Religion provides the worldview for those who cannot concoct one on their own endeavor. It is the philosophy of the savages.
"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
--Francis Bacon
Let's take into account that many of the greatest and most comprehensive thinkers of all time were religious in some form or another. If Im not mistaken, the person in your own avatar(Spinoza) was an observant Jew and wrote much about the nature of God.
Let's also take into effect that arguably one of the greatest philosophers alive, Alasdair MacIntyre, is a Catholic.
Moving on.
What is the essence of faith?
Trust. Trust in another person or another entity. Faith is about connecting with the divine on the I-Thou level, as Martin Buber famously articulated.
What is the difference between Nietzsche's Christianity and the aforementioned essence of Christian faith?
As Jennifer put it: Some people reject faith because they are cowards. Some people cling to faith because they are cowards. Nietzsche at best told only half the story. By contrast, Kierkegaard and others told the whole story.
Of course, this is not to mean that I'm not aware of the influence Nietzsche had on Christian theology - especially Christian Existentialism and "Deaht of God" theology.
Atheism was only one aspect of the Marxist society in the Soviet Union. It was a very small aspect because there is nothing in Marxism that is fundamentally atheistic. Most likely Marx propounded an atheistic view to drive the point home with respect to his materialism.
Materialism and atheism are closely related. If one rejects the existence of God and the metaphysical, then by default your concentration falls strictly upon the physical. One's view of the heavenly often effects ones views of everything else.
With equal success a Marxist society could be Buddhist, Christian or Islamic. In this case, take the same equation and replace the Communist party with Jesus, Muhammad or the Lama.
No not really, as I'll explain below.
Both ideologies are radically collectivist and this manifests itself in the fact that their chief goal is achievement of societal well being at the expense of individual.
Several problems with this thesis. First, You're wrongly grouping a political ideology together with a religion. Religions are not ideologies, they're a completely different kind of belief system. Just like there's a distinction between philosophy and religion, and philosophy and ideology.
Ideologies are largely concerned with concrete actions within a socio-political context. Philosophy deals with thereotical concepts on various topics. Religion(in the Judeo-Christian sense) is defined by revealation.
Certainly there are religious ideologies, but thats still different than religion itself. To explain it another way: there's a difference between Christianity and Christian Socialism.
Second, Christianity is collectivist by any stretch of the imagination. In fact it's long been established that Christianity helped bring the individual greater attention than previously was so within the pagan mindset. It'd be more accurate to say that Christianity is
Personalist by nature, rather than collectivist.
At the moment, I'm not in the mood to go about explaining the differences at great length. So for now, I'll link you to Nikolai Berdyaev's commentary on the relationship between Christian Personalism and Marxist Collectivism:
Personalism and Marxism
That is what is truly fundamental to the two creeds, not theism or atheism.
This doesn't make any sense. Theism is of course the fundamental aspect of any religion, especially Christianity. Atheism is a fundamental aspect of Marxism, since it's upon atheistic premises its materialist philosophy is based upon.
In the case of Christianity it is laying down your individual interests in favor of the glory of God in the kindgdom of whom we shall meet eternal bliss. In Marxism it is sacrificing your individual interests for the communist welfare where we shall all be extolled under the great Stalin or Mao who will not steer us wrong!
So they both have the element of self-sacrifice, so what? Are you against the concept of self-sacrifice?
The chief purport of both Marxism and Christianity is that the individual in himself is inadequate and must surrender himself entirely to the will of the power presiding him.
Except that Marxism orders total subordination to an earthly authority, while Christianity calls for such to a heavenly and eternal one. Big difference. I've already meditated here about the difference between the two mentalities, and how the Christian perspective allows one to resist an unjust earthly authority in the name of a heavenly one. There are numerous other implications of this mentality.
There is something else that is even more fundamental to these two ideologies, namely that they are profoundly religious.
Once again you're confusing religions ans ideologies, although granted ideologies rely heavily upon religious-like impulses. Michael Burleigh's
Earthly Powers is a good source on this played out throughout the 19th century and beyond.
Marxism is without a doubt a religion. Just like Christianity it insists on complete obeisance to the laws of the creed. These laws and teachings are not simple and relevant only to a few aspects of our lives, but as the above definition evinces, they wish to instruct us on every last question our mind may conjure.
That maybe true of ideology, but certainly not philosophy and religion.
For this reason certain religious sects, much like many modern Muslims are even instructed by the book of dogma with regard to how they should eat a meal, or how they should fall asleep.
And you begg the question as to your point here. If there is a God, and he commands mankind on how to eat and fall asleep, then it makes sense that's the thing to do.
Religion is incompatible with the open society and the entailments thereof, independent thought as well as the intellectual and cultural growth of civilization.
This is an absurd assertion, even if we go by the Spenglerian ditchomy of culture vs civilization; since the heart of culture is religion, even if civilization's is irreligion.
In fact there's so much information out there that contradicts this argument, I honestly don't know where to begin. Perhaps I could begin by noting that Christian monks helped preserved much of the knowledge and wisdom of the Classical period during the Dark Ages. Not only that, they even devised a new method of recording such wisdom in something we today call the book. They invented the simple concept of putting spaces between words!
Church construction helped immeasurably in the further developments of measurements and mathematics. The clock was invented so that monks could regularly schedule prayer sessions throughout the day. Monks also contributed to the invention and development of wind-mills. The calendar we
use today was devised upon the orders of Pope Gregory XIII so as to better calculate when the feast days of particular saints occured, not to mention Easter - hence why it's still referred to as the
Gregorian calendar. Nicholas Copernicus was an ordained priest, and even sent an early copy of his writings to the Pope - which were recieved with considerable interest.
The intellectual renaisance of the 13the century was by no means a small achievement. It helped pave the way for the development of all the intellectual achievements we in the West take for granted. Scientific historian Edward Grant notes that the thereotical roots of modern science lay within the philosophical and theological concepts devised during the Medieval period.
And Grant isn't alone. Scholars have been writing about this for the past 50 years at least. I could cite David Lindberg's study of the early developments of science, where he notes that the Christian church was the leading patron of scientific research during that time. Then J. L. Heilbron's study, which concludes that the Catholic gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy than anyother institution in history.
As far as culture: again I don't know where to begin. Gothic cathedrals, Gregorian chants, Dante's
Inferno, Giotto, Byzantine icons,
Crime and Punishment, Handel's
Messiah, Bach, Praetorious, and shitloads more than I could possibly remember off-hand.
For this reason it is being slowly expunged in the advanced nations of the Western Europe.
Wrong. As I just noted, religion is seeing a slow resurrgence among Western Europeans. Even in intellectual discourse, many are already talking about a "postsecular" age.
I think that's enough for tonight.