I hear a lot of people talk about how we need to look at religion from a materialist lens and that religion is incomparable with socialism. But I think we need to seperate the two. Religion is about the metaphysical so it's hard to look at it from a materialist lens. While politics deals with materialist matters, so it's necessary to view it with a materialist lens. And it's not like atheism is fully materialist either, with 'nothing after death', and 'universe starting without a god' being metaphysical explanations as well. And humans are naturally spiritual and to deny that, makes it harder for socialism to be accepted by people. But of course that doesn't mean we should tolerate the reactionary aspects of religion. We should combat it whenever necessary.

What's your opinion?

  • booty [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    with 'nothing after death', and 'universe starting without a god' being metaphysical explanations as well.

    Uh, no? This is such a weird, confused argument. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god, which is the natural, intuitive stance to hold in the world we live in where there is no evidence of any gods. No "metaphysical explanations" required. Show me evidence of a god and I'll change my view, just like with everything else.

    And humans are naturally spiritual

    I mock people who bring up "human nature" arguments in any other circumstance, I don't know why it would be different here. You're not "naturally spiritual" you've been indoctrinated into a system of beliefs by people motivated by their material interests.

    • KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      But there's also no proof that god doesn't exist, so the actual materialist thing to do is to be agnostic

      But humans ARE naturally spiritual, spirituality literally goes back tens of thousands of years, and maybe even longer. And this was before hierarchy existed.

      • booty [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        there's also no proof that god doesn't exist

        that's not how proof works.

        • KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml
          hexagon
          ·
          1 year ago

          But we are talking about the beginning of the universe, something that we don't understand yet. So in that way the existence of god, and god not existing are both metaphysical explanations

          • Water Bowl Slime@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            1 year ago

            I don't see how an event that took place billions of years ago has any bearing on human politics. Or why a gap in knowledge is the same as belief in divinity in your eyes.

              • 🏳️‍⚧️ 新星 [she/they]@lemmygrad.ml
                ·
                1 year ago

                we don’t know what’s out there

                I’ve come to believe that it’s extremely unlikely that it’s the Christian god though, and that even if it were, it sounds like the abusive dictator that the West accuses North Korea of being.

                As an aside, do you also think it’s equally likely to be every one of the other ~10,000 gods humans have invented?

                • KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  Well I don't necessarily believe in a god, but if there's a god, it's probably a monotheistic god, which is what most religious people believe. The case for polytheistic gods existing, who are the majority of the gods in your argument is pretty weak

                  • 🏳️‍⚧️ 新星 [she/they]@lemmygrad.ml
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    it’s probably a monotheistic god

                    Are you a deist then? There’s no practical difference between that and atheism IMHO. What real difference does it make if it turned out a time-traveling Pokémon created the universe if it just relaxes on another planet and demands nothing of anyone or anything?

                      • 🏳️‍⚧️ 新星 [she/they]@lemmygrad.ml
                        ·
                        1 year ago

                        Here’s a quote attributed to Marcus Aurelius:

                        “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

      • robot
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        deleted by creator