It may be foolish to believe in the religions, but it is equally foolish to dismiss them as irrelevant. There are two ways of opposing religion. One is to refute it as untrue, to show that there are no rational grounds, because there is no convincing evidence, for believing either in “the persistence of life after death” or in “the existence of supernatural beings”. This is the approach of the secularists, humanists and freethinkers and of course what they say, is true, but this leaves the impression that religion is merely an erroneous belief. They point out the ill effects of religion on society and exposed the errors and outright stupidity of religious thought. Although such efforts are all-too necessary today, it leads to concentrating on refuting religious beliefs in a purely ideological battle while leaving everything else, including class society and capitalist relations of production, unchanged. Their criticisms seems to blame religion as the fundamental cause of many—if not most—of the society’s ills. It overlooks capitalism and the role that religion and science play within this system of production for profit.
The second way to oppose religion - which is the way of the Socialist Party is to explain its origins, development and role in materialist terms as an ideological product of the changing material economic and social conditions under which people have lived. This approach reveals religion to be a reflection of people’s lack of control over the conditions governing the production of their material means of survival and that it survives precisely because people lack this control. Religion can diminish the frustrations we experience in class society, offering the hope (illusion) of divine reward and retribution in an afterlife.
On this analysis, opposition to religion cannot be separated from opposition to the economic and social conditions that give rise to it. Religion won’t disappear simply because those considered to be atheists refute it as untrue. It will only disappear when people are in a position to control the production of their means of life. In other words, religion cannot disappear until the conditions of which it is an ideological reflection disappear. Atheists have been coming out of the closet in recent years. But will these freethinkers also embrace the “heresy” of criticizing capitalism? Atheists thus do no great service in letting capitalism off the hook and presenting religion as the primary obstacle to the free development of peoples. In their zeal to debunk religion, they should not forget that it is only one ideological form at the disposal of the capitalist class. We need to remember that criticism of religion is one part of a broader struggle against the ideas that hinder the socialist movement such as nationalism.
Gods, of course, do exist, in a certain sense. Humans create them in their own image, though without being aware of doing so. An Indian guru once said that if the water buffalo had a god, it would probably look like a very large water buffalo. Gods infest the mind as powerful, capricious and mysterious beings who demand endless worship and praise, reverence and obedience, devotion and propitiatory sacrifice. The gods in the head of the believer thwart the development of confidence, self-respect, rational enquiry and independent judgment. In this way the idea of domination and submission is imprinted in the psyche as a model for relationships between beings. The imaginary world of the divine, in turn, draws its inspiration from the real world of human power structures. God is “king of the universe”, the archangels and angels are his ministers and officials, and Satan has the job of running the Gulag.
Primitive people already feared gods who embodied the uncontrollable forces of nature.The attraction of a religious world-view is not hard to understand in the case of the early human societies. Surrounded by a natural world that was poorly understood and often experienced as a hostile force, religion provided answers and a good deal of comfort. A terrifying flash of lightning or the roar of thunder, for example, could be explained as the sky god communicating his anger or indigestion to the mortals down below. Even this early religious notion that the world is governed by the arbitrary decisions of gods must have been far more reassuring than a view of the world as complete chaos.
People were in thrall to gods before they were in thrall to other people. And this made them especially vulnerable to oppression and exploitation when other conditions were in place for the transition from primitive communism to class society. Many of the earliest rulers made the most direct use of their subjects’ belief in gods by demanding that they themselves be worshiped as gods. Egyptian pharaohs claimed descent from the creator sun-god Atum or Ra. The Inca was descended from the sun god Inti, while the Aztec king represented the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli. The Shinto belief that the Japanese emperor was descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu held sway right up to 1946, when Hirohito renounced divine status. Even today, for many Thai people, the king still holds a divine position.
Some religions directly support the class structure by sanctifying the entire ruling class. The best-known case is the sanctification of the priestly Brahmin caste in Hinduism, although the Indian caste system no longer corresponds precisely to the class structure. Judaism also has its “pure” priestly caste – the cohanim, who trace descent from Moses’ brother Aaron.
In our class-divided society religious thought comes in handy for those in positions of wealth and power. It promises workers that we will get some pie in the sky (after we die), as a reward for our suffering here on earth. Religious leaders encourage their working-class “flock” to stoically accept their existence as wage slaves, sermonising upon how “the meek shall inherit the earth.” The benefits to the ruling class of indoctrinating workers with such a masochistic outlook goes without saying. Religion is a useful means of dampening social discontent. Religion not only offers the comforting thought that if this world goes to hell there is a “better world” out there after death, and even holds out the hope that life on earth could be better if we would only be less selfish and loveour neighbours. It provides an explanation of why things are so bad, arguing that it is the outcome of our evil thoughts and actions.
The rich are usually lambasted in most of the “holy books” and told that they should give up their wealth if they hope to enter heaven. In reality, the religious criticism of the rich and powerful, far from threatening their social position, only serves to reinforce their rule. Religion may promise that the rich will be punished—but the court date for transgressors is in the hereafter, not the here-and-now. And for past generations they could buy a “get out of jail card” through the purchase of indulgences and gain remission from sin from the Church.
These psychological effects, and not just specific religious dogmas and practices, make worshiping gods a bulwark of class society. From the socialist point of view that is the main trouble with gods. In large parts of the world religion still occupies a very important place in people’s hearts and minds. Those fortunate enough to live in relatively secularised societies should not underestimate its global power. It is still risky to challenge the powers-that-be in few countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia but let us not over-look that a presidential candidate for the United States would be very unlikely to get elected if he declared a non-belief in a diety. The gods remain mighty foes of their deluded human creators.
Socialists have three reasons for challenging religion. First, it is irrational. Religion is a delusion and a worship of appearances that avoids recognising underlying reality. Second, it makes people servile and more amenable to accepting the status quo. Third, religion is hypocritical. Although it might profess valued principles, it sides with the oppressors. Jesus may have advocated helping the poor, but the churches merged with the oppressive states, taking part in the enslavement of people. They may have preached about Heaven, but have acquired as much property and power as possible on Earth.
Socialists present an analysis of present-day society (capitalism) not as chaos or linked to our human nature but understand it as a system driven by the need to generate profit through the exploitation of labour. It is this essence of the social system that accounts, above all, for the selfish or “sinful” behaviour that is so rampant within it. And this understanding is also a source of hope. It shows us that we can solve many of the problems we face by moving beyond capitalism—towards a new, co-operative form of society. When poverty disappears and class divisions have dissolved and our lives are no longer at the mercy of the market, religion will have lost its basis in reality and its seductive powers will quickly fade away.
Poverty and misery give birth and sustenance to religion. Until we stop turning a blind eye to the living hell of capitalism then religion will continue to exist—no matter how many times it has been refuted.
Taoism: Shit happens.
Confucianism: Confucius say: "Shit Happens".
Buddhism: If shit happens, it really isn't shit.
Zen: What is the sound of shit happening?
Hinduism: This shit has happened before.
Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.
Anglicanism: Excrement happens.
Calvinism: This shit was bound to happen.
Evangelicals: This shit was bound to happen, but if you send $19.95 it won't
happen to you.
Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.
Judaism: Why does shit always happen to us?
Agnosticism: What is this shit?
Atheism: I don't believe this shit.
Socialists: We are going to end this shit for once and for all
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