| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"charles" |
| Date: |
15 Feb 2006 07:57:21 AM |
| Object: |
Is ASIAN MARXISM a religion? |
Sometimes academics refer to it as a "secular religion" but generally
they like to avoid the whole subject!
But when an animal quacks like a duck, looks like a duck and even
smells like one, isn't it a duck?
Of course, some say it is not a religion because all religions have a
belief in "spirits" and Maxism is atheistic. Well, perhaps that is a
convenient way to arbitrarily define it out of the religion class, but
it does have myths! DM is a myth, as is the egalitarian communal
society they idealize as their goal. Even their "economic imperative"
doctrine is mythology.
"Religion" is properly defined by its function. That is the logical
way to define something. After all, how can you define a chair without
telling that it is to sit on!? Whether the system believes in
"spirits" or in more modern myths has little if anything to do with its
function. Religious are belief systems that bind or bond people into
societies. That is their function, and any world-view and way of
thinking that does bind people into a society is a religion.
That raises the question of what religion is it? It is not the same
religion as the Soviet system was. Or is it? Yes, the system has
evolved. It started when Lenin and his cohorts adapted Marxist
philosophy to the Italian Fascist system ideology and came up with a
system that was viable and replicatable. The religion changed or
evolved as it spread into Asia. It has continued to evolve since then.
But one needs to keep in mind that it can evolve back at least as fast.
So, is it a single religion, but it has denominations like all
religions. Chinese Marxism is different from the old Soviet system and
different from the Cuban system. It makes the most sense to call it
simply "Marxism" even though this drives the Harvard Marxist
philosophers crazy! It is out of difference to them that the whole
rest of academia avoids dealing with the subject at all. It is better
for everyone to be ignorant of what religion is and what Marxism is
than to offend those radical Marxist academics at Harvard! Poor
fellows! They are SO sensitive!
charles, http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com
.
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| User: "Jim07D6" |
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| Title: Re: Is ASIAN MARXISM a religion? |
15 Feb 2006 10:10:33 AM |
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"charles" <charlesbrough1@yahoo.com> said:
Sometimes academics refer to it as a "secular religion" but generally
they like to avoid the whole subject!
But when an animal quacks like a duck, looks like a duck and even
smells like one, isn't it a duck?
Of course, some say it is not a religion because all religions have a
belief in "spirits" and Maxism is atheistic. Well, perhaps that is a
convenient way to arbitrarily define it out of the religion class, but
it does have myths! DM is a myth, as is the egalitarian communal
society they idealize as their goal. Even their "economic imperative"
doctrine is mythology.
"Religion" is properly defined by its function. That is the logical
way to define something. After all, how can you define a chair without
telling that it is to sit on!? Whether the system believes in
"spirits" or in more modern myths has little if anything to do with its
function. Religious are belief systems that bind or bond people into
societies. That is their function, and any world-view and way of
thinking that does bind people into a society is a religion.
That raises the question of what religion is it? It is not the same
religion as the Soviet system was. Or is it? Yes, the system has
evolved. It started when Lenin and his cohorts adapted Marxist
philosophy to the Italian Fascist system ideology and came up with a
system that was viable and replicatable. The religion changed or
evolved as it spread into Asia. It has continued to evolve since then.
But one needs to keep in mind that it can evolve back at least as fast.
So, is it a single religion, but it has denominations like all
religions. Chinese Marxism is different from the old Soviet system and
different from the Cuban system. It makes the most sense to call it
simply "Marxism" even though this drives the Harvard Marxist
philosophers crazy! It is out of difference to them that the whole
rest of academia avoids dealing with the subject at all. It is better
for everyone to be ignorant of what religion is and what Marxism is
than to offend those radical Marxist academics at Harvard! Poor
fellows! They are SO sensitive!
charles, http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com
Whenever someone says "X is a religion" where it doesn't immediately
seem that way, people should look at the agenda. Is the speaker saying
it approvingly? Disapprovingly? What's the point?
--- Jim07D6
.
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| User: "wbarwell" |
|
| Title: Re: Is ASIAN MARXISM a religion? |
15 Feb 2006 06:49:44 PM |
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|
Jim07D6 wrote:
Whenever someone says "X is a religion" where it doesn't immediately
seem that way, people should look at the agenda. Is the speaker saying
it approvingly? Disapprovingly? What's the point?
--- Jim07D6
One could make the argument Marxist-Leninism was indeed
a religion. Lennin wrote copiously on Marxism
and took some odd ideas from Hegel and others.
But he made historical processes a god of sorts.
Lenins Marxist rested on the claim that there was
was an inexorbable process to history, that history
at that time had entered its next phase, communist
collectivism. Eventually this would give rise
to a perfect utopian world where the state would
fade away. Thus history became a force not unlike
god that unlay every action of Communism.
Anybody who got in teh way of that process of
history was thus an enemy of history, progress,
and this was regrettable but natural. These would
be swept aside by the dialectic, all arguments merge
into holy synthesis and the old ideas were abandoned.
Lenin derived from this some rather silly ideas not
unlike the RCC taking the bible and milking a few verses
into bizarre dogmas such as the Trinity.
And Soviet 'philosphers' filled journals and books
with this bizarre drivel.
Historical processes became a godlike process that
guranateed that the Communists could never be wrong and
had to work tirelessly to move history along its inevitable
end as fast as possible. Only they knew these things
and all else was error, treated like the RCC treated heresies.
Philosopher Karl Popper wrote about some of this stuff,
much of the worst seems to be forgotten, locked
up in moldy Soviet era books and journals nobody reads.
This god was an impersonal but panentheist sort
of monism that expressed itself through the activities
of man, history. But history changed men as it acted
on them, and thanks to Marxist-Leninism was molding a
new type of man different from past sorts of mankind.
Soviet philosphers filled journals with that sort
of tommyrot too, and Lysenko's idiocies became part
of Soviet philosophy, not just science.
I keep hoping that someday, somebody with interest
in this and a good command of Russian would dig
into this.
It resulted in years of misery for millions.
And its all but forgotten.
What little I read years ago on this seemed
to me to make Marxism more of a bizarre cult
than anything else.
Mainstream philosophy in Russia all but came
to a halt and is still recovering from all of
this. Which is why if you scan for Russian
philosophers from the revolution to date,
you find almost none in journals or books,
except immigrants to the West.
--
"If I saw a man beating a tied up horse, I could
not prove it was wrong, but I'd know it was wrong."
- Mark Twain
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "Jim07D6" |
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| Title: Re: Is ASIAN MARXISM a religion? |
15 Feb 2006 11:18:59 PM |
|
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wbarwell <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> said:
Jim07D6 wrote:
Whenever someone says "X is a religion" where it doesn't immediately
seem that way, people should look at the agenda. Is the speaker saying
it approvingly? Disapprovingly? What's the point?
--- Jim07D6
One could make the argument Marxist-Leninism was indeed
a religion. Lennin wrote copiously on Marxism
and took some odd ideas from Hegel and others.
But he made historical processes a god of sorts.
I have some respect for the view that C is a religion, when it is
literally not, when the argument is clearly amended with "of sorts"/
Lenins Marxist rested on the claim that there was
was an inexorbable process to history, that history
at that time had entered its next phase, communist
collectivism.
That would be the foundational myth.
Eventually this would give rise
to a perfect utopian world where the state would
fade away. Thus history became a force not unlike
god that unlay every action of Communism.
Anybody who got in teh way of that process of
history was thus an enemy of history, progress,
and this was regrettable but natural. These would
be swept aside by the dialectic, all arguments merge
into holy synthesis and the old ideas were abandoned.
Lenin derived from this some rather silly ideas not
unlike the RCC taking the bible and milking a few verses
into bizarre dogmas such as the Trinity.
The dialectic.
And Soviet 'philosphers' filled journals and books
with this bizarre drivel.
Historical processes became a godlike process that
guranateed that the Communists could never be wrong and
had to work tirelessly to move history along its inevitable
end as fast as possible. Only they knew these things
and all else was error, treated like the RCC treated heresies.
Philosopher Karl Popper wrote about some of this stuff,
much of the worst seems to be forgotten, locked
up in moldy Soviet era books and journals nobody reads.
This god was an impersonal but panentheist sort
of monism that expressed itself through the activities
of man, history. But history changed men as it acted
on them, and thanks to Marxist-Leninism was molding a
new type of man different from past sorts of mankind.
Soviet philosphers filled journals with that sort
of tommyrot too, and Lysenko's idiocies became part
of Soviet philosophy, not just science.
I keep hoping that someday, somebody with interest
in this and a good command of Russian would dig
into this.
My late father in law wrote a manuscript that had lots of this in it.
He was fighting in Spain in the 30's. He drew many comparisons between
Chi\ristianity and Marxism.
It resulted in years of misery for millions.
And its all but forgotten.
What little I read years ago on this seemed
to me to make Marxism more of a bizarre cult
than anything else.
Mainstream philosophy in Russia all but came
to a halt and is still recovering from all of
this. Which is why if you scan for Russian
philosophers from the revolution to date,
you find almost none in journals or books,
except immigrants to the West.
And yet, no nontheistic theory should, IMO, be called a religion.
After all, we have different words for different things for a reason.
--- Jim07D6
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