Marx and Buddhism
- This topic has 58 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Christianity sprang from Judaism.
I don’t think so, Christianity came from Egyptian mythology which emerged in Rome, and it was adapted to the Roman world, and it was an anti-slavery movement, instead of looking for their liberation over the earth, they were looking for their own liberation in heaven, the conception of self class liberation did not exist in that historical period
it was to be called the sect because there were too many Christians sects in the Roman World, as well there were many Christians and Christs in another part of the world including Greece, the Sumerian, the Babylonians, and the Persians
The conception of Jesus it is also mythology, he never existed. Judaism since the very beginning it was a backward and reactionary religion created in Babylon, it is also a Pagan religion like all the others, and it was the summation or unification of four pagan gods which existed in Babylon, the Talmud is a clear evidence of the reactionary character of Judaism, Islam did come from Judaism.
There are not any pieces of evidence of the existence of Moses and the Exodus, and the new testament or the Christian Greeks Scriptures were written after the emerge of Christians in Rome
There are not any historical pieces of evidence proving that Jesus walked and lived in Palestine, and the evidence shown on the historical books of Josephus is an interpolation similar to the 2500 interpolations made to the Bible
Many years before Jesusism, and before Judaism, the idea was that the liberation would have come thru the Egyptian instead of the Jews.
We have a very good pamphlet known as “How the goods were made” which explains in very good details the origin of all religions.
To understand many of these topics many books have to be read and large researches must be made including the books written by the Rosicrucians and the Essenes.
The Primitive Christian were not equal to ISIS or to Al Quaeda, you are confusing the primitive Christians with the Catholics Feudalists, and the Protestants, or the Calvinists and the Lutherans. Robert Owen was a Christian and he created the commune and the coops and the word socialism came thru him
https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item/14320-robert-owen
Owen founded an ethical movement called “Rational Religion.” His “Halls of Science” attracted thousands of nonreligious followers.
“Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot therefore be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in errors.” —Robert Owen, “Evidences of Christianity: A Debate with Alexander Campbell and Robert Owen” (1829)
http://robert-owen-museum.org.uk/Religious_Views
This might help.
Are you sure Robert Owen was a christian? I thought he was a critic of all religion.
I meant to say that he was a deist, and Thomas Moore was a Christian Monk All the Utopian socialists had certain religious beliefs
Thomas More was not a monk.
Sadly towards the end of his life, when he was 83, Owen became a Spiritualist and was conned by a medium into believing he was in contact with King William IV. Revealing in that he reverted to his original view that his socialism could be introduced from on high by some ruler rather than by the self-activity of the workers. On checking this I see that the spiritualists claim him as one of their own and even that his spirit laid down some of their principles.
In any event no more than Marx was he a Buddhist. Neither of them looked at the world and shrugged “shit happens” as Buddhists are popularly assumed to do (the limit of my knowledge and interest in Buddhism).
We know that utopian socialism and Christianity were intertwined, because Christianity was the glue which bound together European thought until the 18th century.
(See Christopher Hill’s The English Bible, Engels’ Peasant War in Germany, Morton’s The Ranters, and numerous other works).
The last religious/semi-religious stage of utopianism was Unitarianism, out of which sprang the non-religious pre-marxian socialism of Godwin, Shelley, and the English Jacobins. Even Marat attended Unitarian college in England!
Utopian thought extends back to the Middle Ages, not only to “heretical” groups, but also to the Franciscans and numerous individuals honoured by the Catholic Church.
Those English Puritans who later crossed to America left behind the social and political circumstances they had in England been part of, however, so, whilst Puritanism in England evolved into Unitarian radicalism, deism, atheist-materialism and eventually scientific socialism, in America it stagnated and became Biblical fundamentalism.Your jaded view of Buddhism is perhaps justified among mainstream Buddhism today, but it is not the attitude of Nagarjuna or Gautama. Nagarjuna and the Mahayana stress the Bodhisattva Principle of helping others, and Nagarjuna stressed good action and philosophical analysis over meditation.
Cherry-picking canon from any religion presents a false representation of them and as materialists we witness how religions evolve and change with conditions and how the spiritual apply themselves to temporal earthly practices.
I’m well acquainted with village wats and the superstitious rituals that Buddhist monks indulge in such as house blessings and funeral rites, for donations. There are poor and there are wealthy temples, very much a hierarchy reflecting class society itself and the parasitical aspects of it on the communities that support them.
Some may recall an article I wrote in the SS.
I do hold the jaded view of mainstream and everyday Buddhism but I am sure there are positive elements such as Dhammic socialism and eco-dharma – just as sufism may be a more enlightened form of mohammedism, something I know zero about but just threw in.
I also have a very jaded view of Hinduism with its practical detrimental divisiveness of the caste system. I always await the WSP (India) to give it a full explanation.
I’m not promoting Buddhism, just saying that philosophers like Nagarjuna and Lafcadio Hearn have much to offer with regard to natural philosophy.
The Buddhist religion became to my mind the most corrupted of all, in that it abandoned philosophy in order to survive and spread. It made itself appeal to feudal potentates and huge populations by giving them a religion, by substituting reincarnation for the acceptance of material eternalism, and thus catering to masses of people’s desire for perpetuity of self (“soul”), when the philosophy denies this fallacy. It thus bolstered feudal rule, and today, capitalist rule, and prospered. And got lost!
As Socialists, not cultists, are we not able to have many interests, to each his collection, without being susceptible?
It is too often assumed, I feel, that those who talk about systems of thought which have little or nothing to do with Marxism, must be in thrall to them in some way … like susceptible adolescents.
Having an interest in a study and in diverse matters as an adult is not the same as being this or being that – like those who immaturely embrace something in its entirety because of susceptibility and lack of discernment.
A Socialist can, and should, have many personal interests: in science, philosophy, history, and yes, religions and the study of them.
“As Socialists, not cultists, are we not able to have many interests…A Socialist can, and should, have many personal interests: in science, philosophy, history, and yes, religions and the study of them.”
And following particular capitalist businesses such as being certain football teams fanatical supporters. 😉
“And following particular capitalist businesses such as being certain football teams fanatical supporters”
Count me out of that! 😉
Can’t think of anything more boring than football and pub natter about it! 😉
Thomas More was not a monk.
Probably, you are going to say to Mendel was not a munk either, and that there was not a woman who was a Pope
Whence this false notion that More, a family man, was ever a monk?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.