So I overheard one person I know telling another person I know that “socialism and communism are evil and the church is very clear on that” (referring to the catholic church). And I’m trying to channel my burning frustration about it into asking what people know about communism and how it has interacted with religion more generally, but also catholicism especially, now or historically. I super hard doubt what this person said was even remotely correct, but I could believe that the catholic church takes a wishy washy fence-sitting stance because it tends to on a number of things.
At any rate, it’s something I should know better because I do have catholic people in my life and so sometimes there may be a need to talk to them about these things through the framing of religion to get past the “communism is purely atheistic” type thinking.
Answers from your own knowledge or resources that go into it are both welcomed. I don’t really know how to approach looking for it on my own in this instance because a lot of western religious material is probably influenced by colonizer thinking, or in the US, influenced by red scare nonsense.
Religion and belief in a deity/higher power are not the same. Organised religion is a form of control, it is inherently reactionary and therefore anti-communist.
This
doesn’t logically lead to this
do you have a list of non-reactionary organized religions?
I mean I kinda do yes
The Diggers
The Breathren of the Free Earth
whatever movement Óscar Romero was
two overlapping revolutions had taken place simultaneously: a political and a pagan revolution
Muslim socialism and Labour Zionism (i.e. kibbutzim)
The thing that Jesus preached
possibly the Hussites
That’s just off the top of my head, I’m sure there’s more
They asked for non-reactionary ones. Zionism of any sort is inherently reactionary.
the Yishuv and the Palestinians got along fine for thousands of years
Cause they weren’t Zionists.
so, nothing with modern political power or prominence in their clade.
Would it be better to say if the religion is organised according to the original teachings? Every group you list seems to be an offshoot of a religion, they’re socialist movements that were started by the followers of a religion.
I don’t go around considering religious people reactionaries, I base it on their actions. But the main currents of institutionalised religions are reactionary. They enjoy the support of the state (even in the “secular” West) and do not want to see socialism prevail.
I’m not trying to make a universal statement either. When I look at the organised religions around me, I see a reactionary force that wants to keep liberals in power and communists out. There are no Diggers or Muslim Socialists around me, not in any public sense or in any way that people know they exist. There are Muslims who are part of socialist movements and parties definitely, but that’s not the same.
religious originalism is exactly as coherent as the justifications for the late tony scaloni’s supreme court decisions. there’s no “true” version of any of these things, especially not christianity in particular where the closest writings are some 70 years later and yadda yadda bart ehrman historical jesus whatever.
I don’t mean “true”, I mean what’s written in their holy books. Sure they can say “it’s up to interpretation”, but it really isn’t. It’s nice that people choose to take the good parts and leave out the bad, but then they’re not with the main current of the religion. The Catholic Church still doesn’t recognise gay marriage and doesn’t perform them. Are there Catholics who think gay people should be allowed to marry? Sure there are, plenty, but that’s their personal belief and it has nothing to do with their religion.
yeah, to clarify i meant in the “no true scotsman” sense, not the other one.
Ah ok. I think we’re probably in agreement, just misunderstanding one another. I have no problem with religions or religious people, I have a problem with religious institutions in the present Western context.