jorge

Hi. I have further edited the "Edit" section of my post. To avoid confusion, I avoided editing the original text of the post.

Hi. I thank you for your offer, but now I have actually manually mass subscribed to all interesting community on four of my desired instances. Lemmy.ml is too big so I stopped partway.

Will you be so kind as to delete your comment? I said nothing similar to what you think you refuted. Someone who skims through my comment and sees your reply would be misinformed. Misinformation is the tool of the Right.

I quote what I actually wrote:

Most of the working class is religious, and in the West that religion is Christianity

You do not refute the claim that most of the working class is religious by saying that China and India workers aren't Christians and that USSR Party members were atheists. Both of the latter facts are true, but do not refute what I actually said.

Commenting without reading the article is bad enough. But replying without reading what you are replying to?

I meant to contrast the rhetoric of two different camps (leftists vs New Atheists), to highlight counterproductive rhetoric. I mentioned chearleading for war crimes to emphasize that New Atheists are right wing fanatics who lash out at religion possibly as a cover, so they do not appear to be right wing fanatics in their liberal social circle. And that when we do anything remotely similar to New Atheism, we should at least suspect it is wrong. You read it as conflating the gravity of lashing out at religion (part of what New Atheists do) and the gravity of cheerleading for massive war crimes, which is another part of New Atheism. I repeatedly clarified this.

I did not mean that attacking the Catholic Church is equal to attacking the entire Christian Faith. I meant that those who attack the whole Catholic Church (instead of just Catholic theocrats) have the same attitude of those who say "evangelicals are fanatical hypocrites" instead of attacking only evangelical theocrats. Anticatholicism is not equal, but often analogous, to general antichristianity.

And many Catholics say the Church is not supposed to make a "culture war". The Church should do spiritual work, moral education, charity, and aid social movements such as landless workers. All that is compatible with secular values. The problem is when the Church indoctrinate the Faithful into enforcing anti-trans (or homophobic) politics, claiming that unisex bathrooms are a catastrophic threat to "Christian civilization".

The thing is: arguing against theocracy has some chance of convincing moderate Catholics to disavow theocracy. But attacking the entire Catholic Church is much more likely to cause them to hate the left and associate Marxism with New Atheism hate.

Please. Terrarium was speaking of foreign cultures, like some Muslim cultures, where some men do indeed marry teenage girls. One thing is taking exception to that practice, another is taking a jab at Muhammad (which was his analogy). The latter alienates not only the husbands of teenagers, but alienates that entire culture, and even Muslims from cultures that don't have this practice.

Hi. I believe you misrepresented the comrade said. Please see my other reply:

https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7632787/6256137

Even people who make terrible errors or crimes should only be accused of what they actually did. We should know this better than anyone. Stalin purges, in a terribly difficult context where the whole world attacked the USSR, including real saboteurs and traitors, did kill some 800 thousand (according to Ben Norton in The Grayzone), which is indeed horrible, yet we take great exception with right-wing fanatics who say that Stalin was equivalent to Hitler and killed 12 million "victims of communism" because (they say) he was a power-hungry totalitarian paranoid maniac. Then the right wing fanatics reply that we are splitting hairs, covering up for Georgian Hitler, and that the "details" don't matter.

The widespread sex crimes were horrible, and I think a major reason it took decades to solve was that, instead of debating actual solutions, each side just weaponized it for its pet cause. Traditionalists blamed the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Conservatives blamed tolerance of homosexuality and lack of discipline. Progressives blamed celibacy, male-only priesthood, and opposition to abortion. With all these people foaming at the mouth while yelling at the others, the problem could not be solved.

It that context, I strongly suspect the claim "Francis didn’t do anything to end the church’s official doctrine of covering up sex crimes on behalf of its members" is propaganda. What I know is that there was a decades-old rule that the Church would not share evidence with the State, arguing that was necessary to protect the privacy of the victim and the accused, so the victim had to give a second testimony before the State. But Francis abolished that rule, did he not? And don't most people who are not conservatives (conservatives believe in Vigano's conspiracy theories) credit Pope Francis with alleviating the problem? Wikipedia, citing The Guardian and CNN, says "Pope Francis made sweeping changes that allow for greater transparency". Yes, Guardian and CNN are capitalist, but that only makes them suspect for certain subjects (such as actually existing socialist states). I have never seen anyone accuse The Guardian and CNN of pro-Catholic bias.

So you can plausibly argue that Pope Francis was too slow, but please check your sources and do not grossly inflate his actual errors.

Religion is "compatible" with Marxism in the sense that a Marxist state need have no problem with citizens who practice their religions in peace without theocracy, like (I believe) happens in Cuba. Any religion, when mixed with politics or money, results in disaster. The Catholic Church has a problematic history precisely because it mixed with the State since Roman times. A communist society would provide a more healthy environment for legitimate, non theocratic religion to develop. Religion would not mess with the State, which is great. And maybe less people would have Faith, but those who do would be more reasonable and authentic. In fact, a Liberation Theology priest once told me that real Christianity is never the majority. In societies such as Medieval Europe (and even the USA and Brazil today) that discriminate against non-Christians, people have an incentive to be fake Christians. But we don't have to litigate that here, I just wanted to clarify what I meant.

Regarding Hexbear sometimes talking about religion: religion still affects politics, so it cannot be ignored.

While I appreciate your critique, I have to object to one thing: the Catholic Church is not Christianity as a whole. It is a political organization that represents the religion, but it is not omnipotent of the religion.

Hi. I did not mean that all "true" Christians are Catholics or whatever someone might have interpreted. I do think that attacking the entire Catholic Church instead of attacking just Catholic theocrats is analogous to attacking Christianity instead of just Christian theocrats.

And as political organization, it has done a LOT of bad shit in its very, very long history.

But I still believe it can continue to exist as the Catholic Church but be prevented from messing with secular politics. I am not sure that was your point, but you seem to think that the Catholic Church is inherently a "political" (secular politics) arm of Christianity. That is not my view. Let's not litigate this specific claim (not the focus of this forum), I just want to clarify that is not my view.

I never asked for sympathy for New Atheist attacks on me. I asked people to reply to what I actually said.