Christianity: Free Market or Communist?

[Psychedelic Gleam]

It seems to me that christianity would promote a sort of communist society, so why do we live in such a capitalist, free market society? Is christianity more free market or communist?

 

[thursday]

well, was jesus preaching selfishness or altruism?

a lot of people make the inference that since protestant work ethics values self-reliance and perseverance that people should only be responsible for themselves and compete with each other. but this is basically taking a personal virtue--expectations/standards which you should apply to yourself, not others--and twisting it to relieve oneself of their civic duty to help the needy and the less fortunate. this is akin to taking the idea of humility, which is a virtue when applied to yourself, and twisting it to justify devaluing or belittling others.

i'd agree that one should always try to be self-reliant and perseverance is definitely a good work ethic. but this doesn't mean that you have no civic responsibility to help others. we don't have true equality of opportunity in our society. and as such, those who are born with privilege(intelligence, wealth, good health, good opportunities) have a duty to help those who are underprivileged.

anyone who's familiar with the teachings of jesus should know that christianity preaches altruism and compassion. i'm sure jesus knew that by cooperating with each other we'd all get further in life than if we'd just competed against each other chasing our own selfish interests. but unfortunately, a lot of people in this world aren't too bright and totally miss the message behind the teachings.

 

[protovack]

That is a pretty vague question, considering that there are many different sects of christianity. Protestantism is very different than the christianity of the feudal era...

I think that as capitalism has progressed in certain areas, religious people in those areas have adapted their beliefs to include capitalism. In some cases, and as some would argue, religious teaching may have helped propel capitalism out of its infancy.

 

[throwitallaway]

Jesus did teach that everyone was equal and yes i suppose that is the basis of a communist society but Jesus was different than that, he offers eternal life to all who believe in him, it is the way that you treat others that matters to Jesus.

Protestanism though is very different in comparison to Catholicism, the protestant work ethos is something that a protestant will believe to be of vital importance, as John Calvin taught that the ability to live a good hardworking life was a sign of being a member of the elect, a group of people God had chosen to save at the beginning of time, the doctrine of double predestination which is central to Calvinism.

It was here in Geneva in the 16th century that Calvin attached roots to capatilism and business dealings. He was a very organised thinker.

 

[Christian Soldier]

The Bible talks a lot about a good work ethic.

 

[yougene]

All groups are collectivists.

 

[guineaPig]

alot of christian denominations seem to believe that if you dont believe in christ, you are going to hell....i think southpark tackled that topic at some point...

 

[Psychedelic Gleam]

Well christianity as it comes from the teachings of Jesus, What would Jesus support...

 

[zorn]

It seems to me that christianity would promote a sort of communist society, so why do we live in such a capitalist, free market society? Is christianity more free market or communist?

Sure -- for example, just look in the Bible. The book of Acts contains one of the earliest descriptions of a communist society that I know of.

Acts 4:32

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

‘Ananias,’ Peter asked, ‘why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!’ Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it.

---

As to why we live in such a "capitalist," market-based society? Well, even though 80% or so of Americans are Christians, the historical tenets of Christianity have surprisingly little effect on what they actually do & believe.

When they are in a like-minded group, people are *very* good at convincing themselves of something they want to believe. People always have an amazing ability to ignore inconvenient or troubling facts. And most people are deeply troubled, frightened even, by challenges to the legitimacy of the social system.

So usually people tend to just ignore anything in their religion (or elsewhere) that calls into question the capitalist/market-based nature of our society.... And when it is called into question, they're likely to flock to any sort of reasoning which them to "wriggle out" of such unpleasant questioning.

 

[U.R.B.4.U.R.]

It seems to me that christianity would promote a sort of communist society, so why do we live in such a capitalist, free market society? Is christianity more free market or communist?

Christianity is whatever people want to use it for. Not even 1% of so called Christians follow what that Jesus guy said. I am sooooooo amazed that sooooo much time on all these psychedelic forums is spent on something like Christianity. I'm fucking blown away.

 

[Acidfiend]

Re: Re: Christianity: Free Market or Communist?

I am sooooooo amazed that sooooo much time on all these psychedelic forums is spent on something like Christianity. I'm fucking blown away.

Hey man they're taking over both the forum as well as our country (USA, maybe even Aus.), so we might as well discuss it.

As far as this thread goes, Jesus was an obvious commie. All of his teachings revolve around charity and goodwill to the less fortunate, and the one time he got pissed was when he saw money-changers and hucksters selling goods at the temple. I don't recall Jesus ever mentioning that rich people are ultra-blessed because they have such a strong work ethic. In fact, I do recall him mentioning that it is wealthy people who are going to have the hardest time getting into the kingdom of heaven. And as for taxes, what was that about "give unto ceasar what is ceasar's..."?

Most christians in this country are a joke and it is quite unfortunate that they managed to cheat their way into the political arena these last couple of decades. Now the rest of us are going to be stuck fighting the same fucking war we fought to found this country, and get these goddamn nuts out of our government and schools and institutions before we become a fascist theocracy and the department of homeland security labels us as terrorists.

 

[U.R.B.4.U.R.]

Hey I got a great idea, lets talk about Thought and Awareness.

 

[Christian Soldier]

Re: Re: Christianity: Free Market or Communist?

Christianity is whatever people want to use it for. Not even 1% of so called Christians follow what that Jesus guy said. I am sooooooo amazed that sooooo much time on all these psychedelic forums is spent on something like Christianity. I'm fucking blown away.

Hey could you link the threads from the psychedelic forum about Christianity? Should be an interesting read

 

[PhorIndicator]

Interesting that you noticed that too... I have thought about the same thing, and came up with an answer.

Biblical doctrine teaches that once you confess with your mouth and belive with your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and died on the cross for your sins that you might have eternal life, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you. From that point onward, the rest of your life will be a santification process. This means that The Spirit of Jesus Christ within you (the Holy Spirit) will begin to "work " on you, trying to make you perfect like Christ himself. The reality is, you'll never be totally perfect until you finally die and are raised up with Christ above the angels at the right hand of God. However, sanctification is a continual process that once begun, never stops, and only goes in one direction... -------> more Christ-like (perfect).

Now, the reason this ties into your question is thus: Once a person becomes a Christian, their ultimate command, in essence, is to be more Christ-like. The majority of the New Testament is basically an explanation by Paul of what "being Christ-like" entails. (Yes, I know Paul was writing letters back and forth from the churches, I'm talking about the content of his letters.)

If all humans were perfectly Christ-like, then yes, society would be a sort of communistic state, because: what communism hinges on (and what also happens to be its bane) is the perfect nature of people. If people were perfect, then communism would, hypothetically, work. However, the reality is that people are NOT perfect. that is why communism failed and will always fail. Human nature is imperfect.

Since Christians are exhorted to be more "Christ-like", they are exhorted to be more perfect.....(but not just "more" perfect.... completely perfect). That's one interesting thing about the Bible... although it acknowledges true perfection on earth is impossible due to mankind's sinful nature, and that Jesus was, is, and will be the only perfect man ever to walk the earth, it still tells us to act and strive to be truly perfect. However, the power of the Holy Spirit living within us is what makes this command seem like a more slightly attainable goal than it would be otherwise.

Anyways

Back to your question... I hope my answer is now pretty self-evident. Christian's are striving for perfection, for Christ-likeness, so the principles which they live by demand perfection. Naturally, from a non-Christian perspective, these principles seem to adovcate what would seem to be a communistic state. But like I said earlier, perfection will never exist again on this earth, so human nature will keep communism from ever being a plausible reality.

 

[thursday]

^uhh.... except that many communes do exist that are centered around the ideals of communism. believe it or not, there are people out there who believe in cooperation, altruism, and putting the collective needs and interests of the group ahead of self-interest. if ants and bees can do it, why can't humans? materialism and the mainstream consumerist culture we live in are the real impediments to the wide-spread adoption of communism, but it's not as if being selfish is in our genes. we're socialized to write-off communism and socialism as unviable but there are plenty of communities out there that make it work.

 

[ebola?]

>>If all humans were perfectly Christ-like, then yes, society would be a sort of communistic state, because: what communism hinges on (and what also happens to be its bane) is the perfect nature of people. If people were perfect, then communism would, hypothetically, work. However, the reality is that people are NOT perfect. that is why communism failed and will always fail. Human nature is imperfect.>>

I disagree whole-heartedly, but it has fuck-all to do with Xianity. I'll leave it for another thread.

>>I am sooooooo amazed that sooooo much time on all these psychedelic forums is spent on something like Christianity. I'm fucking blown away.>>

I'd help if I were more close-happy on the threads.

...
I think we can really pick out both undercurrents in Xian theology. I'd also suggest (quite obviously) that people read some Weber on this issue.

ebola

 

[protovack]

But like I said earlier, perfection will never exist again on this earth, so human nature will keep communism from ever being a plausible reality.

Painting communism as perfectionist isn't going to get us anywhere. You could easily claim that the economic "free hand" is a perfectionist ideal, which of course is true, but not relavent.

I think organized religion was the primary vehicle through which people were introduced to impersonal authority. But also, it establishes a "highest" authority, so that you believe (falsely), that your oppressors will "get their punishment" and so you justify your own suffering by their supposed future pain (in hell).

This seems applicable, to something like a highly impersonal insitution like a corporation. Since you are already used to fearing god, your boss doesn't seem that bad (even though he is the one in the position to harm you).

I don't think any one religion is "capitalist" or communist (in the political sense). Secular capitalism is highly viable.

What I'm not sure of, is what proportion of the currently capitalist nations began industrializing during times of high religious faith.

 

[gloggawogga]

Both communism and capitalism are materialistic. Jesus was not a materialist. In his world, our needs would be so little that there simply wouldn't be any questions about distributing wealth.

 

[U.R.B.4.U.R.]

Re: Re: Re: Christianity: Free Market or Communist?

Hey could you link the threads from the psychedelic forum about Christianity? Should be an interesting read

It's all right here pal. But if you don't have a life and you want to read more of something mindless, go to the Shroomery and check out Philosophy and Spirituality. That will keep you happy.8(

 

[fungus44]

I think the original Chritianity (Damn those fucking Pharisees!) and many of its later incarnations are antithetical to the ideology of the free market. The late Eric Hobsbawn made some pointed remarks about Pope John Paul II being the most prominent critic of the free market in the late 90s. It should be remembered that John Paul II was also virulently anti-Communist.

There are many very interesting strains of radical Christianity -- Quakers and Methodists in England and North America, liberation theology in Latin America, the Catholic Worker movement. William Blake wrote as a dear friend of the American and French revolutions and very much believed in building a New Jerusalem. For anyone interested in dialectical thought, Ecclisiastes is a wonderful primer. The role of the Baptist church in the US civil rights movement should be very clearly recognized.

Marx characterized Religion as the opiate of the people, BUT (and this is the part too often forgotten) also the heart of a heartless world. I am a relatively hardcore Marxist, but do work with many Christians of various stripes who have commitments to social justice, fighting poverty and homelessness, including the excluded, and other human rights issues.

From an intersting article by Michael Lowy in the latest New Socialist magazine:

ENGELS DISPLAYED A MUCH GREATER interest than Marx for religious phenomena and their historic role. Engels’s main contribution to the Marxist study of religions is his analysis of the relationship of religious representations to class struggle. Over and beyond the philosophical polemic of “materialism against idealism,” he was interested in understanding and explaining concrete social and historical forms of religion. Christianity no longer appeared (like in Feuerbach) as a timeless “essence,” but as a cultural system undergoing transformations in different historical periods: first as a religion of the slaves, later as the state ideology of the Roman Empire, then tailored to feudal hierarchy and finally adapted to bourgeois society. It thus appears as a symbolic space fought over by antagonistic social forces-for instance, in the sixteenth century, feudal theology, bourgeois Protestantism and plebeian heresies.
Occasionally his analysis slips towards a narrowly utilitarian, instrumental interpretation of religious movements: “each of the different classes uses its own appropriate religion… and it makes little difference whether these gentlemen believe in their respective religions or not.”
Engels seems to find nothing but the “religious disguise” of class interests in the different forms of belief. However, thanks to his class-struggle method, he realized-unlike the Enlightenment philosophers-that the clergy was not a socially homogeneous body: in certain historical conjunctures, it divided itself according to its class composition. Thus during the Reformation, we have on the one side the high clergy, the feudal summit of the hierarchy, and on the other, the lower clergy, which supplied the ideologues of the Reformation and of the revolutionary peasant movement.
While being a materialist, an atheist and an irreconcilable enemy of religion, Engels nevertheless grasped, like the young Marx, the dual character of the phenomenon: its role in legitimating established order, but also, according to social circumstances, its critical, protesting and even revolutionary role. Furthermore, most of the concrete studies he wrote concerned the rebellious forms of religion.

ERNST BLOCH IS THE FIRST MARXIST AUTHOR WHO RADICALLY changed the theoretical framework-without abandoning the Marxist and revolutionary perspective. In a similar way to Engels, he distinguished two socially opposed currents: on one side the theocratic religion of the official churches, the opium of the people, a mystifying apparatus at the service of the powerful; on the other the underground, subversive and heretical religion of the Albigensians, the Hussites, Joachim de Flore, Thomas Münzer, Franz von Baader, Wilhelm Weitling and Leo Tolstoy. However, unlike Engels, Bloch refused to see religion uniquely as a “cloak” of class interests: he explicitly criticized this conception. In its protest and rebellious forms religion is one of the most significant forms of utopian consciousness, one of the richest expressions of the Principle of Hope.
Basing himself on these philosophical presuppositions, Bloch develops a heterodox and iconoclastic interpretation of the Bible-both the Old and the New Testaments-drawing out the Biblia pauperum (bible of the poor) which denounces the Pharaohs and calls on each and everyone to choose either Caesar or Christ.
A religious atheist-according to him only an atheist can be a good Christian and vice-versa-and a theologian of the revolution, Bloch not only produced a Marxist reading of millenarianism (following Engels) but also-and this was new-a millenarian interpretation of Marxism, through which the socialist struggle for the Kingdom of Freedom is perceived as the direct heir of the eschatological and collectivist heresies of the past.