Why Is Communism An Atheistic Ideology?
It isn’t. Mt. Athos is the oldest communist society in existence. However, Leninist communism and it descendants were anti-religious. The reason is two fold. The first is that religious leaders and political leaders take power away from the proletariat, but political leaders rise “from the ranks,” of the proletariat whereas religious leaders rise through some irrational “divinely inspired,” system. In the ideal communist system the party itself disappears for direct rule of the proletariat. Government is seen as a temporary necessary evil. Persecution is for the same reason persecution happens in every country, someone holds out as a stalwart opponent. In this case, as in the French revolution, such opponents are seen as enemies of the people. They may be popular, but they are seen, like the French aristocracy, as parasites on society. The second is that communism is intended to be a “classless” society, and they came close in practice. Hierarchies create class, hierarchies outside tho
Probably for the same reasons that the early church practiced socialism and communism but then more recently the church has tried to deny any connection with it. Realistically in a “perfect” world where every one was motivated by the good of the whole, communism is a reasonable political system. Even in this world, the basis of communism is a reasonable approach, however the several implementations of it have not been pure communism nor have they turned out well. Note: I’m not an adherent of communism, I do, however, realize the difference between the ideology and how it was implemented by various countries. Edit: Communism is not necessarily atheistic just as capitalism is necessarily Christian. Communism and Capitalism are economic theories and are not related to religious beliefs, just as government types (monarchies, democracies, etc) are not related to religion. True, in many to most cases a stance on religions was taken but that is a dynamic between different systems.
One reason they believed religion had to be eliminated, was because kept the impoverished from rising up against the injustice of the world, because they hung on to the escapist idea that the next world would be better– which isn’t untrue. Stupidly, the didn’t seem to realize forcing anything out of society that’s so ingrained in peoples minds and lives doesn’t work– that, or they didn’t care, and they, like so many crazy, genocidal religious leaders were headed by crazy, genocidal atheistic leaders. It’s only Soviet inspired communist nations that are really that way– China, Cambodia, etc. The Diggers were Christian Communist.
