China and the Soviets got it right. You gotta treat religious institutions as every bit as backward and reactionary as you treat capitalist ones. That doesn’t mean you ban them outright, but you bring them under control of the state and keep them from preaching anything out of line or using their cultural influence against the DOTP.

Truthfully, I feel like too many modern leftists are so (understandably) fed up with Reddit-style new atheists that they start seeing criticism of religion itself as an inherently bad thing, as if Marxism isn’t anti-religion.

I am in favor of a proper materialist approach to the issues with religion, and I’d be the first to voice my concerns about the reactionary vibe that atheism has taken on in recent times.

your argument is based in idealist moralism, not actual material analysis. your moral condemnations are admirable but entirely useless and a typical example of liberal westoid smugness and edgy circlejerling.

a marxist-leninist approach to revolution is rooted in material conditions and class struggle, not cultural crusades or idealist moralism. while religion has historically served ruling-class interests, it also emerges from the real suffering and alienation of the working class. hostile, edgy anti-theism (“reddit atheism”) that treats religion as mere ignorance or superstition misunderstands this reality and ultimately undermines revolutionary efforts by alienating the masses.

marx’s critique of religion is often misused by superficial atheists. when he called religion “the opium of the people,” he was not simply condemning faith, but identifying it as a response to suffering in a world devoid of meaning and justice. religion, in this sense, is both a symptom of oppression and a coping mechanism for those experiencing it.

from a materialist standpoint, religion persists because it fulfills real social and emotional needs under capitalism. the task of revolutionaries is not to mock or suppress these beliefs, but to transform the conditions that give rise to them.

and if you would try to even once get out of your yankoid ignorance and actually look at the historical precedence of socialist projects, you would learn a lot:

In its early years, the ussr launched aggressive anti-religious campaigns, shuttering churches (and destroying century-old architectural monuments in the process), ridiculing faith, and persecuting religious leaders. these efforts, spearheaded by organizations like the League of the Militant Godless, were driven by ideological zeal rather than mass-line engagement. they confused state atheism with revolutionary strategy and alienated millions of religious workers and peasants whose faith was deeply embedded in their communities and daily lives.

rather than focusing drawing believers into the socialist project through improvements in their material conditions and political education, the early state attempted to impose atheism from above. this approach was idealist, disconnected from the real consciousness of the masses, and politically self-defeating.

they thus unwillingly played into the hands of the reaction, since religious believers, especially in rural areas, came to view the new socialist state as an enemy of tradition, community, and morality. reactionary forces capitalized on this resentment, painting themselves as defenders of the common people.

recognizing this, comrade Stalin eased anti-religious policies during the great patriotic war, in order to build unity, effectively admitting that earlier methods had been divisive and counter-productive.

leftists should understand that atheism, like any belief system, must be approached strategically. the goal is not to impose a worldview, but to unite the working class in the struggle against capitalism. religious people are not the enemy, capitalism is. mockery and cultural arrogance only serve to fracture potential alliances.

instead, we must engage religious workers respectfully, meet their material needs, and build class consciousness through shared struggle. religion will fade not through coercion, but as alienation and exploitation are overcome.

Yup, Christianity is at its core bigoted and anti-marxist.

We need to be able to deal with religious people regardless, meet them where they’re at and push left, but it’s still a shame when communists defend religion as if it were some neutral trait.

you guys just dont get it, this is my comfort belief system - I’m sure we can cut out the bad parts of it, you see I’m a good Christian, you can trust me

it’s a very well known and widely held opinion on hexbear that you can simply reform problems out of archaic and failing systems, just don’t look at the bad actors those guys don’t count

also neither do the millions of people using my religion as a shield for their bigotry, they don’t count either - unless we’re arguing for why we need to be soft on religion, in which case they totally count and you are being very naive to exclude them

also if you bring them up as a reason why these things shouldn’t be finding such support on a website that bills itself as welcoming to the oppressed you are personally attacking me and the immaterial beliefs that I need to help me cope with the material reality we live in, which I find to be very marxist of me