The thing to understand about Christianity is that it was originally a reaction against the Roman empire and then got co-opted and integrated into it. As a result, ever since like the 4th century Christianity has been about basically the opposite of what Jesus talked about. It turns out all that stuff about turning the other cheek stops being relevant if the emperor has his soldiers paint crosses on their shields while they’re out conquering and enslaving the Gauls. Of course, you can keep all the mythological stuff, who cares, but anything relevant to politics or the material world mysteriously seemed to reverse once they entered the halls of power.
The carrot of being accepted into the empire was matched with the stick that if you didn’t go along with the imperial-approved form of Christianity you’d be burned at the stake as a heretic. Any sects still clinging to anti-imperial sentiment get hunted down and exterminated just like when they were being fed to lions, but it’s the Christians doing it to each other now, so you don’t even have to get your own hands dirty. This approach worked way better at suppressing dissent than just trying to ban Christianity altogether.
Of course, a lot has changed over the centuries. And originally it wasn’t perfect or anything either. But imo, it was when Rome Christianized that Christianity Romanized, and ever since its real values have had more to do with Rome than with Jesus. The meme’s, “moneyless, classless, stateless” ideal of heaven is a relic of the original teachings that gets shunted off to the purely mythological side, where it not only doesn’t matter, but also occupies a place in their brain that could have otherwise been sympathetic to making good things happen in the material world. That’s already resolved, there’s no need to worry about it, there’ll be pie in sky when you die.
Oh it makes sense now, recuperation is not a capitalist concept, it is an imperialist concept!
They didn’t keep the mythological stuff, that got edited out too as needed once it started disagreeing with the State and the Church.
Great writeup comrade, I also wanna share this really interesting article from Roland Boer, going over this history a bit, and also outlining the historical intersections of communism and christianity.
This is why christian fascism should not be the least bit surprising.
That’s because there are no brown people in their version of heaven.
Ah now it all makes sense
Heaven was literally [re]invented to be a description of utopia specifically so that toiling workers wouldn’t get distracted trying to create it on Earth.
“oooh heaven is a place on earth” take that shit literally, fam
Pie in the sky By and by
And no one has to work, they are provided with everything they need. Almost like a universal basic income or something.
More like post-scarcity. I don’t think even the wildest leftist thinks we’re quite there yet.
I actually take a critical eye to the word “work” itself and think that it’s too encompassing a term. In our society it’s a blanket word that covers all labor. From punitive, fruitless toil all the way up to invigorating, actualizing applications of trained skill. Lots of what we call “work” are actually things we could want for ourselves in a utopia and would miss without, while IRL we’re currently on the crest of an economic trend in which the majority of society are trapped in ultimately meaningless and forgettable toil under wage coercion. Literally just being kept occupied and oppressed.
Put very simply I think you can slice our current idea of what work is into two halves, work that removes happiness from ourselves and society and work that adds happiness to ourselves and society. As utopians I think a society that contains only the latter is a reasonable prize to keep our eyes on.
Well, something that the Mormons have is they tried out communism. They called it the law of consecration. They had some fun times with trying to handle being productive and redistribution and poligamous. They ultimately concluded that they weren’t ready for it yet so they went back to default capitalism with tithing and poor/fast offerings.
Tl;dr: Mormons believe in a kind of communism in heaven, and they go hungry for 2 meals (24 hrs) to remember to give generously to the poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_consecration?wprov=sfla1
‘They’ didn’t decide they weren’t ready. It was used to fleece the pathetic true believers for a short period until the inner circle felt sufficiently capitalized.
Communism is just people trying to create heaven on earth but without God.
Ooh baby, do you know what that’s worth?
That only works when there’s no scarcity. Then its up to communists/capitalists/anarchists/dictators how to slice the cake
Yeah, pretty massive fundamental difference, lol.
How about (instead of communism) aiming for an economy made up predominantly of co-operatives, like in the Basque country in Spain? The Mondragon federation of co-ops.
That way money is distruted quite evenly but you don’t have to get into the whole politics thing.
Well, it does not have an economy, so why would it have money?
Also, it doesn’t have politics and society in the conventional sense, but men are clearly subordinate to God. Christ is king, this is the way Christians think, so I am not sure this is a correct comparison.
The question of “should Christians strive for a classless society” is a complex one. Egalitarian ideals are very new compared to Christianity, but some Christians now think that in the “fallen world” authority is undesirable as it can be abused. This is not common though.
However, Marxism is an anti-religious ideology. Marxists both believe that religion will disappear after “the base” changes and it will become, ultimately, obsolete, and also have historically persecuted and enacted violence on Christians. So I am not surprised there are not many Marxist Christians.
“the question of “should Christians strive for a classless society” is a complex one.”
Not to the early Christians it wasn’t. The early Christians movements (before they were co-opted by Empire) were radically egalitarian.
You could literally describe early christianity as the spiritual arm of a revolutionary front.
Actually sir, have you considered that religion bad?
I have read a quote by Marx, and am very smart.
Sure, but comparing what people thought 2000 years ago to what they think now is a fruitless endeavor.
The concept of democracy came about around that time too (at least the Greek one, which arguably wasn’t the first but I digress) but should we exclude women and foreigners from it? That’s what the early proponents of democracy wanted.
Yes, just because it was written in a book doesn’t really means anything, we can change it, create bew editions of the book, even invert the meaning of inconvenient passages. These old code need to be made ambiguous and adaptible, endlessly reinterpretable to suit any situation that the priesthood needs to get themselves out of
The concept of democracy came about around that time too (at least the Greek one, which arguably wasn’t the first but I digress)
The Athenian concept of democracy had existed for the better part of a millennium by the time Christianity appeared.
Hmm you’re right. I thought it was closer to 0 ad, but it looks like it was closer to 600-300 bc.
Doesn’t change my point though.
Not to the early Christians it wasn’t. The early Christians movements (before they were co-opted by Empire) were radically egalitarian.
That would be irrelevant even if it was true. We are not in the second century. It is a very controversial position either way.
Egalitarian values certainly did emerge out of Christianity, and there was a change in that direction even then, but they were not egalitarian in the modern sense.
Also, please be careful when generalising early Christianty, as it was a very diverse group of sects that hardly agreed on anything.
Early religious communities sometimes were very accepting, and women played a role as well, but they still existed in a very patriarchal culture, so you should not expect their women to be equal to men in society, and there were absolutely positions of authority.
They opposed the empire because initially, they were not perceived by anyone as a group distinct from Jews, which were very hostile to it. However, there were appeals made by powerful Christians later to be recognized as a non-threat to imperial power, and ultimately, they succeeded.
Even so, the Jews simply wanted independence, not equality. The idea of social equality did not even exist then. They were equal in Christ, not in society.
Christianity was not coopted by the empire, it conquered it.
The idea that early christianity was somehow “more pure” I do not accept as well. I would say the Christian tradition has only been enriched over the years, and without a unified basic set of dogmas it would really make much sense.
But the original interpretation!!! /s
Hey, do you mind telling me why I got down voted, if you have an idea why, of course?
I do not believe I said anything particularly contentious this time, and I do not believe I said anything factually wrong either.
I feel like the majority of Lemmy users are non-religious and definitely a good bit of us are antireligion, so when you make a post sorta outlining that modern Christianity is better then a more egalitarian and less dogmatic society it doesn’t sit well.
Not sure if that’s the case fully, and you’re only at like -2/3 lol
If only these nonreligious people recognised how little they know about religion.
I might have changed my views on certain things after coming to the fediverse, and now I see that Lemmy is an echochamber. It seems like right wing and even moderate people just stayed on twitter and “truth social”, which are echochambers as well, especially the latter, clearly, and I end up arguing with everyone all the time.
Egalitarian ideals are very new compared to Christianity
Run that one by Jesus and I think he’d be surprised
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Well that description suits better anarchism. Also Heaven doesn’t exist it was invented by catholic church like many other stuff they made out of nowhere. Christian God wants to make a non-human monarchy (so God and Jesus as king) and remove all human based States. So pretty much not a communist. Of course you can argue is not anarchism either and is just common monarchy, since there is still some form of authoritarianism, even if not human-based, but from my personal perspective if it truly were a perfect reign I wouldn’t mind at all
if it truly were a perfect reign I wouldn’t mind at all
You wouldn’t care about somebody else having total control over you?
if it were a truly perfect reign, I imagine it would be more about balance and harmony, not control in the traditional sense. After all, if such an entity exists, it would ideally know what’s best for everyone. But yeah, I understand how the idea of total authority, even in a utopian context, can raise concerns. It’s a pretty complex topic.
lots of unironic communists on lemmy?
Yep! Lemmy is primarily developed by Marxist-Leninists, and is generally structured in opposition to Capitalist networks. It allows Communists to form our own spaces without corporate censorship.
Which is why it’s a big irony when people come to Lemmy to complain about communism/socialism.
Like, man, you are on a decentralized network run by volunteers who don’t want to be monetized. You want to enjoy the benefits of socialism but at the same time complain about how bad it is and promote capitalism.
Yep, but that’s just how it is, and why I focus on outreach all the same.
You’re fucking incredible, Cowbee. I’ve watched you spend literally days patiently and politely responding to dozens of confrontational, probably bad-faith posters in thread after thread with nothing but solid information. I really admire it.
Thanks, I really do appreciate it! At the end of the day, I try to only speak on what I know, so that helps me not get frustrated if someone comes in in clearly bad-faith, haha.
just wanna second what @moonmelon@lemmy.ml said. you’re awesome.
i’d say “keep up the good work” but like you deserve a break.
Thanks for the kind words, and don’t worry! I do take frequent breaks, that’s why I made a Hexbear alt in the first place, haha.
Yeah, it was literally created by communists
Libs when free, open source, distributed and community supported platforms are not made by people who love capitalism and corporations 🤯🤯🤯🤯
Yup, but Lemmy is a federated service so if that fact makes you uncomfortable or something you can always spin up a liberal instance with corporations and classism.
Unfortunately, yes. Ignore the downvotes from the the mad people, and prepare your blocklist. It’s your right, after all.
Or… perhaps… talk to people and try to understand why they think the way they do. Who knows, maybe you’d hear something that makes sense. Just an idea! :D
I spent enough time in my teens and early 20’s doing that. I grew out of it when I got smarter and more jaded.
Lambedor de bota detectado
Communism is stateless ?? LMAO. OP has no clue what communism really is
Communism is stateless, but not without government, or what Engels calls “The Administration of Things.” For Marx, the “state” is made up of the instruments of society that uphold class distinctions, such as private property rights, and special bodies of armed people for those purposes. Public ownership and socialized ownership quite literally makes those aspects of society redundant, and thus “whithers away.”
Yes, and eggs are perfect spheres in Vacuum. In real world, any and every attempt at communism will lead to a situation where government becomes an all encompassing over bearing State. that’s why Socialism is a far better and much more practical model than communism ever will be.
I think you’re a bit confused on terms, here, as well as history.
Socialism is just an economy where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, rather than private. It’s a transitional system towards Communism, because markets naturally cebtralize and create efficient networks for central planning all by themselves. Cuba, the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, former USSR, etc are all examples of Socialism.
Communism, the point at which the entire global economy can be publicly owned and planned, has not been reached. There have been Communist parties in charge of Socialist economies, but Communism itself is still in the future.
I think if you’re going to be discussing the practicality of Communism and Socialism, you’d do well to familiarize yourself with the systems more. Socialism is not in opposition to Communism, and is a prerequisite for it. I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list if you want to become more knowledgeable about Socialism and Communism.
