Religion and Marxist Superstructure

[chimx]

This is a topic that I am interested in a great deal. I have tried to discuss it a few times in the OI religion subforum, but it either gets ignored there, or the discussion turns to concepts of God. I am purposefully posting this here because I do not want this conversation to again turn into talks abstract immaterial ideas like god. I am an atheist, and for the sake of this thread, when I speak of religion, I mean it as a community of people that have cultural superstitions and ceremonies based around these superstitions.

Now with the disclaimer out of the way, I would like to turn to a famous Marxist line that is misquoted more often than any other line by him. In Marx's Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm), he says:


Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

One has to bare in mind that this was a very young Marx talking here. Still, in essence all Marx meant by this passage was, that due to inevitable class conflicts within society, classes turn to cultural institutions such as religion to ease the suffering of their real class-centric conflicts. Many people misunderstand the quote because opium, scientifically and medically speaking, has a significantly implication associated with it today.

In the end, we are left with a cultural institution that is a byproduct of conflicted production relationships. As such, religion is part of Marx's superstructure. For those of you not familiar with the superstructure, let me cite a passage from his critique of political economy:


In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter Into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

For Marx, societal superstructure rested upon production relationships, i.e. class relationships. The superstructure was not an autonomous entity. It followed class developments and the conflicts of therein. Religious institutions, being part of the superstructure, were no exception to this rule.

And of course, if we look to history, this fact has proven to be true. Within feudal Europe, the church as an institution held vast land estates. It was the pope who crowned the kings of Europe. Kings justified their rule through divine right--that is to say, God granted them the right to rule. Within the feudal superstructure, religion developed with these legal and political institutions, but in the end, rested upon the relations of that day.

This changed during the French Revolution. The bourgeoisie revolted in France, refusing to acknowledge the divine right of the king and demanded legitimacy of their 3rd estate. Religious hierarchy splintered into groups that sided along with their class interests. Bishops, rchbishops, etc., sided with the former feudal powers. Parish priests on the other hand, sided with the growing bourgeoisie because they more closely identified with them. It is no coincidence that when Napoleon was crowned emperor, he crowned himself in front of the Pope, refusing to allow the pope to crown him. Religon shifted with the entirety of the bourgeois superstructure.

Now look at present times. Small priests that grow up around impoverished people are some of the most vocal advocates of egalitarian change. Liberation Theology has gripped poor countries on multiple continents. If, hypothetically, a proletarian dominated economy developed that suppressed bourgeois society and bourgeois superstructure, how is it not logical under Marxism to assume that religion, as a cultural institution would not also shift with the changing production relations?

To think anything else would be un-Marxist.

(If discussions on the legitimacy of "god" arise out of this thread, would moderators please split those comments into their own thread in OI. I want this thread to discuss theory--not immaterial beliefs. thanks)

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 11:15 am
Now look at present times. Small priests that grow up around impoverished people are some of the most vocal advocates of egalitarian change. Liberation Theology has gripped poor countries on multiple continents. If, hypothetically, a proletarian dominated economy developed that suppressed bourgeois society and bourgeois superstructure, how is it not logical under Marxism to assume that religion, as a cultural institution would not also shift with the changing production relations?

To think anything else would be un-Marxist.
Well put.

I am surprised by the number of comrades here that seem to be haunted by Gideon Wise's spectre... or that believe you can cure malaria with tylenol.

Luís Henrique

[TC]

Really good post Chimx.

A lot of people when discussing religion on the forum seem to think that Marxists demand that religion be abolished and forcefully eliminated. The reality is that Marx saw religion not as a cause of repression but a symptom of repression; workers don't work because they think they'll be rewarded in heaven, they think they'll be rewarded in heaven because its a way of having a shared community in the face of the profound alienation in their living conditions.

[chimx]

Thanks to both of you. I would be very interested to hear what the staunch anti-religious folk have to say about this. It is a pity that redstar2000 isn't around anymore to spearhead such a rebuttal, but perhaps someone could act in his place?

[dogwoodlover]

An extremely insightful post indeed.

It is worth noting that Marx argued religion would fade in a communist society due to the recognition of the true nature of suffering and its alleviation.

[SPK]

chimx, the question is how we can make a revolution and what role religious institutions and individuals will play, in a positive or negative sense, in that process. This question must be addressed in the here-and-now and cannot be deferred until after the revolution itself. Otherwise, there will be no revolution in the first place.

In the usa, a significant section of religious institutions, representing tens of millions of people, vigorously support the capitalist state and will vigorously oppose any revolutionary process. This support goes far beyond inculcating followers with an apolitical passivity, in the classic sense of providing an opiate for the masses. This support also goes far beyond the purely abstract and ideological, in the sense of spreading backwards ideas about, for example, women, the family, and sexuality. These things objectively help to reproduce the capitalist state, but in an indirect and heavily mediated way with which I’m sure your familiar.

What I’m speaking about for the purposes of this post is a support that is explicitly, avowedly political: it is not simply oriented towards the capitalist state as a general, abstract category, but towards the day-to-day functioning and initiatives of that state and the specific “government” that represents it at any given point in time. This support is closely aligned to certain strata of the ruling elites – i.e. currently the christian fundamentalist right -- and includes day-to-day practical, material, concrete aid to the bourgeoisie. First, there is the loud propaganda and agitation for whatever reactionary program is at the top of the bosses’ agenda: calling for intervention in Venezuela, supporting amerikan aggression in Iraq, getting out the vote for ballot referenda that would ban same-sex marriage, and so on. Second, many churches, synagogues, and mosques have been heavily involved in the government’s neoliberal campaign to force responsibilities traditionally associated with the state – such as schooling students, providing for prisoners, food and housing for the poor, etc. -- into the private sphere, and in the usa the private sphere has, for all intents and purposes, meant religious institutions.

The very idea that these institutions are going to sit back, allow the implementation of communism, and then disappear into thin air is preposterous on its face. Any such grouping that actively organizes against the revolutionary process and revolutionary rupture – and their current actions today in support of the ruling class suggest that they are likely to do so in the future – must be dealt with via force. That means the exercise of violence against millions of people in what would basically be a civil war. The implicit or explicit threat of force against the remainder would probably be sufficient to prevent overt action on their part -- defeat tends to have that kind of demoralizing effect. If this cannot be done, or revolutionaries are not willing to do it, then there will be no revolution in the usa.

The question of religion cannot be treated abstractly, and we cannot view religious institutions or individuals as some vaporous, generalized category where all elements are equivalent: in terms of a bourgeois democratic “right” to worship, for example. We have to pose the question politically, so as to be able to identify the problem, to identify those strata which will actively resist the revolutionary rupture. We have to pose this question strategically and tactically, in terms of the relation of forces and balance of power between those who will fight for this system and those who will fight against it.

The majority of religious people and institutions here do not, on a day-to-day basis, dynamically provide the ruling elites with support in the way that I described. So their religious commitments should not hinder them from being won over to the anti-capitalist camp or at least politically neutralized so that they do not support the counterrevolutionary camp. Certainly, force should not be used against them. Many of these folx and institutions have noxious ideas traditionally associated with religion, and a revolutionary process and society must oppose these in a peaceful way, through ideological struggle and consciousness-raising. They should be treated differently and distinguished from those religious institutions and individuals providing practical, concrete, material assistance to those forces fighting against the revolutionary rupture – which in the usa will basically mean certain Christian fundamentalist churches and sects.

This is the problem with your highly mechanistic interpretation of the base-superstructure relation. Handling religious reactionaries cannot be deferred until the post-revolutionary period.

I have been puzzled, in examining the numerous RevLeft posts on this question, as to why religion is usually treated in a very abstract way. For example, many debates, as you pointed out, quickly degenerate into a philosophical discussion of the existence of god. I think that your reading of the base and superstructure has a similar problem. Why do people so consistently hesitate to assess the political specificity or particularity of different religious institutions and instead treat religion as a general category? Is there, perhaps, an underlying concern that, at the core, religious institutions will basically all behave the same way when the shit hits the fan, that they will back the bourgeoisie? Is there a concern that combating certain religious institutions will cause others to feel threatened and swing support to the reactionaries, in a sort-of ecumenical defense of god? Is there a concern that any religious institution can build an overriding solidarity or alliance – which isn’t the case today -- with even the most reactionary elements under the right circumstances? These would be legitimate and valid questions worth debating, but I’ve never seen them explicitly posed.

Btw, this sentence appears to be incomplete (“significantly implication”?):
Many people misunderstand the quote because opium, scientifically and medically speaking, has a significantly implication associated with it today.

[chimx]

Btw, this sentence appears to be incomplete (“significantly implication”?):

Sorry, I wrote this at 3am. Insert a "different" in there.


The majority of religious people and institutions here do not, on a day-to-day basis, dynamically provide the ruling elites with support in the way that I described. So their religious commitments should not hinder them from being won over to the anti-capitalist camp or at least politically neutralized so that they do not support the counterrevolutionary camp. Certainly, force should not be used against them. Many of these folx and institutions have noxious ideas traditionally associated with religion, and a revolutionary process and society must oppose these in a peaceful way, through ideological struggle and consciousness-raising. They should be treated differently and distinguished from those religious institutions and individuals providing practical, concrete, material assistance to those forces fighting against the revolutionary rupture – which in the usa will basically mean certain Christian fundamentalist churches and sects.

This is the problem with your highly mechanistic interpretation of the base-superstructure relation. Handling religious reactionaries cannot be deferred until the post-revolutionary period.

While you may find my arguments mechanical, I think we are in essence saying the same thing. If you look to my historical examples, I try to point out that there isn't any single way of viewing religion. It is an institution founded on production relations, and as such, conflicts in their base relationship will be mirrored in the superstructure. That is why some individuals will be thrown into one camp, while others will be thrown into the other.

Religion itself is unimportant. The individual alliances within the institution are what is important, not the institution itself. That is in the end what I was trying to say.


I have been puzzled, in examining the numerous RevLeft posts on this question, as to why religion is usually treated in a very abstract way. For example, many debates, as you pointed out, quickly degenerate into a philosophical discussion of the existence of god. I think that your reading of the base and superstructure has a similar problem. Why do people so consistently hesitate to assess the political specificity or particularity of different religious institutions and instead treat religion as a general category?

What institutions within religion are you speaking of?


Is there, perhaps, an underlying concern that, at the core, religious institutions will basically all behave the same way when the shit hits the fan, that they will back the bourgeoisie?

I think there is that concern, but personally I think it is extremely unfounded.


Is there a concern that combating certain religious institutions will cause others to feel threatened and swing support to the reactionaries, in a sort-of ecumenical defense of god?

I suppose it depends again what institutions we are speaking of. I think my biggest problem with the anti-theists is that they discard the entire religion institution all together. As TC has said, religion is a cultural community symptomatic to class society. It is alienating to attack religion generally because of its nature. However, religion is a dynamic institution, and is subject to adaptation. Because of its dynamism, one can certain be critical of certain policies inside of it.

What do you think the answers to these questions are?

[Guerrilla22]

To me, the problem with religion is not that it is a tool for the bourgeoisie, which in some cases it is, but the divisive nature of religion. This is what Marx was pointing out in "On the Jewish Question".


Man, as the adherent of a particular religion, finds himself in conflict with his citizenship and with other men as members of the community.

Adherence to a particular religion promotes individualism because a person in society is divided against others in the same society by religious lines. Therefore, in order for a state to be completely emancipated religion needs to be eliminated all together.

[chimx]

Adherence to a particular religion promotes individualism because a person in society is divided against others in the same society by religious lines. Therefore, in order for a state to be completely emancipated religion needs to be eliminated all together.

I don't follow. Because a community of believers are different from other parts of the society they will automatically be divided? We are all parts of different smaller communities within our own community, holding different values, standards, and beliefs. What is so special about religion that makes it particularly different.

Also, doesn't Marx denounce people who want to attack religion in the Jewish Question?

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 10:16 am

Adherence to a particular religion promotes individualism because a person in society is divided against others in the same society by religious lines. Therefore, in order for a state to be completely emancipated religion needs to be eliminated all together.

I don't follow. Because a community of believers are different from other parts of the society they will automatically be divided? We are all parts of different smaller communities within our own community, holding different values, standards, and beliefs. What is so special about religion that makes it particularly different.

Also, doesn't Marx denounce people who want to attack religion in the Jewish Question?
It happens. There are numerous examples of people who adhere to different religions, even different secs of the same religion being not only divided, but coming into direct conflict with each other. Northern Ireland and Iraq being recent good examples of this. Marx wrote On the Jewish Question in response to Bruno Bauer, who wrote a piece saying that jewish demands for emancipation were irrelevent because no person in Germany is emancipated. Marx essentielly argues that no religion is willing to grant emancipation to non-followers or folowers of a different religion.


Or do the Jews demand the same status as Christian subjects of the state? In that case, they recognize that the Christian state is justified and they recognize, too, the regime of general oppression. Why should they disapprove of their special yoke if they approve of the general yoke? Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?

[Vanguard1917]

Religion is in decline. Religious institutions in the 21st century are not what they were a hundred years ago or in Marx's day. Religion no longer captures the imaginations of the world's masses to the extent that it used to.

While religion is declining, we are seeing the rise of non-religious, secular irrationalism. Green ideology is central here. Themes which we would normally associate with religion are at the core of Green doctrine. Like this article (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2503/) puts it: 'Just like evangelical Christians, environmentalists preach a 'repent, the end is nigh' message. The movement has its own John the Baptist – George Monbiot – who has come out of the desert (well, Oxfordshire) to warn us of the imminent danger of hellfire (in the form of global warming) if we do not repent and embrace his doctrines of austerity and restraint. Beware – the rough beast of the apocalypse is slouching towards Bethlehem to be born!'

In the Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx writes:

'The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.' (My italics)

What Marx is saying is that, as long as human beings do not revolve around themselves in the real world, as long as humanity is not centred around itself, anti-humanist ideas (like religion) become necessary. Green ideology is the 21st century expression of this reality.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+February 05, 2007 06:01 pm--> (Vanguard1917 @ February 05, 2007 06:01 pm) Religion is in decline. Religious institutions in the 21st century are not what they were a hundred years ago or in Marx's day. Religion no longer captures the imaginations of the world's masses to the extent that it used to.

[/b]
I disagree with your views. Religion has been getting stronger and crazier day by day. I dunno about europe but in S.Asia and middle east religion still decides everything.



Vanguard1917

While religion is declining, we are seeing the rise of non-religious, secular irrationalism. Green ideology is central here. Themes which we would normally associate with religion are at the core of Green doctrine.

Why do you spit so much venom against green movements ? IMO they are not as strong as you make it out and many of those movements are inspired by Marxism. There is a distinction between eco-socialism and primitivism which I think you confuse with and how could you simply turn blind to all the bad-effects of environmental degradation ?




to warn us of the imminent danger of hellfire (in the form of global warming)

So you think global warming is a myth ? After all the evidence scientists had provided ? How do you refute the evidence ?



What Marx is saying is that, as long as human beings do not revolve around themselves in the real world, as long as humanity is not centred around itself, anti-humanist ideas (like religion) become necessary. Green ideology is the 21st century expression of this reality.

You should elaborate the connection between the green movement and religion.

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 10:39 am
Marx essentielly argues that no religion is willing to grant emancipation to non-followers or folowers of a different religion.
But elsewhere Marx is very careful to say people should not attack religion. Religion is a byproduct of material alienation. Marx says in the critique of hegel ...:'


The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion. ... The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the saintly form of human self-alienation has been unmasked, is to unmask self-alienation in its unholy forms. Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of right and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

He seems pretty clear on this. While Marx may not have liked the idea of religion, the proper course for dismantling it is to attack capitalism.

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by chimx+February 05, 2007 07:02 pm--> (chimx @ February 05, 2007 07:02 pm)
[email protected] 05, 2007 10:39 am
Marx essentielly argues that no religion is willing to grant emancipation to non-followers or folowers of a different religion.
But elsewhere Marx is very careful to say people should not attack religion. Religion is a byproduct of material alienation. Marx says in the critique of hegel ...:'


The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion. ... The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the saintly form of human self-alienation has been unmasked, is to unmask self-alienation in its unholy forms. Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of right and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

He seems pretty clear on this. While Marx may not have liked the idea of religion, the proper course for dismantling it is to attack capitalism. [/b]
At any rate,its clear that Marx believed religion should be abolished.

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by Guerrilla22+February 05, 2007 11:54 pm--> (Guerrilla22 @ February 05, 2007 11:54 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 07:02 pm

[email protected] 05, 2007 10:39 am
Marx essentielly argues that no religion is willing to grant emancipation to non-followers or folowers of a different religion.
But elsewhere Marx is very careful to say people should not attack religion. Religion is a byproduct of material alienation. Marx says in the critique of hegel ...:'


The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion. ... The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the saintly form of human self-alienation has been unmasked, is to unmask self-alienation in its unholy forms. Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of right and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

He seems pretty clear on this. While Marx may not have liked the idea of religion, the proper course for dismantling it is to attack capitalism.
At any rate,its clear that Marx believed religion should be abolished. [/b]
No, as Chimx argues above and Marx himself points out, it is the material conditions which require religion that need abolishing.

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by Citizen Zero+February 05, 2007 11:03 pm--> (Citizen Zero @ February 05, 2007 11:03 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 11:54 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 07:02 pm

[email protected] 05, 2007 10:39 am
Marx essentielly argues that no religion is willing to grant emancipation to non-followers or folowers of a different religion.
But elsewhere Marx is very careful to say people should not attack religion. Religion is a byproduct of material alienation. Marx says in the critique of hegel ...:'


The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion. ... The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the saintly form of human self-alienation has been unmasked, is to unmask self-alienation in its unholy forms. Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of right and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

He seems pretty clear on this. While Marx may not have liked the idea of religion, the proper course for dismantling it is to attack capitalism.
At any rate,its clear that Marx believed religion should be abolished.
No, as Chimx argues above and Marx himself points out, it is the material conditions which require religion that need abolishing. [/b]
yes, and in the end religion would be abolished and replaced with scientific reasoning, but through the abolishment of capitalism, he was also advocating the abolishmnet of religion.

[SPK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 04:16 am

I have been puzzled, in examining the numerous RevLeft posts on this question, as to why religion is usually treated in a very abstract way. For example, many debates, as you pointed out, quickly degenerate into a philosophical discussion of the existence of god. I think that your reading of the base and superstructure has a similar problem. Why do people so consistently hesitate to assess the political specificity or particularity of different religious institutions and instead treat religion as a general category?
What institutions within religion are you speaking of?

Is there, perhaps, an underlying concern that, at the core, religious institutions will basically all behave the same way when the shit hits the fan, that they will back the bourgeoisie?
I think there is that concern, but personally I think it is extremely unfounded.

Is there a concern that combating certain religious institutions will cause others to feel threatened and swing support to the reactionaries, in a sort-of ecumenical defense of god?
I suppose it depends again what institutions we are speaking of. I think my biggest problem with the anti-theists is that they discard the entire religion institution all together. As TC has said, religion is a cultural community symptomatic to class society. It is alienating to attack religion generally because of its nature. However, religion is a dynamic institution, and is subject to adaptation. Because of its dynamism, one can certain be critical of certain policies inside of it.

What do you think the answers to these questions are?
I posed those last three questions – and they are basically all asking and implying the same things – because to me it is obvious that we will have to fight those religious institutions that provide active support to the bourgeoisie. However, many leftists are hesitant to explicitly recognize this and struggle around it right now. In the usa, this is because of the perceived strength of the christian fundamentalist right, which is deeply embedded in the current ruling strata. I think – though I’m not sure, since these debates occur at mostly a low level, and a lot of obvious questions are simply never raised -- that many radicals believe attacks on any religious institutions, no matter how repulsive and reactionary there are, will turn other, more “moderate” religious people and institutions against a revolutionary process and a revolutionary rupture.

One response to this situation, and you are hardly the first to voice it in your highly deterministic reading of the base-superstructure relation, is to propose that the religion problem will simply disappear with a change in the economic mode of production. Presto! No more problem, and no more necessity to wrangle with people around the connections between religious institutions and reaction. This is a deeply deluded perspective. I don’t think that kind of vanishing act is going to happen, and it is irrelevant anyway, given the requirements of making a revolution and overthrowing capitalism in the first place.

Will there be a significant number of “moderate” religious people – sufficient to halt or rollback a revolutionary process or rupture – who end up backing the reactionaries? I don’t really know for sure. I do know that there are numerous radical or liberal types – Michael Lerner comes to mind -- who have used the current situation to denounce critics of religion as alienating people, invalidating the need for spirituality, and crap like that. And note that these critics are driven today by the overwhelmingly negative influence of these reactionary segments, i.e. the christian fundamentalists.

Personally, I believe that there are way too many so-called moderate religious folx, and I’ve met a few of them living in tejas, who get bent out of shape at criticisms of these reactionaries. They view such criticism as being, despite the clear target, aimed at them as well. Quite frankly, I think that these people feel far more threatened by opponents of the religious right than they do by the religious right itself – the christian fundamentalist base which is now closely aligned to the bourgeoisie has been growing in strength for over three decades, and until recently, there weren’t too many moderate churches speaking out against them. What does that say? This may change, certainly, but that would suggest a political struggle around religion prior to any overthrow of capitalism, i.e. something which cannot be understood in terms of a mechanistic base-superstructure relation.

[LSD]

I'm not quite sure I understand the point of this thread.

I don't think that anyone seriously suggests that attacking religion in and of itself is a means of destroying capitalism. Obviously religious adherence is a consequence of repression and alienation. That's why the poorer people are, the more religious they tend to be.

But ...so what? What's the point that you're trying to make here? Is it just that religion is a symptom of deeper problems and needs to be recognized as such? If so, I don't think you're going to get any argument here.

Even redstar, for all his extrmist bluster, never denied that religion was an "oppressed sigh" as it were.

The disagreement on this board regarding religion has never ultimately been one of theory, but one of practical approach. And, at it's core, it doesn't even have to do with religion at all. Rather it speaks to a long-standing leftist split regarding what to do about non-economic "social" issues.

In the 1900s it was race. Racism, we were told, was primarily a result of economic forces and it was only through fighting capitalism that racism could be ended ...and that was true.

The bourgeoisie did perpetuate racism for its own interests and ending capitalism probably would have dealt a death blow to racism. But "nothing special to offer the Negro" was still the wrong approach.

Fifty years later, anti-racism as a "special" campaign had become a leftist staple and it was women who were told that "nothing special" would be offered them.

The times have changed and the issues along with them, but there's still that strain of the left that insists that every social problem can be reduced to economics, not just in theory, but in practice.

And, in a way, it comes down to an almost religious belief in the transformative power of structural change; or, as it usually manifests, in the power of "good government".

Lenin's "new soviet man" is probably the most archetypal example of this kind of thinking, but it can be found all over the history of the left.

Which brings us back to religion. 'Cause the real "religious" conflict going on in the far-left today isn't actually about religion, it's about religious people. Only a tiny minority of self-declared communists and anarchists are also religious, the dispute is about how to treat those people outside of the movement who "believe" ...especially if they happen to be workers.

Not that anyone is suggesting that religious workers should be marginalized or rejected. That's the standard demonization, but I defy anyone to find a single post on this board in which someone seriously suggested that religious workers are not part of the proletariat and/or do not have the same rights as any other worker.

No, the real argument is about whether religious workers' beliefs should be "respected" and just how that "respect" should manifest itself. Should we tolerate their homophobia because it's "cultural"? Should we accept the subjugation of women because its "part of their faith"?

When the French parliament passes a law banning headscarves in public schools, should we protest? When class-war burns an effigy of the prophet Mohammed, should we be appalled?

This isn't about what Marx did or didn't say in Das Kapital, it's about whether or not non-economic campaigns are worthwhile, and about whether "alientating" segments of the proletariat is an acceptable price if it helps reduce oppression in the short-term.

It's about the KPRF attacking a gay pride parade and Zeruzo defending it; it's about two members of this board, including a CC member, trying their damndest to minimize and prettify the execution of homosexuals in Iraq.

Religion, as a social symptom, may well be the result of economic forces; but as a social manifesation it's a lot more than that. George Bush isn't hating gay people 'cause he's economically disadvantaged.

And so like with other symptoms of exploitative society -- racism, sexism, homophobia, etc... -- we need to recognize that the economic angle just isn't enough ...and isn't nearly quick enough.

Religion is a vehicle by which intolerance is spread. It's a lubricant for bigotry. Ignoring the destructive role that it plays in society for any reason (be it Marxist or otherwise) is a betrayal of the fundamental principles on which the left is founded.

It's saying to the millions oppressed by it that we recognize their plight and realize their misery, but avoiding "alienation" is more important to us. That "tolerance" is a higher ideal than emancipation.

"Nothing special" indeed. <_<

[Severian]

Originally posted by SPK+February 05, 2007 12:26 am--> (SPK &#064; February 05, 2007 12:26 am) In the usa, a significant section of religious institutions, representing tens of millions of people, vigorously support the capitalist state and will vigorously oppose any revolutionary process. oday.[/b]
And not just in the USA.

This isn&#39;t a new phenomenon, either. Really, none of these right-wing priests and preachers can hold a candle to the old Russian Orthodox church for sheer political reliability: it was an arm of the state headed by the tsar.

So of course churches and religious believers that are politically reactionary have to be combatted: it&#39;s not any different from anyone else who&#39;s politically reactionary.

I&#39;d like to point out also that political belief doesn&#39;t correlate exactly to any religious denomination. There is a correlation, obviously, and people with "fundamentalist" or "evangelical" beliefs are often more conservative politically. But it&#39;s not true of every individual. And when some people start gearing up to attack those religious doctrines, rather than the political agendas - it&#39;s self-fulfilling. You help consolidate all "evangelicals" behind those political agendas by proving the demagogues right about how they&#39;re under attack for their religion, etc.


LSD
I don&#39;t think that anyone seriously suggests that attacking religion in and of itself is a means of destroying capitalism. Obviously religious adherence is a consequence of repression and alienation. That&#39;s why the poorer people are, the more religious they tend to be.

But ...so what? What&#39;s the point that you&#39;re trying to make here? Is it just that religion is a symptom of deeper problems and needs to be recognized as such? If so, I don&#39;t think you&#39;re going to get any argument here.

Well, no, nobody&#39;s ever been able to make a serious political argument against it.

And yet the anti-religous crusaders just go back to acting as if it wasn&#39;t true. They proselytize for atheism as if it was going to accomplish something by itself. As if discrediting religion overrides every other consideration and goal.

For example, by suggesting that violence between different religious groups is good because it makes religion look bad - as Redstar repeatedly and explicitly said. For that to make any sense, you have to ignore the reality that religion is a symptom, not the primary problem.

&#39;Cause if you start with the class struggle, and put that first, then obviously a religious-sectarian conflict like what&#39;s developing in Iraq is bad for class unity and solidarity&#33; Obviously working-class organizations have to try to combat that developing conflict from the get-go.

But if you put combatting religion first, you get the opposite conclusion, which plenty of people on this board have expressed.


Not that anyone is suggesting that religious workers should be marginalized or rejected. That&#39;s the standard demonization, but I defy anyone to find a single post on this board in which someone seriously suggested that religious workers are not part of the proletariat and/or do not have the same rights as any other worker.

Oh come on. Even religious leftists are routinely demonized, marginalized, and rejected on this board - right off for being religious, even before we see anything else about &#39;em. You think these anti-religious crusaders don&#39;t have the same superior attitude towards the guy on the street?


No, the real argument is about whether religious workers&#39; beliefs should be "respected" and just how that "respect" should manifest itself. Should we tolerate their homophobia because it&#39;s "cultural"? Should we accept the subjugation of women because its "part of their faith"?

Now that&#39;s a straw man. I think sexism and homophobia should be combatted whether they&#39;re justified in the name of culture, religion, "Marxism-Leninism", or anything else. Do you agree? And if so, why do you keep protecting Tragic Clown?

But I don&#39;t see how declaring a crusade against religion generally helps advance the fight against sexism or homophobia. On the contrary, you&#39;re helping push religious people into supporting sexism and homophobia. You&#39;re telling them that if they&#39;re truly religious, if they "take religion seriously", then they should support sexism and homophobia.

Which is the higher priority, the class struggle - which includes the fight against sexism and homophobia - or proselytizing for atheism? Politics, or religion? You say the former, but you don&#39;t draw the conclusions that way.

[chimx]

Severian touched on most of my points, but I would add that religious values are certainly capable of changing within the institution. Hundreds of years ago it was an absurdity for women to become a part of the church, but after the reformation, newer denominations (lutherans, episcopalians, etc.) began to have more and more women priests, bishops, etc. While I don&#39;t want to say that this is at all complete, let alone true for all denominations (e.g. catholics), but it certainly shows that change is possible, and in the right direction.

The same can be said for homophobia. A few years ago episcopalians ordained an "outed" gay priest. Unfortunately they still support anti-sodomy restrictions, but still, would that have been possible 100 years ago?

All this says is that religion is subject to the changing values of society, not the other way around.

[LSD]

And yet the anti-religous crusaders just go back to acting as if it wasn&#39;t true. They proselytize for atheism as if it was going to accomplish something by itself.

That&#39;s because it is, it&#39;s going to spread atheism. That doesn&#39;t do anything to adress capitalism, of course, but then that&#39;s not the point, is it?

The point is to "proselytize for atheism".

The same way that those active primarily in the gay rights movement "proselytize for" homosexual rights, and those in the feminist movement "proselytize for" women.

And you&#39;re absolutely right in that on their own, these movement will never solve the larger problems. But they might just fix some of the smaller ones. And that&#39;s ultimately the point of "social" causes.

When communists fought against segregation they knew it wasn&#39;t going to precipitate a revolution, the same goes for fighting against religion. It&#39;s a secondary issue, but one which, if one is so inclined, certainly doesn&#39;t do any harm to our cause and might just do some serious good.

Certainly anything which encourages a rational and unbiased dialogue is in our interest. The less people are clouded by irrelevencies, the more likely they are to recognize reality.


&#39;Cause if you start with the class struggle, and put that first, then obviously a religious-sectarian conflict like what&#39;s developing in Iraq is bad for class unity and solidarity&#33; Obviously working-class organizations have to try to combat that developing conflict from the get-go.

But if you put combatting religion first, you get the opposite conclusion, which plenty of people on this board have expressed.

Really? "Plenty of people" have suggested that the sectarian violence in Iraq is a "good thing"? I&#39;d like to see some links in defence of that claim &#39;cause I don&#39;t gby it.

I think that redstar has a particular obsession with this issue and, unfortunately, I wouldn&#39;t be surprised if he posted something along those lines. But you&#39;re asserting that this is bigger than one guy and I just haven&#39;t seen any evidence of that.

On the contary, most so-called "anti-religious crusaders" on this board have taken the opposite approach, that religion needs to be combatted to prevent this kind of bloodshed.

And I think it&#39;s pretty clear to anyone with a modicum of sense, regardless of their politics, that inter-religious wars tend to strengthen, rather than weaken, supersition&#39;s hold.

None of which has anything to do with the question of how we should address religion itself.


Oh come on. Even religious leftists are routinely demonized, marginalized, and rejected on this board - right off for being religious, even before we see anything else about &#39;em.

You&#39;re changing the subject.

Members of this board are "routinely demonized, marginalized, and rejected" for all sorts of reasons. Anarchists "demonize" Leninists, Marxists "marginalize" Anarchists, and Stalinists "reject" everybody who isn&#39;t a Stalinist.

This is a political discussion board and it goes without saying that there&#39;s going to be disagreement.

But my point wasn&#39;t that religious opinions are particularly "tolerated" here, in fact it was the opposite, that such beliefs aren&#39;t generally tolerated and a number of people have a problem with that.

I guess you&#39;re one of them?

Well, I fail to see what the alternative is. "Respect"? "Toleration" for lunatic beliefs merely because we&#39;ve all been fed the lie that religion is somehow about "more" than belief?

Sorry, but that&#39;s crap. People&#39;s beliefs are just that, their beliefs. And this board is here to debate beliefs.

But when it comes to rights, when it comes to class, when it comes to practical issues of politics, I again can&#39;t recall seeing single member suggest that religious people be treated any differently than any other.

Might some people feel "superior" to religious people? Maybe, I don&#39;t know, but that&#39;s a psychological question, not a political one.

And I&#39;m still waiting for a single example of a member taking the wrong political line.


Now that&#39;s a straw man. I think sexism and homophobia should be combatted whether they&#39;re justified in the name of culture, religion, "Marxism-Leninism", or anything else.

And yet you&#39;re unwilling to recognize the role that religion plays in perpetuating and promulgating them.

Indeed, when members of this board dare to point out the blindingly obvious fact that the hijab is a symbol of oppression, they&#39;re rebuked for "intolence" or that latest meaninglesg buzzword, "Islamophobia".

That doesn&#39;t exactly show a willingness to "combat" reaction regardless of its justification. On the contrary, it shows a tendency to place "tolerance" above actually reducing oppression.

Just in the last month, we had one member argue that the CPN(M)&#39;s homophobia was "minor" and another argue that the Iraqi resistance&#39;s mass murder of homosexuals was "irrelevent".

Both of those members are in the CC, by the way.

And there are many other examples. Just look at how many people were willing to support censorship in the name of religious tolerance (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46427)&#33;


Do you agree? And if so, why do you keep protecting Tragic Clown?

:lol:

Wow, talk about changing the subject...

I&#39;m not "protecting" Tragic Clown, I just think that she meets the definition of a leftist, whether or not I disagree with 75% of what she says. And apparently most of the CC agrees.


But I don&#39;t see how declaring a crusade against religion generally helps advance the fight against sexism or homophobia.

Then you&#39;re missing the social role that religion plays.

It isn&#39;t a coincidence that the most religious people are usually the most bigoted and vice verca. The two aren&#39;t inseperable, but they&#39;re strongly linked.

That&#39;s not to say that homophobia and sexism don&#39;t have all sorts of complex socioeconomic roots. They do. Religion doesn&#39;t invent bigotry, but it does perpetuate it.

That&#39;s because, by it&#39;s nature, it tends to stultify values and reflect the norms of the society in which it was created, rather than the one in which it presently exists.

That&#39;s the "distinct" role that it plays in class society. It acts as a sort of molases, still rippling to class relationships that no longer exist.

Eventually, it will catch up to the times, but it tends to happen very very slowly.

And so if our aim is to accelerate social change, it will be eminently useless to get rid of this stopbrake on progressive momentum. It won&#39;t in and of itself move us forward, but it will make it easier to do so.

People who genuinely believe in the story of Adam and Eve aren&#39;t going to accept women&#39;s rights no matter how eloquently you present the arguments and no matter how much it might be in their material interests.

Such is the power of religion.

Now the economics-as-God crowd argue that there&#39;s nothing we can do about that. That "culture" can only change when the economics do and that because of that we shouldn&#39;t "alienate" potential allies.

Obviously I disagree.


On the contrary, you&#39;re helping push religious people into supporting sexism and homophobia. You&#39;re telling them that if they&#39;re truly religious, if they "take religion seriously", then they should support sexism and homophobia.

That&#39;s a ludicrous argument and you know it.

People aren&#39;t going to "become" homophobic or sexist because some atheist tells them they&#39;re "supposed to". That&#39;s not how religious transmission works.

Religion isn&#39;t about argument, it&#39;s about "faith", meaning that most of the time that which people believe is that which they were initially taught. If they were brought up in a particularly liberal sect, they probably won&#39;t turn out to be a raging bigot, no matter what their "holy text" might say.

That&#39;s not universal by any means, of course, and people do convert, but generally bigots need to be trained young. And when they&#39;re gotten, they&#39;re gotten good.

The point of "crusading" against religion is to slow down and eventually reverse this process so that eventually no one is brought up in an environment of "blessed" bigotry.

And if that can happen before the revolution, great. There&#39;s no reason that we can&#39;t work multiple fronts at the same time.


Which is the higher priority, the class struggle - which includes the fight against sexism and homophobia - or proselytizing for atheism?

The two aren&#39;t distinct issues.

If fighting sexism and homophobia is a part of class struggle, then so is fighting one of the chief media of their perpetuation: religion.

Without religion, do you really think that the gay rights movement would be facing the same up-hill struggle they face today? Do you really think that abortion would be such a bizarrely polarizing issue?

That&#39;s not to say that secualarization is the answer to all that ails us, not even close. But it does present a unique opportunity to combat several different reactionary strains in one go.

Because fighting religion isn&#39;t just about disproving one particular "holy text" or set of dogmas, it&#39;s about discrediting the entire paradigm or "faiith" and "belief", it&#39;s about instilling a rational and objective consciousness. And things like racism, sexism, homophobia, the rest, they can&#39;t survive in such an environment.

It&#39;s the same way that fighting racism, ultimately, require fighting the idea of race itself. &#39;Cause as long as people think it exists, they&#39;ll think it matters.

In the same way, as long as people see "belief" as a justification in and of itself, they&#39;ll believe in some deeply reactionary things, and they&#39;ll be nothing you can say to change their minds.


I would add that religious values are certainly capable of changing within the institution.

Of course they are, but it&#39;s a mind-numbingly slow process.

Much quicker to knock the whole thing down.

[chimx]

It isn&#39;t a coincidence that the most religious people are usually the most bigoted and vice verca. The two aren&#39;t inseperable, but they&#39;re strongly linked.

That&#39;s a massive over generalization, and I suspect because you don&#39;t have a lot of contact with religious folk. Some of the most religious people are just as often generous and caring about injustices within the world. They may not have developed an ideology relating to communism, but obviously their hearts are in the right place. My grandpa was an adamant Catholic and card carrying member of the CP. My parents take after him, and when I was a kid, we would spend time making houses for habitat for humanity.

These are just two personal examples, if you want more relevant ones, everyone looks to the moderate theologian Romero in El Salvador, and forget that he was conservative compared to much of the Marxist clergy at the time. Or what of the people in Venezuela who try to elevate Bolivar and Chavez to near Christ-like levels? Minjung Theology in the 1970s and 1980s in South Korea helped to oppose military despotism by appealing to the people. Christianity is a tool of the oppressed in so many countries and cultures. To write it off because of your own experiences with it in rich right wing countries hardly seems fair.


Of course they are, but it&#39;s a mind-numbingly slow process.

Much quicker to knock the whole thing down.

Knocking down workers means of dealing with capitalist alienation isn&#39;t going to solve anything though, other than maybe piss of some workers. It is better to attack capitalism, and witness a corresponding revolution in the church, just as it happened in the bourgeois revolutions.

[LSD]

That&#39;s a massive over generalization

Generalization? Yes. "Massive" ...not quite.

I can&#39;t speak to your personal annectodes, but obviously there are great religious people out there. But I&#39;m talking about religion as a personal ideal, I&#39;m talking about it as a social force.

And are you seriously arguing that there&#39;s a correlation between religiosity and intolerance? Again, I&#39;m not saying that it&#39;s 1.00, but it&#39;s undeniably there.

Right-wing authoritarianism, political affiliation, religiosity, and their relation to psychological androgyny (http://www.springerlink.com/content/v17782874j02185r/)
Religiosity, Dogmatism, and Repression-Sensitization (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8294(197023)9%3A3%3C249%3ARDAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E)
The importance of religiosity and values in predicting political attitudes: evidence for the continuing importance of religiosity in Flanders (Belgium) (http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/7BC9M9TRNCCVJU68.pdf)

That&#39;s why "good" priests and "progressive" Catholics make such fascinating stories, they&#39;re the exceptions that prove the rule. If most religious people weren&#39;t politially regressive, there&#39;d be no point in identifying the "good ones".

Again, that&#39;s not to say that all religious people are bigots. Far from it. But religion, due to its slow rate of change, is one of the chief promulgaters of regressive social values.

That doesn&#39;t mean that religion should be "outlawed", of course, just that we should do our best to limit the number of children forcibly indoctrinated. Just as we would for any other reactionary superstition, like racism or sexism.


Knocking down workers means of dealing with capitalist alienation isn&#39;t going to solve anything though, other than maybe piss of some workers. It is better to attack capitalism, and witness a corresponding revolution in the church, just as it happened in the bourgeois revolutions.

Except, again, that&#39;s the same argument used in 1900 to opposed joining the civil rights movement.

Obviously attacking religion might alienate some workers, so will attacking homophobia or sexism. Does that mean that we shouldn&#39;t do it?

Again, I&#39;m not saying that attacking religion will weaken capitalism, it won&#39;t. All that it will do is, hopefully, weaken religion; the same way that the gay rights movement aims to weaken homophobia and the women&#39;s rights movement aims to weaken sexism.

In and of themselves, these struggles don&#39;t adress the underlying issue of capitalism, but they do contribute to the general battle against reaction and anti-progressive instruments.

Like I said before, ending religion won&#39;t push our society forward, but it will eliminate one more stopbrake keeping us from doing so.

And it&#39;s a bit facetious to assert that workers have "no choice" but to be religious.

Yeah, capitalism is alienating, but a significant, and rising, segment of the working class is already practically atheist, there&#39;s no reason that that number can&#39;t continue to go up.

Workers are smart people too, they&#39;re more than capable of living sans delusion. No one&#39;s saying that it&#39;s easy, especially not if you&#39;ve been brainwashed young, but it&#39;s certainly possible.

Racism is a comfort too, after all; in many ways it can serve the same function as religion, offering simple answers and apparent solutions to the everyday problems of capitalist existance.

Does that mean that attacking racism "isn&#39;t going to solve anything"? That instead we should tolerate bigotry with the understanding that it will eventually "change" to fit the rulling socioeconmoic order?

Well again, that&#39;s the "new soviet man" paradigm, and it&#39;s a rather prevalent one. But it has absolutely no record of success.

Which is why, "alienating" or not, we need to attack sexism, we need to attack homophobia, and we need to attack the vehicle which serves to keep these things relevent: religion.

[chimx]

Which is why, "alienating" or not, we need to attack sexism, we need to attack homophobia, and we need to attack the vehicle which serves to keep these things relevent: religion.

My point was that the cultural values, which religion acts as a vehicle for, are dependent on the socio-economic position of the community in question. Poor people in South Africa rallied around religious institutions to legitimize the destruction of racism and apartheid, while Rich assholes rallied around their own religious institutions to continue their oppression. It is culturally subjective depending of the socio-economic status of the community and the values therein.

Instead of attacking the institutions itself, why not simply attack the reactionary values? Religion is dynamic after all. Saying that one can&#39;t because it is too slow to change hardly seems like a legitimate counter. The same can be said of communism.

[LSD]

My point was that the cultural values, which religion acts as a vehicle for, are dependent on the socio-economic position of the community in question.

Again, yes and no. Obviously religion, like any other social force, is memetic. But it tends to be rather slow in changing.

Which means that while even the most hardline religious movements will eventually catch up with the times, it could be generations, if not centuries before that happens.

Which is why, again, things like homophobia and sexism transcend class lines. George Bush doesn&#39;t hate people because he&#39;s economically depressed; and working class sexists don&#39;t beat their wives &#39;cause its in their class interest.


Instead of attacking the institutions itself, why not simply attack the reactionary values?

Better yet, why not attack both?

[chimx]

But I think you are giving religion a bit too much credit. It isn&#39;t the end-all, be-all to cultural values. Atheist working class people can be just as racist and sexist as their Catholic counterparts. I don&#39;t think we should attack both because attacking religion falls far too short of allowing for change to occur. Capitalism needs to be attacked in the long term, but right now, we need to undermine reactionary cultural values and understand that all cultural institutions are simply byproducts of these already present cultural values.



Also, the google ad for this thread is amusing:
"Christian Anarchism
Why Christians Must Reject the Violence of War & Human Government"

[LSD]

But I think you are giving religion a bit too much credit. It isn&#39;t the end-all, be-all to cultural values.

No it isn&#39;t, it&#39;s just one, particularly powerful, means of their transmission and perpetuation.


Atheist working class people can be just as racist and sexist as their Catholic counterparts. I don&#39;t think we should attack both because attacking religion falls far too short of allowing for change to occur.

How so? Again, the statistics pretty much speak for themselves.

Of course there are sexist and homophobic atheists, there are racist atheists too. But the issue isn&#39;t universals, its preponderances. And the strong correlation between reliosity and intolerance cannot be ignored, even if it isn&#39;t absolute.

That is, while eliminating religion wouldn&#39;t end bigotry, it would seriously diminish it. And perhaps more importantly, it would remove its last bastion of justification.

Bigots can&#39;t appeal to their bigotry to defend themselves, when they&#39;re religious, however (which they usually are), they can fall back on their "religious rights" to protect them from critisisms.

If religion were to somehow vanish tomorrow, homophobes and sexists would be forced to defend their intolerance on their merits, something that is much much harder to do and a lot less likely to win public acceptance.

Again, this isn&#39;t about locking people up priests or spitting on parishoners, it&#39;s about fashioning a rational and secular public discourse, something which we, for the most part, don&#39;t have right now.

Creating one requires marginalizing religion and that, understandably, is going to piss of a lot of religious people, just like how ending segregatin pissed of a lot of racists.

But, again, what&#39;s the alternative? "White workers of the world unite"?


Capitalism needs to be attacked in the long term, but right now, we need to undermine reactionary cultural values

Exactly, and a major part of that process must be weakening religion, since it&#39;s the primary means by which such reactionary values are perpetuated.

Remember the issue here is not any particular sect or religious group. It&#39;s the entire underlying paradigmn of "faith" and doctrinal justification, it&#39;s about instilling a rational and objective consciousness. And things like racism, sexism, homophobia, the rest, they can&#39;t survive in such an environment.

It&#39;s not unlike how fighting racism, ultimately, require fighting the idea of race itself. &#39;Cause as long as people think it exists, they&#39;ll think it matters.

In the same way, as long as people see "belief" as a justification in and of itself, they&#39;ll believe in some deeply reactionary things, and they&#39;ll be nothing you can say to change their minds.

Not unless you knock down the entire construct of "faith" and "belief".


and understand that all cultural institutions are simply byproducts of these already present cultural values.

Except that&#39;s patently untrue.

Religion isn&#39;t just a mirror, reflecting ideas already pervasive; again, it&#39;s much more like molases, still rippling to social values long since anachronistic.

That&#39;s why Christianity is so roundly homophobic. That&#39;s why people with no material incentive towards bigotry nonetheless adopt the bigotries of their "faith".

Is it possible to end reactionary values without attacking religion? Possible. Personally, I&#39;m doubtful for all the underlying paradigmatic reasons I already outlined, but let&#39;s say for the sake of argument it were.

Even in such a case, it&#39;s still in our interest to fight this battle on every front available. Religion is undeniably a chief promulgater of hate and bigotry. As such, if it were anything else, there would be no hesitation in attacking it.

If any other set of opinions were as correlated with reaction as religious opinions are, there would be unanimous approval on the left to go after them. But because we&#39;ve all been socialized to view religion as something "special", as a part of "identity", we&#39;re all afraid to go after it.

Not all US Republicans are homophobes, after all, does that mean that the gay rights movement should be afraid to call it a homophobic party? Must they "respect" those "good" republicans? Our do the preponderances speak louder than the exceptions?

You know where I stand.

[chimx]

Or do the preponderances speak louder than the exceptions?

You know where I stand.

In the end I think fundamentalist Christianity remains a vocal minority in the grand scheme of world religion. I remain hopeful that trends will continue within religious institutions to step away from reactionary and anachronistic cultural values and continue to work with poor and dispossessed as they are doing now. In the end I still agree with Marx that religion rests on production relationships and is thus directed by the values intrinsic to that relationship. The speed of change would of course be faster ideally, but that strikes me as relative. What is the "right" time frame for cultural change? Is there even such a thing?

I think we have exhausted the topic as far as theory goes. Lets agree to disagree and move along.

[SPK]

Originally posted by Severian+February 07, 2007 11:08 pm--> (Severian &#064; February 07, 2007 11:08 pm)I&#39;d like to point out also that political belief doesn&#39;t correlate exactly to any religious denomination. There is a correlation, obviously, and people with "fundamentalist" or "evangelical" beliefs are often more conservative politically. But it&#39;s not true of every individual. [/b]
I agree. The fact that someone believes in the bible -- or the koran or the talmud -- doesn&#39;t tell us much: the majority can be politically neutral or disengaged from the reactionaries, some can be won over to revolution, and some will support the capitalists. If we go down a level to specific denominations, that doesn&#39;t tell us much either: baptists for example, have multiple tendencies -- liberal, southern, and those historically based in the African-American communities. Each of those conventions have different politics, overall, but even within each, we cannot automatically assume what role each individual church or person would play in a revolution. I think that the majority of even the southern baptist convention churches -- which are the most conservative -- would not want to be involved in shooting at people.

That&#39;s why I used the terms "institution", "church", "mosque", and "synagogue". I think that revolutionaries should approach this question at the most local, specific, particular level possible. There is a building down the street; it is a church; it has a congregation; and it has a leadership body. What is it doing vis-a-vis the revolutionary process and rupture? There is a military dimension here, which is why I’m focusing on a particular place or a site, in a particular town or city. The question is not: what are other individual churches in the same convention doing? Not: what is its convention leadership saying or doing? Not: what are other churches in the denomination doing? Not: what is the denominational leadership saying or doing? And so on. We certainly cannot make a political judgment to start shooting solely based on their specific interpretation of a centuries-old holy book or solely based on their ideas – however noxious we find their ideas to be. They would have to be organizing and agitating for the capitalists, I think, for action to be taken. That said…


[email protected] 07, 2007 11:08 pm
And when some people start gearing up to attack those religious doctrines, rather than the political agendas - it&#39;s self-fulfilling. You help consolidate all "evangelicals" behind those political agendas by proving the demagogues right about how they&#39;re under attack for their religion, etc.
Certain churches, representing a lot of people, are going to have to be attacked. An open question – which I raised earlier with chimx – is whether an attack on these specific institutions and an attack on their political doctrine is interpreted, in the eyes of other religious people, as essentially identical to an attack on other religious institutions, on a religious doctrine in general, or on religion in general. How will this possibility be handled and circumvented? What will the line or perspective of the revolutionary forces be?

An assumption underlying your quote is that these particular religious beliefs and actions are, in the minds of those who subscribe to them, separable or distinct from political beliefs and actions. That’s obviously not true in many cases today. What would make that change? How has that change occurred historically? What will cause a withdrawal of these conservative and negative forces from the overall political domain, from the world of social and cultural struggle into… How to we want to describe this? The private sphere? The individual sphere? A space separate and apart from what they will undoubtedly view as a corrupting material and political world? That move can undoubtedly happen, but we have to be very clear as to how that can occur. Ideological struggle is one component, but the defeat of the most reactionary tendencies will be also be key – the threat of political violence, explicit or not, will discourage other religious institutions from getting any bright ideas.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 02:16 am
The point is to "proselytize for atheism".

The same way that those active primarily in the gay rights movement "proselytize for" homosexual rights, and those in the feminist movement "proselytize for" women.
Which of course conflates religion and politics: as if an opinion on a theological question was the same as an opinion on a political question.

For one thing, theological opinions are a lot slower to change. Most people are not going to drop religion as long as class society exists - as you claimed to agree. People, including religious people, do change their political opinions much more readily, including on subjects like sexism and gay rights.

Also, frankly, it matters less what people&#39;s theological opinions are. They have less direct impact on the real world.

I don&#39;t know about you, but I&#39;ve actually helped defend clinics against Operation Rescue and similar groups. Side-by-side with religious people. Your kinda attitude wouldn&#39;t have helped defend abortion rights.

Some bourgeois atheists there did hold it - the "Alabama Freethought Association" - they do proselytize for atheism some. &#39;Course, they don&#39;t claim to be anticapitalist revolutionaries. They&#39;re straight up about saying religion, not capitalism, is the root of the problem. You act just like these bourgeois atheists - but you&#39;re not willing to admit to sharing their premise.


"Toleration" for lunatic beliefs merely because we&#39;ve all been fed the lie that religion is somehow about "more" than belief?

No, toleration for religious beliefs because it&#39;s not about more than religious belief. And because, as the first post in this thread points out: most people aren&#39;t going to drop their religious beliefs until class society is abolished.

So it&#39;s necessary to make a revolution together with religious people. And you can&#39;t conduct revolutionary working-class politics with an attitude of contempt towards most working people, who hold beliefs you call "lunatic".

People can smell that. They are not stupid and they do not like to be pissed on by a self-appointed elite that proclaims its own "rationality" as opposed to most of humanity.

This is a political question, and an important one, contrary to what you claim. The fate of the People&#39;s Democratic Party of Afghanistan oughta prove that if it wasn&#39;t clear enough already.


But when it comes to rights, when it comes to class, when it comes to practical issues of politics, I again can&#39;t recall seeing single member suggest that religious people be treated any differently than any other.

Oh, bullshit. Right here we have a poll with 20 people saying religion should be outlawed. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=61061)

And even those who say no, it shouldn&#39;t, say things like "Tear down all the churches and stop new bibles from being printed, I say." Guru Redstar used to say don&#39;t outlaw it - just outlaw people teaching their children religion. Think for a moment about what it would take to enforce that.

I could give more examples, but I&#39;ve done that in the past and you just go on in denial&#33;


I think that redstar has a particular obsession with this issue and, unfortunately, I wouldn&#39;t be surprised if he posted something along those lines. But you&#39;re asserting that this is bigger than one guy and I just haven&#39;t seen any evidence of that.

That&#39;s bullshit and you must know it. Anything Guru Redstar said, 50 of his mindless disciples said too. Half the time, you said it.

It&#39;s pretty useless, anyway, to argue about what other people think. It might be more useful for you to drop the denial act and concentrate on explaining what your problem is with the ideas other people have expressed in this thread?


And yet you&#39;re unwilling to recognize the role that religion plays in perpetuating and promulgating them.

Another straw man. Sure, it plays a role. But as the first post in the thread points out, it&#39;s a secondary role. You claimed you recognized everything pointed out in that post.


Indeed, when members of this board dare to point out the blindingly obvious fact that the hijab is a symbol of oppression, they&#39;re rebuked for "intolence" or that latest meaninglesg buzzword, "Islamophobia".

Symbols matter, sometimes. But you might want to consider that symbols mean different things to different people. A piece of cloth has no great importance in and of itself, y&#39;know. Symbols and ideas exist in people&#39;s heads - so you gotta ask what it means in their heads.

For those women and teenage girls who voluntarily wear it, they wouldn&#39;t agree with your statement that it&#39;s a symbol of oppression. They&#39;d say it&#39;s a symbol of their religious beliefs - no more, to quote you. And if you forcibly try to take it from them, they&#39;ll perceive that as oppression. Or if the bourgeois state does, with your tacit approval.


On the contrary, it shows a tendency to place "tolerance" above actually reducing oppression.

If by "reducing oppression", you mean combatting religion, yes. As I said in my last post: I put the class struggle before theology. "Tolerance", aka combatting anti-Muslim bigotry, comes before combatting Islam. It would appear you disagree.


Just in the last month, we had one member argue that the CPN(M)&#39;s homophobia was "minor"

I&#39;d be curious how you blame that on religion. Unless you mean the religion of "Marxism-Leninism". Which brings up that you anti-religous crusaders can easily become just a new religion.


and another argue that the Iraqi resistance&#39;s mass murder of homosexuals was "irrelevent".
Both of those members are in the CC, by the way.

A position also held by the king of anti-religious crusaders, Redstar. He was a big supporter of the Iraqi resistance - as long as they shot at U.S. soldiers, anything else they did was irrelevant.

He was an administrator, BTW. Your pet Clown, who supports antigay discrimination by the U.S. military and says it would be really useful if they were racist, is a moderator. I think that&#39;s worse than having people like that merely in the CC. Now if religious people said those kind of things, you&#39;d be crusading to remove &#39;em.

But when there&#39;s some other justification.....apparently it&#39;s OK. So do you see why I think religion is placed above the class struggle and why I think you and others fail to show a "modicum of sense", as you put it, as soon as religion is mentioned? You and others have this weird Pavlovian reaction to it.


And there are many other examples. Just look at how many people were willing to [URL=http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46427[/URL]&#33;

Based on your thread choice, obviously you must know that&#39;s not me. So what&#39;s your problem with my approach to religion?

Also, those people were arguing for censorship on the basis that the Danish cartoons were like racist cartoons. They&#39;re right, so it&#39;s not specially about attitudes towards religion. It&#39;s about attitudes towards the bourgeois state. I don&#39;t call on the bourgeois state to ban or censor racism, fascism, anti-Muslim bigotry - much less Muslim headscarves.


It isn&#39;t a coincidence that the most religious people are usually the most bigoted and vice verca. The two aren&#39;t inseperable, but they&#39;re strongly linked.

Yes, there&#39;s a correlation. And? How does that make targeting religion a good strategy in the fight against sexism and homophobia?

Unless you want to make the two inseparable, for the purpose of discrediting religion. Makes sense, if you put anti-religion before politics.

Otherwise, no sense. You don&#39;t see most people in the forefront of mass actions against specific forms of sexism or homophobia trying to make it a fight against religion generallly, though they may target particular religious leaders or institutions who&#39;ve made reactionary statements or actions. On the contrary, they try to draw in religious people into the fight whenever possible - often with a lot of success.


People who genuinely believe in the story of Adam and Eve aren&#39;t going to accept women&#39;s rights no matter how eloquently you present the arguments and no matter how much it might be in their material interests.

Such is the power of religion.

Oh, bullshit. I recently worked with someone who was a part-time preacher in a pretty literalist denomination. Had trouble with evolution, all that.

Politically, pretty good. Had all kinds of great stories about fighting the employer who fired her for being diabetic, about the corruption of her local police deparment, you name it. Also one of the most assertive, take-no-bullshit women I&#39;ve ever met.

Abortion and gay rights didn&#39;t specifically come up. But if you believe the stereotyped view of all "fundamentalist" Christians, you&#39;d have expected her to be constantly railing against them - not against the cops&#33;


Now the economics-as-God crowd argue that there&#39;s nothing we can do about that. That "culture" can only change when the economics do and that because of that we shouldn&#39;t "alienate" potential allies.

Obviously I disagree.

And yet you haven&#39;t given a single reason why you think it&#39;s possible or a useful strategy.



On the contrary, you&#39;re helping push religious people into supporting sexism and homophobia. You&#39;re telling them that if they&#39;re truly religious, if they "take religion seriously", then they should support sexism and homophobia.

That&#39;s a ludicrous argument and you know it.

And by ludicrous, you mean irrefutable. Certainly you thrash around without begining to really come to grips with the argument.

&#39;Course, you have to have some grasp of political strategy to get it.


Religion isn&#39;t about argument, it&#39;s about "faith", meaning that most of the time that which people believe is that which they were initially taught.

So - you&#39;re not going to change their beliefs. This is not exactly an argument for the effectiveness of proselytizing for atheism.

Of course, we&#39;re talking about changes in their political beliefs here. Those do change more often, including for religious people.

Now, if you tell them they&#39;re political beliefs can&#39;t change unless their religious beliefs do....


Of course they are, but it&#39;s a mind-numbingly slow process.

Much quicker to knock the whole thing down.

See, exactly backwards. The changes in the political and social views of religious believers has proceeded much more quickly than the march of atheism&#33;

Evidence: well, let&#39;s start with the millions of pro-choice Catholics.....

You know that&#39;s true. You just have a neat dodge to rule inconvenient evidence out of the equation: Those people are not really religious. Those people don&#39;t "take religion seriously". Also, no true Scotsman uses sugar on his porridge.

What were you saying about combatting religion as a way of spreading rationality? Doesn&#39;t seem to have worked in your case.....

[Severian]

Originally posted by SPK+February 09, 2007 02:35 am--> (SPK @ February 09, 2007 02:35 am) I think that the majority of even the southern baptist convention churches -- which are the most conservative -- would not want to be involved in shooting at people.

That&#39;s why I used the terms "institution", "church", "mosque", and "synagogue". I think that revolutionaries should approach this question at the most local, specific, particular level possible. There is a building down the street; it is a church; it has a congregation; and it has a leadership body. What is it doing vis-a-vis the revolutionary process and rupture? [/b]
Right. I can think of one specific example from when I was doing a lot of clinic defense: there was one Pentecostal church in the suburbs, and not a huge one, which was bringing a couple dozen people every Saturday to picket a clinic. Partly it was the preacher - when he moved on the church stopped doing it so much. And partly he musta found a congregation willing to do it.

But what do you do about that? Nothing special, as it happened. I suppose if you had unlimited time and people, you could go out and picket the church in retaliation - on the other hand, that might just let Frankie go up and preach about how we&#39;re attacking Christianity and get even more of his congregation out every Saturday.

Anyway, our forces were definitely limited, so really we just countered &#39;em out front of the clinic like any other bunch of anti-abortion wackos.

Not every church did this. The remnant of Operation Rescue eventually started picketing fundamentalist churches in frustration - protesting the failure of Bible-believing Christians to come to the rescue of the poor little fetuses. Sometimes the preacher would invite &#39;em in to talk, but that didn&#39;t reverse their decline.


[email protected] 07, 2007 11:08 pm
Certain churches, representing a lot of people, are going to have to be attacked. An open question – which I raised earlier with chimx – is whether an attack on these specific institutions and an attack on their political doctrine is interpreted, in the eyes of other religious people, as essentially identical to an attack on other religious institutions, on a religious doctrine in general, or on religion in general. How will this possibility be handled and circumvented? What will the line or perspective of the revolutionary forces be?

That&#39;s certainly been a big problem historically.

One response has been to move a little more carefully against counterrevolutionaries when they&#39;re priests or otherwise able to cloak themselves in religion. You can&#39;t let &#39;em get away with murder, or they&#39;ll run with it.

But sometimes caution, a bit of forebearance, making sure you have evidence that they&#39;re hiding explosives in the church basement or whatever - can help avoid fueling the perception that you&#39;re targeting them for their religion.

Fueling it more than you have to, that is. You can&#39;t stop the enemy from screaming bloody murder, but you can try not to give them too much substance to scream about.

The Sandinistas probably overdid it along these lines. Certainly when it comes to refusing to take political positions on abortion, for example, that&#39;d piss of the bishops even more.

Afghanistan would probably be a good example of fucking up in the opposite direction.


An assumption underlying your quote is that these particular religious beliefs and actions are, in the minds of those who subscribe to them, separable or distinct from political beliefs and actions. That’s obviously not true in many cases today. What would make that change? How has that change occurred historically?

One thing is to make sure it&#39;s separable in our minds. LSD and a lot of others on this board haven&#39;t made that leap of clarity. Emphasize this is political, class reaction in a religious cloak.

And then make that separation in action - to strike at the political actions, to emphasize that&#39;s why we&#39;re striking. People learn mostly from action, example.

To win over or neutralize every religious believer or even the clergy whenever possible. Let them declare that they don&#39;t see any contradiction between being a religious believer and supporting the revolution, and millions declared in the course of the Russian and Cuban Revolutions, among others.

In terms of propaganda tone, I think Rosa Luxemburg&#39;s "Socialism and the Churches" is a good example. You can find it on marxists.org. It&#39;s a response to priests attacks on Russian socialist organizing - and she sets a tone of why are they attacking us?

Which is often a good tactical angle, appearing on the defensive, not the aggressor.


What will cause a withdrawal of these conservative and negative forces from the overall political domain, from the world of social and cultural struggle into… How to we want to describe this? The private sphere? The individual sphere? A space separate and apart from what they will undoubtedly view as a corrupting material and political world? That move can undoubtedly happen, but we have to be very clear as to how that can occur. Ideological struggle is one component, but the defeat of the most reactionary tendencies will be also be key – the threat of political violence, explicit or not, will discourage other religious institutions from getting any bright ideas.

Right. They have to be beaten back. It can also help to let &#39;em know if they don&#39;t fight to the death, they can have a little space under the new order. Don&#39;t corner a rat, basically.