You may not know this story. In 1818 a boy came into this world. His family was Jewish. His grandfather was a rabbi. His father was a successful lawyer in the Rhineland, but when Jewish emancipation was eliminated, he converted to Christianity and changed his name to avoid prosecution, persecution, and loss of income. Instead of a Jewish or Christian education, this boy was taught humanism and political liberalism. So it is no wonder that this boy would grow up to coin the phrase, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." His name was Karl Marx.
It's not surprising that a young man growing up in a home that was not either Jewish nor Christian while bearing both names and being taught "There is no God" would grow up to that conclusion. What is surprising is that anyone would find it attractive. "No God" equals "no hope." If there is no God, there is no hope -- no hope for ultimate justice, no hope for eternal reward, no hope for ultimate meaning or purpose. If there is no ultimate justice, there is no applicable morality. Right and wrong are whatever any individual would want them to be. And fending for self as a lifelong pursuit is the only reasonable way to live since nothing survives beyond this life. Humans have no intrinsic value and killing a person or killing an ant are equal actions. All this "mystical" morality people walk around with is fiction and the only sensible thing to do is whatever you please (and can get away with, of course).
Marx finished his Communist Manifesto in 1848 as the basis of communism and socialism to come. It became the playbook for a century of communists who, lacking any reason not to kill people, executed more than 65 million people. Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) adopted it and are known for exterminating more than 6 million Jews and 5 million other "undesirables." So it seems odd that so much of the modern world prefers Marx's view of religion to Christ's view that included as a primary mandate, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
1 comment:
Far too often, children aren't taught the true meaning and value of their religion. Not to say they are all valid, but they all do say to be kind to others at some point. But if we don't teach why being kind matters, the following generation won't hold to it. Do that long enough and you end up with Marx's and Frued's and Nietzche's and Hitler's and Biden's.
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