Pseudo-Religion

Politics is a pseudo-religion (by Michael Wong)

Actually, I feel that communism and religion are two sides of the same coin. They both suffer from the same problem; the assumption that a society of sheep is too stupid to govern itself. The Church bases its argument on morality, claiming that the sheep are too stupid to know right from wrong.
The Communist Party bases its argument on economics, claiming that the sheep are too stupid to manage their wealth efficiently or fairly. In both cases, they claim that the solution is to abdicate the right of self-government to a higher authority.

In the case of religion, we’re supposed to obey an invisible, undetectable Supreme Being whose wishes are typically revealed in some sort of “holy book”, which is in turn interpreted for us by “holy men” (who naturally imprint whatever they want onto its teachings, so the Bible and Koran have, at turns, advocated slavery and freedom, war and peace, persecution of heretics and tolerance of them, etc.
In the case of communism, we’re supposed to obey the benevolent Party. Its conduct is governed by no particular “holy rules”, but this is really a meaningless distinction since the “holy rules” of a typical religion have historically been interpreted to mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean. In the end, whether it’s Church or State, the situation is the same. A set of rules being defined by a group of anointed leaders, who control society based on those rules.
Even a democratic communist state would suffer from the same problem, because although we might be able to select the leaders, we wouldn’t be able to free ourselves to set the value of our own labour without violating the central precepts of communism and marxism.

The indoctrination methods of both systems are also similar. The Church tells everyone that they cannot resist the temptations of the flesh, so their only chance at redemption is through obedience to a higher power. Marx tells people that they cannot resist the temptations of the dollar, so their only chance of a fair society is through obedience to a central bureaucracy. The Church reinforces this doctrine by defining virtually everything as a sin, and telling people that other religions (and atheism) lead to decadence and eternal suffering. The Communist Party reinforces its doctrine by defining virtually every problem in society as a symptom of class warfare, and reminding people over and over that capitalism leads directly to decadence and suffering.

Far from being black and white, they are more like two shades of red. They fight precisely because they ARE the same, much as the Protestants and Catholics fought bloody holy wars against one another in the past. They’re fighting over the same territory because they have the same mentality.

Both systems completely ignore the internationally recognized human rights that are the foundation of atheistic morality. Atheistic societies and moralities are based on rights rather than rules, and it is a common misconception that the founding fathers of the U.S. (one of the first nations to enshrine human rights as the ultimate arbiter of law) were religious. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and many other pivotal figures in early American history were strongly atheist, and made numerous public statements condemning organized religion (so did Abraham Lincoln). And the first draft of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance did NOT contain the phrase “one nation under god”; it was added later. The United States constitution and the many similar documents in other countries (not to mention the UN’s official human rights declaration) are the product of atheistic humanism rather than religion, which has NEVER advocated rights. The Bible doesn’t speak of human rights ONCE, in ANY of its books.”