Dear Gillian
The Destruction of Pagan Temples
Thank you for this interesting article (linked above). I was reading Karl Kautsky’s (1908) ‘Foundations of Christianity’ as hosted on marxism.org. This edition has been ‘lifted’ by the Trotskyite ‘Socialist Resistance’ and published in paperback in the UK (a typical form of deceptive and dishonest ‘Entryism’)! Their skewed narrative serves as both prefix and suffix – misinterpreting Marx and Lenin, whilst oscillating between ‘demonising’ and ‘ignoring’ Stalin (they even invent the tautological phrase ‘Stalinist schools of falsification’ – or ‘objective, Marxist-Leninist historians who condemn the revisionism of Kautsky and Trotsky’ – to you and me). Socialist Resistance, after stealing somebody else’s work, then dishonestly attempt to ‘sell’ it as a book they ‘wrote’! My point here, is that Kautsky’s ‘shoot from the hip’ Marxism doesn’t really need any Trotskyite assistance to come across as slightly odd, and bordering on the fictional (Kautsky, as a revisionist, is favoured by modern Trotskyites because he refused to support the 1917 Revolution in Russia! Trotskyites try to dishonestly claim that ‘Trotsky’ also refused to support the 1917 Revolution – when in fact, he was right at its forefront)! Kautsky rubbishes Plotinus (?) and most of the Greek philosophical legacy, before moving on to claim (without any evidence) that Christianity is a poor copy of Early Buddhism! What? I am surprised how many supposed ‘Marxists’ quietly ‘ignore’ this assertion and do not bother examining its efficacy! There is no tangible evidence that Early Christianity emerged from Early Buddhism beyond speculation. I would be interested to learn where Kautsky got this idea from? Part of the brilliance of Karl Marx is that he asserted ‘nothing’ without robust evidence. I have little time for Kautsky and applaud Lenin who takes a few pages to thoroughly ‘roast’ him for his pretentious bourgeois tendencies – just like Rosa Luxemburg who was murdered by one of her own students! They were both Second Internationalist Proto-Trotskyists who continuously thought themselves ‘equal’ to Lenin! The point is that there is no direct evidence that Buddhism influenced the development of Early Christianity, as interesting as this theory is, and despite various contextual similarities. Anyone with any knowledge of this matter will understand the huge ‘differences’ that exist between Early Buddhism and Early Christianity, which cannot be explained away as distortion or cultural drift, etc. Yes, Buddhism had developed a fully functioning monasticism at least 500-years prior to Christ, and 900-years before St Anthony and St Peter of Thebes. However, the Essenes were meditating in monastic cells around 100 BCE, possibly earlier, in Palestine, Syria and Egypt, basically anywhere there was Jewish people living. Surely, logic dictates that it is this monasticism that led directly to Christian monasticism, rather than the machinations of Early Buddhism? The cultural differences between ‘Indian’ Early Buddhism and ‘Palestinian’ Eary Christianity are enormous at a time when the more liberal Mahayana School of Buddhism was starting to emerge. Now, I am not saying that Buddhism has NEVER influenced Christianity at various points in its development, it probably has in small ways rather than systematically, but we must be realistic about this research. Furthermore, I think it highly likely that the Christian ideologues have HIDDEN evidence of Buddhist influence, but this is just speculation and certainly not a platform for an entire theory! Christianity has exhibited progressive and regressive tendencies throughout its historical development. Stamping-out human and animal sacrifice as being ‘religious’ activities has to be seen as ‘good’, as is feeding and looking after the poor. These noble tendencies of ‘compassion’ and ‘universal love’ must be balanced with the persecution and destruction of everything deemed spiritually ‘corrupt’ and physically ‘different’, such as Midwives, herbalists and any old lady who owns a black cat! Of course, the attacks on Jews, Cathars and any other ‘different’ type of religionist hangs in the latter column, along with ‘Ducking Stalls’ and burnings on the heath!
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 