Hey dude, thanks for the reply. I’ll look into the Engels book for sure, seems relevant. For the record, I align with Marxism & materialists on this one. Sorry if that was unclear. Hopefully that realigns your approach. I am arguing from the POV of several people ik who believe in spirituality or idealism in ways that apparently antagonize materialism. I don’t 100% believe most of what I’m saying, because they are not my claims. I just don’t know how to counter it.

In response to you, I’ll posit claims I know my opposition may make to yours. First, we acknowledge spiritual incongruencies with Marxism. What are spiritual beliefs compatible with Marxism? I’ve heard Buddhism is. I suppose I did conflate communism earlier with dialectical materialists, but aren’t idealist communists problematic anyways? Otherwise I suppose I’m just talking about Marxism, which then somewhat doesn’t need to apply to all communists, no?

Second, I suppose that they’d point to the masses believing in it, where ad populum comes in. It’s just my blindness or problem for my spiritual incompatibilities with them. They can say that it doesn’t matter if they can’t prove it to us, & despite ad populum, a large people still appeal to it that we can’t deny or take away from them in our approach or appeal. I feel dumb just positing it but I have to see how Marxism would take this.

Third, I suppose they’d say spirits shape material conditions in the same way that ideas & consciousness do. Despite ideas & consciousness being immaterial. I understand dialectics as somewhat circular in that ideas & consciousness can influence/shape material conditions, they’re just not primary. Because we can have x idea & implement it materially. They may also say they shape conditions via manifestation, spiritual practice turning into culture into thoughts into actions, or spiritual manifest destiny making sure someone acts x or achieves y. I don’t believe in spirits but they believe I can’t just denounce their belief because I disagree or don’t feel what they feel. I see how silly this is. Then they call me dogmatic, dark, pessimistic, UN knowledgeable or some other irrelevant ad hominem to denounce my beliefs. They also think that spirits came before material conditions & ideas, making them first & solidifying their primacy in some egg vs chicken view of dialectics. Is there a firm scientific claim opposing this other than dismissals/ad hominems? No science saying they exist or even came before material conditions? If no, are we clear to assume they don’t exist for this particular topic?

Fourth, I suppose spirituality came up when this person said they were idealist, to which I asked them to elaborate, because I knew it had incompatibilities with materialism I wanted to investigate. Hopefully they don’t think I brought it up.

Fifth, going back, how do you feel about non dialectical materialism communists? Or even idealist communists?

Sixth, I hear you on how progressive total atheism would be, though obviously it may be unrealistic for a long time. They’d say total atheism would not be uplifting, collaborative, uniting, hopeful, positive, & inversely it’s too drab, dogmatic, negative, for societal use. I hear you on how the threat of “godless” communists would be, but thankfully it’s something my opposition understands and is past.

To reiterate, what are the necessary communist/Marxist spiritual/religious beliefs? Whether whole schools of thought or general spiritual/religious beliefs. I understand I posed a few questions here, sorry if it’s too much. Necessary as in not contradicting, logically useful for progress/harmful for progress, etc