Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God: Difference between revisions
Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God (view source)
Revision as of 20:48, 26 September 2024
, 26 September→Friday, Sept 27: "Religion is the opium of the people" (or nothing new under the sun?)
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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. | 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 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 | 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: | 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: | ||
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<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> | <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 | Well, then. ''Marx: 1, God: 0 -- ?'' | ||
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 suffering; and how our faith does not reflect our lives, but instead makes our lives. | 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 suffering; and how our faith does not reflect our lives, but instead makes our lives. | ||