If only these nonreligious people recognised how little they know about religion.

I might have changed my views on certain things after coming to the fediverse, and now I see that Lemmy is an echochamber. It seems like right wing and even moderate people just stayed on twitter and “truth social”, which are echochambers as well, especially the latter, clearly, and I end up arguing with everyone all the time.

Hey, do you mind telling me why I got down voted, if you have an idea why, of course?

I do not believe I said anything particularly contentious this time, and I do not believe I said anything factually wrong either.

Not to the early Christians it wasn’t. The early Christians movements (before they were co-opted by Empire) were radically egalitarian.

That would be irrelevant even if it was true. We are not in the second century. It is a very controversial position either way.

Egalitarian values certainly did emerge out of Christianity, and there was a change in that direction even then, but they were not egalitarian in the modern sense.

Also, please be careful when generalising early Christianty, as it was a very diverse group of sects that hardly agreed on anything.

Early religious communities sometimes were very accepting, and women played a role as well, but they still existed in a very patriarchal culture, so you should not expect their women to be equal to men in society, and there were absolutely positions of authority.

They opposed the empire because initially, they were not perceived by anyone as a group distinct from Jews, which were very hostile to it. However, there were appeals made by powerful Christians later to be recognized as a non-threat to imperial power, and ultimately, they succeeded.

Even so, the Jews simply wanted independence, not equality. The idea of social equality did not even exist then. They were equal in Christ, not in society.

Christianity was not coopted by the empire, it conquered it.

The idea that early christianity was somehow “more pure” I do not accept as well. I would say the Christian tradition has only been enriched over the years, and without a unified basic set of dogmas it would really make much sense.

Well, it does not have an economy, so why would it have money?

Also, it doesn’t have politics and society in the conventional sense, but men are clearly subordinate to God. Christ is king, this is the way Christians think, so I am not sure this is a correct comparison.

The question of “should Christians strive for a classless society” is a complex one. Egalitarian ideals are very new compared to Christianity, but some Christians now think that in the “fallen world” authority is undesirable as it can be abused. This is not common though.

However, Marxism is an anti-religious ideology. Marxists both believe that religion will disappear after “the base” changes and it will become, ultimately, obsolete, and also have historically persecuted and enacted violence on Christians. So I am not surprised there are not many Marxist Christians.

Well, maybe I should not have used FRG and GDR as an example. I should say that this is not the point I was originally trying to make.

I used those as an example because they are similar countries, and contrasted it with comparing a european nation with a undeveloped african/asian nation. I was not trying to criticise east germany really, and I admit there are many reasons why it was and still is I suppose lacking compared to the west.

Well if you didn’t I do not know how I can possibly explain your previous comment.

So you claim the USSR did not support East Germany because of anti-german sentiments, while the west invested quite a lot into the reconstruction of FRG. I am afraid I am not qualified to assess how accurate that claim is(the former half of it, specifically). But I am deeply skeptical about this, since it would be quite a useful propaganda tool both domestically and in the west. Also, the east had a communist government and it distanced itself from it’s past. The internationalist ideology of the USSR should have triumphed over the nationalist sentiments that might have existed.

However, I should say, that the main point of my original comment still stands. Of course, there are always many factors at play and it is not the case that the disparity between the east and the west can be attributed to the economic system alone. However, this does not mean that such comparisons are not valid, and I still would say that comparing european countries to underdeveloped countries to say that life in eastern Europe “wasn’t that bad” is quite absurd.

If only there was a superpower leading a blok of nations rivaling the west that could have supported east Germany…

Why would you not compare european communist countries woth european capitalist countries? Sure, africans and asians were poorer, but that goes without saying, honestly, what does that even have to do with this matter?

East Germany was poorer than west Germany. That tells us something. The fact that Ethiopia or whatever was poorer does not really tell us much about ehich economic system is better.

America is Palpatine.

It just revealed that it was the sith lord all along.

I might have heard of it. But again, I am NOT american. Haven’t I made that clear?

I am not responsible for what Trump is doing. But you, if you voted for Biden, are responsible for the genocide in Gaza. And you would have been responsible for what happened under Harris, and let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be much different.

I mean the bar is not high. But Harris was literally throwing the election, her campaign was based entirely on not being Trump and she didn’t offer anything substantial to the american people. Trump won for a reason. And you didn’t vote for Harris either, you voted against Trump.

The chances I will be asked to vote in the american elections are, indeed, small, but not for the reason you think. I referred to americans that did not vote as “they” for a reason.

Harm reduction is great, but if I do not see a candidate that represents me I am not going to vote.

Why would I support someone that is fucking me over?

If I had the final say in who gets to be president I might have picked Harris, but honestly, your vote is not going to change the outcome of the election, so why compromise your morality?

Well I doubt the person I responded to would approve of voting for third party candidates. He probably thinks everyone who votes for them is a Trump-loving fascist.

Meaning they were not fine with either winning.

I would like to ask, what is the point of voting according to you?

Or maybe they didn’t want to vote for someone they didn’t like.

I thought this was film. I was so scared lmao.

This is insane.

USA really is a cyberpunk dystopia.