Kirameo said:
It still is an ideology. An ideology is just a set of beliefs, and communism relies on a set of beliefs. It might not be an ideology in itself but it sure as hell relies on one (or any variation that people like to make). You could say that the ideology in which many communists would rely contradicts the set of beliefs of members of the church (historically). I might be wrong, but saying that communism is agaisnt religion for the hell of it is downright ignorant. |
Yes, it is an ideaology, but many people have been refering to it as a 'political ideaology', which it is not. That was my only real point here.
As for the religion debate
Communists, at least in the sense of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky etc, consider religion to be the opiate of the masses, just another way that the working class was forced into poverty and subservience - tithe the church or you will go to hell, serve your master without complaint or you will go to hell, which is I think what you've been saying?
However, from what I've been taught, Stalin's objection to religion, and his reason for the purges was more along the lines of not wanting his subjects to have divided loyalty - the first duty should be to the state, not to God, not to the head of the church. In his (slightly crazy) eyes, believing in God was a betrayal of the country, which is closer to what some others have been saying? That is not to say that I think Stalinism is a religion, but it does bear a lot of similarities to the major religions.
I think, I might have misrepresented someone's points, I've only skim read the communist debate in this thread
