Are You Religious Or A Socialist?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by common_sense_seeker, Jan 11, 2011.

?

Are You Religious Or A Socialist?

  1. Religious

    4 vote(s)
    20.0%

  2. Socialist

    16 vote(s)
    80.0%
Page 3 of 4
  1. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Humans are neither completely selfish nor unselfish by nature. We are a pack-social species like wolves and gorillas, and we have an instinctive loyalty to our pack. However, like wolves and gorillas we are programmed to consider our pack to be a small tribe of extended-family members that we have depended on and cared for since birth.

    Most mentally healthy humans act more-or-less unselfishly within their family, generally not requiring contracts and accounting for the "pack" to run smoothly, except as training for the young members. But it's more difficult for us to regard non-family members in the same way because our Paleolithic instincts insist that they are competitors for scarce resources, to be hated, feared, repulsed or even killed.

    The Agricultural Revolution that initiated the Neolithic Era and created the first food surplus in history required us to change our attitude toward outsiders, so we could join together in larger communities, resulting in economy of scale (more productive agriculture) and division of labor (not everyone had to be a farmer). But inside each of us still lurks a caveman who is not totally comfortable with this arrangement.

    Perhaps our instincts have evolved somewhat in the brief span of twelve thousand years since the end of the Paleolithic Era. Most of us seem capable of living in harmony and cooperation in communities of a couple of hundred people, an order of magnitude larger than the nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes of the Early Stone Age. But today we're expected to accept as "pack mates" people in distant cities, and now even people on the other side of the planet.

    This can't be done by mere appeals to our better nature, since it conflicts with our nature! It requires artificial controls: government, money, contracts, laws, jobs, mortgages, salaries, debts, etc.

    Socialism can be made to work at the neighborhood level, and in fact there are socialist communes in many countries. It can even be scaled up to just barely work in a tiny country with a homogeneous population, like Sweden or Bulgaria, where people feel a degree of kinship with each other.

    But in larger, more heterogeneous countries, it simply won't work. People do not feel an instinctive urge to treat each other as pack mates.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Jan 25, 2011
    #41

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  3. Captain Kremmen

    Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Captain Kremmen, Jan 25, 2011
    #42

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  5. iceaura

    iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    This is mistaken. What Karl Marx proposed was a simple, basic criterion for the evaluation of a nation State system, and it's a good one. .

    Very few people would argue with it. Almost any reasonable person would agree that a large economic system that does not work out like that, one in which people do not contribute according to their abilities and do not receive according to their needs, is a failure. The fact that uncurbed capitalism, corporate industrial moneypiles not governed for the benefit of individaul, family, and community interests, inevitably fails that criterion, is Marx's point.

    Andrew Carnegie made the same point. So have many others.

    Marx's remedy was to enforce - by government power, at the point of a gun - Carnegie's ideological analysis and recommendations for the management of large (community sized) accumulations of capital. No alternative remedy has been proposed since, as far as I know.

    As long as you recognize the need for artificial structure agreed to by people brought to to political consensus by reason (that is, you recognize that simply scaling up the largest entity of the smaller nested systemizations - family in pack in tribe in people, say - won't work) there's no reason to reject any structural forms if they stand to reason.

    After all, families are not simply scaled up organisms; packs are not simply scaled up families; tribes are not simply scaled up packs; nations, like the Iroquois or Aztec or English, are not simply scaled up tribes; and there is no reason nation States should not be organized as reasonable and competent people agree is best and structured accordingly.

    Socialism is a political ideology, as a nation State system it is not some kind of scaled up family. Socialism's strengths do not depend on its appeal to altruism or better nature or human empathy or whatever. It works, where it has been wisely arranged, partly because it curbs the destructive properties of money: the influences of greed and the self-contradictions of market capitalism. It does not have to be arranged by simpleminded fools who think people are naturally inclined to altruism toward total strangers, any more than market exchanges have to be arranged as though people were rationally and naturally inclined to eschew unearned riches available for the taking.

    As far as its easier implementation and greater success in smaller States - that is an interesting and informative observation, and one the States Rights people might note. If they can get their collective head out of their collective ass.
     
    iceaura, Jan 26, 2011
    #43

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  7. dbnp48

    dbnp48 Q.E.D. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    312
    Please cite a source for that.
     
    dbnp48, Jan 26, 2011
    #44
  8. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Carnegie was a dedicated philanthropist and humanitarian (does your city have a Carnegie Free Library?) after his retirement, so attributing this opinion to him is hardly an extraordinary assertion worthy of invoking the Rule of Laplace.

    The Andrew Carnegie Dictum:
    • Spend the first third of your life getting all the education you can.
    • Spend the next third making all the money you can.
    • Spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Jan 26, 2011
    #45
  9. Earthmosphere

    Earthmosphere SciForums Advisor Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    13
    For a short answer, I am "socialist" and "Religious".
     
    Earthmosphere, Jan 26, 2011
    #46
  10. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    Why? If the form of government described in the Bible is a monarchy ruled ultimately by a divine king?
     
    spidergoat, Jan 26, 2011
    #47
  11. Earthmosphere

    Earthmosphere SciForums Advisor Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    13
    Well, actually I believe that God created the earth and he made humans in his own image. But my opinion is that I think evolution isn't true, but not so sure...

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Earthmosphere, Jan 26, 2011
    #48
  12. EmptyForceOfChi

    EmptyForceOfChi Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,848
    :bugeye:Why can't I be both


    Peace
     
    EmptyForceOfChi, Feb 16, 2011
    #49
  13. common_sense_seeker

    common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,623
    Sure, you can be both alright, it's the ones which just want to be religious but not socialist are the ones to watch out for imo! :worship:

    Peace be with you brother
     
    common_sense_seeker, Feb 18, 2011
    #50
  14. EmptyForceOfChi

    EmptyForceOfChi Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,848
    Wait, wait I changed my mind, I am now a Religious bigoted Communist!. :itold:


    Salam Akhi
     
    EmptyForceOfChi, Feb 18, 2011
    #51
  15. common_sense_seeker

    common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,623
    lol!
     
    common_sense_seeker, Feb 18, 2011
    #52
  16. RJBeery

    RJBeery Natural Philosopher Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,222
    So, Marx had a point, eh? It was just his implementation that was lacking..? I would certainly argue with any and all of this.
    So wait a minute, by your definition above, the larger a state gets the more it tends toward failure? Is it viable or not? And I don't understand your point above...you're saying the US would be happier under a Socialist regime if we "only gave it a chance"?

    Full-blown Socialism is a wonderful idea for a system made up of something other than human beings. Trying to impose paradise on society, frequently at the point of a gun, is akin to outlawing death or some other such foolishness; Reality cares very little about idealistic goals.
     
    RJBeery, Feb 18, 2011
    #53
  17. cosmictraveler

    cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264
    Why isn't it true, just because you don't think it isn't doesn't give us any FACTS as to why it isn't. Just your opinion that it isn't true really can't support why it isn't. Show us why you believe that something else is a FACT and evolution isn't a FACT.
     
    cosmictraveler, Feb 18, 2011
    #54
  18. RJBeery

    RJBeery Natural Philosopher Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,222
    Why isn't it true, just because you don't think it isn't doesn't give us any FACTS as to why it isn't. Just your opinion that it isn't true really can't support why it isn't. Show us why you believe that something else is a FACT and heaven isn't a FACT.


    ** It must be said that I believe in evolution, but I found the above argument lacking.
     
    RJBeery, Feb 18, 2011
    #55
  19. Ruud_Luiten

    Ruud_Luiten Registered Member

    Messages:
    20
    Im not religious, but I feel so moved. I m a socialist.
     
    Ruud_Luiten, Apr 26, 2011
    #56
  20. chimpkin

    chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,416
    Here's some evidence that the OP is presenting a false dichotomy:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Worker_Movement

    Note the links at the bottom to similar types of movements.

    In fact, it would seem to me the ideals of Christianity and the ideals of Socialism...are pretty similar.
     
    chimpkin, Apr 27, 2011
    #57
  21. RJBeery

    RJBeery Natural Philosopher Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,222
    This is true...

    "We will only judge you if you don't become one of us!"

    "Shame on you for making money, now GIVE it to us! (Oh, and go make some more)"
     
    RJBeery, Apr 27, 2011
    #58
  22. common_sense_seeker

    common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,623
    Thanks for that nicely written post Ruud.
     
    common_sense_seeker, Apr 27, 2011
    #59
  23. charles brough

    charles brough Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    476
    What this poll is good for is to show which ideology is most intensly held by the individual who responds to the poll. Both Christianity and socialism are ideologies, and socialism can be just as intensely held at any religion. In fact, one might wonder just what is the difference between "religion" and "ideology."

    Since I am not a socialist and since I am a non-theist, I did not take the poll.

    oh by the way, Donald Trump said he is proud of himself!! Whoopeeee! :shrug:

    brough
    civilization-overview dot com
     
    charles brough, Apr 28, 2011
    #60
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