- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Secularism in America

Posted by: Nikhil Jaikumar ( DSA, MA, USA ) on October 07, 1999 at 15:10:50:

In Reply to: it was more or less a matter of time posted by lark on October 06, 1999 at 16:12:37:

: Yes the Liberation Theology is progressive when it is feilded in it's libertarian (yes, there where currents more akin to anarchist and democratic socialism than Marxism thanks to Tolstoy and Thomas Moore and Proudhon) format.

Actually Marxism had democratic interpretations, the business about Marx being an authoritarian is silly. My problem with Marxism is notthat its' authoritarian, but plain and ismply that it's atheistic.

: However the nobody wants to oppose God business is of key, I wouldnt want a tolerant religious authority and more than I would want an intolerant one,

That wasn't intended to convey atotalitarian religious state. I meant that if you subconsciously believe in your heart that God has certain preferences, you are unlikely to do something that directly contravenes those wishes. This is why most people don't murder babies, and if more people believed that profit-mongering was anti-God, fewer people would do that as well.

: all throught the bible there are references to regarding diversity and difference as no bad thing (something a lot of right wing "christians" must have missed)

Interesting. Could you send me a list of thsoe verses? It would be useful when arguing with the secular humanist, 'religion is bunk' crowd.

: and the "dont judge" message is hammered in to be truly Christian - socialist you must renounce religion publicly,

WHAT??!

: well dont renounce it but embrace secularity and humanism.

No way! In America, at least, 'secularism' has come to mean a condescending approach to religion, seeing it as a crutch for the foolish and uneducated, something that has to be tolerated gingerly until more people become educated and atheistic. It consists of expunging religion from public life, from society, from the arts and from ethcial codes,, while at teh same time frantically trying to avoid the hollowness of their own atheistic position.

: There is no other way to fight oppression regardless of the author or victim but then in fulfilling this calling your also fufilling any Christian impulse you might have.

Yes, but my whole point was that teh Chistian aspects of socialism shoudl be more publicized, then socialism would have a greater effect.

: I've got very good references to books on LT if anyones interested, unfortunatly they are more or less out of print since the sixties when a real book fest of lefty literature tookl place and then died off, the same is happening today with propertarianism and they'll die of too.

I know what you mean.


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