(no subject)
I just thought of this guy in my two German classes. He's sweet, but very religious and always comes up with the mostly absurd Christian reasons for opposing socialism (nevermind that for everyone socialism = Stalinism = fascism). One day, in response to a very clever Bertolt Brecht story we read called something like If Men were Sharks, he claimed that the story claimed all people are equal in ability, which it doesn't and this guy said that people are not equal in ability, but in worth. Then, another day, to explain why he would rather live in West Germany than East Germany, he pretty much said that God wants us to be capitalist. So, in the first instance, he buys into the idea that people with more ability are those that are successful, rich and live well. In the second, he calls Jesus a proponent of capitalism. For such a smart guy, it's amazing that he buys into this totally ahistorical reading back into the past. Jesus did not experience capitalism and God must be cruel and hate most people if he thinks that Christians can make up for the fact that most people are miserable and many are hungry, tired, overworkered, undereducated, and on the list goes. I mean, would he say that most people wouldn't be poor if they believed in Jesus? If all of Africa converted, no one would starve? It reminds me of this guy the ISO met, who honestly believed that the Iraq war (or at least the sectarian fighting) was an entirely religiously motivated one (ie all Muslims act politically according to their faith, but no one would ever say that about Christians, we're more complex and enlightened, right?).
The only way I can understand religion is as the heart in a heartless world, but these are all middle class people who have materially what they need and then some. Thus, they are in a position of people contemptuous of the majority of the people on the planet as people who have material comfort through no effort of their own and get to look down on them because most of them are not Christian. I mean, to think that God ordained for the planet to be destroyed with all its species and that a majority of people to be barely getting by. This is a God would not only not believe in, but would spit on if he existed. Why is it that all these rich men are convinced they are getting into heaven?
The only way I can understand religion is as the heart in a heartless world, but these are all middle class people who have materially what they need and then some. Thus, they are in a position of people contemptuous of the majority of the people on the planet as people who have material comfort through no effort of their own and get to look down on them because most of them are not Christian. I mean, to think that God ordained for the planet to be destroyed with all its species and that a majority of people to be barely getting by. This is a God would not only not believe in, but would spit on if he existed. Why is it that all these rich men are convinced they are getting into heaven?