Editing Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God (section)

== Friday, Sept 27: "Religion is the opium of the people" (or nothing new under the sun?) ==
Marx was an idiot. He was also troubled, drunk, ambitious, and fearful.  

Humans don't like change, and like the infamous Luddites, who wrote threatening letters to factory owners signed "Ned Ludd" for a mythical weaver, Marx couldn't stand for the rapid, albeit bewildering changes in English society of the early- mid-19th century. Either that, or he saw personal advantage in them. Likely both. 

Unlike the Luddites, however, Marx left the street protests and raids to others, who only went on to kill upwards 100 million people in his name. Unlike the real Ned Ludd, who as kid went into a fit of anger at being accused of idleness and smashed his knitting frames -- or, another story had it, smashed his needles to bits after his father told him to "square his needles" ([[wikipedia:Ned_Ludd|Ned Ludd - Wikipedia]]), Marx wrote radical tracts, underwritten by a mill owner, Fredrich Engels, who didn't suffer from the Luddite movement, which had been crushed before the German Engels, a whoremonger, btw, who inherited all his money, took over a mill in Manchester.

Engels and Marx correctly worried, as did Dickens, who also profited from it, the conditions of the working class in industrial England. Dickens, though, sold his books to the growing middle class -- growing from rising incomes, not the other way around-- and who turned the industrial revolution into cottages, professions, education, and improved living conditions. The short of it is such: Marx, Engels and their later followers all thought -- hoped -- the communist revolution would occur in industrialized Britain or France, which of course, would have none of it, as factory workers were making money and the rising middle class (the dreaded "bourgeoisie") was having a time of it all. Those revolutions did occur, but only in nations that, instead, lacked a vibrant, healthy middle class: namely, Russia and China and their client states, in whom they destroyed the middle class. 

The impatient and frustrated seek to blame obstacles for impeding their will. Marx blamed the bourgeoisie for externally obstructing the great proletariat uprising and religion for sedating proletariat anger, thus his infamous "opium of the masses" rant, which went as follows: 

<div class="quote">   ''Religious'' suffering is, at one and the same time, the ''expression'' of real suffering and a ''protest'' against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the ''opium'' of the people.<br>   The abolition of religion as the ''illusory'' happiness of the people is the demand for their ''real'' happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to ''give up a condition that requires illusions''. The criticism of religion is, therefore, ''in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears'' of which religion is the ''halo''.</div>

Well, then. ''Marx: 1, God: 0 -- ?''

Maybe not. We will discuss how our faith does not intoxicate, but uplifts; does not replace our pain, but refocuses it upon the Cross; does not excuse or justify suffering, but admits of it; and how our faith does not reflect our lives, but instead makes our lives.
----We will start today with one of the best-known passages from Scripture, [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/ecclesiastes/3?1 Eccl 3:1-15], "There is a time for..."   The passage has been used in popular songs, just about every funeral, and as a lame excuse for murder (yes, there is a time for that, too). The quick read is that God not we are in control and whatever we have, good or bad, is a "gift of God" (verse 14). The first section of the poem ends,<blockquote>Thus has God done that he may be revered. What now is has already been; what is to be, already is: God retrieves what has gone by.</blockquote>Whatever popular culture assumes of the poem, Christ teaches (he always extends the OT!) to "glorify your heavenly father" ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5:16 Mt. 5:16]). As the paralytic picked up his mat and walked off "glorifying God" ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/5?25 Lk 5:25]): so must we -- no matter in joy or sadnes 
----Today our good friends let Michael run his Marx rant -- joined, God bless, by Teddy's own rant in which he taught us about [[wikipedia:Andrei_Platonov|Andrei Platonov]] and his dystopian critique of Marx's crazed (and sadly implemented) vision of heaven on earth. In Platanov's novel, [[wikipedia:Chevengur|Chevengur]], every Marxist tenet was fulfilled, but with all the physical satisfactions Marx could dream of the people were miserable, empty. 

Here we have the answer to Michael's question: is human suffering any different with or without God?  No! Pain is pain. It is no more or less if God is present. What God does, however, is give it context and meaning. Besides, even the wealthiest and most comfortable among us still suffer -- there is no heaven on earth; as Justin   and Teddy explained we live in a fallen world, and it is our job to reconcile ourselves with God through our savior the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as Liz explained, join God in heaven. 
----Two more things:

* I was looking for the word "subsidiarity" to describe social organization as per the Fourth Commandment: starting with family (honor your father and mother), and hierarchically rising from there to larger authorities, to all of whom we owe "honor" (obedience) but all of whom owe us, down to the father and mother, respect, love, and good stewardship
* Raymond Aaron wrote a critique of Marxism (I have not read it) called, "The Opium of the Intellectuals" - LOL!