/psrg/ Philosophy, spirituality, and religion general Anonymous 30-04-25 18:08:42 No. 24252
Okay, let's try this. I would try making this sort of a general threads for a few weeks, then we'd see if they became popular and maybe mods would make /psrg/ a permanent thread.
Anonymous 30-04-25 18:43:51 No. 24254
>>24253 Not the OP, but i believe not all spirituality is antithetical to the goal of communism. I think that, not the religions themselves, but some of their practices and, inevitably, some of the theoretical thoughts that circle around them, are actually beneficial and maybe even necessary for communism. I am mainly speaking of meditation, which, as a practice, implicitly entails some determinate pragmatical and theoretical structures, that are compatible with some other thoughts and practices and incompatible with some others. if done correctly, even outside of any spiritual path, meditation brings one to develop an unattachment and de-identification to the immediacy of one own's thoughts and emotions, and an association with long term decision making strategies based on a bird-eye view of its own situation. Likewise, one gains a disattachment to our own ego structure, the irrational thought that I, just because I am I (or, more accurately, just because I am AN I, because everyone is an I and nobody is special for that), I am more valuable than other Is, which is obviously something that should have some degree of general acceptance in order for communism to work. Capitalism by contrast is, deep-down, generally incompatible with the thoughts and practices that implicitly associate with the practice of meditation. It is true that, particulary, burgeois type people have repeatedly associated themselves with meditation and religions which have to do with meditation, but I believe that this is due to phenomena such a certain orientalism that leads people which percieve their lives as meaningles under the irreligious and "cold" scientific western worldwiev and, to hide from that "void", try to contain themselves into the more comfy, small world of an exotic religious oriental worldview. I also think they use it as a counterweight to the sometimes fast paced life they have to lead due to their financial profession, or to feel somehow morally acceptable by developing a peaceful ideology and being able to control unpleasent thoughts. In general, burgeoise meditation is a coping mechanism, it just reaches the surfice of the practice, and therefore, i don't think its valid to associate the full extent of the practice with the bourgeoise. On the other hand, if it is true that communism is not just a transformation of the mode of production, but also a transformation of our cognitive structure like some have theorized, i believe that the result would be similar to the mind advanced meditators. Some have theorized this before in very different strands of marxism, for example, in the otherwise (for me) uninteresting and pragmatically useless strand of freudomarxism in the frankfurt school, mainly Marcuse. I think tha the theory goes roughly like this: influenced by psychonalysis, he considers the ego to be a sort of defence mechanism against outside threat. If we consider also that mode of production shapes the social institutions we live by, for example, family, gender, identities such as being identified by the trade one works in… In a postscarcity, maybe even "post-political" (in the sense that with the abolition of the state, politics would not be defined by a conflict between opposing interest but a technical management of the interests of all because they are unified under communism), it is very likely that, even at a daily level, our way of percieving ourself and relating to one another would, with time, radically change. It is difficult for me to envision how structures such as family or gender would subsist their own economic obsolescence, since the division of labour by which they sprung as functional structures to organize society and daily life would disappear, if we follow the spirit of Engels' the origin of the family, even if its data is outdated. So, under this situation, it is possible that what we call the ego, without the arena of conflicting interests that is civil society, would actually transform into a new way of cognitive auto-perception or identification. Che Guevara's new man is also an example, and i also think that the mentioned that Engel's Origin of the Family carries these entailings. I believe that Marx and Engel's famous discourse regarding being fisherman in the morning and critic in the evening also say something about how a communist revolution entail also a cognitive one, if it is true that one's own cognition is shaped by one's own material, operational activity, and not the way around, which is a basic marxist tennet. And under such circumstance, meditation, with the mentioned operation it realices in self-cognition and that of others, would just be too useful for society not to spontanously be adopted as a general practice, it would be "naturally selected" so to say, because no other practice does that, but it would be purified from all religious content the same way that communism purifies society from its "blood and soil paradigm of identification" so to say.
Anonymous 30-04-25 18:46:29 No. 24255
>>24252 My (unoriginal) contribution to the theory of religion is that I think that there is no such thing as religion. IMO, "religion" is a bad term that originates from conflating two different things that I label as "faith" and "church".
"Faith" (also called "unorganised", "natural" or "personal" religion) is a metaphysical system (including metaphysical concepts, axioms, and teachings derived from them - "theorems", you could say) that supports and informs the worldview of a person or a group of people.
"Church" (also called "organised" religion) is a social institution or organisation whose function is standartization, advancement, and collective practice of the faith.
Christianity is a faith, Catholic Church or Mormon community are churches (although it can be argued that the faith of Mormons isn't really Christianity, more investigation is required); Buddhism is a faith, Tibetian Buddhism is a church; Islam is a faith, Nation of Islam is a church.
A lot of the problems when discussing religion (including on this site) are from people conflating the faith and the church IMO.
Anonymous 30-04-25 18:52:08 No. 24256
>>24254 AAAAAAAAA
Man… Do you have no working Enter key on your PC's keyboard?
Anonymous 30-04-25 19:24:43 No. 24261
>>24258 After researching a bit, and if you read closely my discourse, I think you'd find that it is unlike that of the bolshevik god-builders because:
I did not defend a theist position
I only referred to a specific practice, meditation
I didn't say that it would impulse revolution, but, if it is true that change of mode of production leads to change of identity, then meditation and its associated cognitive-practical entailings could be both a model for the understanding of, and an almost necessary tool for, people under communism.
I explicitly said that all these spiritual practices under communism would be purified of their religious elements, since like the etymology is implied, religio is nothing more than a pseudo-philosophical ideology. What we call today "spirituality", with the elimination of the economic necessity of religio, would end up falling into a new field of activity with a new name, that is associated rather to rationalist philosophy the same way that "spirituality" was linked to religion
Anonymous 30-04-25 20:56:58 No. 24268
>>24265 No shit, you're right. People who are most proud of their "atheism" are basically "Look at me! I am not a slave to the sky daddy! Ain't me badass?"
Like, not being a slave is not a high bar by any sane metric! (and, hilariously, these people are often slaves to something barely better than Yahweh… like Israel or shit)
Well, duh. Ask a r/atheism frequnter about Palestine and you'd probably hear that Israelis are "good guys" because they are "secular democracy defending itself against literal theocrats"
Using my own faith/church dichotomy I had outlined in
>>24255 I'd have recommended for you to answer "What's your religious beliefs?" with "Religion is a bad term. My faith is communism and I am secular (i.e. I have no church)"
Anonymous 02-05-25 20:51:52 No. 24279
>>24278 This is because the concept of god as absolute is superior to the merely folk religious concept of this or that god of this or that natural element, custom, behaviour (war, love etc…). It is not racist, a universal god is obviously far more conceptually advanced than a merely local god, that is in contradiction with itself because it pretends to be at the same time universal and particular. This is also why the muslim and the christian concept of god are superior to the jewish god, since the former is universalist, and the latter, contradictorily universalist and nationalist god. Your mistake lies in treating all gods as just gods, without any conceptual nuance, in a typical liberal abstraction where all religious concepts are of equal value just because they are in the realm of religion, which is an intimate personal private realm
Anonymous 02-05-25 20:57:17 No. 24281
>>24278 >>24279 >>24280 ultimately, though, all religions are irrational in their concept of God, even those who treat it as universal or as an absolute, because then, if God is truly the absolute being, it then follows that its truth can't be appropiated by a merely local community and set of dogmas, with merely local events, such as christ being born in palestine, mohammed being born in arabia… This is why all religions are retarded, but not all religions are in the same level of retardation due to the logical advancedment of their implicit concepts, so that a pantheon of gods of random things are more conceptually poor than a god as absolute
Anonymous 04-05-25 19:28:04 No. 24286
>>24282 I have a thread up on Siberia asking about experiences with secularized Buddhism. I'm interested in it myself. I can recommend a few books if you wish.
>>24274 >but is outright hotile to Marxism even without all of the superstitious garbage? The core message of Buddhism, even without all supernatural claptrap seems to be "You should not wish to change the world", while the core message of Marxism is "The point is to change the world". Not a single statement you typed is correct. Not a single one. Congrats on your massive ignorance. Trot flag really is a cherry on the top.
Anonymous 06-05-25 22:55:19 No. 24288
>>24274 it depends on the way you want to appropiate their concepts. If you just leave them as they are in their autoctonous context, i.e. if you consider them under the EMIC approach, this might be the case, but even still, buddhism is not a homogenous set of dogmas, there are many distinct traditions with many different believes. Pure land buddhism i think could be an example of what you are saying. without considering this essential heterogeneity of what we call buddhism, we, as outsiders, have the privilege of approaching their systems of thought in an ETIC approach (see emic etic distinction) and appropiate the concepts developed by them in the way WE see fit, accomodating them in our own more conceptually advanced western philosophical-scientific outlook. It is always easy to criticize another system, to present it as poor and underdeveloped from the coordinates of our own system, but this is a libidinal trap, a trap through which we believe that we are gaining something from that kind of activity, when as a matter of fact the most productive thing is trying to take whatever advantage we can get from them, and silently and diligently working for our own advancement and ideally that of others and the system we live in.
But in general, the focus of buddhism is awakening, and the cessation of all suffering, and for them it is the case that their "dharma" or "dhamma" is the one and only true means for those ends. So, this goal is compatible in many ways with political practice, although the principle of not increasing general suffering, if approached in a deontological/kantian sort of way, may lead to severe political inaction, but this is not necessarily the case. Nor is it necessarily the case for this principle to be taken as a sort of utilitarianism, since their concept of suffering is not merely quantitative, but qualified: suffering is due to ignorance of the true nature of reality, and this ignorance is in turn a product of the imposture of the ego-construct as our real cognitive form and identity.
I believe many buddhist, especially mahayana (i.e., as of now, east asians) and vajrayana (i.e., tibetans) buddhists, if convinced that politics was a political system that facilitates the genaral goal of enlightement, they would consider it a skillfull mean for the goal of a bodhisattva, as long as that means doesn't degenerate into not achieving the goal. I find the concept of the bodhisattva especially interesting: the bodhisattva is the person who has decided that their goal and main priority in this life (and according to them, their next ones also) is facilitating awakening to all sentient beings, going as far as to postpone their cessation of reincarnation in favor of continuing to pursue this goal in many lives. If we take into account that they are positively convinced of that (admiteddly wrong and unscientific) metaphysical structure, theirs is the ultimate attitude of diligence and hard-work, since they could in principle achieve their metaphysically absolute "summum bonum", but their will is still connected to the task of delivering it to everyone without exception.
This is why some buddhists show adherence to marxism (notable example: the dalai lama, with all the controversies of the chinese raison d'état affairs with tibet and all, i am not showing disagreement with that). This might also be the reason why the asian communist countries have historically been buddhist majority countries, and as of now we could name Sri Lanka as a recent example, due to the electoral success of their communist party. I don't mean by this that buddhism has had a causal role in the revolutions of these countries, as a marxist I am not this politically naive, but i am saying that perhaps there are signs of greater ideological compatibility, which contradicts what people say about buddhism: that it is a practice for bourgeoise western people.
Continuing with the bodhisattva theme, its utmost cooperative attitude is accused by many to translate to a naive self-sacrifice that leads to actually doing nothing and only elevate oneself morally, but this is not the case at least for buddhism, due to the concept of "skillfull means". A lama in my city i used to go listen to always stressed this point: buddhism is not just an indiscriminate good attitude towards everyone, and in a typical way he would give some analogical examples: a person that doesn't know how to swim shouldn't try to save a person that is drowining in the sea. Or another one: if a town is in need of a water supply, you can just mindlessly build a water canal, lest the city might be flooded; what is needed is a technical system of water distributon for supplying water without flooding at the same time, and this is skillful means.
However, for or these positive things I have said regarding buddhism, it is undeniable that there are still problems. First, buddhism is still a non-secular, non-scientific and conceptually underdeveloped thought system, which is still metaphysical in the modern sense, mythological in many ways, and not rational enough. Some schools and a lot of western conceptions of buddhism suffer from the vices that anon was referring to, which leads to political inaction. Nontheless, I still believe there are many things conceptually that are still not worked enough in the west, mainly, meditative practices and their cognitive and ethical practical powers and theorical consecuences, and fully compatible and contributive to communism, as i have explained here:
>>24254 Anonymous 08-05-25 03:00:19 No. 24315
First of all, if you write of religious matters, you can only use a religious framework to properly describe them. Philosophy or science might give answers telling you why religion exists, but religion is only comprehensible when it is a sphere of activity unique to itself. Every religion immediately must contend with every other religion that exists and with religion as a concept. One does not simply start a new religion based on an idea or some piece of technology they think is cool. Every religion necessarily must explain the origin not just of itself but of all things that could be of religious significance. The easiest way to do this is to recognize their origins from other religions directly. There can never be a "clean break" from religion while continuing to reference the same subject matter. So, unless Marxism is a religion for you—maybe it is—you can't speak of a "pure Marxist take" on religion, and Marxism has no real answers to that. It suggests a way religions can be destroyed by ideology, but it was tailor made for the destruction of Christianity which it opposed for reasons not difficult to figure out. Marxism and Christianity are certainly incompatible, but Marxism might be reconciled with other religions, and based on the nature of its claims it has to and attempts to reconcile with religion generally. It cannot claim neutrality, and when speaking of religious matters, there can never be neutral ground. The only "neutral ground" that might exist is the world prior to religion or that was not corrupted in any way by the practice of religion, and everything humans touch is corrupted by religion simply by virtue of humans all being members of societies where religion in one form or another was dominant and invasive. Even the invalid who as a rule are not allowed to join religion are subjected to religion, almost always victimized and shamed by it, but may themselves find in religion some explanation.
Anonymous 08-05-25 03:24:48 No. 24316
If you think I'm slagging hard on Christianity in particular, I can tell you the evils of nearly every religion that has any prominence in society, from Islam to the fruity ones like Scientology or the seemingly harmless ones like Raelianism (and our good friend Rael has blood on his hands, they don't tell you that in the brochure). The religions that get anywhere usually entail some sort of horrible sacrifice that spawned their existence and most will practice sacrifice afterwards. Christianity is bizarre in that it suggests that there will be no more sacrifices (this of course is a lie, the true goal is to maximize sacrifices and say they were all wicked sinners and Christ will dispose of them). And of course, Satanism is the oldest religion there is and they just say outright the Dark Lord is the one true god and anything else is hogwash.
Anonymous 12-05-25 05:07:45 No. 24330
>>24315 wrong: practices originating in religious contexts can be appropriated from religions, as well as concepts and anything you want, just like any other activity. The issue is making them work, of course. I doubt that a revolutionary will be worse by meditating or being interested, in its own ethical outlook, in the benefit of all sentient beings. Both are things that in this case have come through buddhism, but buddhism does not exhaust their use as items in other systems, other systems can even outcompete buddhism in the use of said items. Now, a lot of items you should not incorporate, rather, you should do an immanent critique, incorporate them as poor moments of your own system and make that work, like marx shows how liberal values are mere bourgeoise ideology. Now, when you got a communist blindly appropriating liberal values, you got a radlib, when you got a communist blindly appropriating christianity, you got a Tolstoy kind of guy. But someone that in his childhood had an interest in christianity and became a communist, but at the same time mantained an ethics that is about the redemption of humanity, or whatever, does not necessarily make his system worse: it depends on how he makes the appropriated items work. By definition, philosophy is the ultimate appropriating activity: while religion cannot take an outside concept freely because it must ideologically stand by its dogmas for x or y historical reasons, philosophy can appropriated everything freely and minmax the conceptual items that are constantly being produced in all other activities. Maybe you think that just because some ideology has configured itself in a certain way and immanently gives some hermeneutical rules to understand it, one has to play by the book and follow said rules just because they say so, but this is not true: you can extract and reconfigure any item, be it a theoretical or practical concept. Maybe you didn't know you could actually do this, but now you know: now go on and explore any system of thought you want and do whatever you want with it. Maybe you think that if this is true everything would just be a frankestein of different items but this is not true because: there are emergent properties, such as those that arise dialectically, which make so that not all configurations are functionally the same if handling the same items. So, not everything works, just like in any other activity.
Unique IPs: 30