't speak for what proletarian courts might decide to do with capitalist war criminals, but the point of a socialist revolution would be to make certain that the second scenario is enacted.

But if you take it further and ask WHY they are still rich when so many people are suffering in poverty, you come up with the answer that they are not selfless enough to share their wealth with the poor.  If they had a good religion and adhered to it, this would not be the case.  This is one of the little details that affects the big picture.

A person's own position in society has little, if anything, to do with the overall system of capitalism. It's difficult to blame anyone for doing the smartest thing they know how to do, given the status they started with by virtue of family, etc.

Well-heeled capital managers might remind you that their jobs, while disproportionately rewarded by the system, are vital to the functioning of the economy, and in a strictly functionalistic way, are providing a social service -- a parasitic one, though, as we know, since there's no net addition of value to the system through financial manipulations. (Value is ultimately sourced from labor.)

Bigjoe5, I have to impress on you the importance of viewing the capitalist system as an impersonal machine, a force of society through time. No one person, or even groups of people, will alter the machine itself -- it runs on profit-making, market acquisiton, and imperialist war. Anything you suggest that does not confront these massive forces can't even be considered considerable.

It will not matter to the machine if rich people are greedy, or if they go through a brief, fashionable phase of being "not-greedy" -- profit-making and labor-exploiting continues for the rest of us, however a thriller drama might play out in some atypical penthouse somewhere.

I disagree with your definition of religion in that it requires faith.  I require no faith to see that my religion is highly likely because of the logical processes that prove the existence of God and the massive amount of historical evidence in favor of the Catholic Church.  Most atheists are unaware of the existence of relics such as the Shroud of Turin, which has a perfect photographic negative of Jesus on it and has been proven conclusively to be sufficiently old to be the burial shroud of Jesus and to have been the work of no human artist.

I am aware of the Shroud of Turin, and of other claims to religious artifacts. I'll admit I'm not a scholar of these things, since in my mind these matters don't command much attention from me. I'm far more concerned with political dynamics, since they deal with the here-and-now. Going from artifacts to the full-blown Deist or Christian concept of creation and existence is a bit of a stretch, though, and most people -- even believers -- would admit that they put forth faith as the basis for their systems of beliefs.

True, unfortunately.  Many take advantage of others by appealing to their faith.  Religious people are often not careful enough to ensure that their religion is true before doing something drastic for it. (Muslims.)

What's this last thing here, Bigjoe5? Are you saying that Muslims took a "drastic" turn with their beliefs? If I understand correctly you seem to be saying that Muslims didn't "check" carefully enough before they committed to their religion's tenets.

This is a classic example of inter-religious friction, due to competition at the worldview level (one's subjective model for how the world works). Two monotheistic religions cannot exist in the same place at the same time, just as with physical objects, so we see the flare-ups immediately.

Well then, I'd be intrigued to know how exactly you have used the scientific method to utterly disprove religion.  I have stated my reasons for being a Catholic in some depth.  How about you?

No prob -- the example above is enough. Just putting modern religions in the same room is all one has to do to kick things off. There is so much disagreement about the basics, among religions all over the world, that the rest of us can get on with the rest of our lives without having to bother with any of it. I would only begin to worry if they began to *agree* and put forth a cohesive picture of an omni-god which I'd then have to consider...!

What's worse about religion, other than being a grand time-waster, is *any* time where a parents' religious beliefs *prevents* their sick child or children from getting proper medical attention. I'll note that plenty of children have died from this kind of religiously motivated medical negligence -- utterly avoidable suffering and death.

Science has displaced and disproven religious conceptions of medicine, so why not for everything else? People from all backgrounds should shake off the hynoptic state and appreciate where the efforts of people, using science, have paid off to make life easier for all of us. It's bad enough to suffer while a cure is available -- it's monstrous to consider being made intentionally confused and then denied treatment because of honoring someone's "religious" take on medicine.

Religion serves as a prop for reactionary tradition -- anytime outdated institutions need political support to perpetuate their existence they use their control over people's personal habits, through their command of a particular religious conception of the world. If the tops want the people to go to war then the mainstream religious leaders will find a religious way to explain it and to sell it. Religion blocks social progress by retaining these obsolete organs: the state, the church, the nuclear family, private property, and so on.

Very little among the panoply of religion is consciously, socially progressive -- along with the state I find religion to be worth upchucking and burying, once and for all.

I believe you're missing the  small details in the big picture again.  Classes are made up of individual people, are they not?

The details are unimportant when we're discussing dynamics that are large-scale. If we're talking about a waterfall we don't have to come up with names and histories for all of the individual droplets and currents. Yes, we're always talking about people here, but classes are based on an either-or qualification for *everybody* -- this means a split of the entire human population into two distinct categories which are also at odds to each other. A small minority of the human race is able to live off of their investments of capital -- everyone else has to work for a living and/or fight for better conditions. Yes, these people have names, no it doesn't matter who they are individually.

My knowledge of Socialism is entirely at odds with the theoretical definition of Socialism above.  To my knowledge, Socialism is any number of distinct economic systems that are mainly centrally planned and promoting economic equality, but not to the extent that the people who don't work get to eat. 

This knowledge of socialism you're speaking from is the historical past of Stalinist, or 'Eastern Bloc' countries, from the era of the Cold War. Russia and China were able to fight off Western capital throughout much of the twentieth century, and they modernized their economies using governments based on centralized, command authority. Millions perished due to the work load -- obviously the working class did not run society in any of these cases, or in any others.

Socialism must involve at least some disparity in wages between workers, and some private property or private enterprise or else it is essentially Communism. 

Bigjoe5, I'll ask you to think of socialism as a transition from today's world -- capitalism -- to one of worldwide liberation for all the people of the world. It's the gray area between black and white, where we'll still have many economic traditions in place, like wages, but in a much different context, say without public spending on war, so that the result is vastly more progressive than any politician today would ever consider.

Only a worker-based, rank-and-file movement against corporate ownership, and the private-profit-motive itself, would be adequate to bring about a socialist revolution. Major industries all over the world would be stripped of investment and nationalized while national governments and international conferences would be superseded by the growing revolutionary party and revolutionary events. Imagine if attention to real estate and the stock market became as cool as pogo sticks and hula hoops. A revolution would be so engrossing, so alive, and so potent that more conventionally minded people would seem like museum caretakers on the world stage of political events.

As workers, with their factories in tow, became the center of attention of the (now worker-controlled) media, the public would begin to anticipate further news of further improvements, at the expense of imperialist war and tax breaks for the rich. Initiatives could snowball into a momentum of building social networks, fully funded, for local workplace and community projects. Vendors could be freed from the tyranny of financial gyrations and could provide raw materials, as human need and supply of labor allowed, without the removal of profit.

Enterprise under socialism and communism could be thought of as what mass hobbyism would look like today -- if people are freed to do what they want to do, *and* the system connects these people together for large-scale, industrial projects, without having to produce for returns on investments, *then* what would people do? Initiatives might build faster than the open-source software phenomenon, and on a widespread, mainstream scale. Why not free, open-source building blueprints, with free land designated for use only, with licensed labor, no matter what your wealth status is, or if you're working or not? How about repurposing the vast military apparatus to provide steady, reliable public transportation, beyond what the interstate highways have accomplished?

Socialism does not require (and has not historically entailed) a revolution except in the case where there is a Communist revolution and a period of transition to Communism exists through a period of Socialism.  I learned this in Social Studies this semester.  The information I have seen on capitalism on other websites seems to back it up strongly.  I don't think Albert Einstein wanted a revolution, but his essay "Why Socialism" shows him to be in favor of Socialism.

Well the question here is what would it take to get to communism? Would reformism be enough, or should we entrust the workers of the world to push aside the capitalists and run things for ourselves? The reason why the classes have opposite interests is because the ruling class is parasitical on the working class -- this is clear-cut. The ruling class will defend its position, against the interests of the working class, as it has done throughout history. Putting the interests of the working class first does not mean simply being in favor of socialism -- it means realizing that socialism does not come without actually taking it.

But they don't.  And religion isn't stopping them.  Consider that all societal dynamics are constructed and maintained by people and that if enough individuals are of the type that want to change it, it will be changed.  This is where the individual affects society.

Well, *no* -- merely *wanting* to isn't enough either -- there are plenty of examples of progressive forces falling to the side of the road after being beaten and defeated by a more powerful group. So, again, what does it take to defeat the *ruling class of capitalists*, worldwide?

People with new and different ideologies are always coming and going.  Would Russia have tried out Communism if not for Marx?

This is an interesting historical question -- Marx obviously had a profound influence in historic events, from the subjective side of things. But the soviet structure of factory production was an emergent property of the Russian Revolution -- it is arguably organic to the rank-and-file-based organization of production.

And now that we've seen it empirically, it could also be argued that the soviet system of production is the *only* way forward for the world. In other words, if you want to end war once and for all you would have to disempower capitalism and all of the major capitalists, since that's where the problem is coming from. The quickest way to disempower capitalists and destroy the machinery of capitalism is to put the working class in charge. If the working class takes charge of their workplaces they would most likely use the soviet model for running their workplaces, with a revolutionary party to represent their best interests in government.

Any ideology that goes counter to a socialist revolution would be, by definition, counter-revolutionary. It wouldn't matter what these ideologies called themselves, or if they were to change things quickly or slowly -- the question would be whether they were revolutionary or counter-revolutionary.

Than what kind of force would you say is affecting the social dynamics of our society?  The real control of the world is in the hands of human beings, and therefore it is people who change the political and economic dynamics of the world. 

Yes, people do make conscious decisions about how to run their own lives, and maybe how to do things for society as a whole, but the factor that can't be ignored is what kind of *organizations* are these? People can group together in all sorts of ways, for all sorts of reasons. When it comes to changing political and economic dynamics it takes a form of organization that can decisively *beat* capitalism, worldwide.

Political and economic dynamics do not exist without personal ones, and only the latter can change the former.  Are we here talking about changing the economic system of the world because we are swept into it by some political or economic dynamic?  No.  It is our personal belief that a change needs to occur.  Without that, nothing can happen to change politics and economics.

I'll agree with you, Bigjoe5, that people have to make a decision for themselves to work towards making a certain kind of change in society. Of course, not just *any* kind of change will do, nor will change in just *any* direction be acceptable either -- I think we're all grown-up enough to deal with the particulars of *what* change, and *how*.

Which is where the personal dynamic of the workers comes in.  They have to consciously reshape the system.

*Exactly* -- a revolution is all about a *conscious* undertaking for all of society -- not leaving matters to the "invisible hand" of the market, or to an elite government.

I guess I was pretty slow replying to this.  I've been super busy.

Do people in Communist countries give each other presents on Christmas?

Yeah, it's taken me a few weeks to get back to this thread. Thanks for your patience, Bigjoe5. People in the former "Communist" countries have probably gotten back to their own traditions, which may have been displaced by the Stalinist Soviet regime. I'm not the best person to ask on this stuff....

Take care, talk to you later....


Chris




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[Bigjoe5]

You don't have history on your side on this one, Bigjoe5. We've seen consistent patterns of symbiosis between the state and the church, all throughout history, in all parts of the world. Religion provides the purported justification for a given person to have absolute authority, by chance of birth -- the 'divine right of kings'.

People have used religion to justify the reign of the absolute monarch, but there have been secular arguments for it as well.  I'm sure you're familiar with the ideas of Thomas Hobbes?  My point is that if religion didn't exist, the monarchs would find some other excuse to take power.  Religion just happened to be the most convenient.  The main problem with religion is that people use the past as an example for the present.  While there are some things that are obvious truths regardless of time (murder is bad), others are dependent on the level of progress the society has made.  Around year 0, the alternative to monarchy was anarchy.  Nowadays, society has developed to the point where democracy is superior to monarchy, but there were some who wanted to continue the monarchy.  This is not a problem with religion itself as much as with the people of the religion, just as it was a problem with certain secular people (Hobbes).

And I think that a fully enlightened and liberated society would find much better things to do than religion. It's a relic that's stuck around since modern, Westernized culture is claimed to be so much worse, on "moral" grounds. Really it's just a battle of entertainment industries and these days people have far more access and customization than ever before. Religion stripped of its mysticism is history, literature, and myth -- fairly bland on the video game / Internet entertainment landscape...(!)

Assuming religion is false....

A person's own position in society has little, if anything, to do with the overall system of capitalism. It's difficult to blame anyone for doing the smartest thing they know how to do, given the status they started with by virtue of family, etc.

On the contrary, if the smartest thing they know how to do is shamelessly take advantage of the proletariat, it is quite easy to blame them on the grounds that they are greedy and selfish.

Bigjoe5, I have to impress on you the importance of viewing the capitalist system as an impersonal machine, a force of society through time. No one person, or even groups of people, will alter the machine itself -- it runs on profit-making, market acquisiton, and imperialist war. Anything you suggest that does not confront these massive forces can't even be considered considerable.

Of course.  When it comes to eliminating capitalism, the only choice is to destroy the machine.  But when the machine was being constructed, it was by people.  Greedy selfish capitalist people.  And any socialist machine that is put in place to replace it is in danger of being replaced by such scoundrels as long as they exist.  This is the reason for recognizing the individual in society.  No one person or group is responsible for maintaining the machine, but they are for building a new one.

It will not matter to the machine if rich people are greedy, or if they go through a brief, fashionable phase of being "not-greedy" -- profit-making and labor-exploiting continues for the rest of us, however a thriller drama might play out in some atypical penthouse somewhere.

This relates to another point I was making.  If all the rich people permanently became caring and selfless, the machine would effectively be destroyed because the in that situation, the rich would take on the role of the ones who destroy the machine of capitalism and build a new one, rather than the poor.  This is not a realistic solution to the problem of capitalism, but one that would certainly occur if all people understood and adhered to the Catholic religion.

I am aware of the Shroud of Turin, and of other claims to religious artifacts. I'll admit I'm not a scholar of these things, since in my mind these matters don't command much attention from me. I'm far more concerned with political dynamics, since they deal with the here-and-now. Going from artifacts to the full-blown Deist or Christian concept of creation and existence is a bit of a stretch, though, and most people -- even believers -- would admit that they put forth faith as the basis for their systems of beliefs.

Using evidence from relics and historical documents, as well as looking at the results (a strong, moral, well-known church) one can reasonably believe that Jesus was God, and from there, there's no reason to disbelieve the rest of the religion, since it's extraordinarily unlikely for God to come down to earth to lie about the truths of the universe.

What's this last thing here, Bigjoe5? Are you saying that Muslims took a "drastic" turn with their beliefs? If I understand correctly you seem to be saying that Muslims didn't "check" carefully enough before they committed to their religion's tenets.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.  Maybe some of those suicide bombers are in Heaven because they really believed they were doing a good thing.  Probably, a lot of them are in Hell because they just wanted to go to their 77 virgins, or whatever.  But the point is that faith is completely irrational unless the object of one's faith has proven him/her/itself to be reliable and worthy of faith.  I have faith in God, but it is not faith, but logic that holds me to my religion.

This is a classic example of inter-religious friction, due to competition at the worldview level (one's subjective model for how the world works). Two monotheistic religions cannot exist in the same place at the same time, just as with physical objects, so we see the flare-ups immediately.

http://hs.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2207166876

No prob -- the example above is enough. Just putting modern religions in the same room is all one has to do to kick things off. There is so much disagreement about the basics, among religions all over the world, that the rest of us can get on with the rest of our lives without having to bother with any of it. I would only begin to worry if they began to *agree* and put forth a cohesive picture of an omni-god which I'd then have to consider...!

There's a lot of disagreement between nuclear physicists regarding certain aspects of the universe.  Yet, very few people see this as proof that the universe doesn't exist.

What's worse about religion, other than being a grand time-waster, is *any* time where a parents' religious beliefs *prevents* their sick child or children from getting proper medical attention. I'll note that plenty of children have died from this kind of religiously motivated medical negligence -- utterly avoidable suffering and death.

As for it being a “grand time waster”, I don't think a few minutes each morning and night and an hour every Sunday counts as a grand amount of time.  As for the rest of your statement, it is the extremely unfortunate result of people being really stupid.  “Oh, it must be God's will that he die!  We must accept it!”  Well did they ever think that maybe it's God's will that he receive medication?  It infuriates me as much as it does any atheist.  To the best of my knowledge, no pope has ever stated that modern medical practices are immoral (with the exception of murdering unborn children).  I'm aware that some religions do not allow certain medical treatments (Jehova's Witnesses?), but that just goes to prove how wrong their religion is.  It's conceivable for to be an actual good reason to prohibit certain treatments, but from what I hear, the Jehova's Witnesses' reasons are nowhere near good enough, and “It's God's will for him to die” is certainly no better.

Religion serves as a prop for reactionary tradition -- anytime outdated institutions need political support to perpetuate their existence they use their control over people's personal habits, through their command of a particular religious conception of the world. If the tops want the people to go to war then the mainstream religious leaders will find a religious way to explain it and to sell it. Religion blocks social progress by retaining these obsolete organs: the state, the church, the nuclear family, private property, and so on.

Well, since I'm both Catholic and Socialist rather that atheist and Communist, I believe that the state, the church, the nuclear family and private property should all exist in society to some extent, but perhaps that's a topic for another time.  As for the war thing, well, that's true too.  Religion can be misused for war the same way technology can be misused for war.

Very little among the panoply of religion is consciously, socially progressive -- along with the state I find religion to be worth upchucking and burying, once and for all.

Nor are doughnuts consciously, socially progressive, but political and economic reform can occur without upchucking and burying them.

Bigjoe5, I'll ask you to think of socialism as a transition from today's world -- capitalism -- to one of worldwide liberation for all the people of the world. It's the gray area between black and white, where we'll still have many economic traditions in place, like wages, but in a much different context, say without public spending on war, so that the result is vastly more progressive than any politician today would ever consider.

It certainly can be that, but to me, Socialism is the end rather than the means.

Only a worker-based,.....

......


......

.....beyond what the interstate highways have accomplished?

Yes, the collectivist economy is awesome.

Well the question here is what would it take to get to communism? Would reformism be enough, or should we entrust the workers of the world to push aside the capitalists and run things for ourselves? The reason why the classes have opposite interests is because the ruling class is parasitical on the working class -- this is clear-cut. The ruling class will defend its position, against the interests of the working class, as it has done throughout history. Putting the interests of the working class first does not mean simply being in favor of socialism -- it means realizing that socialism does not come without actually taking it.

Taking it is necessary.  The ruling class will try to defend their position, but a full blown storm-into-parliament-with-guns-and-declare-yourself-the-provisional-government revolution doesn't strike me as being necessary.  There appear to be more political means to achieve such a goal nowadays.  I suppose it really depends on what one means by the word revolution whether it's necessary or not.  Obviously some drastic reformation needs to take place and it needs to be done by the workers.  The only question is how?

Well, *no* -- merely *wanting* to isn't enough either -- there are plenty of examples of progressive forces falling to the side of the road after being beaten and defeated by a more powerful group. So, again, what does it take to defeat the *ruling class of capitalists*, worldwide?

By “wanting” I was implying “wanting enough to do something about it”.  That is what this website is all about, is it not?  Getting together enough people to change the system?

This is an interesting historical question -- Marx obviously had a profound influence in historic events, from the subjective side of things. But the soviet structure of factory production was an emergent property of the Russian Revolution -- it is arguably organic to the rank-and-file-based organization of production.

And now that we've seen it empirically, it could also be argued that the soviet system of production is the *only* way forward for the world. In other words, if you want to end war once and for all you would have to disempower capitalism and all of the major capitalists, since that's where the problem is coming from. The quickest way to disempower capitalists and destroy the machinery of capitalism is to put the working class in charge. If the working class takes charge of their workplaces they would most likely use the soviet model for running their workplaces, with a revolutionary party to represent their best interests in government.

Or, someone who cares enough about the working class could take power and create a socialist system beneath them, a la Karl von Kaiser's theoretical system.

Any ideology that goes counter to a socialist revolution would be, by definition, counter-revolutionary. It wouldn't matter what these ideologies called themselves, or if they were to change things quickly or slowly -- the question would be whether they were revolutionary or counter-revolutionary.

But only if a revolution is necessary.  In the case where it is not, Socialist or Capitalist is what matters.

I chose not to respond to a great deal of your post due to seeming agreement between us.  If you think I eliminated any aspects of our discussion prematurely, let me know.  I enjoy such intelligent discussions.  They're all too uncommon nowadays.

[ckaihatsu]

People have used religion to justify the reign of the absolute monarch, but there have been secular arguments for it as well.  I'm sure you're familiar with the ideas of Thomas Hobbes? 

Certainly there will be apologists for monarchy (and capitalism), even today -- whether or not they also happen to be religious is another matter, and their non-/religiosity can be called separate from their political support for the state, in whatever incarnation.

I appreciate that Hobbes was a real force in the Enlightenment, and, in reality, much could be said for the nation-state apparatus at the time -- even that it was progressive -- since the emerging mercantilism was becoming a huge counterweight against continued monarchical rule. The rise of city-states and the beginnings of modern empire hastened the intellectual ferment of the time, which gave rise to increased attacks on church doctrine, and ushered in the Protestant Reformation, certainly a progressive development. All of these revolutions in thinking preceded the actual, political revolutions of the modern age, like the French Revolution.

My point is that if religion didn't exist, the monarchs would find some other excuse to take power.  Religion just happened to be the most convenient. 

I think the use of religion by rulers as cover far surpasses mere convenience. Religion is intimately tied to identity and in-group dynamics -- past the classical period it's functioned exactly like a badge of pan-membership, providing belongingness, etc. Therefore religion is a social and political phenomenon and is subject to use in such ways.

I really don't mean to merely split hairs haere -- I mean to say that religion, in a social context, is well-suited towards being used by rulers to abuse people, up through the present day. So besides the empirical evidence, I will point to religion's intrinsic definition as being the absence of science, to say that it is naturally symbiotic with rulership (over society's surplus) as a way of giving ready answers to justify the status quo, or existing state of power relations.

Monarchs would exist as long as the productive capacities of a society remained at the feudal stage. They accompanied the gradual rise of modern nation-states, away from the theocratic dynasties of the Byzantine Empire.

The main problem with religion is that people use the past as an example for the present.  While there are some things that are obvious truths regardless of time (murder is bad), others are dependent on the level of progress the society has made.  Around year 0, the alternative to monarchy was anarchy. 

Around year 1 CE the remains of the Roman Empire were in retreat, soon to coalesce into the Byzantine Empire. Monarchy could actually be viewed as *progressive* under those conditions of invasion.

Nowadays, society has developed to the point where democracy is superior to monarchy, but there were some who wanted to continue the monarchy.  This is not a problem with religion itself as much as with the people of the religion, just as it was a problem with certain secular people (Hobbes).

Okay, I'll leave religion out of this one and concentrate on people's political leanings. I would oppose monarchists as much as I would fascists, because at this point both are profoundly reactionary and would seek to undo the (relatively) progressive associations of merchants, and the international proletariat, respectively.

Please take care in your use of the term 'democracy' since, to be precise, it accompanies the era of mercantilism. The political ideas which challenged the divine right of kings were mercantilist ones -- bourgeois ones, essentially, that upheld the divine right of individuals (for salvation, and for political representation).

Assuming religion is false....

Well, do elaborate then. What are we overlooking here, and of what significance is it to the class struggle?

On the contrary, if the smartest thing they know how to do is shamelessly take advantage of the proletariat, it is quite easy to blame them on the grounds that they are greedy and selfish.

Absolutely. I'm with you on this one. I don't mean to defend every "smart" action anyone has taken in their own, subjective interests. I don't defend exploitation of the proletariat, or the gains of the exploiters.

Of course.  When it comes to eliminating capitalism, the only choice is to destroy the machine.  But when the machine was being constructed, it was by people. 

Well, yes and no -- this is one of those things that I consider to have evolved out of more primitive forms, like forests from prairies. Yes, the "machine" is socially based and exists only because of people, but there can be no permanent mass conversions of individuals into "good guys", or greedless, socially conscious people, as long as the machine remains in place.

The "machine" has a conceptual analogue in smoke pollution -- it exists, and we can see it here and there, and we'd like to eradicate it, but it always winds up appearing somewhere else, in the same way. Smoke pollution also indicates industry, jobs, and economic growth. Do we really want to demolish the machine altogether, like Luddites, if that also means no energy production, no industry, no cheap consumer goods, and so on?

The people can only take control of the machine for socially constructive purposes if they organize at the point of production. All other politics is merely going in circles, and is *not* progressive for humanity.

Greedy selfish capitalist people.  And any socialist machine that is put in place to replace it is in danger of being replaced by such scoundrels as long as they exist.  This is the reason for recognizing the individual in society.  No one person or group is responsible for maintaining the machine, but they are for building a new one.

Well, no. A socialist machine would not be susceptible to corruption -- at least nowhere near in the proportions we see under capitalism, which is very individual- and private-property-centered.

Really, the very definition and process of socialist revolution would preclude those people who opposed rank-and-file political power. Politics in a revolutionary period becomes very black-and-white, and the resulting worldwide civil war would make alliances and affiliations very clear-cut, much like during the U.S. civil war.

The bureaucratic state machinery of the bourgeois class only comes back if the socialist revolution fails to make continued progress against the forces of capital, thus leaving a power vacuum for reactionaries to fill.

This relates to another point I was making.  If all the rich people permanently became caring and selfless, the machine would effectively be destroyed because the in that situation, the rich would take on the role of the ones who destroy the machine of capitalism and build a new one, rather than the poor.  This is not a realistic solution to the problem of capitalism, but one that would certainly occur if all people understood and adhered to the Catholic religion.

Well, if you're admitting that the rich will not be converting to Christianity to become caring and selfless anytime soon then you've made my argument for me. Revolution isn't about rich-versus-poor, it's about private property owners versus the people who created that wealth. The machine can only be destroyed once it's been demonstrably conquered by the global working class.

Using evidence from relics and historical documents, as well as looking at the results (a strong, moral, well-known church) one can reasonably believe that Jesus was God, and from there, there's no reason to disbelieve the rest of the religion, since it's extraordinarily unlikely for God to come down to earth to lie about the truths of the universe.

Well, I'd be glad to let you have this one out with a Muslim believer, or a Zoroastrian one, or whatever. Each religionist has their own mythological framework to support their own religion's version of events. Let's just say that I believe in one less god than you do, and I'll leave it at that.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.  Maybe some of those suicide bombers are in Heaven because they really believed they were doing a good thing.  Probably, a lot of them are in Hell because they just wanted to go to their 77 virgins, or whatever.  But the point is that faith is completely irrational unless the object of one's faith has proven him/her/itself to be reliable and worthy of faith.  I have faith in God, but it is not faith, but logic that holds me to my religion.

You're being very uneven and unscientific here, Bigjoe5. If you're going to submit individual cases of people doing the "wrong" thing due their "wrong" religion, then I can talk about Catholicism being wrong because of the Crusades.


[QUOTEhttp://hs.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2207166876[/QUOTE]


Huh? What's this about? Care to explain, Bigjoe5?

There's a lot of disagreement between nuclear physicists regarding certain aspects of the universe.  Yet, very few people see this as proof that the universe doesn't exist.

No one's saying that the universe doesn't exist. Is this what *you're* saying, Bigjoe5?

As for it being a “grand time waster”, I don't think a few minutes each morning and night and an hour every Sunday counts as a grand amount of time.

Well, why waste even a *second* of your time at all? What's an acceptable amount of time to waste on religious practices?

As for the rest of your statement, it is the extremely unfortunate result of people being really stupid.  “Oh, it must be God's will that he die!  We must accept it!”  Well did they ever think that maybe it's God's will that he receive medication?  It infuriates me as much as it does any atheist. 

Good, I'm glad we're agreed on this particular issue.

To the best of my knowledge, no pope has ever stated that modern medical practices are immoral (with the exception of murdering unborn children).  I'm aware that some religions do not allow certain medical treatments (Jehova's Witnesses?), but that just goes to prove how wrong their religion is.  It's conceivable for to be an actual good reason to prohibit certain treatments, but from what I hear, the Jehova's Witnesses' reasons are nowhere near good enough, and “It's God's will for him to die” is certainly no better.

Well, I'm glad that you're able to be as critical of religion as I am, but I am critical from a religious outsider's point of view, not from a position of rivalry.

Well, since I'm both Catholic and Socialist rather that atheist and Communist, I believe that the state, the church, the nuclear family and private property should all exist in society to some extent, but perhaps that's a topic for another time.  As for the war thing, well, that's true too.  Religion can be misused for war the same way technology can be misused for war.

I hope you don't mean to treat these terms lightly, as your mere word-playthings, Bigjoe5. You really mish-mash them together, without recognizing where they fit in relation to each other. If you could define these terms in relation to your being "Catholic and Socialist rather than atheist and Communist", that would go a long way.

Nor are doughnuts consciously, socially progressive, but political and economic reform can occur without upchucking and burying them.

What??? What does reform have to do with doughnuts???

It certainly can be that, but to me, Socialism is the end rather than the means.

Bigjoe5, no one is asking you what the number five means to you. This isn't some kind of artistic, expressive exercise in what *socialism* means to you. Socialism, by definition, isn't an *end* -- it's a *means* to an end, namely a worldwide communist society.

Taking it is necessary.  The ruling class will try to defend their position, but a full blown storm-into-parliament-with-guns-and-declare-yourself-the-provisional-government revolution doesn't strike me as being necessary.

You're evoking an image of colonial uprisings here. Today the strategy of the oppressed has changed to meet current conditions.

There appear to be more political means to achieve such a goal nowadays.  I suppose it really depends on what one means by the word revolution whether it's necessary or not.  Obviously some drastic reformation needs to take place and it needs to be done by the workers.  The only question is how?

The Sanitarios Maracay factory is an inspiring example of what can be done by workers. It's kind of a showcase example of the future in today's sea of capitalism.

By “wanting” I was implying “wanting enough to do something about it”.  That is what this website is all about, is it not?  Getting together enough people to change the system?

I think you're revealing a romantic approach to politics here, Bigjoe5. Again, we're not an island-bound colony revolting against European monarchical rule here. *Every worker* you talk to for the rest of your life has personal, tangible experience with exploitation, and even fight-backs. While people may wish to hide their politics, especially if they don't know you, everyone has reached the point of examining broader political issues for themselves, at some point. This is the basis for orienting people toward collective struggle, collective bargaining, and revolution.

Or, someone who cares enough about the working class could take power and create a socialist system beneath them, a la Karl von Kaiser's theoretical system.

This is pure idealism. The basis of power for the working class is at the point of production. Anything else is fanciful, and may even have already been disproven by history, as with Fabian socialism.

But only if a revolution is necessary.  In the case where it is not, Socialist or Capitalist is what matters.

Well, not just *any* kind of socialism will do. One has to be careful in where one puts their political direction, because many, many directions are dead ends -- including variants of "socialism".

I chose not to respond to a great deal of your post due to seeming agreement between us.  If you think I eliminated any aspects of our discussion prematurely, let me know.  I enjoy such intelligent discussions.  They're all too uncommon nowadays.

Glad to cover these items with you, Bigjoe5. Take care.


Chris



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[Bigjoe5]

I think the use of religion by rulers as cover far surpasses mere convenience. Religion is intimately tied to identity and in-group dynamics -- past the classical period it's functioned exactly like a badge of pan-membership, providing belongingness, etc. Therefore religion is a social and political phenomenon and is subject to use in such ways.

Religion's relation to identity and groups is an effect, rather than the cause of it's existence.  Religion exists because of man's search for knowledge in much the same way that science is.  It is for this reason that religion is becoming less common in today's world.  It is because science can explain so much more than it could that people think that it will be able to explain everything in time.  Religion is both a personal phenomenon and a religious phenomenon as it is caused by both personal ideas and religious events that have actually occurred.  As such, it is subject to use for personal gain under the pretext of true religion.

I really don't mean to merely split hairs haere -- I mean to say that religion, in a social context, is well-suited towards being used by rulers to abuse people, up through the present day. So besides the empirical evidence, I will point to religion's intrinsic definition as being the absence of science, to say that it is naturally symbiotic with rulership (over society's surplus) as a way of giving ready answers to justify the status quo, or existing state of power relations.

Religion has no such intrinsic definition.  You appear to have a somewhat biased view of religion.  Religion is separate from science, but it by no means requires the absence of it.  I will grant you that religion in general is well-suited towards the abuse of people - in much the same way that technology is extremely well-suited to blowing people up.  But just as many technologies are benign and used for as a physical tool helping people, so many religions are used as a social tool to help people.

Well, do elaborate then. What are we overlooking here, and of what significance is it to the class struggle?

Basically, if a religion is true, then the time that people spent on that religion is time well spent.  In other words, religion should not be abolished in favor of revolutionary economics because there would be more important considerations that political and economic ends.

[/quote]Well, yes and no -- this is one of those things that I consider to have evolved out of more primitive forms, like forests from prairies. Yes, the "machine" is socially based and exists only because of people, but there can be no permanent mass conversions of individuals into "good guys", or greedless, socially conscious people, as long as the machine remains in place. [/quote]
A permanent mass conversion of greedy people into good guys isn't necessary or possible.  But if religion is encouraged among the upper class of society, the proletariat could gain the support of some of the bourgeoisie which would be quite valuable to a socialist revolution.  This would be similar to the French revolution in which some of the first estate supported the third estate.

The "machine" has a conceptual analogue in smoke pollution -- it exists, and we can see it here and there, and we'd like to eradicate it, but it always winds up appearing somewhere else, in the same way. Smoke pollution also indicates industry, jobs, and economic growth. Do we really want to demolish the machine altogether, like Luddites, if that also means no energy production, no industry, no cheap consumer goods, and so on?

Is not the “machine” in this analogy the capitalist system?  Eliminating capitalism and replacing it with Communism is the goal of this organization, is it not?

Well, no. A socialist machine would not be susceptible to corruption -- at least nowhere near in the proportions we see under capitalism, which is very individual- and private-property-centered.

Historically, attempts to build a socialist machine have met with tyranny and corruption.  Because the government essentially owns the means of production, they are liable to use it to their own ends.  Furthermore, if the socialist machine survives long enough to evolve into a communist machine, then there will be people who exploit the system by simply not working.  Some things will get done simply because people will either just be good people or want to do it, but if there's no incentive to work in less appetizing jobs, people simply won't.  They'll just sit at home while the new machine collapses around them due to the lack of some essential service.  Just as religion won't turn everyone into selfless, generous people, neither will communism.

The bureaucratic state machinery of the bourgeois class only comes back if the socialist revolution fails to make continued progress against the forces of capital, thus leaving a power vacuum for reactionaries to fill.

Or if the communist machinery totally fails and capitalists take advantage of it.

Well, if you're admitting that the rich will not be converting to Christianity to become caring and selfless anytime soon then you've made my argument for me. Revolution isn't about rich-versus-poor, it's about private property owners versus the people who created that wealth. The machine can only be destroyed once it's been demonstrably conquered by the global working class.

Am I missing something?  What exactly is the difference between “rich-versus-poor” and “private property owners versus the people who created that wealth”?

You're being very uneven and unscientific here, Bigjoe5. If you're going to submit individual cases of people doing the "wrong" thing due their "wrong" religion, then I can talk about Catholicism being wrong because of the Crusades.

I'm talking more specifically about people doing the wrong thing because the wrong religion specifically told them to.  People certainly did a few bad things during the crusades, but the pope didn't order them to do those things.  They went to stop a physical threat and occasionally got carried away.  The excessive violence that occurred was not an intrinsic part of the pope's directions nor of Catholicism itself.  Spreading religion by the sword however, is one of the main directives of Islam, as has been clearly shown throughout history.  In this case, it is their religion and their religious leaders themselves that are specifically telling them to perform sucide bombings.

Huh? What's this about? Care to explain, Bigjoe5?

Hmm.  You don't have a facebook account, do you?  Perhaps you should get one?  Well, this is a facebook group.  It's info goes something like this:

Name:  Christians, Jews and Muslims for Peace

Type:  Common Interest – Religion and Spirituality

Description:  A forum for people against the widespread intolerance of others vocalized especially through the media. People looking for increased knowledge and understanding of other faiths. We all love the same God, how about giving a crack at loving one another?

I realize that this whole idea is very, very complicated, but it's still important. It's only as complicated as we make it. Please, invite your friends.

Members: 2, 803

This is an example of how theistic religions are able to co-exist peacefully.

No one's saying that the universe doesn't exist. Is this what *you're* saying, Bigjoe5?

On the contrary, what you said about religion could just as easily be an argument to prove that the universe doesn't exist.  It was essentially “God can't exist because people disagree about him.”  My point is that you might as well say that the universe doesn't exist because people disagree about it.  The argument is flawed.

Well, why waste even a *second* of your time at all? What's an acceptable amount of time to waste on religious practices?

I think the real question here is whether or not it's a waste of time at all.  I think that going to church every Sunday will make it easier for me to go to Heaven, and therefore time very well spent.  Anything that make one a better person is time well spent also, which you must admit religion can do even if it's merely a placebo effect as you believe.  In other words, you're arguments against religion are only valid if you've already disproved religion.

I hope you don't mean to treat these terms lightly, as your mere word-playthings, Bigjoe5. You really mish-mash them together, without recognizing where they fit in relation to each other. If you could define these terms in relation to your being "Catholic and Socialist rather than atheist and Communist", that would go a long way.

Alright.  I'm a Socialist because I believe that the state has an important role to play in the economy and law enforcement.  Because I'm a Catholic, I believe that the church has an important role to play in the spiritual lives of the people.  Because I'm  a Catholic, I believe that the family is a vital part of society and essential in providing balanced, spiritually healthy children to the society.  Extended family would be adequate as well, but I consider nuclear more effective.  The Communist ideal of eliminating the family is unacceptable to me.  And, lastly, I am a Socialist because I believe that while the means of production should be in the hands of the state, individuals should have the right to own their own property, choose what kind of property they have, and do what they please with it (with the exception of creating private businesses.)

What??? What does reform have to do with doughnuts???

My point exactly.  Just as doughnuts are neither revolutionary nor counter-revolutionary, neither is religion.  You'll find resistance from certain religions, but other religions will support you.  In the end, religion works itself out to be neutral.  In theory, anyway.

Bigjoe5, no one is asking you what the number five means to you. This isn't some kind of artistic, expressive exercise in what *socialism* means to you. Socialism, by definition, isn't an *end* -- it's a *means* to an end, namely a worldwide communist society.

Socialism, by definition (the REAL definition, not the Communist definition on this forum) is not definitively a means or an end.  It can be used as either.  To you, it is a means.  To me, and end, namely, a worldwide Socialist society.

This is pure idealism. The basis of power for the working class is at the point of production. Anything else is fanciful, and may even have already been disproven by history, as with Fabian socialism.

You have your way of doing things, I have mine.  Political means are readily available if there is sufficient support from the people.  There are more levels on which to act than the point of production.

Well, not just *any* kind of socialism will do. One has to be careful in where one puts their political direction, because many, many directions are dead ends -- including variants of "socialism".

True.  I guess I really meant in favor of the specific Socialist movement that's taking place.  Many kinds of Socialism are dead ends, it's true, but there are some that I would consider to be “live ends”.

I guess responding to this took longer than I anticipated.  I have so little time these days....I hope I can respond to your next reply a little sooner.

[ckaihatsu]

Religion's relation to identity and groups is an effect, rather than the cause of it's existence.  Religion exists because of man's search for knowledge in much the same way that science is.  It is for this reason that religion is becoming less common in today's world.  It is because science can explain so much more than it could that people think that it will be able to explain everything in time.  Religion is both a personal phenomenon and a religious phenomenon as it is caused by both personal ideas and religious events that have actually occurred.  As such, it is subject to use for personal gain under the pretext of true religion.

If you're agreeing that science has a far better track record of explaining the world than religion does, then it is preferable as a tool for investigation. I would rather fund a scientist to develop a needed medicine than anyone else.

At the rate science is going, it may indeed be able to give an accurate answer to every conceivable question. I just posted in the Science section of this board that the phenomenon of gravity is still unexplained. Yes, we know it bends light waves, but what I find unsatisfying is that we can't explain through what means objects affect other objects, at a distance, through a vacuum.

This is the kind of question I would *not* leave to religious investigation. The scientific method is superior to personal experience because it establishes laws that explain phenomena, no matter who's doing the observing. Individuals can be susceptible to all sorts of maladies and misinformation, either through the senses, or otherwise -- science does not depend on individuals, whereas religion tends to prey on them, whether in an intentional way or not.

Religion has no such intrinsic definition.  You appear to have a somewhat biased view of religion.  Religion is separate from science, but it by no means requires the absence of it.  I will grant you that religion in general is well-suited towards the abuse of people - in much the same way that technology is extremely well-suited to blowing people up.  But just as many technologies are benign and used for as a physical tool helping people, so many religions are used as a social tool to help people.

You noted above that people have been turning to science in their search for knowledge because science is able to explain so much more than religion. Anything that can be explained in a thorough, systematic way allows us to make solid predictions about the future. That allows us to manage risk much more effectively than without the knowledge. This is the ultimate value of science. Wherever science can make accurate predictions at the same that religion cannot, science will be preferred as the tool of choice. Religion may still make attempts, but people -- especially those managing assets and resources -- will not entertain methods that don't work.

In a better world there would be no motivations to destroy people, assets, or resources. Unfortunately the world, as it is, still wrestles with the issue of distributing its surplus value. Wars employ all sorts of methods, including religion and technology, to destroy the value of the enemy. People can come together and build communities -- or militant takeovers of the means of mass production -- without religion, but in the modern world we rely on technology for our communications and mobility.

Basically, if a religion is true, then the time that people spent on that religion is time well spent.  In other words, religion should not be abolished in favor of revolutionary economics because there would be more important considerations that political and economic ends.

People can do all sorts of things with their time -- that's not the point. Given that the world still has outstanding, pressing issues -- we do *not* currently live in a utopia, after all -- the question becomes what should we do with our finite time of existence? We all have to make ongoing decisions as to what activities to prioritize. Many things are true, but that only begs the question. Which, of the infinite number of true things, should we direct our attention and efforts to?

A revolutionary recognizes that the world continues to destroy life and the products of human labor. Revolutionary economics is the scientific method towards achieving rational, non-destructive political and economic ends.

Is not the “machine” in this analogy the capitalist system?  Eliminating capitalism and replacing it with Communism is the goal of this organization, is it not?

Yeah, a machine is an appropriate analogy for the capitalist system because it has no sentience, no conscious will. The capitalist system, too, has no driver, no human consciousness to guide it. We can ascribe various levels of culpability to those who willingly help the machine to grind lives away, but in the end we either collectively smash the machine, or we don't -- as long as we continue to put up with the machine, or the "invisible hand" (not as good a metaphor) -- we will suffer from its blindness.

Historically, attempts to build a socialist machine have met with tyranny and corruption.  Because the government essentially owns the means of production, they are liable to use it to their own ends.  Furthermore, if the socialist machine survives long enough to evolve into a communist machine, then there will be people who exploit the system by simply not working.  Some things will get done simply because people will either just be good people or want to do it, but if there's no incentive to work in less appetizing jobs, people simply won't.  They'll just sit at home while the new machine collapses around them due to the lack of some essential service.  Just as religion won't turn everyone into selfless, generous people, neither will communism.

The "socialist machine" you're referring to were the bureaucracies of the U.S.S.R. and China during the period of their industrialization and modernization. The accurate term for the type of government that ran these economies is 'Stalinism', meaning a bureaucratic elite that is not accountable or responsive to the people it governs.

The historical fact of Stalinism only presses the need for instituting a type of government that *will* work for all the people of the world. We know from this bloody history that attempting to institute "socialism in one country" is doomed to failure -- a socialist revolution must be undertaken by those who do the labor for society, and by no one else. The problem with the capitalist and Stalinist modes of production is that ownership and management is separated from those who do the actual labor, the workers. A rational society would combine the functions of ownership, management, and labor within the same body of people.

There is nothing fatalistic about a socialist revolution -- like anything else pioneering, it either is done well or it isn't. No, not everyone wants to be revolutionary, or will want to be revolutionary, even in an era of revolution. That does not mean that the revolution will necessarily fail. If a successful global revolution usurps the capitalists then those who are not revolutionaries will still have to find ways of providing for themselves and their families, just as in any historical era. The point of a revolution isn't to change how people behave, it's to change the relationship of ownership to labor.

Or if the communist machinery totally fails and capitalists take advantage of it.

You're missing the entire point of communism here, Bigjoe5. Yes, a socialist revolution can either succeed or fail, like anything else. But, if a socialist revolution succeeds, then, by definition, it will eliminate the expropriation of labor by capital. In other words the mass body of labor will be in a position to actively decide where the fruits of its *own* labor go. The revolution must be a continuous one so that no portion of society is able to set itself up as a ruling elite which can expropriate the fruits of labor. If everyone takes a turn at the role of co-management, with no extra rewards for it, then no one section can consolidate power.

Am I missing something?  What exactly is the difference between “rich-versus-poor” and “private property owners versus the people who created that wealth”?

I make the distinction because rich-versus-poor implies a feudal, or slavery, state of affairs, where there is no mobility whatsoever for individual workers.

Private property is different than "rich" because it can change hands, and does every day under capitalism. The unresolved issue, though, is how to make sure that labor (the people who created that wealth) can hang onto it -- as things stand, private property detaches itself from the laborers who produced it, even if the private property itself may change hands over and over again.

I'm talking more specifically about people doing the wrong thing because the wrong religion specifically told them to.  People certainly did a few bad things during the crusades, but the pope didn't order them to do those things.  They went to stop a physical threat and occasionally got carried away.  The excessive violence that occurred was not an intrinsic part of the pope's directions nor of Catholicism itself.  Spreading religion by the sword however, is one of the main directives of Islam, as has been clearly shown throughout history.  In this case, it is their religion and their religious leaders themselves that are specifically telling them to perform sucide bombings.

If you don't mind, Bigjoe5, I'm not going to get into this particular thread of discussion because it's very generalized and taken out of the context of historical development. If you like, we can discuss the rise of different types of monotheism in the context of historical development, but I do not mean to get in the middle of a spitting match between religions, as you present them.

Hmm.  You don't have a facebook account, do you?  Perhaps you should get one?  Well, this is a facebook group.  It's info goes something like this:

Hey, that's great -- or, if I am not religious at all then I don't have to bother with any of it. And, as long as there is imperialist war, I am *not* a pacifist -- I am an anti-imperialist.

On the contrary, what you said about religion could just as easily be an argument to prove that the universe doesn't exist.  It was essentially “God can't exist because people disagree about him.”  My point is that you might as well say that the universe doesn't exist because people disagree about it.  The argument is flawed.

Actually, there is plenty of evidence, that people agree on, to prove that the objective, material universe does indeed exist. Religious precepts are much more disputed and controversial, to say the least.

If I can make predictions about how the universe will behave, going into the future, and I am right, then I win my argument in the name of science.

I think the real question here is whether or not it's a waste of time at all.  I think that going to church every Sunday will make it easier for me to go to Heaven, and therefore time very well spent.  Anything that make one a better person is time well spent also, which you must admit religion can do even if it's merely a placebo effect as you believe.  In other words, you're arguments against religion are only valid if you've already disproved religion.

Look, Bigjoe5, I'm not telling you how to live your life -- I have no interest in doing that. If you believe that you are a better person for whatever it is you do with your life, then so be it. This is another line of discussion that I would rather not get into.

On the subject of religious belief in general, I'll say that I would rather *not* risk my finite time of existence, and my sanity, in the leap of faith that religion requires. There is no way to conform to the afterlife demands of all of the world's religions, so I'll just call that bluff.

Alright.  I'm a Socialist because I believe that the state has an important role to play in the economy and law enforcement.  Because I'm a Catholic, I believe that the church has an important role to play in the spiritual lives of the people.  Because I'm  a Catholic, I believe that the family is a vital part of society and essential in providing balanced, spiritually healthy children to the society.  Extended family would be adequate as well, but I consider nuclear more effective.  The Communist ideal of eliminating the family is unacceptable to me.  And, lastly, I am a Socialist because I believe that while the means of production should be in the hands of the state, individuals should have the right to own their own property, choose what kind of property they have, and do what they please with it (with the exception of creating private businesses.)

By "Communist" you mean "Stalinist", right? I do not identify with, or condone, the actions taken by the bureaucratic elites of the former U.S.S.R. or China. Instead of empowering the working people of their respective countries they took all power for themselves and industrialized the countries at the cost of millions of lives. Any social policies they instituted along the way towards achieving their way of doing things must be repudiated.

That said, I'll throw things back to the question of priorities. Do we all want to spend time, the way we want, with those we love and care for? Of course.

Do we want to mobilize to achieve a world free of imperialist war? I would certainly hope so. These two things are quite different -- I think of them as being *pleasure* and *politics*, respectively. They both require time from our lives. How do we prioritize?

If you think that the means of mass production should be in the hands of the state, then let me ask you in whose hands should the state be?

Property is only disputed if it's given value in the eyes of society. If property is owned in common, as with the commons in medieval England, then there is nothing to fight over. The same goes with private property, which can be land, or stored value, or private businesses, or factories, or whatever. Anything that's readily accessible and plentiful is also not worth fighting over. You don't see people going apeshit over quantities of air, do you? No, air is everywhere, the delivery system is perfect, and it's free. It's so readily available that it's too difficult to commodify to make the effort of commodification worthwhile. So as long as there's no scarcity -- and even, arguably if there *is* scarcity -- we as a global society should be able to provide everything in adequate quantities, so as to eliminate competition and its destructive effects, forever.

My point exactly.  Just as doughnuts are neither revolutionary nor counter-revolutionary, neither is religion.  You'll find resistance from certain religions, but other religions will support you.  In the end, religion works itself out to be neutral.  In theory, anyway.

Well, if science is taken to be progressive, and even revolutionary, for human development, then religion -- in general -- can be said to be counter-revolutionary throughout history. Religion, for the most part, is conservative and desires to retain its authoritative position over important questions, to the detriment of the explorations of science. I'm sorry, I can't go halfway with you on this, Bigjoe5.

Socialism, by definition (the REAL definition, not the Communist definition on this forum) is not definitively a means or an end.  It can be used as either.  To you, it is a means.  To me, and end, namely, a worldwide Socialist society.

You may want to define your terms here, then -- what roles do you envision for ownership and labor under your idea of a worldwide socialist society?

You have your way of doing things, I have mine.  Political means are readily available if there is sufficient support from the people.  There are more levels on which to act than the point of production.

You're missing the whole point of having a society at all if you're going to throw away the importance of the point of production. Without production the entire world would be back to the point of family farming -- is this really the type of world you want, Bigjoe5? It is only with the use of mechanical power, and then industrialization and mass production, that we have come to the benefits of contemporary life that we so easily enjoy today.

This is why the twentieth century was so bloody -- because there was so much at stake at the point of production. We still haven't solved this issue -- that's why we need to mobilize for a global socialist revolution, so that we can fully enjoy the fruits of the point of production, instead of being exploited by it.

True.  I guess I really meant in favor of the specific Socialist movement that's taking place.  Many kinds of Socialism are dead ends, it's true, but there are some that I would consider to be “live ends”.

I guess responding to this took longer than I anticipated.  I have so little time these days....I hope I can respond to your next reply a little sooner.

*Which* socialist movement are you referring to here? Please let me know which kind(s) of socialism you would consider to be worthwhile. Good talking with you, and take care.


Chris






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[socialistdream]

Why this happen's is because when we are young (elementary school) they teach us of what is good and what is bad in their veiw's. They also teach us what they want us to learn not what would actualy benefit us as the people but as mindless zombies dedicated to their cause to the cause of capitalism and the of consumerism. It is their way of controling what we know is throught education. In my polotic's class (secondary school) they tought us about all governments but only tought us the benifit's of capitalism and democracy they didnt teach us about the benifit's communism and socialism.

                        Sincerly,
                          Comrade Mayberry

[marxist1984]

i believe that in the past with disputes with communist-like states, has caused the general, uneducated in politics, American, to fear and even hate the sign of the sickle and hammer. a sign to socialists and communists everywhere as a sign of two unlike classes working in harmony and little friction. if the so-called greatest country in the world, America, wants to hate something, let's hope that they research it. hatred without knowing is just expressing your own ignorance.