First, I don’t know where I have to put this kind of question on Lemmy so I’m asking it here. Marx viewed religion as a negative force, often referring to it as the ‘opiate of the masses.’ If someone is religious and also identifies as a Marxist, do you think that’s contradictory, or is it just a matter of mislabeling themselves? Would it be more accurate for them to call themselves a socialist instead of a Marxist?
Not anymore than if you revere God and are anything else. Marx’s point of view is seen as one of an atheist, yet if he himself had a kind of spirituality, it’s not as if you couldn’t still hear him saying those words. In this scenario, he, perhaps not unlike any other scenario, wouldn’t have any reason to see himself as one of the “wrong ones”, and that is who he applies his words to. If God came down tomorrow, and Marx was still around, he might, for example, still say “ah, look at all you people of other creeds, enjoying that opium.”
I wouldn’t say I couldn’t be called religious, I honor God the best I can, yet it doesn’t put me outside a realm of thought many may call socialist. Marx, I’ve read, even mentioned in his works that Jesus could be considered a socialist, as Jesus’ teachings often overlap with his favored communal values. All of the civilizations Marx pointed to as providing insight to Communism were also all spiritual places.
Of course your are religious if you “honor god the best you can”.
Perhaps we have different definitions of the word “religious,” but this statement is just nonsensical to atheists. It would be like saying, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus, but I honor Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer the best I can.” It’s just nonsense.
It’s the term “religious”/“religion” that messes up the exchange. It’s not an “unironic” term. Strictly speaking, it implies there is a willingness to deviate when an individual applies it. It would be comparable to talking about calling oneself “weird”; in most places, doing that would make people think “so are you that way on purpose”. I was trying to swerve it because I do genuinely adhere to God and it gives vibes like I’m not who I am based on experience.