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I think the defense of Stalin comes at the end of a particular path that can be very appealing to people for various reasons.
One potential driver of it is that ML/Stalinist groups are not too dissimilar from a secular religion; it has a group of people ready to welcome you as a friend and ally as long as you agree to a certain worldview and a very specific reading of history from approved texts that always pose historical Maxrist-Leninists as righteous figures who didn't really do anything that bad, and if they did, it was for the greater good, and justified.
Those texts can even make a certain amount of sense if you're disillusioned with the status quo, and distrust western media. It's also likely extremely comforting to believe that while the western world is fucked up and exploitative, there are at the same time powerful allies elsewhere in the form of the AES states, which in their view are making steady progress towards the promised socialist utopia.
So ML groups can offer a feeling of belonging, friendship, a comforting worldview, and the belief that if we just follow the directions of long dead prophet-like historical figures (like Lenin or Stalin), then we will someday have heaven on earth. These are extremely appealing aspects to someone who may be very lonely, or who may have suffered a severe trauma and may not have their basic needs met (which may also be what leads to some people being attracted to the MAGA cult)
To someone well versed in history and a desire to find multiple viewpoints for a historical event to avoid propaganda bubbles, the true nature of ML/Stalinism and its authoritarianism becomes self-evident. But for those who never went down that path and are in a vulnerable state, a 'scientific' cult offering you hope, meaning, and companionship is very easy to fall into, and thus willingly self-delude themselves to attain in-group status.
Just like with normal religions/cults, once they are deep inside it, they are heavily encouraged by the in-group to suspect any outside information that challenges their narratives or isn't approved by the group, and thus the cognitive dissonance they could create if looked at more objectively can mostly be avoided.
Also similar to religions; a ML member is strongly encouraged not to have doubts about the validity of the approved sources/texts/history. If doubts are voiced, the group will attempt to re-affirm the validity of the texts (keep the faith). But if that fails and the member continues to voice doubts, they are likely to be ejected from the group, which is very traumatic for most people, but especially so if there is no other support groups to lean on. This likely results in many keeping doubts to themselves, or convincing themselves those doubts are just CIA lies, similar to how Christians try to reject their own doubts with the concept of Satan spreading lies to tempt a Christian from their faith through logic or archeology.
Source: it is known
I'm an ML. I have NEVER been encouraged to not have doubts about the validity of texts and there is no such things a list of approved sources. The entire foundation of the philosophy is evidence-based systems analysis. The approach is so thorough it's been used for a century in academic contexts for analyzing everything from economics and politics to art and literature. It's not a dogma. It's a theoretical framework of analysis.
If you did start to voice that maybe the CCP did unnecessarily massacre some people at Tienanmen Square, or that maybe Lenin and Trotsky really didn't need to slaughter all the Kronstadt sailors, or that maybe Lenin did betray Makhno just to consolidate power, or that the Stalinists who killed the Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War might have been making up reasons to again take power...
Then you'll be assured by any ML friends you have, that all those things are either CIA propaganda or justified, and if you don't follow that line, and if you bring it up regularly to others as a reason to suggest maybe this stuff isn't so scientific despite the name, instead of keeping that to yourself, you will eventually be regarded as a 'shitlib'.
The issue is history shows that ML, due to its very nature as a hierarchical state, is unable to achieve the claimed goal of communism, and instead only brings permanent authoritarian rule by the new vanguard class, eventually resulting in state capitalism.
It also shows that when ML groups achieve power, they will violently kill any other socialist following what they perceive as an incorrect doctrine.
Both of those are pretty massive roadblocks to building communism.
What are your own thoughts of the events I linked to previously? Do you think it was necessary and wise to kill the Anarchists during the Russian Revolution and Spanish Civil War? If so, what was objective and scientific about murdering their allies?
That's the problem.
It is, because while they claim to want the workers to control the state, they never do, and they never will willingly 'wither away' as the vanguard claims.
The Vanguard enjoy a vastly different quality of life compared to the average worker. The Vanguard are not assembling iPhones for western capitalists for subsistence wages while the factory builds suicide nets around the building due to how poor the working conditions are. The Vanguard are in practice a new state-Bourgeoisie.
"Trust me bro, we just need another 100 years of wage slavery before we can do the real communism, Marx said so, so it must be true, and the only way."
Yeah, they just need to agree to submit themselves to the will of the Vanguard, and *everything will be fine!
(* results not guaranteed)
I'm not aware of an instance where Anarchists were the aggressor against ML's, unlike the reverse.
If the Anarchists succeeded in creating Communism immediately without a transitional state, ML's probably would raise a militia to end it in favor of authoritarian state capitalism, since they're not in charge of it.
Have any non-Bolshevik sources (which are the source of many myths against Makhno, since, ya know, they betrayed him and had to make up with some legit-sounding reasons for doing it) to back up that claim?
I'm guessing you're referring to when he took in some conscripts from Petliura's nationalists after he defeated them? The same conscripts that would've then been offered to join the Bolsheviks before they turned on Makhno?
I have to give you your due here, you're the first ML I've spoken to who thinks that was a mistake.
I've never seen any evidence for that.
I'm glad you see it as a mistake, but it is highly worrying to see it framed as "Killing all those people unnecessarily was a mistake, a big oopsie, if you will. But you see, when ML's commit massacres against the only other group vocally wanting communism, it's just a scientific learning experience! :D"
Like... Ech. It should be a clear example of the ends not justifying the means, which is one lesson that doesn't ever seem to make it into modern ML offshoot theories, and many MLs I've interacted with still think all of the purging Stalin did was justified and based.
Why not fedposter if fedposter shape??
wrong analogy doubts r good they make you research Christianity and dive deeper into faith
Wasn't how it worked for me. I had doubts, and seeing atheists in debates with Christians unable to answer those doubts at all adequately only strengthened those doubts until I looked into it enough to realize it was all BS.
Most people leave cults because of doubts. Why would a cultist ever leave if they still fully believe the teachings?
can you tell me one of the questions they were asked?
it was over a decade ago that I watched those debates, most of which were with Christopher Hitchens, though which ones specifically I wouldn't be able to say besides this one, which stands out in memory since it had both Hitchens and Stephen Fry arguing against religion. I also recall watching a lot of 'Hitchslap' videos which were snippets of Hitchens giving quick-witted responses to religious arguments.
For context, the doubts I had as a teenager were:
What could God possibly be achieving by giving children cancer and dying slowly and horrificly?
If those children all go to heaven, why not kill all children at birth to ensure they don't go to hell?
What's the point of this whole game, anyway? Why create this planetary diorama to fill it with people just to see if they believe in a capricious God that doesn't answer prayers and seemingly makes itself as difficult to believe in as possible? Why has Jesus/God never spoken to me directly, like so many other people claim to be able to do? Why did God allow thousands of other religions throughout the world and various points of time, each one claiming they alone are the true path to Heaven, how does one pick the correct needle of salvation in a haystack of religions? The only reason I was my specific flavor of Christian was because it's what my parents believed, what research did they do before choosing this one specifically (virtually none, just vibes).
When I looked to the Bible for answers, I was struck by how awful God was to Job, killing his entire family and giving him unhealing sores, all to win a bet with Satan. God's response to Job asking why the fuck this was being done to him was to basically say "Don't fucking question me, Job, look at how powerful I am boy, look, I can control leviathan or some shit!", which was astonishing to read, as it made God seem like a child ranting at Job for being rightfully upset at him, and with no reasonable answer for all the suffering, just a hand wave from God. Needless to say that didn't help bolster my belief.
At the end it was simply too much that didn't make sense, too much doubt in the foundations of the whole thing, too many failures of religion to make any impact whatsoever when I prayed.
The debates with Hitchens touched on at least some of those doubts, which made me realize all those doubts weren't from the devil, they were well founded and others shared them. At that point I'd finally had enough and said fuck the whole thing.
1 It takes immense wisdom to understand God's plan for yourselves, so, it is almost impossible to understand God's plan for the world.
2 Heaven depends on Faith in Christ and the fact that He died for your sin, not age. And they are still born with Original Sin.
3 Frater, God will always speak to you, but not in the ways you expect. It will be subtle, not a voice in your head. You need to listen and notice. And God answers your prayers, if they align with his will. Lies will always exist, it is your duty to see through them.
4 What denomination were you?
Ah, I didn't realize you yourself were religious. I thought you were just curious how doubt could lead to leaving a cult. I understand now why you think it wasn't an apt comparison with ML.
If God is real and has a plan, at this point I would argue that God is very much not equipped to be God, and contrary to the concept of being all-knowing, is very clearly making things up as He goes. I think Job is a good example of that, since God seems to realize that he actually fucked up pretty bad when Job rightly questions why his family was killed and why he had to suffer so arbitrarily despite believing in God fully, and God basically doesn't have an answer besides "Cause I'm powerful, bro. Look at all these giant beasts I control". Job's challenge seemed to shake God up pretty good, and make him decide to see what it was actually like to be one of the Humans he fucked with so much, so he decides to make Jesus so he can experience human mortality, which gives him a whole new appreciation for how messed up he'd been before, causing him to turn over a new leaf, being way less brutal and far more caring instead of, ya know, letting his followers dash babies against rocks like in the old testament (which leads into our next point).
That means every single baby and child not old enough to understand the concept of faith or Jesus went straight to hell, an unspeakably evil act {or, depending on your denomination, purgatory I guess).
Many religious people have claimed to have literal conversations with Jesus or God as part of their 1 on 1 relationship, are you saying they are lying or suffer from delusions? God's Will is an explanation to cope with the fact that praying is as good as a random coin flip; if the thing you prayed for happens, hurry! God answered your prayer! If it doesn't, guess it just wasn't his will, tough luck sport.
Generic Protestantism that promoted belief in the Trinity. Why do you ask?
Job was suffering as a test, when the test was over, his wealth was doubled. Jesus Christ was not a creation, he was always there.
Jesus had faith, and yes, Jesus descended into Hell for his battle with death, and rose victorious onto our mortal world 3 days later, and was transfigured into Heaven. And Jesus Christ was not born with original sin, as Mary was the virgin mother, who had been chosen by God. And
God may sometimes directly speak to you, when it is a dire situation, but He usually has many other ways to speak to you, and direct speech with God is extremely rare.
Please give Catholicism a try, Prototestantism is not the fullness of the Faith, and many who do not like it, leave Christianity as a whole.
The test was, in my humble opinion, bullshit, which Job correctly pointed out. His family was killed to win a bet with Satan, a bet that God didn't have to take on since he knew the outcome already from being all knowing. A bet with an entity that he created and has power over, and should have nothing to prove anything to, or at the very least he could just pull that "Don't question me bro" stuff on Satan himself and spare Job all the suffering and needless death of his family. God teaches us that material wealth is ultimately meaningless, yet uses it as a reward for justification for his torture. If any human did that same test on another, we'd call them a monster and lock them up.
Yeah, like I said, Jesus was the only thing that seemed to make God stop directly fucking with us in so many horrific ways, since he realized how much it sucked once he actually experienced it himself from our perspective (which an all knowing being shouldn't need to do, lending more credence that he isn't all knowing).
The baby thing: That's very clumsy way for the Church to deal with the baby problem. Your screenshot literally says "we don't know how, but the babies will make it since God is loving!" That's what I'd call a Deus Ex Machina, because the alternative would make God seem so unbelievably cruel and evil that we have to assume that all the rules the Church came up with don't apply in those situations. By the same logic, we can start to assume that God may bend the rules for all sorts of things that would otherwise seem cruel to us; Gay family members who were otherwise very good people, uncontacted tribes, people/family who went to other denominations, unbelievers that are really moral otherwise, the billions of people who were born and died before Christianity was invented, etc. It's a get out of jail free card to smooth over the nasty bits.
Buuut.... that solution does unfortunately bring us back to the baby killin' problem: if God makes exceptions for unbaptized babies, then really the most logical thing would be for every single parent in the world to commit infanticide to ensure they get into heaven, as letting them grow up gives them the chance to lose faith and sin, resulting in burning in agonizing hell for literal eternity. Under those rules, killing at birth or with abortion is clearly the safest option to save your loved ones and deprive Satan of more souls. And the parents doing the killing would still be able to get into heaven by asking for forgiveness before they themselves died. Obviously actually doing that would be heinous and insane, but technically only from the perspective of a non-believer, since a believer could quite reasonably believe they're saving as many people as possible from eternal torture.
You'd think someone losing faith would be one of those times where direct speech would be opted for. But your answer also means that yes, all those people claiming to have casual conversations with God and Jesus on how to fix their marriage were indeed lying or delusional (and if delusional, then they are very unlucky that they were also born into the wrong denomination, as that delusion will ensure that they never question if they are in the wrong religion)
If I were to somehow desire to become religious again, I can't say the denomination that most consistently covered for and enabled pedophiles would be the most appealing, not to mention the long history of corruption and exploitation of people's fears for their dead family members within the Catholic church (I know the rest of the video is about the Church of England, I only refer to the beginning of the video that talks about the Catholic church).
And I'd like to ask you this: How did you determine that the Catholicism was the best and most correct denomination?
When you were old enough to understand critical thinking and had a good grasp of world history, did your parents sit you down and say "Alright, here's some research material on all the world religions covering their differences, practices, history, beliefs, etc. Take some time to go through each one, and see which speaks to you the most before deciding", or, as I suspect is more likely, did your parents teach you their own inherited religion at a young age, one that happened to also be popular in your region of the world already?
If it's the latter; isn't it a little convenient that the one true religion that will actually get you into heaven happened to be the one that's native to your geographic area, and your parents just so happened to be raised in that one true religion too?
But how can one truly know their particular religion is the one true one out of hundreds, when the followers of every single one report that God has talked to them, and they feel absolutely convicted in their feelings that they are in the correct religion, despite each one laying claim to being the only correct one? Is every other religious person deceiving themselves, or is that feeling of God that they have communicated with a Satanic being?
As an example, there are currently around 2 billion muslims on earth, about 25% of the population, all of which are Muslim because their parents were Muslim. 99% of those people will die as Muslims, which means God created a world in which billions upon billions of people, regardless of how good they were on earth, will burn for eternity because they were unlucky enough to be born in the wrong geographic area, to the wrong culture, all the while fully convinced that they will make it into heaven. I can not imagine such a supposedly loving God creating such a cosmically horrific scenario. If that scenario were described in a fantasy book, we would assume they are the villain.
And another issue; You mentioned that praying is only effective, or able to alter things, if it is in God's will. That brings with it some very troubling thoughts. It's safe to assume that most of the prisoners in Unit 731 were religious, some of them Catholic. Surely they must've prayed to God for protection from the horrific experiments subjected to them, yet all prisoners were experimented on and killed.
Likewise, it is probable that countless Jews prayed to God to spare them the horrific deaths they would experience during the holocaust. Yet millions were killed horrifically regardless.
One can only conclude then, that all of that torture and all of those deaths were, in fact, God's will. This is a difficult pill to swallow, which is likely why so many believers can only offer the "He works in mysterious ways, it is unknowable" handwave, quickly absolving Him so we need not suffer the pain of the cognitive dissonance which would come from actually grappling with those thoughts.
Material Wealth is meaningless, but Job literally went to Heaven afterwards. The times before Christ were harsh, you had to pay for EVERY SINGLE sin.
No, Jesus died for our sins, so we could live a life free of sin. We no longer have to pay for every single sin as it has already been paid.
Sometimes, God will speak to you through his Voice, sometimes through other things. It depends on Him.
Do not let Judas guide you away from Satan. Pope Leo has released multiple statements on this.
and satan is responsible for the false visions and voices in the heads of people, or it could just be schizophrenia
and we literally do not know most things like we DONT KNOW we cannot know everything
and hell is not eternal fire and burning, but literally just the abyss, where you dont exist, youre dead, because you cant have eternal torture without eternal life first, and you cant have eternal life without Christ, where you wont go to the abyss.
And I unfortunately had little to no spiritual guidance from my parents as a child, so yes, I researched the Christian faith, I was protestant for a while before discovering Catholicism and its teachings, then I chose.
I know of multiple people who are Christians not because of their place, or parents but because of their Faith.
False faiths are engineered by Satan, islam was created because of an "angel" appearing. That probably wasnt an angel
There doesn't seem to be consensus on that within Catholicism, some Popes have said that it's definitely a place of eternal punishment, others have said it's more like you describe.
I guess it's also up in the air what happens to unbaptized babies for Catholics. In that case the church seems to be going for a sorta quantum theory thing where the baby's soul is hopefully saved, but officially probably not (maybe to discourage the infanticide conundrum). They pretty much let you pick and choose what you want it to be, since they probably don't want to tell mothers who lost their baby during birth that it's going to hell.
Interesting. Considering that every other denomination and faith is indeed engineered by Satan, how did you go about confirming that Catholicism was the only true one? Did you examine Zoroastrianism, the proto-christianity, as well as non-abarahamic religions, before deciding? What made Catholicism the clear winner?
Unfortunately, this aspect is what makes cults and religions such a good comparison to ML, as both have that auto-correcting feature to automatically make the adherent dismiss any information that conflicts with their beliefs as false. In the case of ML, it is claimed to be CIA propaganda or false history. For religions, it is taught that the literal most evil spirit is behind virtually all contrary information.
That mechanism is extremely valuable to a priesthood/leader to retain their flock/followers, as it makes it almost impossible for someone outside of that belief system to show them information that would reveal it to be false.
In a world where there theoretically was one true religion, that same mechanism would also act to keep people in a false religion, as they would have to assume that any other religion is in fact the devil tempting them, even if that person tempting them was from the objectively true religion.
How did you determine that?
Yes. I did. I did a LOT of research, and I have experienced a lot of miracles in my life due to Catholicism.
And its not "all contrary information" it is false faiths. Doubts are good, they help you dive deeper into faith.
What sort of research did you do? What made Catholicism stand out from every other religion?
just looking at the inner values and beliefs of them I guess.
Catholicism stood out because God is all loving, and forgiving, and due to multiple miracles in my life and actual scientific evidence of miracles and proof
Do you have any specific examples of values and beliefs that you liked better than any of the other religions or christian denominations?
My protestant church said that too, and emphasized Jesus's forgiveness.
Could you share those? I've never seen any scientific evidence of miracles despite looking for it.
Ah... I'm sorry, but neither of those events would stand as proof in a scientific context.
In the first case, medical oddities occur quite frequently, and it's not unlikely that patient had an unusual form of cancer that was particularly receptive to the more primitive treatment at the time. I would not classify an unusual experience as a miracle, personally. I have seen many similar stories and claims from the alternative cancer cure community, all of which I have found to be grifting, yet to those less skeptical, seem quite convincing.
The second case is extremely dubious, as it is purely hearsay that the flesh suddenly appeared, and it would be quite easy to simply place the supposed flesh photographed and claim it morphed there naturally. Church officials are not immune to lying, corruption, or deceit as history shows, so without an unrelated 3rd party having been present and verifying in real-time, to me it seems clear that it's a stunt, as the evidence is about as convincing or trustworthy as the Loch Ness monster photograph.
the matter was tested, and it was heart tissue that had the WBCs alive, they usually die 2 hours after being removed from the body.
There are some pretty solid criticisms on how it was tested.
Speaking for myself, I would not personally take that test as adequate evidence of the supernatural.
this is basically
"they took pictures so yeah, yeah, they thought it was important so they couldnt debunk it"
and contamination risks are present, but to be honest WHO is cutting up a human heart and mixing it up with microbial growths and who has human cardiac tissue on their fingers?
and the WBCs were alive.
I really did not go into Protestantism as it removed 6 books from the Bible and branced off from thr one true Church
I see. How how did you determine that the Protestant's reasons for removing those books was illegitimate (as far as I can tell, they claim that the 6 additional books were not included in the original Hebrew canon, essentially saying that the catholic additions were not inspired works, and that they are closer to a more pure, unadulterated Bible), also how did Eastern Orthodoxy fare in the overall assessment?
Did it concern you at all that Catholicism once burned people at the stake for translating the Bible into English (which in practice would lessen the power the priesthood had in disseminating the Bible)?
Lastly, I'm quite curious how you then determined that an Abrahamic religion (Catholicism) was the only true religion, what set it apart from Taoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc, as the only source of spiritual truth for you?
removing ANY books from the Bible is illegitimate as stated so by Revelation. The original Bible was Catholic.
Eastern Orthodoxy is way more complicated, I can say it was for theological reasons I did not go into it.
The catholic emperor did that, not the Church and the Church does indeed have some bits of dark history.
As I said, scientific proof instead of vibes, and God being all loving. Buddhism preaches works instead of faith, but we still have original sin.
From what I understand, and as someone who once had an interest in ancient bibles, even ordering a re-print of scans of an original tyndale bible in Olde English, I don't believe it's quite so cut and dried. Biblical texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls were originally in Hebrew, and from modern archeology it appears that even then, there were multiple versions, with some differing greatly.
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/what-are-the-earliest-versions-and-translations-of-the-bible/
The Catholic Church was the first sect of Christianity to add in those 7 books later, in their own Latin translation of the Bible..
Personally I must observe it is rather convenient that the books they added just so happened to contain material which bolstered their political power, wealth, and importance in society by requiring the Church as a necessary intermediary (besides it being in a language only they could read).
I'm not quite sure how that applies. The concept of original sin only exists in the abrahamic religions. When you were assessing the other religions, were you doing so under the assumption that Christianity's original sin was already a truism and determined the merit of the other religions based on how they applied to that concept? If so, how did you determine that Original Sin is by default, a universal truth?
The Catholic Church is the original church, and the Pope holds the same authority as Peter.
And the Bible is just a bunch of books joined together.
Original Sin is true, that is fact. Take a look around the world. It will let you know.
And if 7 books are the problem, why remove 6?
Jesus literally handed Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Personally I would put forward that starting with that assumption is more gut-feeling/vibe based than science based, since our negative behaviors are able to be explained without the need for a supernatural answer.
I guess I'll conclude with an observation; I started with equating ML's to religious indoctrination since they have a sunk cost and interest only believing sources that reinforce their worldview despite solid evidence that is contrary to their views. I personally believe all dogmatic religions encourage that same phenomena, with the abrahamic religions and their offshoots being particularly stifling (though others such as Confucianism can be similarly bad), due to their direct encouragement of seeing any outside information as the devil's work.
As someone who believed those dogmas for a long time, I know that such teachings essentially give a perception of paranoia that any person who isn't in the same club is a potential source of evil or temptation into the mind, which results in automatically assuming all counter-information being dismissed or not properly investigated out of the discomfort it can create. I personally look back on those days as a very bleak and sad time due to that worldview, I hope you avoid it.
As all of the information presented was exclusively from biased pro-catholic sources, I'm sorry to say I remain unconvinced, just as I remain unconvinced by ML's for similar reasons. However, I want to say thank you for taking the time to explain how you came to these conclusions and views, I did find it enlightening.
I wish you the best.
May the Lord be with you, Frater.