>>"But all is not entirely lost. As it happens the very system which
>>we wish to replace, capitalism, is also the enemy of religion.
>>Capitalism repeatedly finds itself needing to quickly uproot
>>existing values and traditions and replace them with new one, to
>>suit the new material conditions it creates. So the very system of
>>preserving old values intact from generation to generation, the
>>religious culture, is an obstacle to capitalism."
>
>This is not true. If Organized Religion (OR)is a practice whose aim
>is to privilege its interpretation of reality and to offer an
>illusory, eternally deferred spiritual cohesion, there's nothing
>about it that challenges Capitalism
I didn't say that's what religion was. A religious tradition doesn't necessarily *aim* to propagate illusions. It is designed to propagate the entire culture of a society. Myths as well as practical customs and organisational systems. Religious beliefs are well adapted to the material conditions which gave rise to them. But because the traditions are immutable, the religious vehicle for cultural tradition doesn't cope at all well with change.
As for whether religion "challenges capitalism", it depends on the religion, but capitalism certainly challenges religions. A few hundred years ago the revolutionary capitalist class found the customs and organisational systems propagated by the established religion of western Europe such an obstacle it was necessary to found alternative religions. The Catholic church was certainly regarded as an obstacle then and truth be told it still is.
My view is that organised religion is the only kind of religion. The whole point of religion is to transmit an authorised system of beliefs and traditions. But when 'free thinkers' take it upon themselves be be their own authority and to make up their own mind about what to believe, that is the antithesis of religion. (Or the genesis of a new religion, if they choose to deny their children the same opportunity to make up their own mind and instead indoctrinate them with their own beliefs.)
Anyhow, the challenge to capitalism arises from the fact that the authority for religious tenets are derived from a nominal figure who is usually an uncommunicative deity, or an equally uncommunicative long-dead prophet. Amendments and revision cannot be negotiated with these dead authorities, when conditions change and amendments become necessary.
Religious traditions don't adapt, they have to be rebuilt from scratch. The Catholic dogma was created as the official religion of European feudalism and the emerging capitalist system met stiff resistance. They had to create their own religion - Protestantism - to compete. This new religion is well adapted to the early accumulative stages of capitalism, but is quite unsuitable for modern economic conditions. New churches have to be created every time conditions change and they are constantly changing. So that there are more protestant "Christian" churches than you can throw a stick at in modern capitalist societies. All of them as redundant as last year's software releases.
Catholicism seems to have more in common with other feudal religions, such as Buddhism, than with Protestantism. It does well in backward regions where authoritarianism reigns, but it is of course incapable of adapting to modern economic conditions and has become irrelevant in its birthplace.
The challenge to capitalism from the catholic church is difficult to deny. The Catholic church is engaged in a desperate struggle to preserve the backward economic conditions in which it can survive.
> -- and in fact it never has challenged capitalism historically.
I don't see how you can deny that a mortal struggle is taking place between existing religious authorities and capitalism. The basic problem is that they have no authority under capitalism, people are free to think for themselves. This is a life or death situation for an authority based on the premise that people must accept its everlasting tenets without question. But although capitalism would also like to have the tenets of its system accepted without question, there is a catch-22. Nothing is everlasting under capitalism. But at the same time any dogma that cannot be questioned obviously cannot be changed either. So capitalism and religion are, fundamentally, at war. The only way to disguise this is to constantly create new religions to cope with the new conditions.
> Rather what OR does is to provide a plane upon which this cohesion
>exists -- while you spend the rest of your life being a
>slave/master, a wage slave, what have you. Xtianity did not oppose
>slavery, nor does it today oppose exploitation.
Christianity today is hardly a religion, it is a multitude of religions with irreconcilable dogmas. Many of the new religions rooted in Christianity seem to have sprung up since capitalism became the dominant system. The simple reason for this (I suggest) is that, as conditions change and the old religions become ill-suited, new religions are created to fill the gap. Since existing religions are incapable of adapting.
In my experience, Catholic intellectuals have been among the most strident opponents of actually-existing capitalism though. Catholicism has been spared oblivion by spreading to societies around the globe where capitalism is not fully developed, where it resists all attempts to modernise societies and tirelessly works for a retention of/return to feudalism.
>While capitalism dissoves all familial and social bonds, OR remains
>to tie up the loose ends, by offering that "opium" Marx mentions.
>The resurgence of fundamentalist strains in reaction to the
>destructive effects of capitalism/modernization is proof enough.
I don't really understand what fundamentalism is. It seems to be mainly a racket to fleece the gullible. This wouldn't be unique, capitalist society is a fertile field for such rackets, religious and otherwise. Perhaps because large numbers of people find all the established religions irrelevant to their lives. The old vehicle which gave social meaning to life has become an anachronism in the modern world, but as yet no satisfactory replacement has been found. People grasp at straws. Con men are perhaps the appropriate religious saviours in a society whose central philosophy is exploitation?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas