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Notes -
You’re suggesting that the far left, i.e. actual Communists, is too individualistic?
And that Christians are more collectivist not because of any particular commandment or selection effect, but because they have a particular conception of their kinship with Christ.
I think you’re overselling it in much the same way as Protestants used to oversell Catholic obeisance to the Pope.
Im not talking about politics, but culture, the way you think about the actual humans living near you — your family, your friends, your neighbors, etc. communists generally take a sort of dim view of communalism in the sense of people actually showing up in their life to help people who need it. A Christian community will give to charity quite often, they’ll run ministries to help people, they’ll show up to clean up after storms, and so on. In their personal lives, Christians tend to prioritize or at least consider how things that they want to do or want to avoid doing affects other people. A Christian woman will often choose to stay home with the kids. Not necessarily because her hedonistic desires really lean in the direction of “I an intelligent woman who can outwork a lot of men somehow pine after the life of changing diapers and cooking and keeping house”, I don’t think that’s true. They do so out of the sense that being a housewife is good, and good for the rest of the family and especially the kids.
Communists and the far left tend to believe that people need to be forced to do good things. I suspect they lack personal experience with communities that are more communal.
My experience is the opposite. Communists (the real life activists that is) often have experience with retreats or even small communities in which the participants would organize labor between them, and each person would do their fair share of work. They assume that this could be transferred onto larger society if only the boundaries of class and money were to be removed.
The issue they keep running into is that this communal lifestyle doesn't scale to the size of a modern city. When you no longer know everyone, it is much harder to care about them. Once you stop caring about everyone, it becomes harder to care as much about your duties. Add to that the fear that other people are abusing your work ethic to make bank or live in luxury. You have no way of knowing if someone on disability actually deserves the money. In a small group, you know that resources are given fairly to everyone, because everyone knows each other. A larger system is much easier to cheat, people suspect each other more easily, and thus you end up needing some controls.
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Plenty of Christian women who are educated and intelligent consider themselves fortunate to be able to stay home with their children rather than doing their duty, because this is a very common female preference. There is probably a very strong difference in the attitudes of Christian men on the subject, though- in real life thé man is typically the partner more opposed to the woman staying home.
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Arguably yes. Communists don't so much share as demand that the state share on everyone's behalf. Historically, communists were keen on dissolving any social bonds outside of the state, such as the family or churches.
The fact that religious people are higher trust and give more to charity is indisputable from the social science data. Whether or not that is strictly theological or due to more general social processes (e.g. meeting the same group of people every week) doesn't really change that.
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Interestingly, there are real differences in behavior between Catholic and Protestant countries, even when these are very similar countries(eg Germany and Austria), and Catholics having a less individualistic conception of their relationship with God is a very well supported mechanism.
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