In footnote 34 of Capital vol 1 Marx quotes himself in this passage from The Poverty of Philosophy:
“Economists have a singular method of procedure. There are only two kinds of institutions for them, artificial and natural. The institutions of feudalism are artificial institutions, those of the bourgeoisie are natural institutions. In this, they resemble the theologians, who likewise establish two kinds of religion. Every religion which is not theirs is an invention of men, while their own is an emanation from God. When the economists say that present-day relations – the relations of bourgeois production – are natural, they imply that these are the relations in which wealth is created and productive forces developed in conformity with the laws of nature. These relations therefore are themselves natural laws independent of the influence of time. They are eternal laws which must always govern society. Thus, there has been history, but there is no longer any. There has been history, since there were the institutions of feudalism, and in these institutions of feudalism we find quite different relations of production from those of bourgeois society, which the economists try to pass off as natural and as such, eternal.”
It was something about how atheism, science and other religions are beliefs but Christianity isn’t because it’s the truth or whatever the twisted logic pretzel was
Grew up in the Evangelical church - the way they always explained it to us is that it’s not a religion (which is a dogmatic set of beliefs that one only obey because they are told to), but rather it’s a personal relationship with Jesus, and you do the things he tells you to do only because you love him so much.
It also opens the door for some weird loopholes for dealing with apostates, since if you stop doing the things they tell you to, you must not truly have loved Jesus to begin with.
It really feels like they’ve honed the edge of the mind virus extra razor-sharp. Lots of wacky thought-terminating logic structures, kinda cool if it weren’t so devious.
That thing about apostates actually reminds me of how CS treats it when faith healing fails. “They didnt really believe the truth” victim blamey nonesense.
Of course my mom, when i brought that up to her (well before i left the religion, just a brief burst of rebelion because i was studying it for a school project) she said that if that was my takeaway i “didnt really get it” so what do i know
(The woman was an abuser she loved the gaslighty part and wiedled it against me constantly lol)
