Is religion counter revolutionary?

First of all I would like to say this is NOT a pathetic attempt at trolling, I have absolutely no issues with religious revolutionaries.

Lately I've found my self questioning my atheism and while pondering I said to myself "is religion counter-revolutionary? I understand benefits such as giving us a reason to live and such but it also further divides the working class and therefore slows if not altogether halts a revolution." Marx said himself “Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand” which although sounding like he strongly advocated atheism (which if I'm not mistaken he did) still doesent clearly state if a successful revolution can occur without most if not all of the working class picking up this point of view.

I would like to ask the m-l community (which is mostly atheist I believe) their opinions on the matter of religion and revolution and if Marx ever stated if communism can be achieved with the prolaterates so divided.


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Well you would have to ask a religious person, whether they believed their family, food ,housing, work, freedom in short their life was of any importance. The lives of others around them and the world at large. do they figure somewhere too? Most people in Britain think religion to be a pathetic irrelevance, minor irritant. If somebody wishes to embrace religion ,it is a personal matter for them. We do pity the children. To be on a picket line with a man who dons SKULL CAP--TURBAN--a St Christopher-- a female with HEAD-SCARFE would raise no eyebrows. A Salvation Army comrade can blast the heavens every Sunday, with his trombone Just glad I don't live next door to their hall(Citadel). We are talking about our fellow workers. It is inconceivable that Christians engaged in labour could not have imbibed some level of materialist thought or habits. Or that others could have swept away idealist patterns or beliefs. Hardly dialectical. There is clearly a struggle in society, a battle of ideas. Even within oneself.

Religion is a drag, it does hold back progress . That was recognized long before Marx. a visit to a ruins of a monastery, clears that up. Such a shame it sometimes takes a catastrophe or life in lonely city to remove the fetters. Nice to spend extra hours in bed Sunday, avoid putting money into the plate, though a free Xmas childrens party or trip was worth a change of heart. A funeral, speaks for itself. A wedding ask the brides mother. A christening ditto add any pressure form relatives. If you don't live in a Muslim area , why throw yourself 5 times a day on to the floor. Al Jazeera tell us 6m Muslims are leaving the faith, in Africa. Hats off to them. Though expect a response from panicking bigots.

In a sense we need no anti-religious propaganda, the bigots provide that in spades. Telling the most timid amongst us what to eat, when, how is a little aggravating even in childhood...Bush and Blair on their knees praying in the Oval office before the start of Iraq hostilities, actually happened, I cannot say how I know, it would betray a confidence. It actually happened. Even Christians I know were agog.

Christians, what is one? Take your pick, riven with schism geography, social class, time in history, from a distance some look no more than Cargo Cult, awaiting what? I do not know. It's on the way out , kick it , spit at it, laugh at it ignore it, it's a gonna. I prefer to just ignore it unless there is some compelling reason not to. Cue Pope Ratzinger setting his stinking carcass in my country, as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. The last Pope tour was such a financial disaster ,they wanted us(tax payers) to foot the bill, for this one.
A punk with magnificent Mohican, feet sprawled out in the tube carriage shouted out to the group of priests and nuns "Look we have captured your leader!" He pulled out a plastic Jesus with flashing lights. The whole carriage laughed, though some behind their hands ,it's true. What an insolent young fellow.

Most people here are atheist before they pick up the Manifesto. Most are class conscious. If the blood and vomit outside St Patrick's is anything to go by, Christianity is purely a Sunday phenomenon, contrition for Saturday night. Work on Monday. As we all do.

I wouldn't say all religious people are counter-revolutionary even if on the boards these days if you are, say, a Muslim you are considered "reactionary" (the most popular word on Revleft) on principle (though not necessarily if you are a Christian for some reason). However religious institutions have been counter-revolutionary historically and a few faiths are almost incopatible if you are a hardcore-believer or fundamentalist (sorry to single out Judeo-Christianity but...) but if you are moderate with your faith and it doesn't interfere with your politics then that is fine.

Like in the USSR you should have freedom to believe in whatever faith you want, however, it should be a private thing; no religion should be endorsed by the state and no one should go around trying to convert others.

The point behind all this is that the Chrurch is extremely reactionary,for an example,the clergy in Yugoslavia,Albania,USSR all supported the collaborators and were fierce fighters against "Bolshevist devils" .

Extremely reactionary,nationalist,and hostile to the proggresive elements.

Some clergy elements also were quite friendly with these people:

I'm an atheist and religious talk always brings out the worst in me for various reasons so I'll keep this short.

If someone strictly adheres to a religion such as Hinduism,Buddhism or whatever other religion that has Reincarnation and Karma as one of it's main tenets then they'll always be against any kind of a revolution where blood is shed.

I don't see how you can act on your political beliefs in any kind of a revolutionary way if you're living your life with one eye always focused on your "next life" and only trying to do things that won't have any kind of a knock-on effect in your next incarnation.

For those people a revolution would always take second place to their religious beliefs.

Well that's my two-cents anyway...

People personally believing in spirituality aren't necessarily always reactionary. Some religious people have argued that socialism is in line with their beliefs. However, religions as institutions absolutely are reactionary. See, religious organizations are ultimately political organizations. That's something you need to keep in mind. Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Shamanism, Ancestor worship, nature worship, Pagaenism, you name it, have all been used by states to ensure the dominance of a certain ruling class. It could be argued that religion played an important role in early primitive communal societies to organize people enough to help prevent warlordism, piracy, banditry, rape, and so forth. But we are well beyond that point. Scientific discoveries and theories since the mid 19th century have allowed us to really see how the universe and world function in a more calculated, realistic way than just blaming spirits and deities.

Also, religion fosters defeatism. It keeps poor people down by saying "Don't complain, you'll go to heaven when you're dead. But until then, we'll work you like dogs." Or "Don't complain, you'll just re-incarnated if you do what the master/landlord/your father says all the time. Be good little serfs/slaves." I used to think this was largely a characteristic of the Abrahamic religions, but have recently found that Buddhism, Hinduism, and forms of ancestor worship and nature worship also have been used in this way.

Not religion pure say, but maybe organized religion.

WORKERS....Secularism.

Just how dangerous can religion be in 21st century Britain? Not many years ago you might have thought not very – in this country the "official" religion, the Church of England, is toothless and lame, knocked into submission and put in its place by an advanced, secular working class.

Well, Richard Dawkins wouldn't have agreed with you then and certainly wouldn't now. He sees religion – all and any religion from the most extreme to the mildest, with no quarter given to the C of E – as fundamentally anti-science and therefore dangerous indeed. In The God Delusion he subjects religious thought to the powerful scrutiny of the scientific mind – where's the evidence, does it stand up to rigorous examination? - and goes on to lay out the implications and consequences of religious belief.

This is a roller-coaster of a book, and a great read for anybody who is worried about the apparent growth in superstitious thinking in Britain and, indeed, anyone who enjoys the merciless yet passionate application of rational thought to superstitious hocus pocus. (Incidentally, he deals with Christianity in the US too, although we can't do much about that. Interestingly there have been some real successes there for brave people who are prepared to fight against Biblical teaching in schools. We are having less success here on this front.)

No wonder Christian creationists and god-botherers of all kinds fall over each other to demonise (literally) Dawkins. He is a lucid, materialist, Darwinist thinker and also sharply witty. There are places where you will laugh out loud, although this is a deeply serious book.

Dawkins points out that natural selection has not yet been bettered as a scientifically convincing account of our existence as human beings, of the awe-inspiring diversity of the natural world, and the magnificence of the universe as we know it at present. He of course allows that there is a great deal we do not know, but insists that all human knowledge about why and how we exist must stand the test of scientific examination.


Blake's hellfire and damnation: attempts are now being made to drag thought backwards The mark of the scientist
Religious anti-science campaigners often say that since any scientific theory can be rejected if the evidence accumulates against it, that showings that science is no more certain than religion as an explanation. Dawkins disproves this. If new evidence is found to prove him wrong, he will admit it, he says. This marks out the scientist from the religious, who can never be proved wrong because their ideas cannot be tested but rely on "faith". He demonstrates with utter conviction that Darwinism is incompatible with religious belief.

He demolishes the Bible – "a chaotically cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents" – pointing out that Christians who claim not to take chapters like Genesis literally any more are simply cherry-picking the bits they like. Why accept any of it then?

Those who cite "faith" as a justification for religious ideas might as well believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden. Who's to say this is any worse than believing that if you murmur private thoughts in your head a man in the sky will hear your thoughts and may act on them, or that if you blow yourself up along with lots of commuters on tube trains you will go to paradise to be waited on by virgins (presumably this doesn't work for women – a common fault with religions)?

Contempt for indoctrination
Dawkins reserves his greatest contempt for those who seek to indoctrinate children with religion, without allowing them to grow up to make up their own minds. This part of the book is particularly important in a time when government is handing over schools to religious organisations while giving them freedom to teach creationism alongside scientific ideas (or hatred of Jews in a west London Islamic school). He shows how the religious are afforded great privilege and a dangerous undeserved "sensitivity" – protection from being "offended" by cartoons about the Prophet, for example ("if you say we're a violent religion, we'll kill you!").

Britain is a deeply secular society, launched on this path by Henry VIII's schism with the Pope, and progressing with an independent-thinking and materialist working class. It seems unbe-lievable that thought can go backwards. There is a growing divisive tendency to refer to people (including children) by religion, and for the religious to claim not just tolerance but respect for beliefs that do not stand up to any rational scrutiny. The anti-science lobby increasingly pressurises schools, universities and research institutions. The so-called "left" have fallen for this in a big way with the nonsense term "Islamophobia" being used in an attempt to dull critical thought.

A worrying miasma of confused think-ing, and one which makes Dawkins's The God Delusion feel like a blast of fresh air.

I'm an atheist and religious talk always brings out the worst in me for various reasons so I'll keep this short.

If someone strictly adheres to a religion such as Hinduism,Buddhism or whatever other religion that has Reincarnation and Karma as one of it's main tenets then they'll always be against any kind of a revolution where blood is shed.

Much of the time, however, if you read the Bhagavad Gita (a central text of Hinduism and especially Vaishnava) one of the points is that war and killing are sometimes necessary. I think it generally depends on how they interpret their faith.

These quotes should suffice:

"Religion must be declared a private affair... Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule."
(V.I. Lenin. Collected Works Vol. 10. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1978. p. 84.)

"The proletariat in a particular region and in a particular industry is divided, let us assume, into an advanced section of fairly class-conscious Social-Democrats, who are of course atheists, and rather backward workers who are still connected with the countryside and with the peasantry, and who believe in God, go to church, or are even under the direct influence of the local priest—who, let us suppose, is organising a Christian labour union. Let us assume furthermore that the economic struggle in this locality has resulted in a strike. It is the duty of a Marxist to place the success of the strike movement above everything else, vigorously to counteract the division of the workers in this struggle into atheists and Christians, vigorously to oppose any such division. Atheist propaganda in such circumstances may be both unnecessary and harmful—not from the philistine fear of scaring away the backward sections, of losing a seat in the elections, and so on, but out of consideration for the real progress of the class struggle, which in the conditions of modern capitalist society will convert Christian workers to Social-Democracy and to atheism a hundred times better than bald atheist propaganda. To preach atheism at such a moment and in such circumstances would only be playing into the hands of the priest and the priests, who desire nothing better than that the division of the workers according to their participation in the strike movement should be replaced by their division according to their belief in God. An anarchist who preached war against God at all costs would in effect be helping the priests and the bourgeoisie (as the anarchists always do help the bourgeoisie in practice). A Marxist must be a materialist, i.e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i.e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else could. A Marxist must be able to view the concrete situation as a whole, he must always be able to find the boundary between anarchism and opportunism (this boundary is relative, shifting and changeable, but it exists)."
(V.I. Lenin. Collected Works Vol. 15. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1977. pp. 407-408.)

"So-called 'god-building' as a literary trend and, in general, the introduction of religious elements into socialism is the result of an interpretation of the principles of Marxism that is unscientific and therefore harmful for the proletariat. The Baku Committee emphasises that Marxism took shape and developed into a definite world outlook not as the result of an alliance with religious elements, but as the result of an implacable struggle against them."
(J.V. Stalin. Works Vol. 2. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1953. pp. 171-172.)

"The laws of our country recognise the right of every citizen to profess any religion. That is a matter for the conscience of each individual. That is precisely why we separated the church from the state. But in separating the church from the state and proclaiming freedom of conscience we at the same time preserved the right of every citizen to combat religion, all religion, by argument, by propaganda and agitation. The Party cannot be neutral towards religion, and it conducts anti-religious propaganda against all religious prejudices because it stands for science, whereas religious prejudices run counter to science, because all religion is the antithesis of science. Cases such as occur in America, where Darwinists were prosecuted recently, cannot occur here because the Party pursues a policy of defending science in every way...

Have we repressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The only unfortunate thing is that they have not yet been completely eliminated. Anti-religious propaganda is the means by which the elimination of the reactionary clergy will be completely carried through. Cases occur sometimes when certain members of the Party hinder the full development of anti-religious propaganda. If such members are expelled it is a very good thing, because there is no room for such 'Communists' in the ranks of our Party."
(J.V. Stalin. Works Vol. 10. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1954. pp. 138-139.)

"We Marxist-Leninists always understand clearly that religion is opium for the people. In no instance do we alter our view on this and we must not fall into the errors of 'religious socialism', etc."
(Enver Hoxha. Reflections on the Middle East. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1984. p. 358.)

Much of the time, however, if you read the Bhagavad Gita (a central text of Hinduism and especially Vaishnava) one of the points is that war and killing are sometimes necessary. I think it generally depends on how they interpret their faith.

In the Bhagavad-gita the necessity of killing during times of war that Krishna describes to Arjuna in his time of crisis, was just allowed and of concern to the Kshatriya caste of warriors and military elite of which Arjuna was one and not to the masses as a whole.

"Arjuna's dilemma" was to do with his not wanting to fight and kill on the battlefield relatives and friends that he grew up with and loved, Krishna explained to him that as a member of the warrior class he must fight as it was part and parcel of a Kshatriya's duty.

In the Bhagavad-gita the necessity of killing during times of war that Krishna describes to Arjuna in his time of crisis, was just allowed and of concern to the Kshatriya caste of warriors and military elite of which Arjuna was one and not to the masses as a whole.

"Arjuna's dilemma" was to do with his not wanting to fight and kill on the battlefield relatives and friends that he grew up with and loved, Krishna explained to him that as a member of the warrior class he must fight as it was part and parcel of a Kshatriya's duty.

That is true, but it still shows that fighting is according to religious law sometimes necessarily, even if in this case it is a specific group. There are quite a few Hindu M-Ls in India as well (and at least one on the forum incidentally) so I wouldn't say Dharmic faiths are completely incompatible with Revolution even though most trends (since after the Vedic era) have tended towards pacifism.

At least to pass into the best form of afterlife in Dharmic faiths, you have to do good in your previous life (and ultimately become selfless; goodness is really subjective, which is why you had people like Sohei, Warrior Monks who were happy to fight if they needed to), that is not the case with mainstream Christianity in which you can be as disgraceful as you want if you believe in Jesus and confess your sins. Probably why Dharmic faiths, though producing right-wingers and other unsavory characters, never really produced people like Salazar, who could be described as a fascist Theocrat.

Dharmic faiths have a pacifistic streak, but India does have a warrior ethos too, hence many Hindu revolutionaries (many inspired by Marxism) were willing to fight against the British Empire. It is true that Kshatriya are the warrior class, but they are not the only ones who fight in Hindu society. Many of Arjuna's warriors would have been levies from the lower class. The castes were also not as rigid in the time in which the Mahabharata is meant to have taken place, they were almost like normal jobs and you could move class, upwards or downwards.

At the end of the day, no religion is truly incompatible unless it interferes with Marxism. If people with religions are sane enough to embrace Marxism and find some form of compatibility, I am fine with that. I loathe Christianity, but I can admit that there are even some good communists who were Christian. The communist movement should always be secular and, as Ismael said, religion should be private. I totally agree with ''Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule.", which means I agree with freedom of religion.

Well it depends if a religion or Church get's involved and what they say.

I know that the Catholic Church teaches that an act of violence must be the last resort. In the case of a Socialist revolution the Church teaches as long as that Government installed by the people is for the people.

Yeah, generally you should ignore the church. In the defense of the Orthodox Church in Russia, it did become pro-Soviet despite the pressure from the Orthodox Church elsewhere. I guess that might fall under ''any government installed by the people is for the people'', but Christianity does have a major history of being subversive against Communism.

General I prefer Graham Green's approach to religion. He was sort of a Catholic, but hated the Catholic Church.

Well it depends if a religion or Church get's involved and what they say.

I know that the Catholic Church teaches that an act of violence must be the last resort. In the case of a Socialist revolution the Church teaches as long as that Government installed by the people is for the people.

But the Church teaches only "holy wars" are legitimate, which must be declared holy by the pope. Also, the pope is quite adamant about his opposition to communism and Marxism. I went to Catholic school and remember reading a papal decree where he argued against Marxism specifically. They do hold "the dignity of work and the rights of the worker" up as a social justice principle, but it's vague and could be used to support right-wing "right to work" ideas or unionism. Historically, the Roman Catholic Church has been reactionary. They sided with the feudal lords when the bourgeois revolutions began. And they sided with the capitalists during socialist revolutions. The Church has a tendency to adopt some middle ground. There are groups of priests and clergy in the Church who believe in Marxism and socialism very much, though, and say that capitalism is un-Christian. But this is based on an idealist interpretation of socialism, whereas we are supposed to be materialist.

Fine study of a criminal organisation!

This review is from: Beyond Belief: The Papacy and the Child Abuse Scandal (Paperback)
This extraordinary book reveals how the Roman Catholic Church covered up and facilitated countless crimes of child abuse.

But, as Yallop comments, "The Vatican that for centuries has told people on pain of eternal damnation how they should lead their sexual lives now demands that the clerical sexual abuses that have been revealed over the last thirty years should be forgiven and forgotten. Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger and a great many other like-minded Princes of the Church are on public record claiming that it is the abusers who are the victims."

Former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating wrote, after Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles forced him to resign as chair of a national panel whose brief was to investigate the sex abuse scandal, "our Church ... is not a criminal enterprise. It does not condone and cover up criminal activity. It does not follow a code of silence. ... To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away, this is the model of a criminal organisation, not my Church."

But his Church did condone and cover up criminal activity, it did follow a code of silence, it did resist grand jury subpoenas, it did suppress the names of offending clerics, it did deny, obfuscate, explain away. So didn't its actions prove it to be a criminal organisation?

The 2009 Murphy Report observed, "The Dublin Archdiocese's pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sex abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State."

During 2003 there were 60 complaints of sexual, physical and emotional abuse against the Catholic Church in England and Wales, but as of mid-2004 not one alleged abuser had been prosecuted.

Pope Pius V had declared in 1568 that sexual abusers `must be handed over to the secular authorities for punishment and if he is a cleric will be demoted from everything'. So the Church has gone backward since 1568.

However, sexual abuse is not just practised by Roman Catholic clerics. A 2004 study into the sexual abuse of women found that clerics from the Church of England, Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, as well as Roman Catholics, were also sexual predators. The report noted, "Approximately 50 per cent of the clergy involved in these particular cases are married men, which rather demolishes the proposition that celibacy is at the heart of the problem of clerical sexual abuse. It's not about celibacy, it is about abuse of power."

The Conway Hall in London, home of the South Place Ethical Society and centre of free speech, celebrated its 75th birthday this autumn in style - with trenchant attacks on Blunkett's attempt to introduce a law banning 'religious hatred'...

What's so sacrosanct about religion?

WORKERS, NOV 2004 ISSUE

The opening of Conway Hall in London's Red Lion Square, where free speech has been exercised for 75 years, was celebrated there in a fitting manner with a meeting tackling the current wave of assaults upon free speech. The Communist Party of Britain, having the tradition of holding May Day meetings in the main hall for over 30 years, was represented amongst the guests at this special celebration.

The evening took the form of a very lively meeting with four speakers and contributions from the floor of the hall. The speeches had great practical import and urgency with fire directed at the Home Secretary's renewed attempt to introduce a law on religious hatred.

The first speaker of the evening was Barbara Smoker from the South Place Ethical Society (SPES), which moved its base to Conway Hall when it opened. The Society was founded in 1793, and Barbara gave a very entertaining account of how it came from being a dissenting religious group to the non-religious ethical society it is today, after a decision in 1869 to reject the idea of a personal God. When in 1887 the Society abolished evensong as it moved away from its religious root, the members substituted chamber music instead, a tradition which continues unbroken to the present day. This explains why, when it moved to Conway Hall, the Society insisted on a hall with excellent acoustics.

Just an ideology

After the historical introduction, Barbara Smoker turned her fire on the proposed incitement to religious hatred legislation. The key point, she said, is that religious ideology is no different to any other ideology. Why could it not be challenged, criticised, indeed ridiculed? The cartoonist Martin Rowson spoke further on this theme and also showed some of the best of his cartoons on a screen. He described them as part of the rich vein of British culture which uses humour to challenge and provoke thought and dialogue. The audience rocked with laughter at his famous strip cartoon, called the Failure of Intelligence, depicting Bush and Blair as personally suffering a series of intelligence failures in their decision-making on Iraq. Just because the cartoonist had described one of the phases of intelligence failure as "religious mania" he had been subject to several letters of complaint.

In addition to the unifying theme of the meeting, all the speakers had one other thing in common - they had all been on the receiving end of copious hate mail for daring to challenge religious ideas and they had all been accused of being racist. Polly Toynbee, another of the speakers, has received both hate mail and death threats since an out-of-context extract from an article she wrote in a national newspaper challenging the concept of Islamophobia, has been placed on an Islamist website.

Richard Dawkins, the scientist, was the fourth speaker of the evening. He discussed his work in both Britain and the United States. He pointed out that the common mantra is that we must "respect" religion. Why? Why should we respect ideas which cannot stand scrutiny, was his challenge.

Evolution and atheism

He pointed out that no politician in the United States, whether at local or national level, could admit to being an atheist and still stand any chance of being elected. He pointed out that his American scientific colleagues constantly ask him to hang back and not admit out loud that an understanding of evolution and scientific thought might lead someone to question the existence of a higher being. In order to allow the science of evolution to at least get an airing, they urge him to say that the teaching of evolution is entirely compatible with Christianity.

All the speakers asked the audience to reject the political correctness, which stifles the challenge to religious ideology. As one speaker from the floor pointed out, the BBC in the post-Hutton era has already succumbed and lost its way. On the very same day as the Conway Hall meeting, the BBC had cancelled a new series called Popetown for fear of causing offence to the Catholic Church - with cowardly actions like that, David Blunkett hardly needs a new law.

Speaking out
Fortunately many are already speaking out, including the comedian Rowan Atkinson who has pointed out that the whole Blackadder series would have been suppressed had this law been in place.

Many people, however, seem to have forgotten that this is the Blair government's second attempt to bring in a law of incitement to religious hatred. The last attempt fell because the House of Lords said that religious discrimination was "too complicated" and refused to back it. The audience was given a stark challenge: If we do not have the courage to challenge fundamentalist religious ideas, then we have actively connived in allowing "organised unreason to get its hands on the levers of power"


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