I went to Vietnam a couple times. If you hang out downtown in the city, you might get a random Jehovah's Witness or Seventh Day Adventist* try to chat you up. "Oh, we can't do missionary work out in the open, so we just do one-on-one conversations like this". Despite the lack of "Jesus saves, die sinner" signs in Hanoi, you can definitely find Catholic and Protestant churches in Vietnam.

The Western press likes to piss and moan about settler nation missionaries that go, without proper visas mind you, to spread their Western versions of Christianity to the DPRK, only to get deported. So am I allowed to enter a white people country without a visa to stir up trouble and expect no consequences???

I'm the furthest thing from an expert on Myanmar. I get everything I know from Burmese friends. But if you look into the minority people situation, many of them are being heavily proselytised by the worst of the Amerikan type. I don't want the Pat Robertson's the world anywhere near struggling people.

*I'm definitely not saying that JWs and SDAs are anywhere near the worst as Christian sects go.

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[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 92 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

That’s an incredibly cold take. Here’s a hot one: Liberation theology is not sufficient to justify Christianity’s continued existence.

Liberation theology is cleaning off the one good apple you found in the rotting pile of filth. It does not justify keeping the pile around, the pile should still be removed, the floor beneath it mopped, and any evidence of it destroyed outside of monuments to the janitors that removed the pile. And no you shouldn’t eat the apple from the garbage pile even if it looks okay.

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 69 points 2 months ago (1 children)

acab includes jehova

[–] ObamaSama@hexbear.net 29 points 2 months ago

GOOD post

[–] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 53 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

✔️ Anti-woman up-yours-woke-moralists
✔️ Anti-gay gayroller-2000
✔️ Pro-slavery jb-shining
✔️ Pro-genocide pit

If God existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

[–] BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you need moral discernment to figure out which parts of your religion's holy book are useful and which should be ignored, then the holy book isn't working as advertised.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean all the holy books are in Actually Existing Churches a tool to control the worshippers, so when the worshippers don't have the moral discernment outside of what the book (and better yet, priests) says, then it's working as intended.

[–] BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That's why liberation theology seems self-defeating to me. Cherry-picking out the parts where he says to sell all your stuff and give the proceeds to the poor is all well and good so long as no one follows it up with all the other passages that undermine or contradict those passages. Either the Bible is true and accurate (in which case the balance of history is decidedly not on the side of socialism) or it's inaccurate and you have to use some sort of moral reasoning external to the book, which throws into question the whole idea of submitting to an unreachable, uncommunicative, and unquestionable supernatural moral authority in the first place.

It seems more intellectually honest to just start from the position of atheism.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 2 months ago

Liberation theology is only good when compared to the infinite bog of the mainstream catholic church. Outside of that comparison, they are still at best going by social teachings of the church, which are class collaborative and antimarxist.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I agree there are people here who get their rocks off to muh liberation theology (including crassly projecting it on all sorts of inappropriate figures, including non-Christians!), but it seems like it could be a good tool for steering extremely religious communities toward pro-sociality on a temporary basis.

[–] TechnoUnionTypeBeat@hexbear.net 31 points 2 months ago (11 children)

That's my view on it. Religion in general is a very important factor in the lives of a lot of people throughout the globe, and for the most part most religions have some aspects that could map to socialism

Trying to insist on hard and fast atheism with people like that will cause pushback, where liberation theology could be used to get them on board with socialism and move later to an atheistic form

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[–] CarmineCatboy2@hexbear.net 64 points 2 months ago (4 children)

If you want an example of what happens when unfettered far right megachurch discourse is left to run amuck, just look at Latin America and where it will be in a few decades.

[–] LeZero@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago

Or Uganda

[–] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 46 points 2 months ago

Or just look at what happened in Uganda.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 43 points 2 months ago

Thinking about how we haven't hit rock bottom in that sense is so fucking dreadful

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 30 points 2 months ago

doomer

[–] Thallo@hexbear.net 60 points 2 months ago (4 children)

That's a pretty cold take, let me heat it up for you:

AES states should just outright ban Western religions. A Western country has a revolution? Yup, they ban their own religion.

[–] polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml 70 points 2 months ago (8 children)

I'm aggressively anti-Catholic and anti-Christian and I 100% agree with this statement.

Death to Christianity. The church is the biggest mafia of Poland, and this suck religion has caused untold amounts of harm.

inb4 "you are a reactionary bad take haver, religion can sometimes be good actually"

I don't even fucking care no more, not after what the fuckers have done since 1989.

Alternatives to the bullshit shall be setup, every church (10357 of them) shall either be demolished or turned into museums.

Christians will be persecuted as bad as they think they were during PRL, Popiełuszko's death will look like a fucking tea party.

Infinite genocide on the first world and every kkkrackkker defending it's bullshit.

Rant overino :3333

[–] nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net 37 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Churches make great libraries with a little bit of remodeling

[–] polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 2 months ago

Hmmmm. Might save on construction costs too.

[–] RomCom1989@hexbear.net 27 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I think churches should remain as sites of cultural significance,the old ones at least

Bad institution or not,they are still part of the cultural heritage and had a lot of work and skill put into them

The institution of the church can go the way of the dodo however

Nevermind,re read the comment

[–] polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml 24 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A cathedral with ornaments up the wazoo? Saved.

The local village parish? 🧨🧨🧨🧨💥💥💥💥💥🚫⛪🚫

[–] RomCom1989@hexbear.net 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fair enough

For me it's a bit different, being in an Orthodox country,the small churches are really old and culturally significant, and the bigass cathedral in the capital city built in the last decade is the place that the next Ceausescu should build a House of the People on

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[–] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The Revolution will bring down the Jan Paweł II statues

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[–] MayoPete@hexbear.net 18 points 2 months ago

lenin-heart

[–] Thallo@hexbear.net 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Lumalo goin in hard

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[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 43 points 2 months ago

Genuinely I believe Christianity is a scourge that must be eradicated. Many of its core beliefs (especially Catholicism and evangelical branches) are fundamentally at odds with building a good, healthy society that tries to improve life for all.

“Suffering is good for the soul” is too deeply ingrained, and it’s a belief that prevents doing literally anything good.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 27 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Credit where it is due, you did as advertised. That said, I think it is basically idealist to just ban western religions like they represent a significantly greater problem to the task of building communism than Eastern religions. There are some specific religions that need to be struggled against (the first step is probably not banning them), most notably Catholicism for its centralized organization around the reactionary institution of the Vatican, but it's pure orientalism to think that whatever blase protestantism is really more of a threat to Vietnamese communism than Buddhism is.

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[–] Aru@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Christianity isn't a western religion, its western sects yes,but its origins are from the middle east

[–] Thallo@hexbear.net 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Have you read the bible? It's written in English. Jesus spoke English when he wrote it

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[–] Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida@hexbear.net 60 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

AES states have good reason to be wary of Western missionaries, since the missionary often accompanied the merchant as the tip of the capitalist spear that was trying to penetrate new markets. They were often then followed by the marine and the artilleryman. After which, the economist would survey the worth of the rubble that came in their wake.

[–] EstraDoll@hexbear.net 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is this a quote or did you write this? 🔥✍️🔥

[–] Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida@hexbear.net 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I came up with it on the fly.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 54 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That's not a hot take. Any religion or pseudo religion that came out of the US (reinventions of Calvinism over and over) is milimetrically designed to rot the soul and the societies it infects

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 39 points 2 months ago

Long before the American empire, proselytizers had been the shock troops of colonization. Hence that quote about how when the Europeans showed up, they had the Bibles and the Africans had the minerals. Now the Europeans have the minerals and the Africans have the Bibles.

[–] Shinji_Ikari@hexbear.net 51 points 2 months ago (6 children)

If I go to Vietnam and get one of these guys bothering me, can I call the cops and have them taken away?

Like theoretically

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You'd probably run the risk of inciting an international incident if they're foreign.

[–] TankieTanuki@hexbear.net 44 points 2 months ago

That's my favorite kind of incident!

[–] Kuori@hexbear.net 22 points 2 months ago

lmao i'm glad i'm not the only one who thought that would be the funniest response

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[–] pumpchilienthusiast@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago

this is the coldest of all possible takes

[–] kittin@hexbear.net 42 points 2 months ago

A take so cold it ended brat summer

[–] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 32 points 2 months ago

I agree, Christians in the global south countries can become complete nutjobs because of foreigners.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Sentinelese have the correct response to missionaries. First shoot their bibles as a warning then shoot them if they don't leave.

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[–] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 30 points 2 months ago

How is this a hot take at all? Evangelicalism shouldn't be allowed anywhere.

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 27 points 2 months ago

Fuck Evangelicals. Nobody should deal with their pestering or bothering.

[–] PurrLure@hexbear.net 24 points 2 months ago

Thanks for cooling things down with that mild take, I've been excited about fall coming for weeks now.

[–] Barx@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago

The primary issue where religiom becomes an issue is when it acts as an agent of state interests against the interests of revolution. It was part of the old guard against liberalism and in favor of colonialism and feudalism and has a many-faced character nowadays, Being leverageable both for recolutiin and against revlolution.

Abstractly, it is not an issue re: revolution. It only becomes relevant in terms of real world on-the-ground impacts that are best resolved by local revolutionaries that ask the right questions and do the right work.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Freedom of religion is a an important right to enshrine but it absolutely infuriates me that these predatory fucked up cults use that as a shield to continue to prey on people

If I were in charge I'd bulldoze every JW witness hall

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[–] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 17 points 2 months ago

Remember how John Allen Chau got owned? lol

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 months ago

First they come to pacify you with the bible, then they come to pacify you with the gun.

The global south suffered for hundreds of years under regimes of christian colonialism, they know better than to trust it.

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