But but but...
But but but...
228 comments
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This actually makes sense, once you understand what their problem is with communism.
You see, they have no problem with all the benefits that communism offers... What bothers them is the idea that those benefits would be given to people who haven't earned it.
Heaven, to them, is a reward. Only the pure, the righteous, the faithful get to enjoy its benefits. Heaven only works for them if they imagine that they will be able to look down and see hell.
A heaven for everyone, with no walls, no gates, no pitiful outcasts scrabbling to get in... That's no heaven at all.
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You’re not wrong about the reward being earned. That’s definitely the unspoken part of it.
When I grew up religious, the conversion was that communism was a bastardization of god’s plan, so it’s inherently evil. Basically, it cannot be as pure and perfect with men in charge so it will fail every time.
You’d think they’d want to try and be more like their god and his plan for their heaven but they just reject it.
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They believe that only God can be the one to create paradise on earth. A primary pillar of their faith requires earth to be in a constant state of suffering until then.
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You’re not wrong about the reward being earned. That’s definitely the unspoken part of it.
It's also heretic AF. As in: It directly contradicts Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran, doctrine, all for different reasons.
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They should know better:
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Interesting read. Thank you.
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Heaven only works for them if they imagine that they will be able to look down and see hell.
See, this is the part I can't get behind. An eternity of that disparity with even the smallest scrap of empathy would eventually be unending torment. Every day is just more "oh yeah, hell is a thing and I can't do anything about it..."
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Fr, I knew for fact that there was something deeply fucked up about "The Good Place" in the TV show bearing the same name when Janet played Eleanor a short clip of sound from the Bad Place.
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Right wing politics can be summed up as: Exclusive & Sadism
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If working all your life for a regime does not earn you the benefits of that regime, I don't know what will in their minds
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No, the issue most people have with it is that it requires a king (god) to make it work. People don't mind a higher being (god) ruling them as an absolute monarch. They do mind handing such power to a human, since we have seen again and again how such power corrupts people.
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Me listening to tankies describe communism as a moneyless, stateless, classless world, then criticise anarchism
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people still use the word tankie ? my guy most communists these days are anarcho communists.
tankie was never funny anyways
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When I was fairly young my mom described Christian heaven. I remember struggling with the idea of not struggling and being happy all the time. Then she hit me with if someone you love doesn't make it to heaven you forget them. That's when the fracture began for me.
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Basically heaven is a mindfuck.
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It really is. It's not even a pleasant thought experiment.
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Its not that you forget the person. You gain a perfect understanding of the situation. Like when your child has to go to jail for some crimes they committed. You may be sad they went to jail, then understand why they went to jail, then agree it was right that they were put in jail.
Not a perfect analogy, but something like that.
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Severance
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To be fair, the heaven of the Bible is neither stateless nor classless. "The nations" are still present in Revelation 21 and 22, and inequality in heaven is a common theme in Jesus's parables.
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"The nations" is just fancy for "non Jews". Remember that the bible predates modern nation states by more than a millennium.
inequality in heaven is a common theme in Jesus's parables.
Is that so? I can think of the story with the lamps where it's about getting into the kingdom of god or the treasure in the field where it's about finding the kingdom of god. Or that the poor will inherit the kingdom of god while rich people cannot get into it. Nothing about inequality inside the kingdom of god.
You have to keep in mind that the kingdom of god isn't really heaven as we think of it even tho Matthew uses the wording kingdom of heaven (to avoid the word god as a good jew). We think of heaven as life after death but the kingdom of god is on earth when Jesus returns and the dead arise and he builds his kingdom here.
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This is really fascinating. I never heard of this.
Is there a non-religious, ELI5 resource I can read more about this?
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I never had much use for non-religious secondary sources back when I was a believer, so I can't recommend any, but the New Testament isn't actually that long; you could probably finish it in a week if you read 20-30 chapters a day, and the chapters are short. The first three books, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and to a lesser extent the fourth, John, are all the same; you can probably just pick one (John is probably the most interesting) and read the rest of the NT as is. Whether or not it's worth your time is entirely up to you. I certainly have no intention of reading it again any time soon.
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Dan McClellan videos on YouTube and TikTok are great and accessible discussions of a lot of academic Bible research.
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Yeah it’s called Theogany by Hesiod
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Revelation 21 and 22 describe changes in the city of Jerusalem and basically nothing else. 🤦♂️
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Can we just have tiny villages where we tell ghost stories and just all contribute to each other's well being?
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What if heaven is just whatever you need heaven to be? Like, what if it's just a temporary state of affairs? You enter Heaven, and it is exactly what you need to be at peace with your death and your life before that. Then, when you're ready, after however much time you need, you can decide to move on and stop existing, or send your soul to be reincarnated.
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This is similar to what Rick Riordan (author of Percy Jackson) suggests in one of his other works - that the afterlife is simply whatever you believe it to be. It's pretty comforting imo.
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The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it. This explains why it is important to shoot missionaries on sight.
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Personally I wouldn't like it to be what you believe it to be, rather what you need it to be. Some people don't know what they need until they have it. You can believe that Heaven is endless sitting in a circle and piling devotion upon God, but if that isn't actually going to help you be at peace, then what good is it gonna do you? How is a baby going to form a belief of what their afterlife is?
No, I reckon Heaven ought to be what you need, not what you want. I want my afterlife to be me being a series of Isekai protagonists in my favourite fictional universes because I secretly want to feel clever and powerful and knowledgeable about things to come, but indulging me probably isn't the best way to put me at peace.
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Seems to be the approach of MCU as well 🤔
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Watch The Good Place.
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Funny you should mention temporary - in a way, that's true of Christian view. 'Heaven' in a broad sense is much broader, but the sense of where are 'you' after you die, is temporary until the resurrection, where people are once again in a very physical body (but now immortal and undamaged) on a very physical (re)new(ed) earth.
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I asked one “so when do I actually die?” and they couldn’t comprehend that I didn’t want to exist forever
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I suppose that whatever heaven does to you, you would want to exist forever...for whatever reason.
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You can sit on that bench as long as you want. Whenever you're ready, you just walk through.
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In the eternal words of Bob Marley:
Some people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high
But if you know what life is worth
You will look for yours on earth
And now we see the light
We're going to stand up for our right
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🥰🫶🏻
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Heaven is an autocratic police state though
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Yup. The common answer to "why does evil exist" is that humans have free will.
Therefore it follows that if there is no sin in heaven, there is also no free will.
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Fundies have a more two-class system in mind for Heaven: God-King and unquestionably loyal fans.
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So like Trump and MAGA. Figures
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I’ve come to the conclusion that Christians that vote republic just dissociate their “church” brain vs their non “church” brain. Their religious beliefs ONLY apply to religious things. Everything else just goes to whatever their true value system is.
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I don't think most religious people have any beliefs, they just roll with whatever stances are currently popular amongst their peers. If a large enough number of their peers say their god says slavery is valid, then they will say slavery is valid, or a million other horrible things
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Funny you mentioned this.
Apparently feeding school kids for free was controversial (and still is controversial).
And I watched a fellow parent on Facebook post an event about bake sales to raise money, to immediately sharing talking points about why it's bad for kids to get free school lunches.
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The Bible as a text has zero issues with slavery. The Old Testament thinks it’s fine to sell your daughter. The New Testament tells slaves to submit to their masters.
Your average Christian has very little knowledge of what the Bible actually contains. Non denominational Protestant Christianity’s focus on the personal relationship with God and their interpretation of ‘Biblical literalism’ means that you just squint at the text and read what you want from it.
I remember listening to some particularly painful exegesis on David killing the Amalekite messenger being some kind of message on not tattling to your boss about things. They don’t read things in context - they read snippets and verses and work in their pop culture understandings about hell, Satan, and salvation into the text.
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True, I definitely think most religious people don’t think too much about what they’re believing in.
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Nah, they're the ones complaining jesus is too woke
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Problem is real world communism always ends up as authoritarian dictatorships.
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it's almost like American imperialism has made sure that any attempt has failed by economic and military disruption and injecting dictators with the goal of dissuading others from trying.
the second there's a success story western capitalism becomes unnecessary and a better system comes into view.
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Also communist economy is impossible to implement since there is no all knowing god to fuck all the people siphoning the money out via corruption. Communism is great if you can remove humans from the equation. Mofo humans fuck every system up, we are the problem.
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Lol, heaven is also an authoritarian dictatorship
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Also, heaven is an absolute monarchy. The fact so many commies don't even see the difference between communism and a monarchy should tell you all you need to know.
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Also, heaven is an absolute autocracy. The fact so many fundies don't even see the difference between US and facism should tell you all you need to know.
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Socialist capitalist democracy works pretty well though
Source: Scandinavian
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Tends to on a nation scale. But there's still some good lessons to learn from it for smaller scale and nation scale too.
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That's a pretty boilerplate criticism. While true to a great degree, it's also true of a lot of western capitalist nations.
It's pretty hard to find information about real communist societies because media companies have it in their best interest to bury any good that has possibly been done by a communist society, meanwhile demonizing them and making them the enemy. You really have to dig to find honest information about communist societies.
Moreover, a lot of otherwise successful communist regimes have been sabotaged and poisoned by capitalist interests. Either by literally arming fascists, or just by demonizing them with foreign policy and media coverage.
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Do we have to censor the word communism now?
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Self censor so hot right now!
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Now = since Red Scare
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Can’t have designer outrage without it.
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If i could take a moment to cite the opening to the lords prayer:
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
The ability to make one being a christian not by default be a socialist as well is a continuous theological labor for the capitalist
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I was going to upvote but you were right at 666 so I couldn't bring myself to
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Why are we censoring "communism"?
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same reason people say "unalive" and "fuggen" and "child 🌽".... the Internet has become a place for self censoring idiot babies afraid of being algorithmically demonitized/banned
corporate monopolies of all popular platforms has kneecapped actual free speech by training entire generations to be afraid of violating terms of service, I guess
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Alternatives:
“unalive”
in cases of homicide: "Ended [Person]'s Life"
or, in cases of suicide: "Ended their own life"
it bypasses most mainstream censors while maintaining the seriousness of it
“child 🌽”
"CSAM" is usually the term that people use these days, I don't think the term "CSAM is censored
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Also too fucking lazy to redo the "meme" without censorship (and sometimes, better quality)
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Meh, all I remember of what the Bible says of heaven is it will be none stop worshipping of god. Like hillsong forever or something.
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It's only "communism" if the equality goes to individuals outside of your group. If your group gets the benefits, well, that's because you're awesome and you deserve it; but fuck those other guys.
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Heaven is described as being populated by perfected people, not by their own doing.. The world we live in is populated by selfish people primarily. Hell even toddlers are selfish. It's a redefinition of human nature. Whether or not it's a fantasy, it would actually make it work flawlessly.
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I know that's not your point, I just want to point out that toddlers aren't selfish as much as they just haven't developed empathy yet, as a sense of empathy usually only develops after the 4th birthday. The golden rule just doesn't work for toddlers, they can't put themselves in someone else's shoes and imagine how they feel. There's a riddle/test with a doll and a closet that illustrates this well.
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Of course they are selfish, but it is Ok and natural.
I think that a person that never experienced empathy from others will most likely never develop empathy and stay selfish.
It is the job of society to teach/show the society empathy, and if we do not, we are fucked.
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Cooperation and sharing are just as much "human nature" as selfishness. We contain lots of "natural" impulses, but people will prioritize and grow into those impulses which society most rewards.
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Yea, and pure capitalism rewards assholes the most…
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Communism in theory: A stateless, classless, moneyless utopia where everyone shares resources based on need. Communism in practice: Authoritarian regimes, economic inefficiency, suppression of dissent, and a state that never ‘withers away’ like Marx imagined.
Every major attempt, USSR, Maoist China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, has resulted in centralized power, mass repression, and economic collapse. The problem isn’t just ‘bad leaders’; it’s that a system requiring absolute cooperation and selflessness on a societal scale is fundamentally unworkable. Human nature, resource scarcity, and the need for incentives all get in the way.
So yeah, communism sounds nice on paper, but history proves it turns into a dystopia instead of a utopia every time.
We need to stop idealizing communism because it doesn't work.
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Unchecked capitalism also leads to bad outcomes, including ecological collapse.
We need something that isn't "a handful of people have all the power"
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Couldn't you use that argument to disqualify most government types? I mean show me a type of government that hasn't been perverted. Does North Korea disprove all democratic republics? I mean they call themselves a democratic republic therefore they are a republic right? That's what you're using as a definition to deny communism right? Hell I don't even have to look at the worst example is there a good example of a government that hasn't been perverted?
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No, but objectively, some governments are far better than others. For example, I wouldn’t want to live in the Republic of the Congo or North Korea. Despite the issues we face in America, I still live a comfortable and peaceful life here, and I have no desire to leave. If I were in North Korea or China, however, I would likely be looking for a way out.
Your comment does however provide great examples of the no true Scotsman and appeal to purity fallacies. Though I’d argue that acknowledging the flaws in all governments doesn’t mean they are all equally bad. Some are demonstrably worse than others.
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Human nature, resource scarcity, and the need for incentives all get in the way
For now. Why not keep looking and find a way to make it work?
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Of course we need to continue to do this just not with Communism.
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That's because of Vanguardism
China is in no way, shape, or form, a "Communist" nor "Socialist" country, it's just State Capitalism.
No Socialist/Communist movement could be successful without democracy. People wouldn't be able to control the means of production if there is no democracy.
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So you're saying of this vanguard existed I mean as it would work?
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Based and food pilled
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The ubermensch concept was very popular in the early to mid 1900s, and has even been attempted before! Refer to world War 2 and Nazi ideology for more reading on that topic.
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You sound like a Nazi. That is literally 100% out of their playbook. Musk would be proud of you.
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I've always wondered about this. One of the Great Filter issues is that a species must cooperate together instead of destroy itself. Maybe in our evolutionary history we needed some of those narcissistic traits to survive as individuals, but now we need to evolve.
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It's not psychopath sociopathic narcissists that don't allow communism not to work it's general human Nature on a large societal scale.
The Spartans practiced a form of eugenics and they were one of the greatest societies in human history and that still doesn't make them right about what they did.
I highly recommend that you go back and read through some human history before making idiotic comments like this.
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Heaven is a post-capitalism utopia
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There's a very easy answer that most Christian conservatives will quickly provide - God makes all things possible. Whether in its most primitive, logic-defying form, or in the more thought-out "Humans are imperfect and thus cannot run a perfect system, unlike God", few Christians will actually be caught on the surface-level contradiction.
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I don't have an issue with communism, but with communists.
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communists
*Self-Proclaimed "Communists"
(spoilers, they don't actually believe in communism)
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I'm kind of the opposite. I have no problem with (well intentioned and rational) communists. But if we had full blown communism with Trump in charge, it would be game over for everyone.
Does that make Trump a communist if he would actually love if the US was a communist state? Maybe I actually agree with you.
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The state of communists right now is:
I know what's good for you, you suffer from propaganda. You don't have to vote, otherwise the people who don't have your best interests in mind will get into power.
This has nothing to do with an ideology. It's just the people who claim to follow this ideology are being authoritarians.
They aren't called tankies for nothing.
Any ideology can be forced upon a society through authoritarianism. Communists aren't popular in democracy. So they long went with the authoritarian way.
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If there is heaven and there are people there, it's already a problem for me. No need to add other things.
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Sound like you need a Medium Place all by yourself.
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Religion is like a shoe. Yours won't fit me and mine won't fit you. So let's just let each other walk.our own ways without trying to push us along our paths
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Religion is a tool to manipulate people according own will based on stories that happened similar in real world. Similar, meaning, the religion master picked stories that helped them explain why people have to behave like he says and maybe added som flavour here and there.
Please, people, can we just stop falling for it?
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Replace "Religion" with "Truth" and you'll see why this doesn't work.
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With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.
We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle. Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
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Socialism/Communism are ideologically still revolving around materialism and defining the success of the society through production and consumption.
They follow the same core pitfall as Capitalism, by seeing humans through the lens of producer and consumer.
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seeing humans through the lens of producer and consumer
eh, we're long past the point of foraging for berries to survive, we kinda have to be both. interesting take though
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If only they could listen to Jesus first
You can read you through it all, no magic involved. Jesus is the only hero I've ever looked up to
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Any idea why communism is spelt with a zero here?
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gotta censor it
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The pope literally wrote a fucking document called "Rerum Novarum". What the hell are these people even discussing? Christians are a joke politically because they can't have their own political stance and keep inheriting liberal beliefs.
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Just so everyone knows, the word you should be using is socialism. Communism is what you call it when socialist pick up guns and other weapons and take over by force using violence. Socialism = good, communism = bad.
Can we all agree that no matter how bad this gets, we shouldn't stoop to their level?
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Nope, that's not what communists mean, when communists talk about communism. What you describe is the dictatorship of the proletariat, not communism aka the time when all means of production are owned communally, everyone enjoys working according to their ability and lovingly shares all goods according to their needs.
Of course, if you use the term "communism" to refer to the political movement that tries to achieve communism through revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, you're 100 % right.
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No.
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Communism was tried, and it failed.
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who gives a fuck what a stupid book written by idiot camel herders from 3000 years ago says? who even fucking cares one single fucking iota? seriously. WHO? slap the fucking piss out of the person that does.
destroy all abrahamic religions for the sake of humanity. no fucking mercy.
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Holy Reddit atheists, Batman
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Yeah. They’re the worst. They make it difficult to have actual atheistic views.
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from 3000 years ago
The only parts that are even possibly that old are random bits of poetry.
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Whoah there buddy, we're supposed to tolerate the sickness until they go on a shooting spree.
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i didn't get that memo
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The absolute worst is them saying socialism is pessimistic because it thinks people can't do anything for themself and coddles them with a nanny state. Then turns around and says "you have to structure capitalism assuming every single person is a greedy sociopath hellbent on fucking over everyone else to make money."
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And that the only acceptable form of socialism is charity. And like. FFS
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you have to structure capitalism assuming every single person is a greedy sociopath hellbent on fucking over everyone else to make money.
So... Social Democracy? Which they also oppose? 🤔
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Not exactly, the argument (is incoherent and insane) is something like "you can't have too much democracy and centralized power because people in power are always corrupt." ✨Somehow✨ laissez-faire capitalism is supposed to naturally account for corruption and sociopathy because the free market forces(???) them to do good things because people are able to spend their money somewhere else. Always non-violent btw ❤️
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Ancaps/libertarians as well.
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I think it might have something to do with those "Christians" envisioning heaven as an implicit ethnostate.
Socialism seems ugly to them because it involves the people who seem ugly to them being cared for.
But they'd never say it out-loud; most can't even see that's what their twisted little hearts desire.
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I think they just lack vision and don't actually want to change the real world, just dream of a better place
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Seen this clip from some american fundie podcast that was... a choice.
This person was asked something like, if you could have world peace, but all governments become socialist, would you do it? They said no and fucking justified their answer with a partial quote from something like Deuteronomy 15:7-11, claiming that well the bible says there'll always be the poor so socialism is actually bad because of that, and a quick search to see if I could find it there's a lot of stuff echoing the same stuff, that socialism is unbiblical etc.
What the actual fuck is wrong with these people? I'm irreligious but was raised Christian, this is so vehemently counter to my understanding of Christian teachings (the flavour of which I was raised has atheist ministers so there's that), which was more or less, raise everyone up, accept everyone for who they are, help people, don't turn a blind eye to injustice and like just be decent to each other. Was this podcast prosperity doctrine shit or something else because yeah wow, it's honestly sinister to me.
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I was raised as a fundamentalist, but I got out.
American evangelical fundamentalists firmly believe in heirarchy— children are under the authority of their mother, who is under the authority of her husband, who is under the authority of God.
They see any disruption of this heirarchy as an attack on their religion.
Taxes? You're usurping the man's authority to spend his money as he sees fit.
Women's liberation? You're usurping the man's authority over his wife.
Entitlements? You're usurping the man's authority to use his pocketbook as leverage over his family.
Immigration? You're usurping the man's authority by lowering his cultural relevance.
LGBTQ+ acceptance? You're usurping the man's authority by undermining the patriarchy.
You've probably noticed a pattern as to who is primarily driving these issues.
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They begin with the conclusion (e.g. socialism bad), and then find whatever they can in their shitty book to justify it.
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Yup. Funny all the people blaming the bible like the dude up there calling it a stupid book... obviously hasn't read it. The bible has great lessons, 90% of Christians just ignore them is all. Don't blame the book for the idiots who claim to follow it when they actually aren't. Even the stuff wanna be Christians quote thinking it supports their argument they are either misunderstanding or leaving out vital context. Real Christians are very rare and almost never associated with an organized church. They just quietly try to do their best they don't try to use their belief to justify the rest of their life and bad decisions.
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It sounds to me like they want to be able to give freely and not be forced by a human law.
If everybody shares there is no need for official socialism because enough resources are shared.
The difference is that the formerly poor has to be thankful.
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"Christians"
Here we go with the scare quotes again... They're not fake Christians just because you don't agree with their particular dogma.
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The most successful nations in terms of citizen happiness use mixed-economics. Nordic nations have the blueprint. We just need to use it.
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So complete justice system reform, cut the police force, strong wide reaching unions, and strong social welfare.
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That does sound heavenly...
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Conservatives: "Socialism Bad!"
"Norway is a successful Socialist State"
Conservatives: "But that isn't socialism!"
"Okay, then lets use whatever that system is"
Conservatives: "SOCIALISM BAAAD! 😡😡😡"
(It's called Social Democracy btw, which the conservates also hate)
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There are plenty of Christians who specifically and deliberately oppose attempting to make life on earth more like heaven. They’re not being hypocrites for this, this is their belief system. To disagree with them is to wade into a theological debate, not just a political one.
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Jesus was a socialist
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Agree.
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Jesus was a first century Jew, he was almost certainly not a socialist.
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Well if we turned earth into heaven, then there would be no reason for anyone to convert, duh
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Oooh baby, do you know what that's worth? Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth
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Anti-Christian communists should read the gospels. They’re the actual basis of the Christian religion and are enlightening.
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The gospels were written by anonymous authors decades to nearly a hundred years after Christianity became a religion, and then became canonized centuries afterwards.
They're not the basis of Christianity, the Epistles are; and even many of those are forgeries. And those were just cementing the strictures of the existing mystery cult.
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Blabla your sky daddy doesn't interest me
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No one should read any religious dogma. Shit should be thrown in the bin and left there.
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In spite of their persecution complex, Christianity is the largest religion by population worldwide and in many countries. Understanding the way they think can be useful in dealing with them.
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