/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2924835
>Better to exist, do immense good, and then be dissolved then to never exist or accomplish anything at all.
I agree, but this applies to many things, for example, the american empire, but not because of that I want a second american empire, the USSR had its moments for sure, specially early on, but I dont want the same nationalist deviation again

>>2924716
>Religion is reactionary
<Idealist position
I wonder what filthy idealist wrote the words in pic related?

>>2924771
>>2924985
I have zero problem saying that Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and others were all wrong about religion and that history had proven this. Even the cited examples simply criticize specific expressions of organized religion that were animated by bourgeois or feudal class forces. They don't engage with the point I'm making, which is that religion can be animated by proletarian, peasant, or other progressive forces and that there are numerous concrete examples.

>>2924991
>I have zero problem saying that Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and others were all wrong about religion and that history had proven this.
Well, I appreciate your honesty in this case.

it doesn't matter what class appears to be or is imagined to be "animating" religious idealism. It is especially irrelevant since those particular forms of idealism are not some new "proletarian religion" created in a vacuum out of pure class consciousness and revolutionary optimism, but modifications of inherited religions, including abrahamic, vedic, and dharmic religions, which contain built into their doctrines explicit apologetics for slavery, serfdom, caste, genocide, patriarchy, etc.

If some particular group of revolutionary proletarians is religious, it can only be to their direct detriment, since it muddles their thinking. Even when it is thought that religion makes one less "afraid to die" in battle, that is a farce, because nothing can be more harmless than the Atheist's oblivion, while the Abrahamic God punishes rebellion against one's masters with eternal hellfire.


>religion can be animated by proletarian, peasant, or other progressive forces and that there are numerous concrete examples.

Religion confuses their struggle, it does not enhance it. It conflates their struggle against the ruling class with obedience to the master of the universe. Instead of saying to the ruling class "We no longer believe any of the bullshit you filled our heads with, including religion" it says to them "Actually we are perfect representatives of the universal slave owner, and you have gone astray with satanic rebellion, now the universal slave owner has sent us to punish you and re-establish the natural order of things." If you internalize religion as your animating principle, rather than class struggle, you go from a revolutionary force meant to change society into a new form of society, into a reactionary force meant to re-establish an imagined religious golden age from the past.

One more thing… can class struggle and religion truly be "equal" principles for a religious proletariat to operate on? Won't religion tend to win out, since a religious person believes that their fidelity to religion has eternal consequences for their immortal soul, while class struggle is only a finite, material struggle of lesser consequence? If the two seem to compete at any moment, the clear incentive, if they truly believe in the idealist claims of religion, is to pick religion over class struggle.

>>2924991
>I have zero problem saying that Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and others were all wrong about religion and that history had proven this.
Every based Communist sometimes has to say that the Prophets of Communism were wrong on some things and correct on others. Otherwise it's just another religion. Social practice is what defines correctness.

>>2925338
>not created in a vacuum out of pure class consciousness and revolutionary optimism, but modifications of inherited religions
Religions themselves were modified by other religions and philosophies. Goes back to the argument about how objective morality is a dialectical phenomenon whereby attempts to find absolute truth upon failure are recreated in some new form as opposed to constant moral relativism which if internalized, is unable to achieve anything of substance or social organization. When you study how religions evolve you will see tension between new dogma and old dogma and various ways on how these are reconciled. Even devout Christians might not agree with the Old Testament but they sort of grandfather it in by appealing to different times, dispensations etc. A lot of religious thinking is not even based on the books, but on vibes and that introduces a whole lot of interesting collisions. What historical Communism should have done is a continuation of Messianism and just incorporated Abrahamic religions into some New Jerusalem Revelation eschatology. But that would require intelligent theological maneuvering that is rare in leftist circles because the psychological profile of typical leftists is very idealistic. A materialist for example would even if they are an Atheist, push some form of communist-conducive religious thinking if the public is inherently religious.

>If some particular group of revolutionary proletarians is religious, it can only be to their direct detriment, since it muddles their thinking.
>Religion confuses their struggle, it does not enhance it.
Historical communist practice has shown that sincere religious people not opposed to communist rule indeed are useful to building socialism because they have a mindset that equates fulfilling the plan as fulfilling God's requirements for example. Because their religion already has a proto-communist orientation, they avoid nihilism and their faith animates their activities. They don't necessarily agree with everything ordered by the party, but those things they do agree on, they do diligently. If anything, atheism killed communism because it removed the magic teleological component that inspires people, who in turn switched from opium of the masses to alcohol of the masses.

>nothing can be more harmless than the Atheist's oblivion, while the Abrahamic God punishes rebellion against one's masters with eternal hellfire.
Religious people in that state don't think they go to hell. Also, not every religion has the same infatuation with hell like Catholicism does. See you in Valhalla brother.

>It conflates their struggle against the ruling class with obedience to the master of the universe.
Based.
>Instead of saying to the ruling class "We no longer believe any of the bullshit you filled our heads with, including religion" it says to them "Actually we are perfect representatives of the universal slave owner, and you have gone astray with satanic rebellion, now the universal slave owner has sent us to punish you and re-establish the natural order of things."
Ultra Based.
>If you internalize religion as your animating principle, rather than class struggle, you go from a revolutionary force meant to change society into a new form of society, into a reactionary force meant to re-establish an imagined religious golden age from the past.
Why am I supposed to find this cringe when it's super based and unfathomably dialectical?


>Won't religion tend to win out, since a religious person believes that their fidelity to religion has eternal consequences for their immortal soul, while class struggle is only a finite, material struggle of lesser consequence?
Because class struggle is a nebulous concept requiring constant thinking and bookworming while religion is simple cause and effect taught from infancy. If you are a smart communist, you merge the two and maintain strategic ideological/theological flexibility.

Case in point, I am not a "religious" person, but I understand its political usefulness. Even if it's all vibes based, sometimes you do feel inspired by some ephemeral supernatural link when things go really good.

>>2925386
>Case in point, I am not a "religious" person, but I understand its political usefulness.
Yes, everyone wannabe social reformer sees religion as useful social technology, then they become shocked and disgusted when people ACTUALLY want you to do what the clerics say.

>>2924538
>someone personally thinks god started the big bang…
That's disgusting but not against our world view.

>>2925386
It's always interesting when someone responds to me using a meme I made while disagreeing with me. (in this case, it's the one with the spurdo demiurge)

Not that this detracts from the qualities of what you are saying. Though I am surprised to see you responding and not sabocat.

You actually say a lot of things I agree with but they are separate points from each other so I will try to reply to each separately.

>Religions themselves were modified by other religions and philosophies.

This is of course true.

>Goes back to the argument about how objective morality is a dialectical phenomenon whereby attempts to find absolute truth upon failure are recreated in some new form as opposed to constant moral relativism which if internalized, is unable to achieve anything of substance or social organization.

Yes.

>When you study how religions evolve you will see tension between new dogma and old dogma and various ways on how these are reconciled.

Makes sense.

>Even devout Christians might not agree with the Old Testament but they sort of grandfather it in by appealing to different times, dispensations etc.

True.

>A lot of religious thinking is not even based on the books, but on vibes and that introduces a whole lot of interesting collisions.

Not on books or vibes but those pesky material conditions.

>What historical Communism should have done is a continuation of Messianism and just incorporated Abrahamic religions into some New Jerusalem Revelation eschatology.

Not sure how this diagnosis follows from your previous premises.

>But that would require intelligent theological maneuvering that is rare in leftist circles

Well it's seen as opportunism. Machiavelli whose name has become synonym for scheming remarked in The Prince that it is absolutely necessary for a political leader to "appear" religious (he chose "appear" as opposed to "be" for reasons which become obvious since the rest of his book is drenched in anecdotes about brutal realpolitik and backstabbing which overrides the simplicity of religious morality)

>because the psychological profile of typical leftists is very idealistic. A materialist for example would even if they are an Atheist, push some form of communist-conducive religious thinking if the public is inherently religious.

I think it is more than idealism. I think there is an addiction (and I am guilty of this) to not want to "water down" what we think is the truth in the name of swelling our ranks. Of course Machiavelli would instruct us to swell our ranks with the manipulable and faithful, by appealing to their cognitive and religious biases, and to use them as meat shields and laborers… but doesn't that just reinvent class society from first principles?0

>Historical communist practice has shown that sincere religious people not opposed to communist rule indeed are useful to building socialism because they have a mindset that equates fulfilling the plan as fulfilling God's requirements for example.

But how do you move past the potential for this to devolve into vulgar opportunism, Machiavellian manipualtion of the masses, and reinvention of class society from first principles?

>Because their religion already has a proto-communist orientation,

In my country the religious can be either quite reactionary or quite revolutionary in their sentiments, but most are neither. Most are simply trying to stay away from the fan so they don't get smeared with the shit that tends to hit it.

>they avoid nihilism and their faith animates their activities.

But eschatology shows that faith can devolve into fatalism just as easily as it can evolve into a motivating factor. Why, after all, try to change the sinful material world when you can just obey your master with fear and trembling, awaiting the delights of heaven as your reward for your earthly obedience to the unfair? Why take up the sword when you are instructed to turn the other cheek? Why kill Caesar when you are instructed to render unto Caesar what is his?

>They don't necessarily agree with everything ordered by the party, but those things they do agree on, they do diligently.

Only up until a certain point.

>If anything, atheism killed communism

This I definitely disagree with. On the one hand I am supposed to believe that theists are infinitely flexible and willing to obey the Atheistic Communists while at the same time the Atheistic Communists are so bigoted and undiplomatic towards religion that they are impossible to work with.

>because it removed the magic teleological component that inspires people,

I doubt everyone is inspired by magic and teleology but carry on friend.

>who in turn switched from opium of the masses to alcohol of the masses.

As someone who has lived with alcoholics and seen how it can turn them stupid, weak, diabetic, obnoxious, fat, I am not so sure I appreciate the metaphor.

>>2925977
(side note I also saw this post and wanted to reply that neither literal poison in the form of alcohol and drugs nor mental poison in the form of reactionary ideology is helpful to the proletariat. If this makes me anti-fun, so be it)


>Religious people in that state don't think they go to hell. Also, not every religion has the same infatuation with hell like Catholicism does. See you in Valhalla brother.

well the religious leaders of any real political movement are usually atheists using religion opportunistically, as you and Machiavelli instruct.

>Based.
>Ultra Based.
>Why am I supposed to find this cringe when it's super based and unfathomably dialectical?

to each their own. personally i don't want to live in some kind futuristic neo-feudal theocracy that reinvents class society from first principles by transforming revolutionary sentiment into reactionary sentiment but if you say "based" when you hear that maybe that is just your politics.

>Because class struggle is a nebulous concept requiring constant thinking and bookworming

I hardly think so. It is pretty simple to understand that porky owns things and you don't so that's why you have to work for him. It's actually requires more mental gymnastics to turn all this into a tool for religion to make a comeback in an increasingly secular society.

>while religion is simple cause and effect taught from infancy.

I wasn't raised religious and increasingly people aren't. Maybe this is a matter of perspective.

>If you are a smart communist, you merge the two and maintain strategic ideological/theological flexibility.

Actually if the religious are smart they will stop believing in fairy tales invented by Brahmin and Kshatriyah to control Sudras and Dalit.

>>2924739
Not sure if it's about being smart. You could have 200 autism score and believe in flat Earth. There are accredited geologists who are young Earth creationists.

>>2926017
intelligence is very specialized. you can have a well rounded person who's a "midwit" when it comes to just about everything, and you can have a "genius" who can't tie their shoes and believes in ghosts.

>>2924991
>Even the cited examples simply criticize specific expressions of organized religion that were animated by bourgeois or feudal class forces.
as opposed to our churches, mosques, and synagogues of today, which are owned (?!) and operated by the proletariat, for the proletariat, and explicitly exclude reactionary classes and forbid any kind of interclass congregation…. oh wait.

>>2924641
>>2924665
>>2924717

notice how the atheist neckbeards all resort to whataboutism and none of them actually deny the accusation nor explicitly reject the notion that thought should be controlled

i have noticed several trends in neo-reactionary thought

• the people are dumb and need religion instead of complicatded theory
  
• we should do everything we can to make the people dumb and keep them dumb so the first point remains true
  
• everyone who wants to stop us from doing this is just a fedora tipping fun hater

You know, maybe instead of attacking religion directly, maybe the solution is just educating people in the basic facts about the universe that we understand? This doesn't preclude magical thinking, but at least it would develop a more nuanced view. I actually believe in a spiritual view that there may be more to this reality and experience than what we can observe on a surface level, not a full fledged atheist material-reductionist, but anybody should be able to accept that these books and tomes are not some text that you can accept uncritically as testament of real things that happened. The whole underpinning of Christianity and Judaism is that these people did magic or they didn't. I'm willing to possibly accept the premise Jesus did some magic. Can we really take the whole gospel as true testaments of the magic he was able to do? Could not some of it just be myth and embellishment? And for that matter, why are Christians not concerned with recreating Jesus's magical abilities? If Jesus really did magic, and your whole worldview is believing he did magic, shouldn't we be able to recreate even one of his acts of magic, like he himself said we should be able to do?

>>2926984
This the real question of religion: Is magic fucking real?

>>2926017
Anon's point was that intelligence is based on concepts.
If you grasp "elementary" concepts you graduate to the complex.
It implies that all atheists are more intelligent than theists.
I don't think that, since cognitive dissonance is present in most people.

>>2926022
Chris Langan is a good example.
He has the world's highest I.Q. but is also superstitious.

>>2924538
You can be a communist and a theist. Marxism not so much. His dialectic goes from the material to the immaterial (the realm of ideas, the divine). If you want to try to make some sort of synthesis be my guest no one is stopping you.
You could also just be a Christian Socialist like Tolstoy or Gloria Day no one is stopping you from doing that.

>>2927007
that dude is literally a scammer, his I.Q "record" is fake

>>2926336
It makes so much sense that you're also religious. I crown you king retard of /leftypol/

>>2926984
Sorry for chopping up your post in the order I wanted to respond. I just put t the things that interested me most at the top.


> And for that matter, why are Christians not concerned with recreating Jesus's magical abilities? If Jesus really did magic, and your whole worldview is believing he did magic, shouldn't we be able to recreate even one of his acts of magic, like he himself said we should be able to do?
The Christian believes Jesus could perform miracles because God allowed it. There's no need to "recreate" any magic in a lab because, for the Christian, miracles are God basically deciding when and where to break the laws of physics. For you to go into the lab and to be like "well I can't reproduce the miracle… debunked!" is to ignore the "fact" (according to them) that God ordains when miracles can and cannot happen, not material conditions in a lab. This is because, for them, the universe is something that only operates on predictable principles like physical law because God wills it. Everything stems from God's will. This is the difference between idealism and materialism. For extreme idealists like religious people, the universe is literally the product of the creator's will, and the creator's will requires no explanation, in their view, because it has always existed. In the materialist view, the universe is this dead thing that evolved on its own without a creator needing to interfere, eventually resulting in life, and then life eventually evolved complex emotional and intellectual faculties, which it used to create ideology and technology. For the materialist, man creates God as an explanation for the universe. For the idealist, God creates man and the universe, and all the physical laws within it, and cane break those laws whenever he wants, including physical laws, resulting in miracles. So your quest to reproduce miracles is naive because for religious people, miracles are God breaking the laws of physics in a way humans cannot as his way of saying "peekaboo, I see you."

>You know, maybe instead of attacking religion directly, maybe the solution is just educating people in the basic facts about the universe that we understand?
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink, and that goes both ways. If you tell a person about evolution or plate tectonics and they tell you to shut the fuck up and read genesis instead, what good does that do? They want to lead you to religion, but you don't want that. You want to lead them to science, but they don't want that.

> I actually believe in a spiritual view that there may be more to this reality and experience than what we can observe on a surface level
There's nothing necessarily spiritual about that. There's always more to discover and that has driven science forward as well. Spiritual people don't monopolize this mindset. Even a materialist who doesn't believe in ghosts or souls can accept basic premises like "maybe there is things we haven't discovered yet." There's a big difference between "maybe there is things we haven't discovered yet" and "therefore those things are real and you shouldn't make fun of people who believe in them without evidence."

>>2924538
> why do so many communists take hostility if someone personally thinks god started the big bang and treat it as counterrevolutionary?
because einstein went over to the american imperialists!

Religion is an imperialism of the olden days

>>2927455
not a fan of religion but that is neither a coherent theory of religion or of imperialism. religion is superstructural and imperialism is basic.

>>2926984
>You know, maybe instead of attacking religion directly, maybe the solution is just educating people in the basic facts about the universe that we understand?

that's even more obnoxious and insulting than attacking people directly is, this paternalistic sit them down on your knee and say "okay here's the deal sport" and give them a father-son heart to heart talk explaining how the world works. how about you just fucking talk to people like equals, put your ego and your petty grievances aside and be humble and patient and open-minded and try to find common ground, you know, like a person? if you actually fucking talk to people and don't get so hung up on their customs and traditions and terminology, quite often you'll find that their beliefs and their values are not actually that different from your own, they just use a different language to understand and describe the world than you do. what they call "god" you might call mother nature or the subconscious, what they call "prayer" you might call introspection and personal intuition, whatever prejudices or ignorant views they may have about certain people that they attribute to their faith may really just be the result of their own limited experience - they've probably never met gay people or talked to them or gotten to know them so they are operating entirely on what they read in some book or heard from the small circle of people they interact with because they have no real-world experience to draw from, that doesn't make them a vicious evil hatemonger it just makes them a human being with human limitations like everyone else. obviously there are people whom you can never find any common ground with no matter how hard you try because they're just totally dug in and brainwashed and have sealed their minds off behind a brick wall and just go through life following a rigid code showing no flex whatsoever, but most people are not that closed off and untouchable especially when they are interacting with people face to face in the real world without all the abstraction and curation and invulnerability that digital communication provides, most people are very sensitive and impressionable and curious about the world and if you approach them the right way so as not to trigger their fight-or-flight reflex response that overrides these natural tendencies you can connect with them and establish communication and even bonds of friendship and solidarity with people who have radically different views than your own, but you can't do that if you are also an egotistical immature baby who can't handle swallowing your pride and stepping out of your comfort zone every now and then.

>>2924538
>why do people think materialism and supernatural beliefs are incompatible
hmmm

>>2924538
Why does the left insist on putting the cart before the horse? Just do class politics, which are in desperate need. And enemies will declare themselves as your political project grows. Then you crush them on that basis, with that power.
Instead of being powerless and representing nobody. While obsessing like a political alchemist, looking for the magical shortcut to transmute liberalism into communism in 19th century literature.

>>2927499
>that's even more obnoxious and insulting than attacking people directly is, this paternalistic sit them down on your knee and say "okay here's the deal sport" and give them a father-son heart to heart talk explaining how the world works. how about you just fucking talk to people like equals

how about religious people do that?

"umm i'll pray for you sweaty… maybe one day you'll accept christ as your lord and savior"

"if you keep down this path god is gonna burn you in hell forever…"

>>2927598

oh okay you're right, you should do that then, because religious people do it.

>>2927456
You can make this argument more materialist but that said pre-capitalist empires werent imperialist in the Leninist sense because they werent capitalist at all. These empires were feudalist states living off peasant taxes and rents that were taken by force. Imperialist conquest meant more peasants to tax but it also produced huge multiethnic states that were unstable without a unifying ideology. Religion was the superstructure that solved two problems: it held the empire together and made the extraction look legitimate because when surplus is taken openly by coercion you need a god or cosmic order to explain why the peasant owes the king. So the causality runs from the bottom up: the way surplus was extracted produced the state and the state needed religion to justify the extraction.

>>2927641
The Roman Empire was "feudalist"?

>>2927649
Depends on what era of Roman empire we are talking about. Later christian Roman empire had a serf system.

>>2927439
I support the Red Guards but thats faulty logic its attacking the source.

>>2927606
>heres more shit u never said
bro only has 1 attack

ok jannies now sage this for bait like you did with mine

Christianity at its origin was one of most collectivist belief systems especially at its time. Obviously along the way multiple things bent and now you have calvinists idealizing material wealth and evangelicals tithing to Israel.

>>2927439
Based proletarian science.
>>2928920
I'd think a collectivist would adhere to prevailing social norms instead of joining some weird foreign cult.

>>2928920
>Christianity at its origin was one of most collectivist belief systems especially at its time.
he actually believes the meme

Why do you believe in God? What’s the practical advantage over believing in an uncaring universe? Why surrender what little agency you do have?

>>2929414
Believers can offer you a thousand rationalizations but it all boils down to coping with mortality.

>>2929433
I don’t understand the need to cope with something that’s both inevitable and happens to everything and everyone, maybe that’s the autism talking

>>2929439
Death scare people so they deny death in order not to be afraid. Simple as.

>>2929444
That’s because they’re infantile and can’t think beyond themselves or a bigger picture for two minutes. That’s not to encourage anyone to shoot tranqdope or jump into traffic bur you can’t let fear make your decisions.

>>2929414
Lots of practical advantages through church networks, friends, jobs, marriage opportunities, feeling good by being part of a community, organizing charity (which is what that Houdini guy is constantly posting about). What's the practical advantage of being a socialist outcast? I mean some people can grift on it, but for regular rank and file?

>>2929414
> Why surrender what little agency you do have?
to be fair religoids believe in free will so technically they imagine they have more agency and aren't just a bunch of neurons firing according to physical law, but that they actually have a special little immaterial ghosty soul that pilots their body from outside reality like a flesh mech

>>2929414
many just pretend