Ask Lemmygrad

You can simply choose to be internally inconsistent like every other person in the world.

Oh boy, another one of these threads

In a sense yes, but remember that communist philosophy is rooted in Western philosophy which presupposes a Christian personal god and forms of faith or belief.

In other systems of thought, god and belief don't mean the same exact things. For example in Indian religions, god may mean a personal god, sometimes many, and faith or belief is approximately the same. But god can also mean the universe itself as an infinite spacetime, a fuller reality behind material reality, maybe even no god at all. Likewise belief is ranked as only one form, and a lower form, of knowledge with rational forms ranking higher.

On a practical note, the abolition of religion and its dregs does not always apply across the world as a solution for the proletariat. Which is why you may see communists who are eg. Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. outside the Western world.

Yes, every Christian Communist out there is either a liberal or a covert atheist. \s

No, and even if you take it as true that communism and religious belief are diametrically opposite (which others here have pointed out is not necessarily true), it's still possible for that unresolved contradiction to exist within a person's ideology. To treat them as mutually exclusive is itself anti-dialectical. There have even been religious deviations of Marxism.

I recommend Lenin's "The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion" if anybody is conflicted over this. Some excerpts:

It cannot be asserted once and for all that priests cannot be members of the Social-Democratic Party; but neither can the reverse rule be laid down. If a priest comes to us to take part in our common political work and conscientiously performs Party duties, without opposing the programme of the Party, he may be allowed to join the ranks of the Social-Democrats; for the contradiction between the spirit and principles of our programme and the religious convictions of the priest would in such circumstances be something that concerned him alone, his own private contradiction; and a political organisation cannot put its members through an examination to see if there is no contradiction between their views and the Party programme.

[...] We must not only admit workers who preserve their belief in God into the Social-Democratic Party, but must deliberately set out to recruit them; we are absolutely opposed to giving the slightest offence to their religious convictions, but we recruit them in order to educate them in the spirit of our programme, and not in order to permit an active struggle against it. We allow freedom of opinion within the Party, but to certain limits, determined by freedom of grouping; we are not obliged to go hand in hand with active preachers of views that are repudiated by the majority of the Party.

On the other hand, the tradition of bourgeois war on religion has given rise in Europe to a specifically bourgeois distortion of this war by anarchism—which, as the Marxists have long explained time and again, takes its stand on the bourgeois world-outlook, in spite of all the “fury” of its attacks on the bourgeoisie. The anarchists and Blanquists in the Latin countries, Most (who, incidentally, was a pupil of Dühring) and his ilk in Germany, the anarchists in Austria in the eighties, all carried revolutionary phrase-mongering in the struggle against religion to a nec plus ultra. It is not surprising that, compared with the anarchists, the European Social-Democrats now go to the other extreme. This is quite understandable and to a certain extent legitimate, but it would be wrong for us Russian Social-Democrats to forget the special historical conditions of the West.

In short, there's a time and a place to struggle against religion.

Not my god, my god would love that shit if it had thoughts

Liberation theology inspired multiple guerilla movements like the FMLN in El Salvador. I believe those who think both are impossible is very foolish, cultural and indigenous practices are not taken into account.

The Soviet Union was not against religion they were against religious entities that were tools of the Imperialist machine.

Is the belief in a God and communist mutually exclusive?

Practically no, people can hold conflicting beliefs and still function. Also non-materialist kinds of communism aren't even incompatible with religion.

Does the belief in a god go against dialectical materialism?

Absolutely

No. However, idealism can be “bent” to adhere with materialism, but it won’t hold any predictive power.

As such, ideology like religion can only tail and not progress. But sometimes, that is enough as long as it’s continuously being bent by materialist analysis, and may be used as a ratchet against reactionary ideals.

Many parts of the Bible are highly compatible with communism (rich people can’t get into heaven etc). There are many based people/groups who are religious like Ansar Allah and the Sandinistas. On the other hand, materialism does contradict religion. Some, like Breht from Rev Left have argued that Buddhist practices can help revolutionaries, and obviously we should support all progressive forces. However we should never fit miracles or god being on our side into our calculus regardless of what we believe. A materialist analysis is not compatible with religion, but cognitive dissonance exists.

A belief in something that isn't material does go against materialism, yes. However, I doubt you'll ever find someone with no conflicting opinions. Personal beliefs are only important if they affect material reality; you can be a religious Marxist (and keep in mind that not all religions involve the same kind of beliefs) as long as that doesn't influence your actions in a way that's negative for the working class

Kinda. But not in any way you need to worry about in your lifetime.

Many religious teachings mesh with communism pretty well as far as their moral core goes. If you're willing to accept that the associated church or whatever holy office is a wordly organization run by fallible people and probably has a role in the exploitative shitshow of capitalism, you're good. That one seems to be a bit of a problem for some denominations though, like Catholics, what with the concept of papal infallibility. There are difinitely leftist movements withing Abrahamic faiths at least, which is hardly surprising, you wouldn't expect the sort of god they worship to be in favor of exploitation, really, it's just that you don't hear much about them, cause why would someone advertise them?

I think communists should avoid orthodoxy and weird gate keeping. If you fight for what I believe, support liberation, advocate for a just and equitable society where the proles run shit and we push towards truly egalitarian society free of suffering, you are my friend and likely my ally regardless of what you believe or don't believe about God or gods.

Also, contradictions are inherent in all things, having a materialist view on the world while believing deeply in my diety is something I struggle with from time to time, but in the end, the contradictions don't stop me from being a Marxist, and for advocating and fighting for the world we all want, so it doesn't really matter I think.

It is up to the specific society, nation, civilisation and state to determine how it will handle “religious” affairs.

Religion is in quotes because how religion is understood in the East is different and often misconstrued to how it is understood in the West.

And as such, questions like if “dialectical materialism and a belief in God mutually exclusive” is unanswerable once you get into the specifics because it is broad ranging and implies too many things at once.

Let the masses of every culture on Earth determine their own path to modernisation. It is not up to us that is the least affected and the most encumbered with dubious assertions to dictate how other people handle their internal and communal affairs.

I realise my mistake in engaging with questions that pretend to be universal while yet ultimately being situated in an Anglophone, western-dominated space. As such it is best to not put my nose where it doesn’t belong.

This will be my final answer on this topic and I will stop commenting on such matters directly on this site.

TL;DR we Marxists are antitheists. We only align with progressive theists because the enemy of our enemy (capitalism) is our ally.

Professing religious beliefs can sometimes be useful to gain social standing and do praxis more effectively

Watch 'The Gospel according to St Matthew', its made by an Italian communist, it only uses quotes from the bible.

In it he potrays Jesus not as a mythical figure, but a revolutionary like Castro or Mao who liberated his people from slavery. When you start realizing that Jesus was actually a revolutionary figure religious communism makes a bit more sense, as is very popular in Latin america.

Its not mutually exlcusive, id also read 'On the jewish question' by Marx.

Full movie: https://youtu.be/Ewzr-ioQ_9k

You don’t need to support dialectics or materialism in order to be communist. It’s true that organized religion in general tends to be reactionary, which is why historically many communists have been antitheists, but throughout history there have also been plenty of lower‐class theists who rightfully rebelled against the upper classes.

I’m atheist myself, and while theism doesn’t make sense to me, I don’t care who gravitates towards it. I outgrew my antitheism a long time ago.

@[email protected] is a Judaist and also a great member here.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or conclusion, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.

the opium is the religion, not the idea of a god...for some people the idea of ~~evil~~ god ~~fkn berserk references~~ helps to keep them strong, but the trust in religious institutions can put you in risk of being a reactionary or being a revisionist to concile the existence of a religious organization with your materialistic perspective

Reza Aslan's "Zealot" had an interesting position that Jesus was a Jewish national anti imperialist against the Roman Empire.

I think it's difficult to reconcile dialectical materialism with the Judeo-Christian representation of god we have in the west. However, a belief in Spinoza's god being the entirety of matter and the physical laws making it work doesn't strike me as contradictory.

In any cases, we should respect all our comrades and their beliefs.

If you can have faith in a god that you acknowlege is a social construct to direct people to what is in the interest of humanity, yes. You'll have to acknowlege that everyone is responsible for creating the new forms of good and those forms of good are not static.

I'm not religious but there is no material explanation for why the universe exists. We know that [cause] leads to [effect] but we have no idea why the chain of cause and effect itself exists at all.

They are mutually exclusive. For an example of how China tackles religion: https://redsails.org/on-the-question-of-religion/

Believe whatever you want as long as you know religion is all made up by people who didn't understand shit, and that god has nothing to do with communism.