--- Jerry Fernandes writes: > > As far as I know, communism is not a religion but a > form of Government. If a communist can be democrat > than he can also be a communist isnt it? > Mario observes: > Jerry, I think you meant "If a Christian can be a democrat then he can also be a communist...." > No, a Christian can never be a real communist. However, a Christian can be a socialist, which is like a communist minus the hostility to religion. > You are correct that communism is not a religion but an evil political philosophy which believed that a small group of clever people knew what was good for every one else, better than they did. Thus the elite leadership group wanted to control everything and own everything. Because this goes against human nature, where people want to make their own decisions and own their own property and have freedom of speech and action and assembly, all things the communists wanted to control, the communists countries were all totalitarian didtatorships which used force to impose their philosophy on their citizens. > The only true real communist countries left today include N. Korea and Cuba. Most others are a mixed bag. > In many countries today communists belong to political parties usually in the minority, so they don't run the whole country like in the old days. > Russia and China, for example, have given up on most of Marx's economic ideas. Russia today allows religions to practice openly and allows other political parties to function, whereas China still oppresses all religion to a large extent. > If you take the time to read the URL's listed below you will learn that all true communists were atheists because Karl Marx thought religion was not compatible with his philosophy. > Jerry writes: > > See we have former Russia as communist country but > they are orthodox Christians. If China has banned > Christianity, does it mean, there are no Christians > in China? I believe they have underground churches > for their worship, and gradually its opening for > that too, with many embracing Islam too. > Mario writes: > You are confusing Russia with the old communist Soviet Union which had other countries included and persecuted religious people, driving them all underground. Today, you can be a Russian and openly be an Orthodox Christian or anything else. The real communists are still atheists, but they have modified their repressive tactics somewhat after losing the Cold War. > China is different from Russia today. Chinese Christians and anyone who is religious are being persecuted by the communists. Why do you think they are underground? > Jerry writes: > > According to Karl Marx the favourite quoted > communist of Vidyadhar Gadgiland Friedrich Engels, > The theory of communism may be summed up in one > sentence : Abolish all private property. According > to another deffination, The theory which teaches > that the labor and the income of society should be > distributed equally among all its members by some > constituted authority. > Mario responds: > Jerry, I think you have understood the economic philosophy of the communists quite well. What you are missing is their ideas on religions and the repression that they needed to use to impose their will on their citizens. > Here are 2 URL's that I suggest you read. > http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/11.htm > Chapter 11: Communism and Religion § 89. Why religion and communism are incompatible > Here is the opening paragraph: > "'Religion is the opium of the people,' said Karl Marx. It is the task of the Communist Party to make this truth comprehensible to the widest possible circles of the labouring masses. It is the task of the party to impress firmly upon the minds of the workers, even upon the most backward, that religion has been in the past and still is today one of the most powerful means at the disposal of the oppressors for the maintenance of inequality, exploitation, and slavish obedience on the part of the toilers." [end] > The other URL is: > http://www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/733_51.html > It describes a book called "The Gulag Archipelago" which is a first person account by a guy named Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, who won a Nobel Prize for this expose of REAL communism. > If you read the whole book you will pretty much be up to speed on the horrors of real communism as it was practiced in the old Soviet Union. >
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