Thread by @EcoTechBro

I'm going to initiate some Christianity discourse, because I've always found the way leftists talk about Christianity uncomfortable, and I'd like to cease that discomfort.

I'm especially curious to hear the thoughts of some of my christian anarchist and socialist comrades such as @VoluntaryDom on this because y'all are actually still in the faith and have found a way to reconcile it with your liberatory outlooks.

To start off, I'll detail what I see as the main stream enlightened leftoid view on christianity is, do some speculation on why that position is popular, then I will contrast it with my own based on my personal experiences with the christian faith and scripture.

In my eyes, the typical leftoid view on chrstianity can be summarized in a few guiding principles:
1. Christianity as embodied by christ's teachings is good
2. this legacy has been distorted by modern institutionalized christianity
3. christianity is not unsalvageable

I think this view largely emerged in response to one historical and 2 contemporary developments: the historical one is the bloody history of leftist anti-theism. This new view is a correction of that legacy, by taking a more sympathetic view towards monotheism

The first contemporary development is the reality of conservative evangelicalism. This view is a response to that social force by demonstrating the tension between the authentic, love filled teachings of christ, and the bureaucratic reactionary state of modern churches.

The second contemporary development is the birth and growth of an elitist reactionary cult of scientism particularly popular among wealthy white millenials. By taking a more sympathetic view towards the church, the left distances itself from these bourgeois elements.

I don't disagree with the moral character of this outlook, but I think it's sort of shallow, because leftoids don't actually know anything about christian theology, and thus don't understand the complex relationship between christian teachings and christian institutions.

In other words, secular leftists tend to can sort of end up white washing what I would argue are overtly and unambiguously reactionary elements of the christian religion at its core, in favor of merely analyzing how this manifests itself in christian denominations.

Due to my experience however, I would argue an examination of christianity that fails to actually look at the doctrine itself and how that doctrine may have led to our current reality, will not be able to help bring about a salvaging of christianity, assuming that's even possible

So, let's actually examine the text itself to get a better idea of why christianity lends itself toward reactionary religious institutions so easily. To start of this anlysis, we'll go to the man who wrote the majority of the new testament, Paul

Paul is particularly important to understanding the intrinsic reactionary character of the new testament, because he is the one that took the platitudes of christ and actually communicated them as practical dictates to the christian church.

I'll be taking most of my passages from the book of Romans since that is the part of Paul's writings I studied most recently.

"what a nice young man, I wonder what he thinks about the christian's relationship to government"

So, here, in Romans 13, we get a small passage promoting what was the historical premise for the divine right of kings. It's hard to imagine a text that can more easily brought to the defense of the most horrific despots.

What makes it even more horrific is that many think this letter was in response to the oppression of the Roman christian church at the hands of the emperor Caligula.

"but surely eco" you ask me in shock "not even the most dogmatic of christians would actually believe this utter nonsense", well I'm ashamed to tell you all of the christians I personally know unashamedly were in favor of this passage.

When I pointed out to these black christians the history of criminal resistance of black people against their oppression, which do you think they re-examined: a) paul's teachings on blind support for despotism, or b) their support for MLK jr?

You'll be happy to know, it was the latter. And this is an important fact that you'll see pop up a lot. When devoted christians face some irreconcilable tension between their faith and their outlook on the world, their faith will always win

on to the next one

"what a nice young man, I wonder what he thinks about femboys"
(from first corinthians chapter 6)

For those not versed in king james version speech, the part that shows up after the apostle paul's disavowing of femboys is his disavowal of sodomy, aka being a queer, or just having the wrong kinds of sex in general (bjs, anal, etc)

Now, as a queer, I tried to use my facts and logic to get my mom to concede on the idea of gay people being ok actually by demonstrating an inconsistency in her outlook. While paul hated fags, he really, REALLY hated women:

this is from first timothy chapter 2. For those not versed in king james speech, using his impeccable MGTOW logic, Paul has come to the conclusion that since Eve was made second and the dumbass who got tricked by satan, they should just shut up

when I pointed this out to my master's degree-graduated-at-the-top-of-her-class-in-university-teaches-at-two-universities-entered-college-at-15-runs-an-entire-program-at-a-university mom, which do you think she did:

a) re-evaluate her position on homosexuality and queerness in general, or b) decide that she doesn't have the mental capacity to speak in church?

It was the latter.

Now, I honestly, could go all day picking out shitty, mind boggling Paul passages (notice how I didn't even bring up him simping for slavery? wonder if that has ever been historically used for nefarious purposes), but I'm not going to do that.

I don't want to focus as much on the specific reactionary bullshit in christian theology. I want to focus on the much more interesting metanarratives within the bible that make these reactionary beliefs so resistant to being eroded even by first hand experience.

These underlying themes have much more psychological weight than any army of misogynistic Paul rants, and have more consistently been used in defense of unfreedom. They are why even the most benign forms of christianity, I would contend, are constantly fighting themselves.

These underlying themes are: 1. self doubt. 2. Complete submission in all things. 3. rejection of "worldly" things

The first and last are particularly nefarious, though all three tendencies are very useful tools of psychological subjugation. To examine an example of the first, let's look at Paul's thoughts on questioning god

For context in the passage I'm about to show you, Paul is detailing to the roman church that essentially god can and does do with us whatever he wants. He does not owe anyone salvation and sometimes he intentionally creates people for failure to serve his own ends

for the philistines among you, this is in reference to god "hardening the heart" of pharoah intentionally to delay the freedom of the israelites from slavery so he could show off his really cool powers, like killing babies.

Now paul, like a true debate bro, anticipates the response which would find this idea distasteful, and pre-empts it saying:

This notion of the fundamental worthlessness of humanity is very common in the scripture and is the basis for all of the underlying trends. While liberal ideology objectifies the natural world, christianity goes even beyond that by objectifying and denigrating human uniqueness

Incidentally I have seen the above verse used in response to arguments that since gay people are born how they are, it would be cruel and unfair of god to destroy them.

This denigration of human thought is also seen in the following passage

Passages that express a similar theme are all throughout the bible. Since I'm getting tired and want to eat something, I'm goin to speed this up, by moving onto some passages about the flesh and worldliness before I wrap it up

Now leftoids, being way too nice and shallow, will take a chapter like Galatians 5 and quickly point out this passage

unfortunately for leftoids, christians are more knowledgeable about their bibles than they think, and they'll read the rest which says:

The most important aspect of this is the idea of not being concerned with the fulfillment of worldly desires. This very notion is the core ingredient of an ideology characterized by self renunciation

this is how you get adult gay men protesting in favor of the return of conversion therapy. This is how you get intelligent women stepping down from positions in order to not overstep their boundaries as subhumans

Honestly, I really could go all night about the prevalence of this notion of self hatred that is in every line of the bible but I'm getting tired. The love god wants you to have for others isn't the kind of joyous love that we should all have

It's a love based on the hatred of self. A love premised on the rejection of our own wants and desires on a constant process of self immolation. Or, as my church puts it, "dying to self daily"

Human beings are unworthy of love, we deserve death and damnation and there is nothing you can do to move beyond that other than to unquestioningly prostrate yourself and before god and beg him to forgive you for having the audacity to be yourself.

It is this assembly of beliefs that make me wonder how leftist christians manage to mesh their outlooks. Honestly I could keep on going, but this thread is long enough, and I'm fucking tired. Have some juicy discourse I guess

I'll come back to add onto this thread later but right now niggas is houngry