Павел Лысенко There is no afterlife, there is no heaven, no hell, no archangels, no judge, all you have is your life, now politically seize it!
3 hrs · Unlike · 1 Jacob Stuart It may sound contradictory but isn't stopping the religious being marxists lowing our support count. You CAN be an economic-Marxist and be a theist. 3 hrs · Like
Victor Alarcón Calderón We are not against them, but i would not let religion stop the revolution. As long as they are not a problem to us, they can be on our side. 3 hrs · Edited · Like
Einde O'Callaghan To be quite frank: I don't think that the majority of the people who will make the revolution and build communist society will be Marxists! 3 hrs · Unlike · 5
Charles Brown Marxists can be Martin Luther King style Christians. 2 hrs · Like · 1
Charles Brown "The history of early Christianity has notable points of resemblance with the modern working-class movement. Like the latter, Christianity was originally a movement of oppressed people: it first appeared as the religion of slaves and emancipated slaves...See More On the History of Early Christianity www.marxists.org First Published: In Die Neue Zeit, 1894-95;Translated: by the Institute of Marxi...See More 2 hrs · Edited · Like · Remove Preview
Charles Brown http://books.google.com/.../The_urgency_of_Marxist... The urgency of Marxist-Christian dialogue books.google.com 2 hrs · Like · Remove Preview
Charles Brown Why should Marxist be an atheist? Just because of the fact that the religion is the opium of people? Why can't Christianity exist in communism?//// In your _Marxism_ you must be an atheist, because the theory and practice of Marxism is based on materialism or naturalism: no belief in supernatural or immortal beings influencing the class struggle. Marx gives a lot of compliments to religion in his famous statement which says religion is the opium of the people. Marxists when they are following Marx , however, note, that his critique of religion is not so much that it is the opium of the people. That is something of a positive service it does, like aspirin. He doesn't really seem to emphasize that it deters them from revolutionary activity by quieting them. His main critique is that Man makes God; God doesn't make Man. Man makes God in his own image, anthropomorphises him; God doesn't make man in his own image. I interpret this as an urging of "Man", humans , to do what they expect God to do. In other words, get up and get at it, get active, change the world. 2 hrs · Like · 1
Charles Brown For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism. The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [“speech for the ...See More Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right 1844 www.marxists.org Marx's, Draft Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, which was never completed 2 hrs · Like · 2 · Remove Preview
Charles Brown I think it might be helpful of Marxists ,at least in certain linguistic groups, refer to themselves alternatively as naturalists and materialists, because "materialist" has a connotation of "materialistic" or money grubbing and "idealist" doesn't connotate philosophical idealism but high minded pursuit of worthy goals. So, how about historical and dialectical naturalists ? 1 hr · Like · 1
Charles Brown Naturalism (philosophy) Naturalism is "the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world; (occas.) the idea or belief that nothing exists beyond the natural world."[1] Adherents of naturalism (i.e., naturalists) assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe, that the changing universe at every stage is a product of these laws.[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_%28philosophy%29 Naturalism (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org Naturalism is "the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural ...See More 1 hr · Like · Remove Preview Dialectical Mysticist How can we know for certain that there is no supernatural if we can not see such thing. How logical it is to believe in nonexistence of something that is outside of your perception. Well, i can't be sure that an alien is standing behind me right now, because I can't be sure whether there is something or not, It can't be seen. That is why I think that atheism and naturalism is as dogmatic as Idealism and theismk 1 hr · Like
Charles Brown Frederick Engels Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy Part 2: Materialism
darwin The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being. From the very early times when men, still completely ignorant of the structure of their own bodies, under the stimulus of dream apparitions (1) came to believe that their thinking and sensation were not activities of their bodies, but of a distinct soul which inhabits the body and leaves it at death — from this time men have been driven to reflect about the relation between this soul and the outside world. If, upon death, it took leave of the body and lived on, there was no occassion to invent yet another distinct death for it. Thus arose the idea of immortality, which at that stage of development appeared not at all as a consolation but as a fate against which it was no use fighting, and often enough, as among the Greeks, as a positive misfortune. The quandry arising from the common universal ignorance of what to do with this soul, once its existence had been accepted, after the death of the body, and not religious desire for consolation, led in a general way to the tedious notion of personal immortality. In an exactly similar manner, the first gods arose through the personification of natural forces. And these gods in the further development of religions assumed more and more extramundane form, until finally by a process of abstraction, I might almost say of distillation, occurring naturally in the course of man’s intellectual development, out of the many more or less limited and mutually limiting gods there arose in the minds of men the idea of the one exclusive God of the monotheistic religions.
Thus the question of the relation of thinking to being, the relation of the spirit to nature — the paramount question of the whole of philosophy — has, no less than all religion, its roots in the narrow-minded and ignorant notions of savagery ( This is bad anthropology. "Savages" were hardly ignorant and truly not savages; the "civilized" were the actual savages, which Engels learned some in writing _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_.) But this question could for the first time be put forward in its whole acuteness, could achieve its full significance, only after humanity in Europe had awakened from the long hibernation of the Christian Middle Ages. The question of the position of thinking in relation to being, a question which, by the way, had played a great part also in the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the question: which is primary, spirit or nature — that question, in relation to the church, was sharpened into this: Did God create the world or has the world been in existence eternally?
The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature and, therefore, in the last instance, assumed world creation in some form or other — and among the philosophers, Hegel, for example, this creation often becomes still more intricate and impossible than in Christianity — comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.
These two expressions, idealism and materialism, originally signify nothing else but this; and here too they are not used in any other sense. What confusion arises when some other meaning is put to them will be seen below. 1 hr · Like
Dialectical Mysticist And If we want workers to have logical and clear idea of the existence of supernatural, not fanatic attitude towards this, they should be agnostics, our philosophy should be agnosticism and not atheism, because workers are progressive class, proletariat should hold the right attitude towards anything, and atheism can't be such because it is illogical and a priori dogma 1 hr · Edited · Like
Charles Brown Engels: "From the very early times when men, still completely ignorant of the structure of their own bodies, under the stimulus of dream apparitions (1) came to believe that their thinking and sensation were not activities of their bodies, but of a distinct soul which inhabits the body and leaves it at death — from this time men have been driven to reflect about the relation between this soul and the outside world. If, upon death, it took leave of the body and lived on, there was no occassion to invent yet another distinct death for it. " Comment by Charles: I think the concept of an immortal soul is more likely to develop out of so-called ancestor worship, as ancestors are treated as still living , so if they are still living , the living might go on living after death. Ancestor "worship" is central to culture , the anthropological concept, and culture is transgenerational or dead generations living on in some natural , not supernatural, sense in future generations. I have dubbed culture "natural soul" ( as opposed to supernatural soul). Various peoples may have conceived of soul naturally , too. They might understand that the bodies of their ancestors were dead , but their ideas, beliefs, myths, stories and language , now termed culture by anthropology, etc lived on in the new generations continuing the customs and traditions and family names and kinship. Stone Age societies were founded very intensely , more than we can understand, on their kinship systems; people ordered their living relationships in the foraging bands based on relations to common ancestors who are dead.systems, people order their living relationships based on relations to common ancestors who are dead. 1 hr · Edited · Like
Liam Murcia It seems rather odd to criticize the alleged "alienation" and "unscientific" character inherent in "all religions" (without contrasting religious beliefs that have been useful to push for emancipation, for example certain trends in Catholicism) and "prove it" by quoting texts by Marxists as if they were scriptures. C'mon people. 1 hr · Like
Charles Brown Dialectical Mysticist And If we want workers to have logical and clear idea of the existence of supernatural, not fanatic attitude towards this, they should be agnostics, our philosophy should be agnosticism and not atheism, because workers are progressive class, proletariat should hold the right attitude towards anything, and atheism can't be such because it is illogical and a priori/////// Engels would beg to differ with you in Frederick Engels Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy Part 2: Materialism (smiles) 1 hr · Like
Dialectical Mysticist Murcia Since religion is still religion after the death of Marx and Engels, their opinions on religion is still valid since the religion has not lost his essence 1 hr · Like
Liam Murcia Didn't say ot wasn't valid, just not an standard to qualify as a "good Marxist". 1 hr · Like
Liam Murcia Didn't say ot wasn't valid, just not an standard to qualify as a "good Marxist". 1 hr · Like
Dialectical Mysticist " Engels would beg to differ with you in Frederick Engels Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy Part 2: Materialism (smiles)" sorry, don't understand what you mean, comrade. 1 hr · Like
Charles Brown Hume and Kant are the famous agnostics. Engels calls agnostics "shame-faced" materialists: "In addition, there is yet a set of different philosophers — those who question the possibility of any cognition, or at least of an exhaustive cognition, of the world. To them, among the more modern ones, belong Hume and Kant, and they played a very important role in philosophical development. What is decisive in the refutation of this view has already been said by Hegel, in so far as this was possible from an idealist standpoint. The materialistic additions made by Feuerbach are more ingenious than profound. The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets is practice — namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian ungraspable “thing-in-itself”. The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained just such “things-in-themselves” until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the “thing-in-itself” became a thing for us — as, for instance, alizarin, the coloring matter of the madder, which we no longer trouble to grow in the madder roots in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply from coal tar. For 300 years, the Copernican solar system was a hypothesis with 100, 1,000, 10,000 to 1 chances in its favor, but still always a hypothesis. But then Leverrier, by means of the data provided by this system, not only deduced the necessity of the existence of an unknown planet, but also calculated the position in the heavens which this planet must necessarily occupy, and when [Johann] Galle really found this planet [Neptune, discovered 1846, at Berlin Observatory], the Copernican system was proved. If, nevertheless, the neo-Kantians are attempting to resurrect the Kantian conception in Germany, and the agnostics that of Hume in England (where in fact it never became extinct), this is, in view of their theoretical and practical refutation accomplished long ago, scientifically a regression and practically merely a shamefaced way of surreptitiously accepting materialism, while denying it before the world." 1 hr · Like
Dialectical Mysticist oh i guess now 1 hr · Like
Einde O'Callaghan Application of Ockham's Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is the one you should start with - in other words, we should start from perceptible explanations and only reject them if they can't explain the phenomenon. As regards the existence of...See More 1 hr · Like
Dialectical Mysticist What about pragmatic attitude like pascal's wager? 1 hr · Like
Einde O'Callaghan Many people may adopt this attitude, but personally I tend to side with Laplace who when asked if he believed in god replied: "I have no need of that hypothesis." 1 hr · Like
Charles Brown Liam Murcia and "prove it" by quoting texts by Marxists as if they were scriptures. C'mon people./// Notice below my comment is longer than what I quote and is a critical comment. That is the complete opposite of quoting Engels like scripture. You are ...See More 1 hr · Edited · Like
Dialectical Mysticist God is improbable, but there is little chances that he exists. and if he is there...which is unlikely but still probable....Pascals wager becomes rational...doesn't it? 1 hr · Like
Liam Murcia I wasn't refering to you Charles. 1 hr · Like Charles Brown I'd say the main reason Marxists must be atheists in analysis of the class struggle is that the bourgeoisie are atheists or their effective activity in class struggle and their political actions to keep the working class ruled and oppressed are based i...See More 1 hr · Edited · Like
Charles Brown https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=782458945098207&set=a.597736973570406.1073741825.275373239140116&type=1&theater Mobile Uploads By: Working class atheists
1 hr · Like · Remove Preview Charles Brown I don't see anybody else referring to Marx as scripture either. We need more extended quoting of Marx by leftists , not less. 1 hr · Like
Liam Murcia I see quite a few before you, quoting, as I said "Marxists" (not only "Marx"). Quotes are important and we should make use of the wealth of theory we have access to, but they shouldn't constitute the final word, don't you agree? 42 mins · Edited · Like Charles Brown Some of it is the "final" word _for now_. Like E = mc squared is the final word for now. Many of Marx's formula are scientific laws, like natural laws, until capitalism is over. Not religious dogma, but scientific truth. Like Darwin's law of natural history, Marx has the laws of capitalist accumulation down very precisely. So, we treat them rigorously. Notice Marx treats laws as tendencies. They are also like jurisprudential laws. Of course, people break laws, but in the main they are followed and give rise to empirical generalizations of the facts of people's behavior , conduct , activities. 21 mins · Like
Charles Brown "The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, _with the inexorability of a law of Nature_ ( emphasis added -CB), its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on cooperation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production. " https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I - Chapter Thirty Two www.marxists.org Capital Vol. I : Chapter Thirty-Two (Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation) 20 mins · Like · Remove Preview Charles Brown Notice natural science works on a metaphor from jurisprudence, "law": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_science Laws of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org The laws of science or scientific laws are statements that describe, predict, an...See More 18 mins · Edited · Like · Remove Preview Charles Brown "Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences. To understand the first chapter, especially the section that contains the analysis of commodities, will, therefore, present the greatest difficulty. That which concerns more especially the analysis of the substance of value and the magnitude of value, I have, as much as it was possible, popularised. [1] The value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form, is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless, the human mind has for more than 2,000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it all, whilst on the other hand, to the successful analysis of much more composite and complex forms, there has been at least an approximation. Why? Because the body, as an organic whole, is more easy of study than are the cells of that body. In the analysis of economic forms, moreover, neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use. The force of abstraction must replace both. But in bourgeois society, the commodity-form of the product of labour — or value-form of the commodity — is the economic cell-form. To the superficial observer, the analysis of these forms seems to turn upon minutiae. It does in fact deal with minutiae, but they are of the same order as those dealt with in microscopic anatomy. With the exception of the section of value-form, therefore, this volume cannot stand accused on the score of difficulty. I presuppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself. The physicist either observes physical phenomena where they occur in their most typical form and most free from disturbing influence, or, wherever possible, he makes experiments under conditions that assure the occurrence of the phenomenon in its normality. In this work I have to examine the capitalist mode of production, and the conditions of production and exchange corresponding to that mode. Up to the present time, their classic ground is England. That is the reason why England is used as the chief illustration in the development of my theoretical ideas. If, however, the German reader shrugs his shoulders at the condition of the English industrial and agricultural labourers, or in optimist fashion comforts himself with the thought that in Germany things are not nearly so bad; I must plainly tell him, “De te fabula narratur!” [It is of you that the story is told. – Horace] Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of the social antagonisms that result from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a question of these laws themselves, of these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results. The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future. " 14 mins · Like Charles Brown My main criticism of Nietzsche ( and it's a big one from the standpoint of Marxism) is that in the Geneology of Morals I think it is he basically becomes the champion of all the ruling classes that he knows of from all times ! He is sort of the anti-Marx explicitly, pro-ruling class anti-ruled class in all the modes of production in the history as a history of class struggles. So, Nietzsche's famous atheism of "God is dead" is the voice of Ruling Class atheism from all times. We should treat it as an expose of this fact. Some where in a class conscious sector of people, all ruling classes must have atheists or they couldn't successfully rule. Can't rule if you really believe in Zeus , thus Plato, atheist. , etc. Many philosophers are sort of secret atheists for the ruling classes down through history. On the other hand, they accumulate a lot of objective knowledge because they are materialists in some ways.
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