Religion and the left

[Mathew Forstater]

I would add that one can also be religious and an atheist. religion does
not have to mean god or any 'other being' or external 'higher power.'
maybe people prefer to call it philosophy or art or inspiration or
communalism or science or shared commitment.  how many movements or
campaigns have failed partly due to big egos, lack of mutual respect,
mental or emotional hang-ups, because people couldn't get along,
resolve personality conflicts, etc. why, e.g. might certain music, say
john coltrane be politically subversive?  because it can be liberatory.
freedom and liberation mean something for the human heart and mind and
"spirit" as well as for politics and economics.  it doesn't take the place
of real social and political action. but it can (must?) be part of the
motivating force, the "common-sense," a collective healing force to combat
the real human sicknesses that allow/motivate people to kill and exploit
and rape and slave. i am not talking about something that takes the place
of real political organization.  but an ethic, an acknowledgment of the
dignity of life, of profound meaningfulness in shared experience,
laughter, creative expression, bonds between people, beauty of nature.  i
don't have a  problem calling the necessary struggle for self-realization
or "internal" liberation and freedom that must accompany the necessary
struggle for political economic social liberation and freedom and
emancipation "religion," though it has nothing to do with "god" for me and
i don't care if someone else would rather use another term.  cynicism,
disrespect, impatience, egotism, despair, mental and emotional suffering,
etc. are plentiful on the left, and hinder progressive social change.  i'm
sure this will seem silly to many.  eurocentrism dichotomizes art
and politics, the "internal" and the "external", the material and the
spiritual.  this is not hocus pocus to me; i really think that mass mental
illness and sickness of the human heart is part the problem--the
political, economic, and social problem. and anything that is part of the
healing process I have no trouble calling religion. it is, like everything
else, a social product.  but that doesn't make it less powerful than
anybody's "god," which to me is a pure figment of the imagination, a
symbol.  it makes it most powerful and most real, not replacing social and
political struggle, but part of it.

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Charles Brown wrote:

 the ideology of atheism has been utterly

 silenced....
> 

 > but some how atheists have to have more of a voice in public discourse. We

 must struggle to legitimize it. 
> 

 > And I think leaving public discourse on "god" to believers is a

 profoundly corrupting influence on mass consciousness that does

 contribute to the current collapse of the left and triumph of the
bourgeoisie .
> 
> Charles Brown
>