Religion
Related: About this forumReligion is alive and kicking in officially atheist China
The communists who took the reins in China in 1949 viewed religion as backward and superstitious. Authorities did their best to wipe out religious life. And by the end of the 1970s, they'd been very successful.
Women pray in front of paramilitary policemen at Yonghegong Lama Temple on the first day of the Lunar New Year of the Rooster in Beijing, China. Credit: Damir Sagolj
PRI's The World
May 02, 2017 · 5:30 PM EDT
By The World staff
"There were basically no functioning places of worship in the entire country. This is a place that had over 1 million temples and scores of churches and thousands of mosques," says Ian Johnson, the author of the new book "The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao." "They were all closed down or destroyed."
But these days, Johnson says, religion has not only survived in modern China, it's thriving.
"[Karl] Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses, and sometimes I think that the [Chinese] government is a little cynical and thinks, 'Yeah maybe it is the opiate of the masses, but for us, now, we'll use it as the opiate to keep the people in line.'"
President Xi Jinping has called on China's citizens to continue to be "unyielding Marxist atheists." He insists that the country's 85 million Communist Party members remain atheists. But increasingly, he's loosening the restrictions on religious organizations. These days, Chinese authorities even subsidize some religious practice under the guise of backing what the government calls "traditional culture."
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-02/religion-alive-and-kicking-officially-atheist-china
5:57 audio interview at link.
Lunabell
(6,044 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Lunabell
(6,044 posts)Religion is the opiate of the masses.
rug
(82,333 posts)Religious belief, per se, is not.
Marx is the preeminent poltical philosopher. As a metaphysician he sucks.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)It justifies massive crimes against humanity as it divides people into us and them.
Capitalism, with its false promise of wealth for anyone who works, is another much loved opiate of the masses.
but when they are doing it in a counter-cultural way, religion is subversive.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)historically speaking, crushing ideas like religion through force, never works.
It might limit the scope a bit, but it also radicalizes it as it goes underground.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Assuming that religion will magically die out is ahistorical and, to my view, delusional.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)To the same degree the Norse gods have anyway. (Yes, still used to some degree in a couple ways around the world.)
I'd be careful with that word 'delusional' though, being a believer, if I were you.
France, at 40% atheistic/secular, is a real/historical thing.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Also a real historical thing.
If the officially atheistic countries, countries that were founded as nominally atheist like China and Russia are any guide, what are we to conclude?
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Conclusions off your example? Trust no leaders that ban, or enforce religion or lack thereof as a means of consolidating or protecting political power.
Ideally a government is just a sandbox within which everyone can play, and the sandbox is not aware of the religious wherewithal of the occupants, and the sandbox maintenance crew does not pay attention to such things anyway. After all, banning a religion is just as counterproductive as mandating one.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Given that there are no dysfunctional behaviors that are specific to believers or non-believers, there is only one reasonable conclusion.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)maybe we should revisit this after the election.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141767561