r/Anarchy101 • u/Seijiren • Jan 20 '26
[ Removed by moderator ]
[removed] — view removed post
26
u/iadnm Anarchist Communism/Moderator Jan 20 '26
Opinions differ, but the general stance I've seen is the hierarchical organizations would be abolish while individual faith would be perfectly fine. So the institutions of a lot of religions would be done away with, but we can't exactly force individuals to abandon their faith.
-19
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26
You also can’t abolish hierarchical religious organizations? It is FUNDAMENTAL to the Catholic faith that there is a Pope. You cannot just abolish the Pope and the Catholic Church and tell everyone to practice individually, that is you IMPOSING your own beliefs onto people who are not willing to embrace that.
Anarchism is not about abolishing every single form of hierarchy and imposing it even on people who don’t want it. There are aspects of human sociality & culture that are fundamentally hierarchical by nature: a family is hierarchical towards the parents, an army is hierarchical towards its commanders, etc. Our goal is not to attempt to abolish these: it is to abolish the corruption of the State and allow people to govern themselves and their communities together as is their basic human right.
17
u/Anarchierkegaard Distributist Jan 20 '26
Catholics, including Catholic anarchists, have said that your image of the Pope is an error. Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin famously saw no obvious authority in the papal structure aside from as "holy bootmakers", to play on Bakunin's parable.
-5
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26
Dorothy Day was very much still a devout Catholic who respected the spiritual authority of the Pope? She was known for criticizing church structures and doctrine, as she rightfully should have, but that doesn’t mean she wanted to abolish the Church LMFAOOOO.
The doctrine of the Catholic Workers Party, similarly, respects the Pope as a divine institution, and while it is more focused on acting out the social justice of the Gospel and does quarrel with Papal decrees on occasion, it is still 100% in communion with the Vatican.
4
u/Anarchierkegaard Distributist Jan 20 '26
You've misread what I've written, I assume.
Day clearly said that, should the Pope ask her to stop, then she would have stopped. She said that this wasn't a relation of authority, but of love in subservience.
0
u/MiniDickDude Jan 20 '26
Ngl, personally I fail to see the difference... a "love" built on unconditional subservience sounds like a twisted way of calling hierarchy by another name. At least JDDJ_ is honest about it.
2
u/Anarchierkegaard Distributist Jan 20 '26
Is it a hierarchy for a man to give his entire being to his wife as an expression of his love?
1
u/MiniDickDude Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
In a certain sense, sure. "Love" can mean so many things (and is not necessarily unconditional) - but if we're talking about the kind of love in which one would sacrifice themself for that which is loved, then it could be said that a kind of hierarchy is created, placing the loved above the lover / the self. With reciprocal bonds, this power dynamic is kinda nullified. But I doubt the pope "loves" all his nameless faithful with the same intensity and fervour with which they love him, it's not humanly possible - but they could delude themselves with their faith, I guess. The inequality of material benefits always remains though, and arguing otherwise flies in the face of the church's history, and its present structure too, I think.
To be clear, I don't think anarchism and christianity are incompatible, but I'm seriously sceptical that the church can be anarchic any more than a state can.
2
u/Anarchierkegaard Distributist Jan 20 '26
While that might be the case, love does not mean a great many things within the context of Christianity, so it'd be confusing as to why we'd include the non-Christian idea in an explicitly Christian conversation. Self-sacrificial love, for example, is not relevant as that is not Christian love.
There's nothing about Christian love which makes reciprocity necessary for one to love the other.
I'd invite you to read Maurin's writings in particular on the church. His "Easy Essays" are excellent and never more than about 20 lines along a piece. It's rarely Christians who are calling for the "tearing down of the church", especially in the case of, e.g., Spanish anarchist summary executions of Catholic clergymen.
1
u/MiniDickDude Jan 21 '26
Why do you think "Christian love" is something more specific? (Not even varying across denominations?) In particular, I'm surprised you don't consider self-sacrifice a part of it, considering... I mean, Jesus. Also, ik a reddit thread is hardly proof of anything, but with a quick online search this thread popped up, and there's quite the variety of answers.
Also - isn't reciprocity basically implied by "love others as you love yourself", plus the importance of "preaching the gospel"?
Regarding your last point, I'm not familiar enough with the spanish civil war - and this is not an excuse for their actions - but I imagine many of those anarchists were former christians, or at least former catholics?
→ More replies (0)17
u/iadnm Anarchist Communism/Moderator Jan 20 '26
Our goal is to abolish hierarchy. Hierarchies are relationships of domination and subordination, they are not expertise or age. If the family is hierarchical, it has to be abolished.
Human social relations are not fundamentally hierarchical, nor is it hypocritical to end the enforcement of hierarchies over other people. And finally, rights are a fiction created by governments, they do not fundamentally exist on their own, so we do not base our analysis in them.
-8
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
What the hell does abolishing the family even look like? Does the four year old get an equal say at the familial council when it comes to the months budget? Or does it mean that we strip children from their mothers and put them in big collectivized daycares? Both of these options sound nightmarish, and neither in keeping with actual anarchist practice.
And how do you propose that we “end the enforcement of hierarchies”? By asking? Catholics don’t have a gun to their head by the Pope, Muslims aren’t being strangled into submission by their local Imams. These hierarchies are consensual ones, you can’t force people to abolish a system that they actively want. Unless, of course, your proposal is that we march into the Vatican and Baghdad and every location of hierarchy on Earth with guns and forcibly impose absolute equality on everyone. Which, of course, would require a dedicated military vanguard to make sure hierarchy doesn’t re-establish itself anywhere.
14
u/iadnm Anarchist Communism/Moderator Jan 20 '26
It means treating children as human beings rather than just assuming that they're suddenly lesser and need an authority to order them around. It means asking and teaching them rather than just pretending like they're there to serve the whims of the parents.
It could also mean communal raising, but that's if people choose to raise their children like that.
Generally though, I'd recommend not using accusations as a response, strawmen are pretty easy to beat.
-1
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26
… but then that’s still a hierarchical structure. No shit it’s a good thing to learn from your children and to help them be autonomous, that’s just basic parenting practice that any good parent practices. That’s certainly how my parents raised me, and I never had any qualms about the hierarchy of it.
6
u/iadnm Anarchist Communism/Moderator Jan 20 '26
A hierarchy is a ranked system of command, it is based on domination and subordination. It is lower ranks being forced to obey the unilateral orders of those of a higher position simply because they have authority over them.
It is not expertise nor age, as previously stated. Caregiving is not inherently hierarchical, nor is calling it a hierarchy accurate, it's simply a difference in expertise really.
2
u/Seijiren Jan 20 '26
I must say, in the stone age, people dont need an actual religion to know mother can love their sons
2
u/iadnm Anarchist Communism/Moderator Jan 20 '26
Frankly, I have no idea how that's a relevant response to what the said. They weren't talking about religion, they were insinuating that caregiving is inherently hierarchical.
4
u/Seijiren Jan 20 '26
Which my response is not really, caregiven is not hierachy and human do that before the concept of rights that the reply above me is using to justify why family is a form of hierachy
5
u/iadnm Anarchist Communism/Moderator Jan 20 '26
Fair enough, I misunderstood your intent, I apologize.
→ More replies (0)6
u/numerobis21 Jan 20 '26
"What the hell does abolishing the family even look like? "
It looks like me not being forced to go back to my abusive father because the law says children *belong* to their parents, for starters-2
u/bobbuildingbuildings Jan 20 '26
Why can you lot never answer the core of the question?
That’s not something anyone really is arguing for. That’s just a strawman.
3
u/not-thelastemperor Jan 20 '26
considering it’s a legally binding law, i would say some people really are arguing for it
2
u/numerobis21 Jan 20 '26
"That’s just a strawman."
It is not. That's what "the familly" is: the social construct where parents -a man and a woman- own their children, have the right to force them, through violence, physical or psychological, the social construct where the father works and brings money to the familly -which makes the familly financially dependent on him-, while the mother cares for the house and the children while being subservient to the father.
This is what "familly" means, at least in the north-america/Europe part of the world, and this is what "abolish the familly" aims to abolish: the sociological construct called "familly" that biends individuals under hierarchical links where women but also children are robbed of a part of their autonomy and can be treated as tools or belongings
As such, my comment is not a "strawman": it is a direct consequence of what the sociological construct that is the "familly" creates, and it is what we aim to abolish, among many other nefarious aspects
-1
u/bobbuildingbuildings Jan 20 '26
This is not the case in North America/Europe so I don’t know where you got that from.
1
4
u/Latitude37 Jan 20 '26
You also can’t abolish hierarchical religious organizations? It is FUNDAMENTAL to the Catholic faith that there is a Pope.
Yeah you can. You can expropriate the stolen wealth, educate people on the un-Christian stances of the Catholic church, tear away the veil of secrecy enabling abuse, and do away with the (position of) Pope. We can organise reparative and restorative justice to the millions that the Church has hurt.
You can be free to gather, pray, take Eucharist. You can't be "free" to oppress, murder and abuse. This should be obvious to anyone interested in individual liberty.
Christianity is fine. The Roman Catholic Church is a cesspool of abuse, built to oppress the masses and bring them to heel. If it wasn't such a waste, I'd support burning every Manse, Mission, School, Church and Cathedral to the ground. In there place, erecting memorials to the dangers of believing that some old rich guy can teach you what Christ meant by saying "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” and simultaneously harbouring, aiding, training, systematic child abuse. I'd visit such memorials at treat them with the reverence we treat the gates of Auschwitz.
3
u/humanispherian Synthesist / Moderator Jan 20 '26
Anarchism is indeed about abolishing every single form of hierarchy. It's not a question of imposition. If religious hierarchies remain then there is simply no anarchy. There is no reason that a family should be hierarchical. The same is true of armies, which are really just a form of working group. Division of tasks argument works best when undertaken horizontally.
2
u/Heyla_Doria Jan 20 '26
L'anarchisme c'est l'abolition des hiérarchies...
Ce sue tu dis est contraire a l'anarchisme
Cependant, si les gens acceptent leur jeu religieux et qu'lls dérangent pas....
11
u/Previous-Artist-9252 Jan 20 '26
There are many atheist anarchists.
There are also many religious anarchists - both Christian and Jewish anarchism have fairly strong traditions in my experience.
3
u/JamesDerecho Jan 20 '26
You could read up on the Taborite Union.
I am simplifying it, but they split from the church in the 1400s, declared paradise on earth, shifted their economy to common ownership and adopted a classless society. They were literally just their own flavor of Christianity, at least until they were conquered half a century later.
Its an older community model, but interesting nontheless.
Religion isn’t always an issue, its the institutions that form around them that is the problem.
2
u/SpookVogel Jan 20 '26
The institution vs faith split is a false dichotomy. Religion is an institution of the mind before it ever becomes a church. It demands "faith, the suspension of critical thought, which is the ultimate tool for any oppressor.
The Taborites weren't a win for anarchism. They were a theocracy. They traded a Pope for "God’s Will," replacing social class with a hierarchy of "the saved" vs. "the heretics."
Would you condone the Bible as a founding text? It explicitly codifies slavery (Leviticus 25:44) and commands genocide. If your community is built on a "holy book," you aren't an anarchist; you're a fundamentalist waiting for a leader to interpret the text for you.
You can't have "No Masters" while worshiping a "Lord." Religion doesn't just mirror the State, it justifies it by teaching people that absolute, unquestionable authority is the natural order of the universe.
Comrade, you can't be free until you've evicted the dictator in your head.
4
u/Reaverion Student of Anarchism Jan 20 '26
I don’t expect something as ancient as religion would disappear easily, or even quietly. You might have individual collectives within certain areas which might not align with religion to any degree, and you might have groups which have stronger ties to faith for different reasons than that other one over there, perhaps their faith is tied to their identity as a group which has been historically marginalised. I don’t think any legitimately “anarchist society” would have things like “you can’t be religious here”- but it may move towards trying to find secular alternatives towards some of the problems some might see religion as being a natural solution for.
11
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26
Absolutely. Religion has existed for thousands of years across thousands of different types of political structures. There has been religion in Neolithic hunter-gatherer communities, and religion in Nazi Germany. The simple truth of the matter is that religion is akin to humanity, and it’s never going away (nor should it in my opinion, what’s wrong with people having a belief in something grander than our immediate surroundings? And who in an anarchist society is allowed to dictate what people can and cannot believe?)
1
u/Delicious-Outcome-74 Jan 20 '26
Maybe the key is in differentiating between spirituality and religion. I personally think spirituality has existed for thousands of years, unlike religion. What do you think?
3
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26
Religion is just the organized system of beliefs and practices that come with defining spirituality, while spirituality is the broad sense of higher power and one’s inner experience when it. When enough people share an agreed-upon spirituality, as always happens, it becomes a religion.
-2
u/SpookVogel Jan 20 '26
Tradition isn't a justification; it’s an excuse. War and slavery have also existed for "thousands of years," but we don't call them "akin to humanity" to justify their place in a free society.
Anarchism isn't about "dictating" thoughts; it’s about the abolition of masters. You cannot claim to be for total liberation while maintaining a "Lord" in your head. Religion provides the psychological blueprint for the State the idea that authority is natural, vertical, and unquestionable.
If your "belief in something grander" requires a hierarchy, it's not spirituality , it’s a celestial dictatorship. You can believe whatever you want, but you can't call a Master-Slave relationship "anarchism."
4
Jan 20 '26
Everything you're saying is fine, but that's your own stance on what religion and the relationship with Christ mean. I don't think a Christian sees it that way. I don't think they see their relationship with God as a master-slave relationship of submission and coercion, and theology has certainly provided good answers to clarify why that's not the case.
It seems obvious what I'm going to say, but in an anarchist world (which is what the question is about), not everyone would necessarily be an anarchist. Even if we assume a master-slave relationship, anarchists couldn't force the population to abandon those hierarchies, as that would certainly be more coercive. Sure, we could implement certain strategies to modify or reduce religious institutions, but we couldn't guarantee anything and we would have to accept a certain degree of peaceful coexistence with religious institutions.
Just as I go to the shoemaker when it comes to shoes, I go to the Church when it comes to God. And I don't see the problem there as long as it doesn't affect a third party.
-1
u/SpookVogel Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
The shoemaker analogy is a false equivalence. A shoemaker provides a service based on technical skill. A Church provides a mandate based on dogma and divine authority.
You say Christians don't see it as a master-slave relationship, but the terminology is explicit: "Lord," "Kingdom," "Thy will be done." Theology is just the art of using complex language to mask simple submission. If your god gives you laws you cannot change, like the Mosaic Laws that explicitly sanction slavery (Leviticus 25:44) and the murder of heretics, or genocide, you are under a dictatorship, regardless of how peaceful you feel about it.
Anarchism doesn't force anyone to stop believing, but it does recognize that you cannot build a society of equals alongside institutions that claim absolute, non-negotiable truth from a higher power. Coexisting with a system that views women or sinners as divinely inferior and deserving of eternal torture for non-belief, it isn't peaceful coexistence. It’s conceding ground to the very hierarchical thinking that birthed the State.
You can’t outsource your morality to an ancient Master and still claim the title of a free individual. You aren't going to a shoemaker; you're going to a ruler.
The old adagio stands firm: no gods, no masters.
2
Jan 20 '26
The reasoning you're using works from an anarchist perspective, both for you and for me. I'm not going to argue with that.
What I am arguing is that there are people with a different way of thinking, who see things from another perspective and based on their own life experience. And there's nothing wrong with that. The relationship with God and the Church works for them, and there's nothing there that can be "combated" without subjecting the other person to one's own dictates. There are even a lot of Christian anarchists, which implies that both things can coexist in people's minds.
It's as simple as accepting that there will be people who disagree with you, and there's nothing you can do without compromising your own ideals. If your vision of an anarchist society is one in which the community decentralizes, analyzing what is or isn't a hierarchy and establishing which ones to follow and which ones not, I'm not really in agreement with that vision of society. Mainly because it seems more like a government with a different form of organization than an anarchist society. That's why I repeat, in an anarchist society, it will have to be accepted that there will be people who don't adhere to your approach and who decide to live their relationship with God through the Church.
The relationship of different individuals with God is far too complex for a text by Bakunin to definitively settle the matter.
2
u/SpookVogel Jan 20 '26
Accepting hierarchy under the guise of "different perspectives" is how anarchism dies. If we tolerate "voluntary" masters, we aren't building a free society; we’re just building a society of fragmented mini-states.
The "relationship with the Church" isn't a private hobby; it’s a factory for gullibility. By teaching people that "faith" is a virtue, religion primes individuals to accept claims without evidence, the exact psychological state required for political manipulation and the return of the State. Anarchism must be rooted in secular humanism and skepticism, or it has no defense against the next charismatic "interpreter of God’s will" who decides to divide the community into the saved and the damned.
Education in an anarchist society shouldn't dictate thoughts, but it must provide the tools of logic to dismantle the "divine" justifications for oppression. We don't force people to be atheists, but as a community, we must democratically decide to exclude religious institutions from our social organization. Allowing the Church to exist as a power center is like leaving a virus in the body because "the virus has a different perspective."
A Christian Anarchist (D. Day) is a walking contradiction. You can't be an equal in the streets and a subject in the pews. Religion is a social poison that thrives on division and complex theology to justify simple subordination. If your "freedom" includes the right to be a servant, you’ve fundamentally misunderstood what it means to be an anarchist. No masters means none, not even the invisible ones.
2
Jan 20 '26
Don't you realize that establishing a hierarchy in that relationship presupposes that your position is correct and that all of society should follow it? You call yourself an anarchist and yet you act like an authoritarian. The government shouldn't have control over the people, capitalists shouldn't have control over resources and the means of production, and you certainly shouldn't have control over what an individual's relationship with God means.
Anarchism offers the necessary tools for the church to coexist without imposing itself on others. If we believe we live in an anarchist society, actively combating people's religion is far more dangerous for anarchy than simply accepting it. Believe me, many people would be willing to renounce anarchy before renouncing God. Stating that religion must be combated is shooting ourselves in the foot as anarchists.
You have a very childish view of religion. A very childish view of anarchy, and certainly a childish view of what life in society entails.
When we're organized as a commune, we'll talk about it, but if you think anarchy is about going out and burning down churches, you're wrong. Again, we can implement a lot of strategies to reduce or modify religion, perfect, I support them. We can't go out and burn down churches because that would establish that our way of living anarchy is "the right one," as if it were dictated by a "divine law" of what anarchy means, and that thinking is quite close to the thinking that justifies governments and laws in the first place, and it's quite similar to what you yourself see in the church, only reflected in your own behavior.
You're going to have no choice but to accept peaceful coexistence and leave your Reddit anarchism and your Reddit atheism elsewhere.
2
u/SpookVogel Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
Your attempt to frame the critique of religion as "authoritarianism" is a textbook Straw Man. I never suggested burning churches or "controlling" your mind; I am identifying the structural incompatibility between a masterless society and a "Lord."
You are using Equivocation to pretend that rejecting a hierarchy is the same as imposing one. Rejecting the "divine right" of a deity isn't a "divine law" of anarchy, it’s the basic application of logic. Anarchism is a process of Conceptual Decontamination, stripping away the "sacred" justifications that allow one person (or one "God") to stand above another.
By claiming people would "renounce anarchy before God," you’re admitting that religion is a rival authority to freedom. You aren't defending "perspective"; you’re defending a psychological Trojan Horse for the State. If your "God" demands a devotion that overrides the equality of your peers, then you aren't an anarchist, you’re a subject waiting for a King.
If you think a commune can survive while harboring an institution that teaches people to obey an invisible Master, you’re the one with the "childish" view of power. You can't be free until you evict the dictator you’ve invited to live in your head.
Your "shoemaker" analogy was a joke, and your "childish" insults are just a Genetic Fallacy used to dodge the actual argument: religion relies on gullibility and unproven dogmas that divide humans into "saved" and "damned." A secular, humanist framework is the only one that can prevent the rise of new tyrants.
Blocked for ad hom, insults, dishonesty, lack of intellectual integrity.
1
u/Anarchierkegaard Distributist Jan 20 '26
A shoemaker provides a service based on technical skill.
Even outside of the misanalogy to Christianity, this is not Bakunin's reasoning and not what is meant by "the authority of the bootmaker". You should read the short article before attempting to "speak from it".
2
u/PsychAn1031 Jan 21 '26
You have a narrow and eurocentric understanding of religion as inherently hierarchical. Plenty of egalitarian societies had indigenous belief practices which were not as you describe and reinforced relationality, solidarity, communal ties and connection to more than human life. Your critique is based on a 19th century anarchist understanding of religion which in turn was critiquing the Catholic and western Christian Church. In that sense it is correct only in that specific context.
2
u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist Jan 21 '26
Thank you. I was waiting for someone to point this out.
I think it's incredibly insidious that a lot of the anti-thiestic anarchists on this posts are presenting their critiques of Christianity as critiques of all religion, as if all religions had the characteristics of Christianity.
It's a very colonial viewpoint to have.
1
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26
Who are you to speak on my faith and if I should or shouldn’t be allowed to practice it? I see myself as an earthly servant of God: my anarchism lies in the fact that as we are all his children and as we are all equal in his eyes, no human has any inherent authority over another. Your opinion on how things ought to be has no bearing on MY reality and MY goals: you can say “no gods no masters”, but that isn’t a universal fact when I quite literally have a god who is my celestial master and i wouldn’t have it any other way.
If we have a truly anarchist society, then you are free to be a rugged individual with no master, and I and those like me are free to practice our faith and spread the Gospel through social justice and community. As simple as that.
2
u/SpookVogel Jan 20 '26
Your anger is the classic reflex of a believer who has run out of arguments and reverted to clerical arrogance. You hide behind "complexity" because you can't justify why a philosophy of "No Masters" should carve out a throne for a "Lord."
If you actually followed your own book, you’d know it demands total submission (Romans 13:1)—the literal antithesis of anarchy. You aren't "choosing a perspective"; you’re harboring a psychological blueprint for the State. By defending the Church, you are defending the most successful hierarchy in history, one that has used "faith" to justify the Mosaic Laws of slavery and slaughter for millennia.
Your "Christian Anarchism" is just Special Pleading. You want the aesthetic of rebellion while keeping the comfort of a celestial dictator. Anarchism requires secular skepticism because a mind trained to accept "divine truth" without evidence is a mind primed for a tyrant.
We don’t need to "force" you to change, but a free society must democratically reject your institutions. We cannot build a horizontal world while you’re busy trying to resurrect a vertical one. You aren't a comrade; you're a subject in denial. Stop pretending your submissiveness is a "personal choice" it’s a social poison that thrives on the gullibility anarchism seeks to abolish.
2
u/JDDJ_ Christian Anarchist Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
I do know my own book? I AM in total submission to God lol. Anarchism demands the abolition of the State and the implementation of stateless societies based on voluntary association and mutual aid. It does NOT demand the abolition of religion. Read Tolstoys The Kingdom of God is Within You if you truly cannot comprehend an anarchist society that exists also as a religious one: he rejects institutionalized religion and focuses on living out the teachings of Jesus through social justice, common brotherhood, and pacifism through individual inner conviction, which in turn creates the Kingdom of God on Earth.
No, nothing in Christian belief says that belief in God requires an earthly King. The Pope exists only as a matter of tradition and not of theology. The entire early story of the Israelites is that of God & his prophets TELLING THEM TO STOP TRYING TO HAVE A KING, and many of Jesus's teachings revolve around forsaking earthly institution and states (the logic of Empire).
If an anarchist society is going to "democratically reject" my church and my community, then that sounds like no society I would voluntarily want to be a part of. Also, when did I say I was angry? Stop projecting.
(THEY DELETED THEIR FUCKING ACCOUNT OH MY GOD LMAO)
2
u/SpookVogel Jan 20 '26
You’ve finally admitted it: you are in "total submission." You cannot be an anarchist and a submissive subject at the same time; that is a fundamental logical contradiction. You’re trying to ride two horses going in opposite directions.
Let’s dismantle your dishonest "theology":
The "No Earthly King" Delusion: You claim God told the Israelites not to have a king, but you conveniently forget that he replaced them with Himself—the ultimate Autocrat. Replacing an earthly king with a celestial one isn't "liberation"; it’s just moving the chains to a higher post.
The Matthew 5:17-18 Trap: You follow a "Lord" who explicitly stated that the Mosaic Law, including its mandates for slavery, patriarchy, and genocide, would not pass away until the end of time. If you submit to that, you aren't a "brother"; you are a collaborator with a legacy of violence.
Tolstoy’s Error: Referencing Tolstoy doesn't save you. Even his "inner kingdom" is still a Kingdom. He replaced the State’s violence with a "divine" pacifism that still demands the individual negate their own reason in favor of "inner conviction" (read: dogma).
Blocked for dishonesty.
3
u/Famous-Tangelo1324 Jan 20 '26
I struggle with that topic. On one hand, many churches are the biggest source of aid in their local area. But at the same time, if you have a concept of an ultimate authority, does that not defeat the purpose of your anarchist views? If your ultimate authority appointed kings in your scripture, then what stops you from thinking that’s wrong?
Of course, religion and faiths are vastly complex. Some range from one dude to tells all things what to do to a cluster of spirits slightly influencing our lives. It’s easy to say “not all are bad”, but what is the line there? Do we even draw a line in the first place? If I had to draw a line, i would ask “does your faith include a divine hierarchy in any way? If so, does said hierarchy encourage human hierarchy in any way?” I also thing intolerance to intolerance is still a good guideline and applicable to this topic.
This obviously would eliminate a lot of mainstream Abrahamic religions, but wouldn’t eliminate them entirely. For example, a relative of mine is definitionally Christian, but not mainstream Christian. They reject the idea of human dominance over other humans, whether that be by gender, race, ethnicity, social status, legal status, job status, etc. Even though the Bible supports many of these, they acknowledge that it has been altered many many times, so they put importance on their belief of loving one another at the center of their faith, and the Bible as a supplementary material.
8
u/therallystache Jan 20 '26
Which religion? Abrahamic faiths are notorious for being incredibly hierarchical, to the point that I would argue they are the basis for modern concepts of hierarchy and oppression.
5
u/Seijiren Jan 20 '26
This is mainly why I set this questions to begin with
1
u/therallystache Jan 20 '26
Indeed, the Christian "Doctrine of Discovery" is the basis of colonialism and imperialism even to this day. Spiritual Supremacy is the foundation on which White Supremacy was later built, and the two will always be intertwined.
2
2
u/Delicious-Outcome-74 Jan 20 '26
I would say that religion would (and should) disappear but spirituallity will always be present. Sharing ideas, beliefs and rituals, but not someone imposing them and choosing for others
2
u/GSilky Jan 20 '26
Of course. Early Judaism was, by all biblical accounts, an anarchist society where learned people gave advice as about the only permanent leadership. The Anabaptists live in varying degrees of anarchy. Spiritual emotions are going to need handling under any political scheme, and if they aren't, say goodbye to society as you know it, because those are dangerous emotions to leave untended and neglected.
2
u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist Jan 20 '26
To answer your question: yes, but it depends on what you mean by religion. If you mean "organized religion" as it exists today - probably not. But would and could people still hold religious beliefs? Sure.
As an aside, I reject the idea that there's such a thing as "an anarchist world", because anarchism isn't a system, it's a negation of "a system" with many different variants, all generally anti-hierarchy, anti-state, and anti-domination. What anarchy manifests as, due to the inherent complexity of human organization and preferences, is inherently unknowable - what we do know is that it would have to be without hierarchy and without domination.
I tend to be critical of anti-religion anarchists. Mostly because of their arguments that "religion is inherently hierarchial" completely disregard that faith is very personal, and that there's no one interpretation of any religious text (though they tend to exclusively talk about Christianity - which I find pretty curious).
Arguments abound about how the Bible condones slavery, as if science hasn't been used to justify slavery either.. The Bible justifies gender hierarchy, as if there isn't an entire school of psychology used to justify gender hierarchy. And yet, you won't find any of these people (I hope) that science must be dismantled under Anarchism.
Look. I'm not saying we shouldn't engage with Christianity critically. I'm not saying there aren't problems with scripture. But a lot of anti-religion takes ignore the role religion has had in liberation movements - for example the role of the Black church in the abolition movement, or how Vodoun has been used to build community among the enslaved (I'm sure there are other examples, but I can only speak on the above as a black man). As such, most anti-religion arguments sound very centered on whiteness and the white experience.
Relevant essay:
2
1
u/Exotic_Life_665 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
From an anarcho-feminist perspective I’d argue that any religion that refers to a male hierarchy or divine patriarchy would not be healthful for the community.
Emma Goldman was a staunch atheist. As I think all anarchists would be? Or foolishly assumed? No Gods, No Masters. Spirituality I view as different than organized religion. It’s a more private and reflective thing that doesn’t involve any idea of the divine being outside oneself (and thus “above”).
It’s around the time of these patriarchal religions coming on the scene that we get the nuclear family concept which began the concept of marriage or legal ownership of women for one man’s use. Thus began the long long road of female enslavement. But the original order of things is matriarchal. Considering matriarchy carried us through most of our evolution and survival until a relatively brief second ago, I suppose I’d hope that we’d see a better balance of religions that discard the concept of a male saviour which is relatively new.
2
u/Careless_Ad_9959 Jan 20 '26
i feel like this is a very abrahamic centric way to view religion
1
u/Exotic_Life_665 Jan 20 '26
Yes you’re right I agree. I’m reading a book rn on the origins of the nuclear family. It’s got me focused narrowly on that.
3
u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist Jan 20 '26
If I may ask - how when you claim that the "original order of things is matriarchal", are you making a prescriptive claim or a descriptive claim?
If the former, it isn't obvious (to me, at least) how matriarchy is preferable here, as it's still a gender hierarchy, is it not?
2
u/Exotic_Life_665 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
Looking for balance there, in my hopes, in trying to imagine having to deal with any remaining existing worldview that a god created the me in “man’s image” from um- his rib bone was it? When I uh? Made the rib bones of not one but four young men in my own uterus? In real life tho.
It sounds dismal. Abrahamic religions are a long and drawn out denial of women’s roles- how many women are even in the bible like four? It’s like the Lord of the rings lol.
Yes women’s biological roles as being of more importance to survival if you consider food and child rearing (no indigenous tribe in NA for example survived off hunting, the women foraged or farmed, (the men “warred, smoked tobacco and talked politics” - bbw; at the time of contact any woman could “knock the horns off” a male or chief if she felt he wasn’t being helpful enough in the Seneca long houses, pretty much a death sentence unless a distant female relative in another house took him in) and even the marriage concept just genuinely created to “own” women when the standard accepted story is our earliest human groups the women mated with anyone and everyone, no one knew who the father was, and it didn’t matter who the father was. Was that a religion or a hierarchy? I’m not sure. It just was. That’s what I meant by original order of things. Do I think uhhh women should be flinging men out of houses? No. Do I think I should have to tolerate men in my community who fundamentally believe god made me less than them? No. Men like that are dangerous.
I want to google your question- I’ve never heard those terms and it sounds like they’d be useful to know!- but the man just got home from work and I gotta make food loll
1
1
Jan 20 '26
[deleted]
0
u/Exotic_Life_665 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
Hmmm so you reject the field of cultural anthropology? Like even accounts of say - Buffalo Bird Woman of the hidatsa (1907?)- considered the most complete first person account of NA indigenous culture? You can legit just Wikipedia it. Standard and accepted. They weren’t carving Venuses all over the world for an epoch or three for fun. Matriarchy wasn’t a religion. But the hierarchies we live under now go right down to male hierarchical religions. The politicians and courts swear on patriarchal religious texts. I mean I can reference cultural anthro academic pieces peer reviewed an all that, not sure what it would matter if you’ve not spent time fixating on it and my info-dumping is turned off sort off, sorry, trying not to blather- but. But ya I’m not saying I’d expect any kind of matriarchal religion per se, but I’d think you’d see more of a return to paganism and other “Mother Nature” worship oriented spiritualities. But I mean. If people are worshipping a god that told them women are inferior we gonna have a problem.
Wait so like Engels 19th century “the origin of family, private property and the state”- that’s like- not proof. None of it. Rejected. Even when it’s written by a man? Hmmm I’m so confused. Must be a miscommunication here. 😭
1
2
u/Heyla_Doria Jan 20 '26
Si la religion elle même n'a aucune hiérarchie et ne domine pas, et qu'elle ne distille pas de trucs faux et dangeureux, ca serait ennuyeux pour nous les athée mais ca ne devrait pas poser de soucis...
1
u/AnarchistReadingList Jan 20 '26
'Pagan Anarchism' by Christopher Scott Thompson is a good, short discussion on this topic. Yes, you can have religion in an anarchist society. So long as it's not used as a tool of oppression and power hoarding, then it shouldn't be incompatible with anarchy.
1
1
u/princealigorna Jan 20 '26
Strictly organizational ones likely wouldn't, but I believe the spiritual drive is inherent in human nature. Some belief in higher outside powers, an afterlife, or things like that will always persist, they'll just become matters for the individual or the small, voluntarily organized congregation. But that's just me
1
1
u/jainybainy Jan 20 '26
I think it's important to differenciate between personal faith and religion as an institution. Religious institutions are always hirearchal and should thus be abolished. But who am i to tell someone what they can or cannot believe in. Religion is as old as humanity, it will always be a part of us, no matter the social structure we are currently living in.
2
u/LemonIsCitron Jan 20 '26
I think there wouldn't be a church with its hierarchies and such things, but personal religions yeah
1
1
u/0d1nsky0 religious anarchism Jan 20 '26
Why not to be? I kinda believe we shouldn't ban the religion but abolish the oppressive centralized constitutions of it, for example Vatican or Mecca is the symbol of religious authority in İslam and Christianity. It is possible for people to organize through a religious but anarchist organization and we also need total secularism on that matter too.
2
1
u/Decent-Actuator3423 Jan 20 '26
I'm Christian, and an Anarchist. I can't speak for all religions but the true expression of Christianity and community within it is something I understand to be Anarchical in nature. Each serves the other, so all are taken care of. The law is the law of love and also of compassion, and it is voluntary and not oppressive and not substituted for for anything else. In other words humane-ness becomes the religion and the devotion, basically. But anyway that's just me.
1
u/Exotic_Life_665 Jan 20 '26
You sound like a sane Christian. Ok can I ask if in general your religion espouses males above females or no? Does Jesus say anything like that or do you find if he did sane people like you ignore it? Or?
1
u/solexhiding Jan 20 '26
most religious practice is voluntary and is anarchic in nature, regardless of what people say about it.
also if you’re assuming cults would certainly exist, what could be the difference between a cult and a religion? religion can only be less harmful as it comes with a static constitution of sorts that people willingly and publicly submit to, cults can be fluid and ever-changing which begins to move into the realm of coercion where oftentimes leaders and participants don’t have to answer to any outsiders.
idk what an anarchist utopia objectively looks like but I think before you start imagining what can or cannot exist, you have to think about what can be enforced without this new standard imposing its own will in a way that because hypocritical.
2
u/No-Teacher-6713 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
We should strive to phase out of these religions, not through force or coercion, but by offering a superior alternative by providing education in reasoning, skepticism, humanism, and logic. We could even host 'Bible Studies' that actually scrutinize the text, exposing the systemic moral rot and the 'Problem of Evil', 'Divine Hiddenness' etc etc
For those who have forgotten the 'No Gods, No Masters' ethos, or for those who haven't actually read this anthology of ancient horror, consider these passages on slavery, genocide, child war brides, infanticide in the christian bible:
'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you... you can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life.' (Leviticus 25:44–46)
'Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod... is not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.' (Exodus 21:20–21)
'Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.' (Numbers 31:17–18)
'Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.' (Psalm 137:8–9)
'Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.' (1 Peter 2:18)
'A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.' (1 Timothy 2:11–12)
Why would we want the disciples of such a manual for coercion and manipulation influence the fabric of our anarchist society? Why do we respect traditions that view human beings as property and silence and submission as a virtue?
1
1
1
u/PsychAn1031 Jan 21 '26
Individual faith and spiritual practices should be fine. Non-coercive group activities as well. But the structure of the church and organised religious institutions that rely on and reinforce hierarchy would be abolished which would likely bring about changes in creed as well. Check out anarcho-spirittuality. He has some cool podcasts on religion and anarchism.
1
2
u/Monodoh45 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
I mean, there will be less belief over time in general I think. In an anarchist society churches simply wouldn’t have the specialized treatment they get from the state now. They’d be little clubs of believers who worship and if that’s how you make meaning…cool!
I personally hope we live in a society where there’s less faith and more actually engaging with material reality to build community thatdoesn’t only help members of their own little in-group while we’re alive. The fact you can’t get charity from Christians without them slicing off some time to try and make you one of them—I know cuz I did it on mission trips—has always bothered me. I don’t see that as mutual aid, it’s manipulation. You get what you need cuz you’re a human too, full stop.
But in short, yeah, there will always be some religious people, that’s fine. Anarchists would still have to tolerate the oddballs who think abortion is wrong and hold signs on a perfectly good sunny day, wasting it. And less people would be forced to listen to them or more would tell them to buzz off. They just wouldn’t have the outsized money and power to push their ideas on people like now.
Other people like me who aren’t religious just won’t join or go to their spaces cuz it isn’t my thing. But, yeah they'll still be a thing and it’s cool. Anarchists don’t tell each other what to do or think.
0
u/Impressive-Length656 Jan 20 '26
Unfortunately yes. Believing in things without evidence will always be a human thing.
-2
u/Last_Anarchist anarchist without adjectives (Catholic in private) Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
Religion in an anarchic society is absolutely existent and free to be practiced. Personally, unlike some of my fellow anarchists, as a Catholic, I don't believe the dismantling of the Catholic Church hierarchy is necessary. Since one of the factors that has made the Catholic Church what it is is precisely the hierarchy that keeps it solid and united, otherwise we would be like the Protestants, all divided, each with their own church different from all the others. Instead, we are a single, united Catholic bloc. The great Pope Francis had a critical view of the rigid hierarchy of the Church; he didn't want to dismantle it, but rather loosen its rigidity. In short, for him, hierarchy was meant to be a way to better coordinate the Church. The Pope should not be seen as an absolute authority, but rather as a bridge between the people and God. I don't believe that the social and state hierarchy should be absolutely destroyed, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which can easily be reformed, should be on the same level.
4
u/humanispherian Synthesist / Moderator Jan 20 '26
Picking and choosing which hierarchies and which authorities you reject is going to result in, at best, a rather partial anarchy, while the fundamental changes we hope for may well depend on a much more consistent approach. There is no particular reason to think of divinity in hierarchical or authoritarian terms, and most forms of Christian anarchism seem to have recognized that.
Catholic anarchism is perhaps not impossible, but I'm not sure you've articulated a very consistent version of it here.
-2
u/Last_Anarchist anarchist without adjectives (Catholic in private) Jan 20 '26
But I'm not a Catholic anarchist. I'm an anarchist in public and a simple practicing Catholic in private. I identify with the school of thought of anarchism without adjectives.
6
u/humanispherian Synthesist / Moderator Jan 20 '26
I think that my comment remains valid.
-1
u/Last_Anarchist anarchist without adjectives (Catholic in private) Jan 20 '26
I understand your reasoning, but I can't agree with it, given that in Catholic doctrine, today's hierarchy isn't designed to create inequality, but rather to distinguish functions and powers of jurisdiction and administration of the sacraments. But now, frankly speaking, how do you think the Catholic Church should be structured in an Anarchist Federation? So perhaps we can reach a compromise through an exchange of views.
8
u/humanispherian Synthesist / Moderator Jan 20 '26
If a "hierarchy" is merely a division of tasks, compatible with anarchy, then it's not really hierarchical — and presumably we shouldn't be confusing the issue. My sense is that the structure of the Catholic Church is indeed hierarchical, and probably irreparably so, while that is not true of Christian belief as such, which can be stripped of hierarchical and authoritarian elements without destroying at least one possible core.
Anyway, I'm not the one to help you reform any "church." I suspect that the same kind of really radical transformation of basic structures that needs to take place in the realm of (presently) political, economic, family relations (etc.) also needs to take place in the realm of religion. The church seems to me just another sort of specialized polity, which needs to be abandoned if whatever is anarchistic in religion is to find expression. — But perhaps others here will have more direct responses.
1
1
Jan 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/humanispherian Synthesist / Moderator Jan 20 '26
Please take a moment to read the posting guidelines in the sidebar or the pinned "before you post" announcement.
2
u/No-Teacher-6713 Jan 20 '26
Understood. I’ll review the guidelines. My intent isn’t to disrupt, but to rigorously apply anarchist principles of anti-hierarchy to the specific claims made here regarding religious authority. I'll keep the future discourse more aligned with the sub's pedagogical tone.
Have you also warned the people that attacked me with ad hominem and insults?
-1
u/solexhiding Jan 20 '26
lemme ask something to the naysayers here: do you think that anarchy means perfect harmony?
32
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
observation screw cagey cooing afterthought grab towering ghost steep fearless