Religion as a Way to Change Society

Right wing Latin American groups of the post World War II era have stressed religion as a way for society to change. In that way, they could be seen as truly championing the "rights of the people" as opposed to Communists, whom they called imposters.

Today, you see a similar thing going on with the Fox News crowd. They stress religion as the way to produce a better world. The idea being that improved individuals, over time, improve the whole society.

As leftists, what objections do you have to this "theory of society"? Why do you believe that it's hogwash? Also, does anyone support this right wing view?

I don't know, can we pray capitalism away?

There was at a time something called "Liberation Theology." Some cynical Marxists have called it an attempt to displace the growing popularity of Marxism in Latin-America but in a certain light it could be seen as a legitimate popular movement. It was growing popular and it wasn't exactly always antithetical to Communist ideas per se. Also, I bet there were even before LT there were Marxist/Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers who were still religious I guess.

But this aspect of religion died out more or less, the Catholic Church rejected Liberation Theology and it declined.

Now religion does not "stress to change society" at least not in any remotely fundamental way, just plain old charity which doesn't really change anything.

Religion might be able to change individuals in first world nations. But in the third world, the differences between rich and poor are so great that, as you say, religion becomes only charity.

I think you have raised an interesting point. My view of religion is materialistic, i.e. that it must serve some material purpose and organize people in a useful way, although it's far from perfect. I think it is appropriate to quote Karl Marx here: "Reason has always existed, although not always in a reasonable form."

I would consider religion, or at least some religions, to be reason embodied in an unreasonable form (a very sloppy attempt at building a unifying theory of society), while Marxism is reason embodied in a reasonable form. I think that most religions probably started out being quite revolutionary for their time, and when their 'mission' in history had been fulfilled, they became reactionary. For example, some people consider Jesus to be a revolutionary of the past, while today we consider many Christians to be reactionary.

I think religion is pretty much dead now, or at least in advanced Capitalist societies. We have mostly outgrown religion and moved beyond faith. Of course, religious reactionaries want it back. They want a 'better' world for themselves, but for the majority of the people that would be to go backward, not forward.

Well IMO if someone wants to believe let him believe. The thing is that most people (bot theists and atheists) can't understand that religion is not supposed to be something that blindfolds you but something that liberates you. Whenever I see some Christians in America telling that they have the "army of the God" and shit it drives me crazy. Yes you fucked up morron you believe in someone you haven't ever seen (jesus, god and the rest) he gave you (or at least you think this is what he gave you) the bible so you can learn what he wanted you to know (love between people and the rest) and you take his words and you twist them....

I will give you an example so I can make myself clear of what exactly I'm trying to say.
Let's say someone is a Christian. He reads the bible and he tries to understand what it says and he doesn't just follow the words written in there like a zombie looking for brains. He also has his doupts that God exists. I think once in a while every theist has this doupt. At the same time he goes to the church. He doesn't use violence but if someone tries to kill him he's going to defend himself. He doesn't condemn atheists or the rest of the people that believe in a different religion, but he debates with them about their views.

A guy like this is someone that I accept in a society even he believes that rocks talk to us but we can't hear them. Religion is something that humans have. If it is used for good by the humans it's going to be good, if it is used for bad things then it's going to be bad. Humans make things good or bad by the way they use them.
So basically yes it can be used as a way to change society but here we raise a big but

Religion is pretty powerful because it gives the benefit of the doubt. Therefore it is effective at uniting multiple types of people who do not have the exact same ideology