Thoughts on this picture?

[socialshockwave]

I'm honestly curious. Support? Oppose? Like to see this in the future?(Lord I pray not)

I'm just curious because I know DU has a....healthy atheist community and many Communists to boot.

Background: "Execution" of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Communist militiamen. The photograph in the London Daily Mail had the caption the "Spanish Reds' war on religion."

[peacebird]

1. My thought is we would all be better off without organized religion of any sort

[customerserviceguy]

29. I feel the same way about religion

But I don't really want to see anyone knock down the great cathedrals of Europe along the way. It's fine with me if they are monuments to how far we have come.

[Pharaoh]

2. Pretty sick

even for an atheist.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

21. "Even for an atheist"

With the underlying implication that atheists are already sick.

I'd tell you what's sick, by my post would be deleted.

[Pharaoh]

25. okay

I apologize, it was not a well thought out remark. I truly appreciate atheists and all other groups. No offense meant!

[cleanhippie]

23. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Oh, this was probably just a drive-by cowardly post with the poster running away like he just threw an egg at a car on the freeway, then tells all his friends how brave he was(n't).

[Ian David]

3. If they blink, it will eat them.

[Pharaoh]

4. Similar to the Taliban

Blowing up ancient artifacts, carved in a mountainside of the Buddha, would be like blowing up Mt Rushmore.

[alphafemale]

5. State enforced atheism to that level is just as corrupt as organized religion.

Hateful and destructive.

Just let people the fuck be.

Really? How hard is that?

[socialshockwave]

8. I hear you. Sadly, sometimes they don't. n/t

[darkstar3]

20. So you're baiting and complaining about it?

[cleanhippie]

24. What the fuck? You post an inflammatory picture then state "why can't they just leave it alone?"

You are a piece of... well, work. I'll just leave it at that.

[LeftishBrit]

37. I agree

I keep banging mt drum here about how the state should not be into favouring, let alone enforcing, ANY sort of belief system, whether a religion or atheism, or punishing the 'thoughtcrime' of unbelievers or 'wrong' believers.

Secularism is *not* the same thing as state-enforced atheism, though some confuse the two.

I agree, just let people the fuck be.

[darkstar3]

6. I don't know any DU Communists.

Nice flamebait, though.

[texastoast]

12. Concur

;-)

[Rabblevox]

7. I'm an athiest, and find that very not OK. Religious violence is stupid and wrong...

ALL the time, and that includes atheists shooting at a religious statue.

[Warpy]

9. Typical propaganda from the fascists, IMO

While Communists were hostile to religion, I can't see them wasting precious ammunition by firing on pigeon latrines to prove a point. These are likely Franco loyalists posing for a propaganda picture. The fact that they're lined up so formally would seem to prove that point.

After all, viciously suppressing religion just doesn't work. It only drives it underground where it thrives on persecution.

[socialshockwave]

11. It's not just propaganda.

"historian Julio de la Cueva has written that, "despite the fact that the Church...suffer appalling persecution" behind Republican lines, the events have been met by much silence and even attempts at justification by some scholars and memoirists.<5> In the course of the Red Terror, 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy, 20% percent of the nation's clergy,<43> were killed"

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. Strange anyone would do that.... unless of course they had a good reason. n/t

[The Magistrate]

13. More Likely Anarchists than Communists, Sir

The F.A.I. went in for a bit more show on this subject in '36.

In those areas held by the left at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war, many clergy were killed, as were many landowners and businessmen, while in those areas rightists seized, many persons believed to be members of leftist parties, and even just randomly selected working people were killed. It was a bloody business all around; people meant it, either way....

[socialshockwave]

16. Agreed.

But to say that the Communists never committed violence is false. The fascists were just as bad. Who ever won the Civil War, Spain lost.

[The Magistrate]

17. Do You Have A Point, Sir? Has Anyone Said Communists Did Not Kill?

In reference to this picture, which shows no killing, but a bit of posturing before a monument, it is most likely it depicts Anarchists.

Among the left forces resisting the Nationalists, Anarchists predominated in Catalonia, Aragon, and Andalusia, Communsts in the vicinity of Madrid; the Basque regions were something else again. Communists did not gain a dominant position overall in the Republic till the International Brigades, and Soviet arms, began arriving towards October of 1936. Oddly, the Communist Party took a stern anti-revolutionary line in Spain at this juncture, and became more or less the bourgeoise party within the Second Spanish Republic during its remaining years of life.

"Don't try and teach your grandmother to suck eggs."

[cleanhippie]

26. You are a laugh riot. You have changed your opinion on your own stupid picture 3 times.

Methinks that you are just trying to disrupt, and my clairvoyance see a pizza in your future.

[MineralMan]

14. I'm not sure I see the point of your question, really.

No, it is not appropriate to shoot at some religious monument. As an atheist, I just ignore such monuments. But, you're asking the question and I don't understand why. I can't imagine that anyone is going to say, Yeah...that's what atheists should do.

It seems like you're looking for a fight here. Clearly you oppose such incidents. So do I. So do most atheists, I'm sure.

It's a stupid thing to do. It happened a long time ago, apparently. I has no current relevance. So, why are you posting this?

[Pharaoh]

19. I'm pretty sure he did it

Just to piss you off MM :party:

[arcane1]

15. Hard to say, I don't know where/when/why this took place

Where is this sculpture? Who built it? What does it represent? Who are the men in the foreground? When was this? Why are they shooting at it? How does an economic system enter into it?

:shrug:

[The Magistrate]

18. Looks To Be Madrid, Sir

Very early in the Civil War.

[rug]

22. This description is from the website

(A rather weird website at that.)

http://www.executedtoday.com/?s=sacred+heart

1936: The Sacred Heart, by Spanish leftists
August 7th, 2010
On this date in 1936, anticlerical leftists in the Spanish Civil War allegedly subjected a monumental statue of Christ to a ritual “execution”.

“This picture, taken by a Paramount News-reel representative and received by air from Madrid yesterday, illustrates an outrage which has no parallel in the photographs published by “The Daily Mail” of the Spanish Reds’ war on religion. It shows a Communist firing squad aiming at the colossal Monument of the Sacred Heart on the Cerro de los Angeles, a hill a few miles south of Madrid which is regarded as the exact centre of Spain."

This outstandingly incendiary image made for great recruiting for the Francoist enemies of the “firing squad” and gave credence to a “crusade” lexicology that insured the devout would break overwhelmingly against the Republic. (Nearly 7,000 men and women in religious orders whose deaths during the war are charged to the Republican account also helped.)

Maybe that was inevitable, anyway.

George Orwell, the English leftist who volunteered for the Spanish Republicans, noted in his Homage to Catalonia that

"the people in this part of Spain must be genuinely without religious feeling — religious feeling, I mean, in the orthodox sense. It is curious that all the time I was in Spain I never once saw a person cross himself; yet you would think such a movement would become instinctive, revolution or no revolution. Obviously the Spanish Church will come back (as the saying goes, night and the Jesuits always return), but there is no doubt that at the outbreak of the revolution it collapsed and was smashed up to an extent that would be unthinkable even for the moribund C. of E. in like circumstances. To the Spanish people, at any rate in Catalonia and Aragon, the Church was a racket pure and simple. And possibly Christian belief was replaced to some extent by Anarchism, whose influence is widely spread and which undoubtedly has a religious tinge."

Be that as it may, Republican types suspected photographic fakery.

Just like its inspiration is reported to have done, this statue survived its “execution” in fine shape was resurrected by public subscription, and can still be seen at Cerro de los Angeles outside Madrid.



The “executed” statue today. (cc) image from bigchus.

-----

For the record, I don't think that atheism equal Communism. Marx correctly saw religion, as opposed to theology, as an institution easily used by the ruling classes to manipulate, neutralize and oppress the working class. Beyond that, its theology is irrelevant to socialism or class struggle. In short, my opinion is that his attacks on religion were based on its political impact, not its theology. I agree with that. I don't think the present visible atheist moverment, particularly the western atheist movement, has anything in common with Marx. To their detriment. Further, given the usual demographic descriptions, I think it likely they will be on the wrong side of a class struggle.

[cleanhippie]

27. Thats a great post, rug.

And I mean that. I am very glad to see that on this subject you are quite the reasonable and rational person. Now if you can just get your comrades (No pun intended) to stop spewing the exact opposite of what you just wrote...

[rug]

28. Thanks.

[trotsky]

30. I share cleanhippie's reaction.

Except for your statement about which side of a class struggle organized atheism would be on. Given the voting record of America's non-believing community, it seems pretty clear one could rely on them to be on the progressive side of the issue - far more than just about any religious group.

[cleanhippie]

33. I have never met a conservative non-believer.

Ever. I'm not sure such a person even exists, so I have little doubt that nearly ALL of the non-believing population trend toward the left/liberal side of the spectrum.

Maybe thats why most believers hate us so much; were fucking liberals!

[Goblinmonger]

34. Met a couple.

They are of the Rand cult, unfortunately.

[LeftishBrit]

36. I have. They're not uncommon in the UK

Tories are probably more likely to be religious than Labourites; but there are certainly plenty of atheist Tories and religious Labourites.

[darkstar3]

38. Except when we're not.

At my last job my team was made up of a lapsed Hindu, a fellow atheist, and a very young evangelical Christian from a non-denominational church. I was the only liberal, and those three were really conservative, with the atheist being a Randite to the core.

[cleanhippie]

39. Ahh, well, maybe I've just been lucky then.

[skepticscott]

43. Well, there are quite a few

libertarian atheists. Whether you call them "conservative" or not may be debatable, though...I'm not sure even they know.

[okasha]

48. Go find yourself a Randie.

n/t

[ChadwickHenryWard]

41. Poor people tend to be religious.

Atheists tend to be educated, which means they mostly reside in the upper half of the income scale (not that that makes you automatically Capital, of course.) Populism is all too often tied up in anti-intellectualism. Just look at the Tea Party. They're angry about their lot in life, but instead of blaming Capital and capitalism, they blame the government, liberals, intellectuals, etc. And many wear religion on their sleeves. There's a lot of Jesus at these rallies.

All that said, I am an unapologetic Marxist, as well as a solid (militant, evangelical, fundie, "New," whatever) atheist. I think anti-clericalism follows logically from socialism. I think religious belief, even more than religious institutions, causes many of the world's problem, but all that pales in comparison to the problems caused by capitalism.

[Odin2005]

31. I'm an Atheist and that's just wrong.

[jeepnstein]

32. Doesn't do that much for me.

It's just a stone monument. It has no power or significance.

What bothers me more is their willingness to attack others for their belief. And some people on this board are exactly like that.

[LeftishBrit]

35. No; but I also don't want my country to be placed under a fascist dictatorship for 40 years.

This was in the context of the Spanish civil war, where atrocities were committed on both sides as in most wars, but where Franco's side was clearly the nastiest, and was linked to the Nazis. Franco won of course, and his country was under his dictatorship till he died in 1975. Franco's dictatorship was by no means the worst of the Fascist governments; but it lasted the longest.

The attack on Catholics and murder of priests was horrible. But civil war in general is horrible. This violence occurred in the context of the Catholic church in Spain actively supporting Franco; again, all part of the Civil War. Franco's side murdered many atheists and Protestants.


And let us note that the Daily Mail, which is still a nasty RW rag, was actively pro-Nazi up to the onset of WW2. They cheered on the Brownshirts, and even serialized the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'. Naturally, they were also pro-Franco. We should not really be going to 1930s pro-Nazi newspapers for material to post on a progressive site IMO.

In any case, there are lots of things from the 30s that I do not want. I do not want either (i) Communist dictatorship or (ii) Nazism or (iii) civil war. (Another thing from the 30s that I do not want is an economic depression, but it looks as though we've got one anyway.)

[Jokerman]

40. That Jesus forgot the first rule of "Not Being Seen"...

He stood up.

[laconicsax]

42. In a sense, they're upholding Biblical commandment.

The Bible has strong prohibitions on graven images.

[NMMNG]

44. My thoughts?

Flamebait.

[laconicsax]

45. +1

I'm sure the OP will tell us how a symbolic gesture in the Spanish Civil War oppresses Christians in 21st century America.

[Deep13]

46. Suppose it was a statue of Saddam or Hitler.

People have a right to rid themselves of the of the symbols of oppression. It's hard to think of a more oppressive regime that Catholicism in states where it had a free hand. Of course comparing JC with Hitler or Saddam is a bit of a stretch. After all, H. and S. left you alone after you were dead.

On the other hand, I can't really say I approve of the wholesale destruction of human creativity just because it belonged to a previous regime. The destruction of great works of art or grand cathedrals, like that of the Bamiyan Buddha's, is a crime against history. As a general proposition, therefore, I will leave it to the believers to desecrate each other's stuff.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

47. Thuggish vandalism. If you want to destroy a statue of Jesus, buy your own.

I have little objection to destroying statues of Jesus (I think it's a silly way to make a statement, but relatively harmless).

But destroying statues of Jesus which you don't own, and which by the look of it have considerable cultural and artistic value, is as wrong as any other kind of vandalism.

[Deep13]

49. The whole point of communism is that they do own it.

The churches through tithes and the state through taxes accumulate wealth properly owned by the people. Imperialists, theocrats and capitalists fashion laws to protect their usurped interests in the products of proletarian labor.

Whether you agree with that or not, you can't just hide behind a legal definition of ownership as though there is something absolute in it. I'm not saying iconoclasm is right, but if it is wrong, it is not because of ownership. After all, the top 2% in this country "own" half of all the wealth in this country.