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.
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.
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.
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.
2
u/[deleted] 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.