Socialism and Religion

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

And since 'matter' is a social product, it's easy to show workers that the Religious Materialists are either lying to workers or are totally unaware of the political effects of an 'absolute' of any kind.

Can you prove "matter" is a social product, or is that merely an assertion?

No, not to a Religious Materialist, we Democratic Communists can't.'Proof' is tied up with ideas about politics, philosophy, epistemology and physics.The Religious Materialists will not discuss 'proof', but have a simple faith in 'matter'.Of course, as workers develop their consciousness, and start to ask about Marx's ideas about 'social production' (which requires discussion about p. p. e. and p.) then these issues about the 'prooving of matter' will be seen in socio-historic terms, about class, revolution, and the bourgeoies ideology about 'objective science', and the need to challenge all ruling class ideas, including that of 'matter', which provides a 'scientific' basis for elite rule.So, to you YMS, and your individualism and Religious Materialism, mere assertion.

[Young Master Smeet]

Ice cores.  Carbon 16 dating: these demonstrate that objects we observe in the world existe before human beings existed.  In order for those propositions to be refuted we would have to overthrow established atomic physics and require an explanation of how ice layers were formed otehr than incrementally.There, no faith, a refutable proposition that suggests strongly that the world existed prior to humans.  There are others, but I think two will do.If the world existed before humans, that means, logically, human social production does not create the world.There you go, I can do premises and logic and stuff, I wonder if Lbird can, or will Lbird continue to debate by assertion?

[LBird]

I've got no problem with your ideological claims about 'objects', 'existence' and 'social production', YMS, but why not simply state whose ideology this is, and where you got it from? That would make this discussion clearer to other readers.The key problem here is that you're making ideological claims, but your ideology denies that it is an ideology, and is simply a disinterested method, available to an elite of 'specialists', who are 'passively discovering' an 'external world', 'as it exists in itself'.It's easy to show the socio-historical origins of this ideology, who originated it, and why they did so (that is, in whose interests and purposes the ideology has been propagated).I know that none of this will make the slightest impression upon you, and you'll continue to deny 'your' ideology, but perhaps some other workers reading, who look to Marx's ideas about 'social production' (a socio-historical, class-based theory about human production) might be stimulated to ask further questions, and read up on the issue.

[Young Master Smeet]

Well, refutability comes via Popper.Deductive logic was largely refined by the Greeks.These are methods that are available to everyone, not to elites, that's the joy of them, so there's one of your claims falsified.The problem is, we disagree on what the word ideology means.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Well, refutability comes via Popper.Deductive logic was largely refined by the Greeks.These are methods that are available to everyone, not to elites, that's the joy of them, so there's one of your claims falsified.

So, you're claiming that Popper and the Ancient Greeks argued that 'logic' and 'method' are subject to democratic accountability (ie. 'available to everyone')?Anyone who reads up on this will find that your claim is untrue: Popper wouldn't have workers telling him what 'truth' was, and the Ancient Greeks would not have their slaves doing so, either.Perhaps by 'everyone', you mean as 'individuals', one at a time, as 'specialists' – this is clearly bourgeois ideology.My ideology claims that 'logic' and 'method' and are social products, which change over time and place, as so 'logic' and method' are socio-historical creations by various societies.My ideology defines 'available to everyone' as 'available to the social group containing everyone in it' (and thus open to 'democracy'). Yours does not (and thus is not open to 'democracy'), and insists on 'elite geniuses' who cannot be outvoted.

YMS wrote:

The problem is, we disagree on what the word ideology means.

No, our ideologies disagree on what the word ideology means – you always reduce every discussion to 'individual'.But then… that's your ideology speaking, eh?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

I am planning to answer to your repetitive argumentation.

I'm glad we're going to get an answer – that's what debate is supposed to be about.As for my 'repetitive argumentation', that's only a response to your 'repetitive religiosity' regarding 'matter'. Repetitive claims of the need for 'faith' must be argued against.

mcolome1 wrote:

The only thing that I want to say is that  what you have written it is not the main topic of the pamphlet that has been published in this forum. The pamphlet covers the true origin of religion, and its development thru history, and what is the aptitude of the socialists toward religion. Your definition of religion shows that you have not read the pamphlet of the SPGB, or you do not know what religion is. The expression of Marx regarding religion on his time as the 'opium of  the people'  do not apply to our time either because religion do not have the same influence that it had during the XVIII century . You are the one making a religion of Marx 

Unfortunately, it's precisely your 'definitions' that are at issue. It's no proper response to criticisms of your 'materialist' claim for the need for 'faith in Matter' to say that we can't discuss this.There will be no need for 'faith in Matter' in a socialist society which is controlled by the democratic producers. Only the democratic producers can determine for themselves what they produce.'Materialists' make the anti-democratic claim that only the minority of 'materialists' can determine 'matter', and it is apparent that the SPGB also makes this claim – and this is a religious claim, which will end in priestly rule, just like it did with Lenin.This, of course, has been the response of many socialists since the 19th century about the dangers of 'materialism' – it's not a novel claim by me. The Stalinists even reinstated the Orthodox church.As for me 'making a religion of Marx', anyone who's read my posts for the last three years will know that I'm very critical of Marx – I think that he's a terrible writer (even Engels didn't understand much of what Marx wrote – and we're not talking about 'handwriting', but 'explanation'), and that he sometimes undermined his own stated ideas (Engels did the same, but much more often), by saying the very opposite to his key claims.In fact, I think that only a comprehensive re-assessment of Marx's ideas in the 21st century by the emerging class conscious proletariat, can solve many of our problems with Marx. We need to read, discuss, discard, re-formulate, re-iterate, and create new ways of understanding the core of what Marx was trying (very poorly) to say about democratic social production and the building towards socialism/communism.Marx's ideas have to be made understandable to any worker – and that task is the job of socialists.

 I will repeat myself again, that is not the topic, the topic is socialism and religion. 

[moderator1]

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[Young Master Smeet]

I'm currently reading Maxime Rodinson's 'Islam and Capialism' and it's a wonderful take-down of the idealist nonsense we get from the Islamaphobes in the right and the media, slaughtering the idea that islam as an Idea held back the development of capitalism in the Islamic world, counterposing the materialist view that it was lives lived that shaped islam, and how plenty of capitalistic behaviours were exhibited (to the point it demolishes the idea that Islam is itself anti-capitalist).It also demonstrates the rational aspects of Islam, and this is important, how many religious impetuses had to deal with rational investigation of the world, and pitch themselves as authoritative narratioves, much like that of a traveller from a distant land.It's important to remember that religion was once the bleeding edge of science, but the changes in the lived experience of the world challenged the material basis of the religious producers.

[Young Master Smeet]

Should have added the Rodinson is available free online:https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/maxime-rodinson-islam-and-capitalism.pdfNot the party case as such, but a worthy addition to the pantheon of Socialist critique of religion and discourses around it.Of course, lets not forget:https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/index.htm

[Anonymous]

mcolome1 wrote:

LBird wrote:

I know that you won't like my participation in this thread, mcolome1, but here's my ten pence worth, anyway.Whilst the SPGB regards itself as 'materialist', it is adhering to what amounts to a religion. That's why I often characterise your beliefs as 'Religious Materialism'.As many thinkers over the years have pointed out, 'materialists' simply replace the 'absolute' of the 'idealists' with their own 'absolute'. That is, the 'materialists' replace 'god' with 'matter'.Belief in 'Matter' requires a religious faith, in an 'absolute' that 'exists', has always 'existed', and will always 'exist'. The Religious Materialists become furious at those Communists who insist that 'matter' is a social product (just like Communists insist that 'god' is a social product).And since 'matter' is a social product, it's easy to show workers that the Religious Materialists are either lying to workers or are totally unaware of the political effects of an 'absolute' of any kind.An 'absolute' (since it doesn't really 'exist') necessarily requires an elite minority who insist to the majority that the 'absolute' does 'exist', but the majority do not have the required consciousness to 'know the absolute', and so an 'elite special consciousness' must determine the nature of the 'absolute', and this determination cannot be made by the majority (by a democratic vote).That is, the Religious Materialists politically insist that the majority do not have the right to vote 'matter' out of 'existence' and replace 'matter' with something more suited to the interests and purposes of the majority.Once this is understood by workers, they can soon realise why Kautsky and Lenin (for example) regarded themselves as 'materialists' – it's because their elite politics require an 'absolute' which provides the elite with a basis which is unable to be controlled or changed by the proletariat.Unless the SPGB confront this issue, they will continue to have faith in an 'absolute', and Democratic Communists will continue to point out this underlying elitism of the SPGB to workers who wish to know about how workers can, as Marx argued, change their world.'Absolutes', as the term suggests, cannot be changed.

 I am not  planning to answer to your repetitive argumentation.The only thing that I want to say is that  what you have written it is not the main topic of the pamphlet that has been published in this forum. The pamphlet covers the true origin of religion, and its development thru history, and what is the aptitude of the socialists toward religion. Your definition of religion shows that you have not read the pamphlet of the SPGB, or you do not know what religion is. The expression of Marx regarding religion on his time as the 'opium of  the people'  do not apply to our time either because religion do not have the same influence that it had during the XVIII century . You are the one making a religion of Marx 

[Anonymous]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I'm currently reading Maxime Rodinson's 'Islam and Capialism' and it's a wonderful take-down of the idealist nonsense we get from the Islamaphobes in the right and the media, slaughtering the idea that islam as an Idea held back the development of capitalism in the Islamic world, counterposing the materialist view that it was lives lived that shaped islam, and how plenty of capitalistic behaviours were exhibited (to the point it demolishes the idea that Islam is itself anti-capitalist).It also demonstrates the rational aspects of Islam, and this is important, how many religious impetuses had to deal with rational investigation of the world, and pitch themselves as authoritative narratioves, much like that of a traveller from a distant land.It's important to remember that religion was once the bleeding edge of science, but the changes in the lived experience of the world challenged the material basis of the religious producers.

You are right, paganism was the origin of many scientific conceptions, and communism came from ChristianitySeveral teachers from Spain have said that the worst thing they did in Spain was to destroy all the scientific documents written by the Islamic. In Europe the Catholic church had propagated that the earth was suspended by two giants elephants and two giant turtles, and the Islamic already knew the concept of gravity.In High School ( Secondary school ) i used a text book for Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus written by Dr Baldor, and all the concept used in that book were developed by Pageants and Islamic.Medicine was developed by the Islamic and the Egyptians,  therefore, everything that has been written on the pamphlet written by the SPGB is totally correct, religion had a materialist origin,  it is not the hogwash of religious materialism. They did the same things with the Maya and the Incas, and they developed many mathematical concepts. The only thing that they show about them is about their religious rituals,and human sacrifice,  but it was also practiced by Judaism

[Young Master Smeet]

Lets not forget sport, which often nowadays fulfills a religious function: group meetings, energeetic singing and dancing, altered states of consciousness, and of course a ritual calendar.

[Anonymous]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Lets not forget sport, which often nowadays fulfills a religious function: group meetings, energeetic singing and dancing, altered states of consciousness, and of course a ritual calendar.

In this society sport is more related to busines than to religion. This is the  definition of religion: "The fundamental idea of religion is a belief in the persistence of life after death. Originally, and in essence throughout, religion is a belief in the existence of supernatural beings, and the observance of rites and ceremonies in order to avert their anger or gain their goodwill. “Corpse worship,” as it has been tersely called, “is the protoplasm "Those set of idea came as an explanation of man to explain their scientific ignorance of the universe, nature and life

[Young Master Smeet]

mcolome1 wrote:

"The fundamental idea of religion is a belief in the persistence of life after death. Originally, and in essence throughout, religion is a belief in the existence of supernatural beings, and the observance of rites and ceremonies in order to avert their anger or gain their goodwill. “Corpse worship,” as it has been tersely called, “is the protoplasm "

That's the idea religion generates/promotes: but all human cultures, even those without elaborate mythologies, present the behaviours of religion, which involve energetic group gatherings, state-of-consciousness altring behaviours, singing, dancing and meeting up regularly.But, how many sports people are described as 'immortal', or 'legendary', sports people are role models and exemplars, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anton Pannekoke: Socialism and religionhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1907/socialism-religion.htm

[Author]

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