Why do totalitarian communist regimes so closely resemble religions?

Question

In the USSR and China, the phenomenon of Stalin and Mao, respectively, is often referred to as a "cult" of personality.

In fact, in N. Korea, there is a state religion called Juche. Among its tenets is that national founder (Kim Il Sung) is divine and his son (current leader Kim Jong Il) had a miraculous birth - complete with a rainbow over the small house where he came into the world (sound familiar?).

"the semi-religious celebration of Mr. Kim's birth. Every year, the state-controlled media report miraculous phenomena: concentric rainbows circling the sun, the birth of a new star, and unseasonably warm temperatures at Mount Paektu, said to be the Great Leader's birthplace (although Western historians say he was actually born in Russia)."

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/05/ma_367_01.html

"I ask the guide, a young woman with excellent English and a petal-pink coat, what she thinks of the founder's son -- the current leader, Kim Jong Il. Taken aback at such an ignorant question, she laughs. "He is my father, also our father," she says, then reverentially points out water jugs from which the elder Kim drank and the mats on which he slept."

Answer 1

It's all about control.

Answer 2

They most certainly do! It's not called "the opium of the masses" for nothing. Organized religion is all about CONTROL and never straying from the pack. It's a pack mentality. Basically put there to keep women *in line* and men in control. It's all about the control. There's a great book by Christopher Hitchens called, "God Is Not Great.". You will be agreeing with every single chapter. Good question.

Answer 3

Huh.

Yeah, I've noticed beliefs in personal deities are very Orwellian. Which, 1984 was based on Stalin's Russia.

Answer 4

Religions and doctrinaire political regimes have two things in common, they are based on institutions and fixed ideas, not fluid transactions and new ideas. Institutions are aggregations of people held together by fixed ideas. Institutions are anathema to innovation and individuality, this is true of the religious institution or the political institution. This is ironic because the founders of religions and political institutions are usually men or women of new ideas who are opposed to fixed ideas and old institutions. Jesus christ was a revolutionary man of new ideas who was bitterly critical of the fixed ideas and institutions of Judaism. He founded a new institutions of similarly fixed ideas. Notoriously now the christian religion is considered by people of new ideas, intolerant in its dogma and backward looking.
When fixed ideas are your foundation there is little room for dissent or innovation in thinking, hence freethinking humanism is imperiled by both religious and doctrinaire political movements and instituions.
Maybe it is true that "fixed ideas are always broken" (1).

Answer 5

The last time I checked, NYPD are not military. They are law enforcement. Also, the last time I checked, the First Amendment said "peaceably" when talking about the right of assembly. They are not assembling peaceably in the opinion of the government of the State of New York, therefore the police are making them disperse.

Answer 6

The same reason for religion. Control.

Answer 7

That's only in the case of north korea, where ordinary people are exhorted to treat their leaders as deities.

Answer 8

Kim IL Sung wants you for a sunbeam.
To shine for him each day...

Answer 9

Because it's a well-proven model for efficiently controlling large groups of people who aren't very well educated.

Answer 10

Communists want the people to worship the state and its leaders as God.