God and Communism

god is useful as an instrument of control

good and evil are difficult to nail down, if not impossible, and the idea that dictates come from 'elsewhere' makes them less impeachable

some people need the idea of punishments and rewards, even if only in an 'afterlife', to keep them from challenging the ethics of their society

we disagree with hitler because in the time and place we exist, his actions are 'beyond the pale' [pun intentional]

fanaticism is often but not always absurd, it depends on the fanatic, the nature of the obsession, or perhaps its degree?

 

What this thread is actually all about; Christian declared verboten words that may remind us of our ungodly genitals, that can tempt us in to perdition.


O-o-ps!! wrong thread!!

 

The Christian Bible is anti-worker and anti trade unionism and propagates union busting through its 'sacred' verse, "No servant is better than his master or the master knows better than the servant". It promotes slavery..That is bad..Whoever authored that is a fascist. The Bible was authored by man..

 

God is lacking in the minds and thoughts of the capitalists. Capricious and indiscriminate firings of employees is not a trait of God. It is the trait of a devil!!

 

actually, god is constantly in the minds and thoughts of the capitalists

see my earlier post re "useful as an instrument of control"

 

My cousin who cannot afford university was a virgin who was deflowered by a Chinese chap capitalist in the Philippines for 20 thousand pesos. Does that happen in socialist countries? The hell, no. The moment the capitalist produces profits he can bribe the police who will remain apathetic at the crimes of rape by the capitalist. Imagine if that happens to your daughter..

 

And yet the only stable long term communes I have come across and heard of are Christian (and other religious) communes.

And that's the thing.

Communism in a pure form only works if all participants are willing and committed to work for the community. If they are committed around a religious ideal, so much the better.

State communism has never existed. Whilst some people are like the horse in Animal Farm, to whom the solution is always to work harder and expect less, most people do not have a communist mind set and want to keep what the earn even if they don't then mind contributing to the less fortunate.

State communism has to be imposed on the population which which requires it to be totalitarianistic, with an inevitable elite, and with a necessary system of monitoring, punishment and oppression.

But it is true that Lenin had a point in believing that religion was a vehicle that allowed the bourgois to stupify and exploit the working class.

 

^^^it's going to take a long time to change [reprogram] people to be kind, cooperative, selfless

christianity has a 2000-year head start, and even it's got plenty of problems . . .

 

I can only speculate what you mean when you use figurative language,
Sorry, I never heard of the saying, "beyond the pale."
Could you be more specific?

If a fanatic is a person who is carried away beyond reason,
Then, when is it not absurd to be not reasonable?
Or, when is it absurd to be reasonable?

How should we determine personal responsibility?

 

it refers to a time in russia when jews were forbidden from living in many places, they were forced to live "beyond the pale", and the term has become a figure of speech

what i was implying is that nowadays most people think hitler was wrong, but in the past his actions would have been widely admired - same goes for the conquering the world bit . . .

[consider the early admiration for napoleon, for example]

if the jesus of the bible existed, i would consider him on the whole a good person, and a fanatic

paul, also a fanatic, much less for the good . . .

[i just picked examples you would know, not people i'm particularly interested in]

it's personal, we don't [i might be misunderstanding your question]

do you ever answer questions? why are you asking so many?

is there another side to this damn thing?

 

Today, there are Nazis who are charged with war crimes from the past.
They are held responsible and made to pay their debt to society,
For crimes which were not considered crimes at the time.

I believe that we determine personal responsibility,
According to certain standards which do not change over time.

I believe that we have divorced,
An intuitive sense of absurdity and reason,
Citing irreconcilable differences.
There has been a lack of their mutual cooperation.

I don't remember you asking me any questions,
What would you like to know?

 

Jews were made to live and trade inside an area called the Pale. If found trading outside of this area they were "beyond the Pale", i.e. behaving in an unacceptable fashion.


"Hitler", "widely admired", you have to ask: by whom and why.

You seem to be saying that moral values are relative to place and time, i.e. relative. I think there are only two factors in morality that are relative: the first is the degree of desensitisation pressure from the immediate surrounding culture (even then, as people get older the learnt aspects tend to diminish). The second factor is to do with the behaviour towards oneself, i.e the idea of purity, the content of which varies from culture to culture. Other moral values, what is considered "good behavior" towards others is remarkably univeral and stable through the ages.

It is true that over the ages the expectation of how those in authority could behave has changed. But how ordinary people expected behave towards each other has remained more stable, -fluctuated around a mean depending on circumstance.

Most Germans remained in abhorrance and ashamed of Hitler's activities, many others were desensitised stepwise and their acceptance evolved with his activities, to varying degrees. Only a minority were willing partakers from the outset.

This is a fair reflection of the spectrum of human nature. People have an inborn instinctive capacity for emphathy and compassion (goodwill), the degree of which varies with personality. A tiny minority lack the capacity for empathy, they are psychopaths and they come to the fore when conditions allow (in Nazi Germany, Kmer Rouge etc).

Empathy and sense of fairness form two of the 5 aspects of instinctive morality. This does not have to be taught. However it can be modified by upbringing/ life experiences, -either reinforced or desensitised (although the susceptiblity to change varies from personality to personality).

These moral values are therefore always present, throughout history in all cultures. They are absolute, -hardwired.

 

^^^ how fascinating that all the horrors of history are an aberration

moral values are hardwired? then why do so few of us live by them?

 

Because humans also have other drives, greed, status, lust etc, which can be allowed to override moral drives.

Actually most of us do live by our morals, more or less. Look at the people around you, -what proportion steal and maim

History is made by leaders, a tiny tiny minority, not at all a representative poll of all humanity

 

Because greed is harderwired.

 

Actually, well over 90% of Americans have stolen. I haven't seen studies on other parts of the world, but my guess is they would be comparable. People have a wonderful mechanism for justifying the deviation from their professed morality, rationalization, and most of us are pretty good at it. It seems that morality is negotiable.

.

 

It's a little elastic partly because empathy looks only at consequences on other people, not at laws.

The urge to stick to laws, rules, tradition and respect authority is a seperate moral drive entirely. We do differ in how strong that drive is..

Some of us readily break a law to help someone, others would not ("sticklers").

 

Moral values, one's actions toward others, vary considerably from one culture to another. In some cultures it's perfectly acceptable, even expected, to chastise other's children. Do that in the U.S. and some soccer mom will claw your eyes out. Or more extreme, in some Islamic cultures it's acceptable to punish one's wife quite severely.

I think you're correct about morality having it's origins in empathy, but not to the extent that culture cannot modify considerably.

.

 

As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

 

fucking communist