First, I don’t know where I have to put this kind of question on Lemmy so I’m asking it here. Marx viewed religion as a negative force, often referring to it as the ‘opiate of the masses.’ If someone is religious and also identifies as a Marxist, do you think that’s contradictory, or is it just a matter of mislabeling themselves? Would it be more accurate for them to call themselves a socialist instead of a Marxist?
Not anymore than if you revere God and are anything else. Marx’s point of view is seen as one of an atheist, yet if he himself had a kind of spirituality, it’s not as if you couldn’t still hear him saying those words. In this scenario, he, perhaps not unlike any other scenario, wouldn’t have any reason to see himself as one of the “wrong ones”, and that is who he applies his words to. If God came down tomorrow, and Marx was still around, he might, for example, still say “ah, look at all you people of other creeds, enjoying that opium.”
I wouldn’t say I couldn’t be called religious, I honor God the best I can, yet it doesn’t put me outside a realm of thought many may call socialist. Marx, I’ve read, even mentioned in his works that Jesus could be considered a socialist, as Jesus’ teachings often overlap with his favored communal values. All of the civilizations Marx pointed to as providing insight to Communism were also all spiritual places.