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So lets use this as our definition:
And here is your first error, ziggy, which just about encapsulates the erroneous nature of this entire, confused and crippled post.
The notion that something as complex as a religion can be understood in terms of cheap 'definitions', rather than a thorough, critical assessment of it in relation to a wider context, is enough of a crime - but nevermind 'religion', liberals, idealist 'logicians', and bourgeois ideologues in general by default are not capable of critical thinking. Instead, they are only capable of mixing and matching formally established, pre-conceived, and uncritically accepted rules, expressed through cheap abstractions like "definitions". But even if we were to take 'definitions' seriously, let's ground this one in the context of our postmodern era:
A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence
My god, what a beautiful definition. This, ladies and gentlemen - this is ideology at its finest. And why? Because by merit of being a thinking, rational agent, by merit of being a living person in any historical or social context,
it is inescapable that you "relate humanity to an order of existence", or, relate the totality that which you are immersed to some 'order of existence'. The only way to avoid doing this, is through consciously-imposed ignorance, but this conscious ignorance sais nothing about the character
of the mind as a whole, i.e. what people are thinking at the level of subconsciousness/ideology. And they are
just as religious as any religious fundamentalist,
if not more.
Religion and irreligion in bourgeois society works precisely this way - iti s all very well to be secular, to be an atheist, and to be irreligious, INSOFAR as you do not attempt to wholly relate humanity to an 'order of existence' that is without a trace of superstition and darkness. Not only is it tolerated, it is sanctified and encouraged by the high priests of capital to live through these indefinite existential crisis', for people to wallow in despair in all their pseudo-irreligious cynicism. When a rush of hope overtakes them, when they finally refuse this confusion - it is religion they turn to.
Religion in bourgeois society is the language of the unspoken mind.
So, how does one relate this to postmodern liberal ideology? Society's cliche'd and banal criticism of religion has nothing to do with an attack on darkness and superstition. It is society's encouragement, today,
that people are not consciously engaged in their beliefs, NO MATTER WHAT THEY ARE. Islamic fundamentalism has not been enough to warrant the ideological outburst of postmodern-liberal discourse in this regard, for the latter predominated it: What Zizek calls "western Buddhism" - the 'wisdom' of not being an "extremist", not being too "engaged" in your beliefs or externalities in general, being a passive animal, and so on.
Just look at not only 9/11, but for an even better example: The paris attacks, and ISIS. Look how opportunistically such phenomena is conceived in terms of a purported dichotomy between human rights liberalism and religious (ethnic, national, whatever is within proximity) fundamentalism. The reality is that the two are conditions of each other -
ISIS are NOT these crazy fanatics, they are vulgar thugs, repressed hedonists, turning blind eyes to the most perverse and disgusting indulgences (just as the Catholic church does vis a vis pedophilia). We Communists are the real fanatics, we are the real hypothetical, abstract demon that haunts the minds of bourgeois ideologues,
we are the real demons whom they project upon the ISIS cowards.
The US state department released a propaganda film - designed for mass consumption - comparing ISIS's destruction of cultural sights to the Soviet demolition of the Christ the savior cathedral in the 1930's. Be suspicious of bourgeois sentiment against ISIS IDEOLOGICALLY - of course, we want to see them crushed, but the point is that what SCARES people about ISIS is not simply that they behead people and whatever, it is the fact that they are thought to be disrupting sacred domains of life. But the truth is that nothing is further from the truth. Watch this video:
In fact ISIS is trying desperately NOT to come off this way - they want to come off as even greater protectors of everyday life in all its banality.
The video EXPLICITLY claims ISIS is maintaining order and "business as usual". ISIS does not offer a radical critique of (near eastern) society, it offers a critique of society's inability to maintain itself, it critiques society's inability to feed the hunger of capital, sustain institutions of private property in a more proficient manner, at a much deeper pathological level. ISIS is not extremist enough -
they are normal, all too normal.
Liberals will watch this video and think that underlying all of this "normality" is something much darker. But it's a childish naivety on their part: What we don't want to admit is the fact that ISIS has more or less become a legitimate power in Mosul, it isn't simply putting it's citizens in chains - the 'business as usual' function of capitalism is completely left intact, and this is what puzzles people who watch the video. Of course it's propaganda, but Mosul is home to 2 million people. What resistance has been put up, at a significant level? Of course there is fear - but its present inhabitants, the Sunni population, were living in such hell before, for them, ISIS is really not all that different. I do not mean to say ISIS is no worse, but that in the context of the conditions faced by the impoverished Sunni population in Iraq, ISiS is no less legitimate than the previous government, riddled with corruption.
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which is consistent with Karl Marx's definition:
No, frankly, it is not. I can't even begin to fathom how you have arrived at this conclusion. Perhaps at a superficial level this may be right - but you missed Marx's point: His point was not to demonstrate some eternal condition of man, but to demonstrate that
religious controversies are inherently worldly controversies, and consciousness of these worldly - historical, social controversies does away with the necessity of religion. Hence, Marx will even violently disagree with Feuerbach who talks of a "religion of humanity" to replace superstitious religions - for Marx, religion becomes fully, totally and wholly destroyed at the onset of man being conscious of his social being, at the onset of man seizing his world-historical destiny in his own hands. This is why Engels will talk about how the English workers, when striking, were not only atheists as a matter of self-identification, but were
atheists in practice: Their practical engagement in the class struggle, even at an economic level, replaced the power of theology.
Aside from the atheism of Communism,
there has NEVER been a world-historical theological dispute since the thirty years war, more or less. What we see today is precisely not religion at all, but something else - you may call it what you wish, but it is not religion. Religion, as it had a place before the modern era, that is. There is nothing in common between Evangelicalism, Islamic fundamentalism, or even Eastern spiritualism with how older religions functioned. These either guise inherently
national differences (The "Sunni/Shia" conflict in the near east), or are substitutes for political action - or both. People in the middle east right now are not fighting for the dominance of these or that ancient beliefs. Shias are not trying to convert Sunnis, and Sunnis, whatever they might say, are not trying to convert Shias. It is not a world-historic religious conflict, but a new kind of barbarism. We do NOT live in a post-secular era, our epoch is just as irreligious as it ever was.
So your question is a silly one: You ask us if there can be a society without religion. But in global capitalist society,
religion, at the level of world history, IS EFFECTIVELY already dead! Religions in previous epochs were not substitutes for rationality or knowledge, which is why even as far as antiquity goes, from Greece to Rome, "theology" and "science" were not distinguishable. The Romans even disdained 'superstition' (they were still superstitious, but not in a way that anyone at the time could have understood) at a superficial level, it didn't conflict with their theological principles. It was not until the Renaissance that this became significant.
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Capitalism works (in theory) because religion guide peoples morals and justifications.
Well no, most prominent people in general are not going to be religious. They will be agnostic, "atheists" and so on. That is becuase THERE IS ONLY ONE religion in capitalist society - THERE IS ONLY ONE acknowledged god in capitalist society, and that is the god of capital. All "religions", insofar as they conflict with each other,
conflict only insofar as they compete for who prostrates the furthest before the idols of capital. This was not so in previous religious conflicts, before capitalism, which encapsulated general historic conflicts (i.e. that would have socially transformative ramifications).
This god of capital, this last superstition, the superstition of the historic and the social, must be unnamed in order for it to reign over our earthly domain. The Communists name their gods, and the Communists alone are the real theological controversy - ONLY the Communists can be atheists in the truest sense of the word, without any superstition, without any belief in a big other (whether a "god" or "nature"), without any belief in anything beyond themselves as social beings.
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Communism has a set definition of logic (logic in popular form), rules (moral sanction), and is defined in the Communist Manifesto (solemn complement, universal basis of consolation and justification) and Das Kapital. Proponents of Communism preach the benefits of such a society (spiritual point), and have a God (Karl Marx). Communism has a set of beliefs which everyone must hold, has a cultural system and defined world views on humanity (i.e giving to the poor).
What you say is purely playing with abstractions, so
arbitrarily that it's actually
laughable. Let's go, one by one, and actually think about these qualification of supposed equivalence
critically:
Communism has a set definition of logic - Communism entails a new and distinct form of logic, yes. So did the (natural) scientific revolution in the 17th century and beyond.
rules - Being that we have an entirely different approach to 'logic', the notion that 'rules' operate in the same way is ridiculous. What do you mean by 'rules'? What 'rules' are you speaking of, and how, in your mind, do you imagine them to be enforced? There is a distinct morality of Communism, yes. But this morality is but a reflection of the prerogatives of a real collective who seek to supersede our present condition. This entails negative and positive moral connotations, but "morality" is an abstraction. Words, 'morals'
alone are not going to motivate people to shed their blood for something.
the Communist Manifesto (solemn complement, universal basis of consolation and justification) - I understand you are plainly an ignorant person, and this is why I'm going easy on you - but you must realize you are talking out of your ass. The Communist manifesto is the "solemn complement, universal basis of consolation and justification"? The communist manifesto was a PRACTICAL, rhetorical document written in the context of 1848. So bankrupt is this - utterly juvenile elevation of the document to 'holy status' by bourgeois ideologues just because they need to find some sacred text that underlies a movement they will never be able to understand, that if one merely had ELEMENTARY knowledge oft this document, they would know that already,
decades later, Marx and Engels would contemplate writing a new manifesto, recognizing that the purported (by liberals in the 20th & 21st century) 'bible of Communism' had become outdated and irrelevant.
That is how abominably stupid the notion is. As for Kapital, again, wrong - you will not find any single sacred document for the simple reason that we only find these documents useful insfoar as they relate to our present condition. Kapital won't do shit as far as relating to capitalism in the 21st, or even 20th century without offering an active approximation of it in a methodological way. Kapital's significance, rather than being some commanding doctrine, was that it was the first of its kind insofar as it was a scientific understnading of the inner-workings of capitalism. We take the book seriously because as it happens, many things remain true of capitalism today vis a vis capitalism of hte late 19th century. Some things, however, are different, but only the method used in capital, infused with the dialectic and insights only capable of being wrought by anti-capitalist French radicalism, can adequately explain the inner-workings of capitalism
at any stage.
preach the benefits of such a society (spiritual point) Virtually all real examples of Communist agitation in the west, at least before the cold war, were never like this - "preaching the benefits" of such a society. That is ridiculous. Communists in immediate struggles certainly 'preached' the benefits of immediate reforms, but that's it.
What you say is silly because nobody needs to 'preach' to people that a society without humiliation, without war, without exploitation and so on would be "beneficial". The point is whether or not this is possible - and the superstitions of conventional ideology not only disallow acknowledging its possibility , but disallow one to even think in such terms.
and have a God (Karl Marx) - so I assume the qualifications for a god here are: "thing" that is recognized as prominent? How in any meaningful sense, outside of pseudo-ironic use, does Marx take the role of where - say - the Christian god used to be for Communists? Marx is not even some Christ-like figure in that sense. I mean, sure, comparing him to some old testament prophet might do well for a good laugh, but comparing him to a deity doesn't even make sense at the level of irony. Just stop.
defined world views on humanity (i.e giving to the poor) - in which case, Communism is merely another word for charity. Who knew the clerics, popes, and all philanthropic bourgeois individuals were Communists.
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Both sides the politics believe in religion in some form or another,
Religion as we have defined it means nothing more than systematized
superstition, making things deliberately unknowable and mysterious in a way that is approximated to our own conditions of life. Religion is only superstitious insofar as our participation in capitalism requires superstition - not only in the marekt, or things on a superficial level, but in grand notions of 'natural', cosmic or divine inevitabilities. What will the averge person tell you if you ask "Why does money exist?", or if you ask "Why do markets exist?", "Why does war exist?", "Why do jobs exist?". How is the response you get NOT
superstitious? How is the aversion towards Communist "social engineering" not superstitious in thinking "nature will come back to haunt us"?
Any attempt to understand religion outside of superstition is playing with worthless abstractions, and it is by nature inconsistent. There is no such thing as an agnostic. Belief is a matter of practice, at an active level. What you truly believe is wrought not from what you identify with or what you say, but from how you act. So bourgeois atheists will deplore us demolishing churches, mosques and temples, they will deplore our grotesque anti-religious campaigns. These will DISTURB them. Why? Because they are just as religious as anyone else.
If you thought that was long, bear in mind I could go on and on about this topic. I kept this at a bare minimum - it is so much more complex than you would think.