Is Christianity compatable with Communism

[Dante the Marxist]

That statement has already been proven by the fact that Communism has already been tried and failed. In another 200 years, the statement can still be made that Marxism has failed whenever it was tried, whether or not anyone tries it again.

Name one time when communism was tried. That does not just mean that the revolutionaries called themselves communists, but that there were actual characteristics of communism.

 

[GenSeneca]

Name one time when communism was tried. That does not just mean that the revolutionaries called themselves communists, but that there were actual characteristics of communism.

Jonestown, it was quite the socialist utopia.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

Jonestown, it was quite the socialist utopia.

Are you joking? That place was a isolated theocracy. Being a commune does not automatically make something communist. That anyone could find match between Marx's writings and Jonestown is laughable. I thought Objectivists were supposed to be the smart capitalists.

 

[foggedinn]

“Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas.”
John 18:40 (KJV)

When Christ drove the moneychangers from the temple, that sealed his fate. The Pharisees could put up with a radical teacher who preached selling all one has and giving to the poor; but now he was interfering with business. They had to get rid of him. It would be no different now, for nothing has changed. If Christ returned to earth today, he would be assassinated by Pat Robertson.

Driving out the moneychangers would most likely have caused him to be imprisoned and/or beaten, not crucified.

It was his claim as the annointed son of David (the Christ) that caused Herod to make sure he was killed. As a son of Esau rather than Jacob, Herod was well aware that he could not be accepted as legitimate king over Israel by the Jews. He viewed Jesus as a rival claimant to the throne.

I also dispute the claim that Pat Roberson would have Christ assasinated. I do believe he would see Christ as a false claimant and would do everything in his power to marginalize him in the Church.

 

[GenSeneca]

That anyone could find match between Marx's writings and Jonestown is laughable.

Laugh yourself silly:

The Peoples Temple

In 1959, in a sermon in his Delaware Street Temple, Jones tested the new fiery rhetorical style that Divine had used. His speech captivated members with lulls and crescendos, as Jones challenged individual members in front of the group. The speech also marked the beginning of the Temple's underlying "us versus them" message. Jones carefully wove in that the Temple's home for senior citizens was established on the basis "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," quoting Karl Marx's "Critique of the Gotha Program." He did so knowing that his Christian audience would recognize the similarities with text from the Acts of the Apostles (4:34-35) which stated "distribution was made to each as any had need." Jones would repeatedly cite that passage to paint Jesus Christ as a communist, while at the same time attacking much of the text of the Bible.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

Laugh yourself silly:

That he used a qoute from Marx and called a famous figure a communist does not make him a communist in any way

 

[GenSeneca]

That he used a qoute from Marx and called a famous figure a communist does not make him a communist in any way

Please tell us, what exactly do you see as qualifying someone as a communist?

 

[foggedinn]

When I first came across the communist manifesto several decades back, I knew I had seen similar ideas expressed somewhere else. Then it came to me. That dirty rotten commie had plagerized the apostle Paul from the second chapter of the Book of the Acts.

Even so, as an athiestic philosophy, the two are not compatible.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

Please tell us, what exactly do you see as qualifying someone as a communist?

A belief in a direct democracy, were every single decision is decided by vote. There would be no representitives, just mass votes on every decision. All property would be owned by the people as a whole. Things like religioun and prejudice would slowly flicker out, because the oppression and dire material conditions that led to thier creation would no longer exist. Things like borders and wars would no longer have any place, because the world would be unified.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

When I first came across the communist manifesto several decades back, I knew I had seen similar ideas expressed somewhere else. Then it came to me. That dirty rotten commie had plagerized the apostle Paul from the second chapter of the Book of the Acts.

Even so, as an athiestic philosophy, the two are not compatible.

He did not literaly plagerise Paul. All ideas sprout from something, and Paul saw a problem in the world, were he got his ideas. Marx saw them and added them to his writings, along with what he learned from many other philosophers, and the problems he saw with the world.

 

[PLC1]

A belief in a direct democracy, were every single decision is decided by vote. There would be no representitives, just mass votes on every decision. All property would be owned by the people as a whole. Things like religioun and prejudice would slowly flicker out, because the oppression and dire material conditions that led to thier creation would no longer exist. Things like borders and wars would no longer have any place, because the world would be unified.

Holding such a belief is harmless enough, so long as no one actually tries to act on it. It's a lot like believing in aliens at Roswell, or in the ghost of Elvis. It can be entertaining.

Can you imagine having a vote on every issue decided by 200 million voters? How could that ever work? No decisions would get made ever.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Can you imagine having a vote on every issue decided by 200 million voters? How could that ever work? No decisions would get made ever.

When I see some of the decisions being made today I think that it might be better that way.

 

[PLC1]

When I see some of the decisions being made today I think that it might be better that way.

You do have a point there. Maybe we just need to have a moratorium on making new laws for a while, and let us catch up on the ones already passed.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

Can you imagine having a vote on every issue decided by 200 million voters? How could that ever work? No decisions would get made ever.

That could work if all decisions were made locally. In Central Africa there would be different priorities than in North America for obvious reasons. That is why direct democracy could work on local levels. When I said North America, I was generalizing. Mexico would have different priorities than the Arctic, which has different priorities than the east coast [US coast and Canadian coast], which would focus on different things than the Plains.

 

[PLC1]

That could work if all decisions were made locally. In Central Africa there would be different priorities than in North America for obvious reasons. That is why direct democracy could work on local levels. When I said North America, I was generalizing. Mexico would have different priorities than the Arctic, which has different priorities than the east coast [US coast and Canadian coast], which would focus on different things than the Plains.

Direct democracy could work on a village level, of a town hall level, but not on a national level.

The system of representative democracy is the best form of government so far devised, or maybe I should say the least bad.