How did religion survive throughout history?

[eric922]

This may seem like a weird question, but its something I've been wondering. How have religions, especially the more god centered ones, survive for so long since they don't seem to fit in with modern day modes of production. Catholism, for instance, with its seems like a perfect fit for a feudal society, but seems very incompatible with modern bourgeois society, whereas Islam actually grew out of the tribal society around Medina.

I just find it odd how these religions have survived so long outside the conditions that gave them birth and that the bourgeois haven't really birthed any religions of their own, at least none that can compete in size with the older ones

[Ostrinski]

When you think about it, they really haven't. There are many aspects of the classical forms of these religions that were left behind long ago (own slaves, cut your wife's head off, etc.).

[Bostana]

If I may, quote from Marx,
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."

[Caj]

My guess would be that there was no need for the creation of new religions. Religions inherited from feudal society adapted to bourgeois conditions eventually.

[Psy]

It is because the feudal ruling class justification was theocracy, the feudal class system was suppose to be created by God with God assigning people to a class, thus in feudalism you were a peasent because it was the will of God, and the King was personally chosen by God to be King.

When the early capitalists created and expanded their enterprises it was always while being careful of not steeping on the toes of the church. As modernity set in the capitalists found they didn't need the power of the church to justify their rule and created more powerful propaganda tools. It is also messy, just look at how the religious fundamentalists are making things complicated for the Republican Party, for example stem cell research where the American ruling class knows it can't ban any research as it would just give other capitalist power an advantage and the American ruling class wishes the religious fundamentalists would just shut up, believe the bourgeois state rather then their church and stop rocking the boat.

[Drosophila]

It can exist forever because it relies on unknown information.

Example: YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT, BUT I CAN 'CUZ I BELIEVE IN GOD

[dodger]

It adapted....Anglicans never bothered us and we never troubled them, not a perfect arrangement. But fit for purpose. It was for a long time "The Tory Party at prayer". Now even they have doubts......

[NGNM85]

If I may, quote from Marx,
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."

Out of curiosity; how is it that you explain religious fanaticism among the elites?

[Raúl Duke]

Religion isn't much the same, in the Euro-American world, as it has been prior to the rise of secularism ("the scientific revolution" or enlightenment age or whatever); at least as I've learned in my philosophy class. Ever since then, religion has been in "decline" in a way (before religion explained everything, more or less; now scientific interpretation and knowledge form the basis of much of our understanding of the world). The religion we see now has survived through adaptation and accommodation with the secular world-view among other factors. Only the fundamentalists more or less follow religion 100%, most religious people don't believe the world is as old as the Bible says (instead following the scientific interpretation) among other things. Even now, with our secularized "moderate" religion religiosity is in decline and in Western Europe many people are turning atheistic. Even in the US there's a similar yet more muted trend.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Religious fundamentalism has been on the increase in the USA over the past generation. My view is that as times get harder, the oppressed creature sighs more deeply, the desire to find "the soul of a soulless world" increases. Karl Marx nailed that one right on the head of the nail.

[Raúl Duke]

Religious fundamentalism has been on the increase in the USA over the past generation.

Yes and no

What's happening is that "moderate" churches are losing membership, both to mostly more fundamentalist/born-again/etc denominations and to non-religion (besides to other non-Western religions, but that's mostly an outlier of sorts).

[hatzel]

most religious people don't believe the world is as old as the Bible says

How old does the Bible say the world is? :unsure:

[Raúl Duke]

A few thousand...I think 4000 years old. It's way much older than that, like millions.

[Deicide]

A few thousand...I think 4000 years old. It's way much older than that, like millions.

From my understanding. There is no specific date in the bible, but theologians have ''worked'' one out. All the creationists I've come across claim it's no older than ten thousand and no younger than six thousand. Although both estimates are complete nonsense.

[GoddessCleoLover]

There are some religious whackos who believe that the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's Flood.

[dodger]

This may seem like a weird question, but its something I've been wondering. How have religions, especially the more god centered ones, survive for so long since they don't seem to fit in with modern day modes of production. Catholism, for instance, with its seems like a perfect fit for a feudal society, but seems very incompatible with modern bourgeois society, whereas Islam actually grew out of the tribal society around Medina.

I just find it odd how these religions have survived so long outside the conditions that gave them birth and that the bourgeois haven't really birthed any religions of their own, at least none that can compete in size with the older ones

Bloody heck! eric.....yer ain't sat thru a bleedin' S E M I N A R !!
Same reaction though, as being in chapel. Stultifying boredom, with an overwhelming desire to shriek to the heavens and throw myself to the ground begging the facilitator to cease his/her senseless drivel. Brief excerpt from a seminar too far.

"We'll all get acquaInted, shall we?"....."START FROM LEFT, TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF" MR D-D-DODGER, isn't it?!" silence, followed by more silence...HE'S ASLEEP!!.....I'M NOT ASLEEP....i'm ..resting my eyes..concentrating.....what was the question again??,,....it did not make much sense....why do you want to know my private affairs??? ...what is your purpose in doing that??...well you all come from a multitude of departments on the underground....we want you to feel comfortable....I do feel comfortable.....yeah he;s comfortable he keeps falling asleep...i am not asleep ....i was concentrating....perhaps you would like to ask a question mr dodge .........what time is tea? what time lunch ...what time do we finish....what time is it? why am i here? what have i done wrong? why are the others in the group laughing and trying to humiliate me...??...i do not feel comfortable now....so you wont be sleeping then dodge....mr dodge to you show some respect,,,..please....oh good tea.....need a cigarette too. all this talking has given me a thirst. I was never spoken to or involved in any way for the rest of the day. The subject? Not a clue...the only seminar I was ever engaged with was the retirement one. EXCELLENT first class. Good practical advice too. The food was lovely.:tt2:

[Psy]

How old does the Bible say the world is? :unsure:

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[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Religion has lasted for so long because:

1. It is tradition to retain either your parents' religion or your ethnicity/nationality's common religion (usually your parents' religion). Even people who are not religious at all still put down on their Census forms that they follow a certain religion, usually the religion they grew up with and learned as if it were a tradition. Actually, a lot of religious people are not even really religious. According to a Gallup poll from 2005, only 41% of American people go to church every week (http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2007/03/01/how-many-americans-attend-church-each/), yet, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life taken around the same time, 78.4% of Americans claim they are Christians (http://religions.pewforum.org/reports). And that's not even getting the statistics for all the other religions that have churches. So, tradition is very important to protecting religions and making them last.

2. There is always going to be rightist propaganda saying that religion (usually a certain one) is central to the human race, which makes religions last a long time.

3. There are always going to be (and always have been) unanswered questions that people will look to religion to answer.

4. Religions help people deal with difficult things in their lives. Actually, I was just volunteering at a Lion's Blind Center last night, helping blind people learn how to cook, when I met this blind college student and we began to talk. She started talking about how her favorite thing to do is preaching the Word of Jesus and how God helps her through her difficult life. She even said that God talks to her and that He told her to give up the music career she was planing and do missionary work for the rest of her life instead. True story.

5. Most importantly, religion is perpetuated by the ruling classes of every mode of production. They use it to give the producing classes false hope of a heaven if they behave on Earth (Slaves, obey your human masters in everything, not only when being watched, as currying favor, but in simplicity of heart, fearing the Lord. (Colossians 3:22 NAB), something to distract them from their slavery, and something to factionalize them in order to create religious wars, not class wars.

In my opinion, religions last for so long because they are good tools for the oppressing classes, good explainations for unexplainable phenomenon, good ways to escape life's struggles, and good identification points for certain cultures, nationalities, ethnicities, and families.

[hatzel]

From my understanding. There is no specific date in the bible, but theologians have ''worked'' one out. All the creationists I've come across claim it's no older than ten thousand and no younger than six thousand. Although both estimates are complete nonsense.

The most recent Biblically-derived date I've personally read anywhere is...3616 BCE...the oldest I've read is about 15 billion years ago (which I have seen arrived at in two different ways)...the point being that one can still be a so-called 'fundamentalist,' adopting a relatively 'literalist' interpretation of the Bible - though perhaps slightly redefining what a 'literal' reading entails, - without necessarily disagreeing with 'the scientific interpretation' to any significant degree...which clearly asks questions of how exactly we are to understand religious development; it seems far too simplistic to just state that religion is progressively abandoned in favour of some other source of wisdom (i.e. science), when instead it is reassessed...or something, I think I have a point here I'm definitely getting at something but I'm not 100% certain what it is...

EDIT: oh yeah by the way I wasn't actually asking the question I was just setting myself up to point out the very wide range of traditional datings which demonstrate that it's clearly never been as simple as merely reading off the information without any interpretation, rendering the idea of a biblical age of the world largely meaningless through its being utterly indefinable. The same can be said of most religious 'truths'

[Psy]

In my opinion, religions last for so long because they are good tools for the oppressing classes, good explainations for unexplainable phenomenon, good ways to escape life's struggles, and good identification points for certain cultures, nationalities, ethnicities, and families.
Then why is Christianity just in the USA is divided into 33,000 fractions, since modernity religion has formed a massive circle firing squad.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Then why is Christianity just in the USA is divided into 33,000 fractions, since modernity religion has formed a massive circle firing squad.

I talk about factions earlier in the post you quoted.

[Psy]

I talk about factions earlier in the post you quoted.
Right but having 33,000 different churches all with different views in a circular firing squad is not very useful for the bourgeois state. In comparison you have one propaganda view of the US bourgeois state with the illusion of differing views. For propaganda purposes the bourgeoisie want one view just banded differently for the illusion of choice.

[Revolution starts with U]

"Millions..." lulz

Homknids are older than a few million.

[Psy]

The real problem with new religion under modernity is the easy access to recorded history, we see this with the Mormons and Scientology where the mountains of evidence against their holy texts has made them a laughing stock in the public eye.

[eric922]

The real problem with new religion under modernity is the easy access to recorded history, we see this with the Mormons and Scientology where the mountains of evidence against their holy texts has made them a laughing stock in the public eye.
I don't know enough about Scientology to know if their holy texts have been contradicted, but how anyone can believe Mormonism, I'll never understand. If you were raised in it and taught never to question, I can understand, but with converts, I don't get it all. None of there claims have a shred of evidence and some of them such as Native Americans being of Jewish descent have been completely disproven.

[Psy]

I don't know enough about Scientology to know if their holy texts have been contradicted, but how anyone can believe Mormonism, I'll never understand. If you were raised in it and taught never to question, I can understand, but with converts, I don't get it all. None of there claims have a shred of evidence and some of them such as Native Americans being of Jewish descent have been completely disproven.

Scientology isn't hard to find problems with.

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As for Mormonism well Christianity has similar problems but they are covered up due to poor record keeping of the time, I mean if you get really back into historical documents there are writings talking about Jesus in 100 BC that means you have people writing about Jesus before Jesus was suppose to be born. You have more problems when the Jewish God started as Yahweh the Jewish god of war back when Judaism was polytheist, the Jewish ruling class later decided to move to monotheism and make Yahweh the God of War that single God.

[Rafiq]

Religion is a unique formulation of dillusionary Ideology, and like all forms of Ideology represents the interests of some sort of class. Like Ideas, the usage of this can change from one class to the other (Islamism, where I am, represents the interests of the petite bourgeoisie, but In Saudi Arabia or in gulf states, the mega bourgeoisie).

What exactly do we mean when we say religion? There is no way of escaping ideology, even the concept of post ideology is very ideological. Religion, perhaps, is just an extremely mystified form of ideology, so extreme, it acts like a drug.

[NGNM85]

I don't know enough about Scientology to know if their holy texts have been contradicted, but how anyone can believe Mormonism, I'll never understand. If you were raised in it and taught never to question, I can understand, but with converts, I don't get it all. None of there claims have a shred of evidence and some of them such as Native Americans being of Jewish descent have been completely disproven.

Virtually all religions collapse very quickly under the slightest scrutiny.

As for Scientology; you might want to check out the Stamp Out Scientology group I started, awhile ago;

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=667

I would particularly recommend checking out The Xenu Myth, which explains the Scientologist creation mythos, (It's a laugh riot.) and The Case Against Scientology, which list a number of the more egregious misdeeds of the cult, including child labor, and several deaths. There's tons of resources , and multimedia.

[Lobotomy]

It's worth noting that religion was heavily incorporated into nationalism at times. In Ireland and Poland for example, Catholicism is a big part of national identity.

[tradeunionsupporter]

Religion exists because of the fear of death.

[Red Rabbit]

Religion exists because of the fear of death.

Not entirely true. Only a few religions focus much on death, and many don't even mention what happens when you die.

One could argue that religion exists to help provide guidelines for social interaction and to explain that which cannot be explained otherwise.

[Bostana]

As long as people believe in it, it will always exist

Besides Religion has helped people and taught people some things

Like:
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[Left Leanings]

If I may, quote from Marx,
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."

Yeah. The primary appeal of religion is not to the intellect, but to the emotions. Therefore it persists.


It adapted....Anglicans never bothered us and we never troubled them, not a perfect arrangement. But fit for purpose. It was for a long time "The Tory Party at prayer". Now even they have doubts......

I remember some media pundit or other, joking once that the Church of England was no longer the Tory Party at prayer, but 'the SDP at prayer' (this was in the days when David Owen's Social Democratic Party was around. Not as 'right' as the Tories, but not as 'left' as the Liberals haha) :)

[Bostana]

Yeah. The primary appeal of religion is not to the intellect, but to the emotions. Therefore it persists.

Yep,
instead of facing the problem people create something that will please them and satisfy them. This would only last for a short while though, if you want to deal with the problem you have to face it head on.

[Revolution starts with U]

Yep,
instead of facing the problem people create something that will please them and satisfy them. This would only last for a short while though, if you want to deal with the problem you have to face it head on.

So what you guys are saying is that religion is a lot like opiates?

[NewLeft]

Yes and no

What's happening is that "moderate" churches are losing membership, both to mostly more fundamentalist/born-again/etc denominations and to non-religion (besides to other non-Western religions, but that's mostly an outlier of sorts).
Could we say that the religious right came from the united "Christian" with the same goal.. Instead of the catholic, protestant..etc.