The religion question

Historically, why did societies striving to become communist despise God and religion so much? To the point of killing and imprisoning regular people and clergy simply for their religious affiliation. And also destroying ancient temples, churches and artifacts, from basically all religions…

Where did they get this hatred from and why did it manifest so brutally? What was ironic was that many of the rural folk, the most impoverished and worse off economically also happened to be the most religious and were often targeted for removal because of their faith, yet they should've been the "class" that was going to be "freed".

And how come modern proponents of communism seem more friendly and open to God and religion (at least in their liberal forms), compared to their historical predecessors…

If communism centers around economics and not identity-politics why do we need to persecute people for their faith, traditions and metaphysical beliefs?

Thank you Holla Forums
I hope you don't delete this thread or simply ignore it. The topic is important to me.

Probably because commies in the late 19th/early 20th century had more vivid memories of the oppression and backwardsness of a religiously dominated society, the monarchs were often intertwined with the church in a way that made religion a source of power and therefore a target. Whereas today religious conflict is much more subdued (in the west)

We don't. All we have to do is eradicate organized religion as it is without fail a tool to justify the status quo. Also what this guy said

the fact that this became an excuse to persecute proles, carry out pogroms and destroy historical artifacts is tragic, but it doesn't negate that organized religion is cancer.

Organized religious institutions and clergy weren't targeted simply because they were religious. They were generally reactionary and held considerable political power.

This. Atheism is not really relevant to 21st century communism, though I guess theoretically it is part of it. I mean obviously you can't be a materialist and a muslim/christian/religious jew/etc.

Agreed. Outside of the Middle East religious institutions don't hold any real political power but they still have a lot of social relevance with a majority of the working class. Adopting an anti-theist stance would just alienate basically everyone you'd be proselytizing to. If someone is really hellbent on combating religion they should focus on improving living standards and education.

good info so far
bump

This, Spain is a key example. They helped the fascists come to power.


Prussia was an extremely anti-jewish country at the time Marx was growing up and he experienced a great deal of antisemitism. Couple that with Judaism being repressive and bad at the time as well and you can see why he had an extremely negative view of it. Adding on also that a lot of young Hegelians were influenced by Comte and early positivists religion was already considered a hindrance to social progress and the acceptance of better ideas in a free society.

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature". End oppression and religion slowly fades away. Western and Northern European countries obviously haven't eliminated oppression, but high material standards, which points to lessened oppression at least, post-WW2 were enough to send religiousness in a downwards spiral.

At the same time, religion does end up affecting people, as in, reduces their will to fight the oppressor. It must be fought with words, not arms tho, as martyrdom feeds it.

How do we end oppression?
What does freedom without religion look like?

The Vatican
the Christian conservative coalition in America

those are just two institutions that wield political power and sway and not in the ME.

Kek it's an impotent shell of it's former self. No country on the planet is taking it's marching orders from the Vatican anymore.

Abolishing private property.
Like freedom.

in south America we have a strong church
I hope that both "progressive" third worldist priests and classical conservative priests will find themselves at some point in gulag tbqh

didnt the south american church use to be for socialist measures and so on? what's been going on about that?

Burgerstan is the only example that matters. Based on their autistic evangelical tradition one party bases it's entire domestic party and 70% of both parties base their foreign policy.

american protestants deserve the bullet just as much as Salafists

they've helped fascist coups every damn time. even the fucking pope has been accused of being a collaborationist in the dirty war.

Come on man, you know that's not fair. Liberation theology clergy, almost every single time, were the lowliest of priests and had no power to dictate church policy, whereas the actual church worked against them and in favor of reactionaries, time and time again.

That's why i'm bitching about organized religion, not just religion. I don't care if you want to hold beliefs without bothering your neighbor, but organized religion and not bothering your neighbor do not connect.

Religion has long been a symbol of inhumanity, of rejecting the needs and wants of people and society in favor of something mystical and intangible. You can imagine the feeling of scorn someone in a very religious society might have after being exposed to leftist ideas.

this comrades. Religion at best is a pain killer to the problems which we want to solve, literally the opiate of the masses. I'm not saying we need to gulag clergymen but I would be always very skeptical of religious organizations and keep an eye on the during and after any revolution.

We need a final solution for the religion problem