God is a Mass Murderer

[Belacqua]

in our age, we have Fundamental Christians who firmly believe that before the end of the world occurs, they will be raptured up into the clouds to be reunited with jesus in heaven and thus, spared the discomfort of torture, ravenous locusts, plagues and the incineration of large portions of the earth. on the other hand, you have certain right-wing, fundamental islamics who are brought up believing that those who die while defending god’s edicts will be rewarded with an indescribable paradise which includes more willing virgins than currently live upon our planet. and both these groups are more than willing to bring doom down on the rest of us poor suckers just so they can enjoy their promised rewards!

That's true. In our age, those two groups exist.

The point I've been making is that lots of other religious groups exist as well.

You are a cafeteria atheist, because you pick out only the two groups you dislike and pretend that's all there is to religion.

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Thats not my understanding of Marx's interpretation. When i say the state that is the same thing as saying the government

I mean it that way too: the state = the government.

And of course in our time we think of the government as being over and above the people, not responsive to our needs. But in socialism the government is the people, working for the people. The people own the electric company, the state is representatives of the people who manage the company. 

Insofar as government manages public institutions NOT for the good of the people (i.e. for the good of someone else), it isn't socialist.

The term democratic doesn't refer to the economical structure. It's a reference to the system used to elect a leader. Tyranny would be the opposite or dictatorship

That's true. Socialism is about economic issues, and democracy is about decision-making.

But in socialist institutions, decisions are made democratically. 

So for example if the electric company is socialist, our representatives manage it and if we don't like their management we can vote them out. On a more local scale, the public schools are socialist and we elect the people on the school board. 

If the electric company is privatized and operated primarily for the profits of the owners, the people can't vote to change the policies. If the schools are taken over by the Bill Gates Foundation or something, then Bill Gates decides the curriculum and we can't vote him out. 

The ideological movement in the US to privatize everything is a movement toward tyranny. It is creeping fascism, because it puts power into the hands of government/industry alliances, and takes it away from voters.