> As for whether religion "challenges capitalism", it depends on the
> religion, but capitalism certainly challenges religions.
Nonsense. If by "challenge" you mean "pose a serious threat to," capitalism is perfectly happy with religion, as the current rather depressing state of American culture proves. No one can deny that it is drenched with capitalism and religion simultaneously.
> 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.
Not in this man's country, pardner. If the Pope says anything against capitalism, U.S. Catholics simply ignore it. No problemo.
> 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.
Who needs to negotiate with dead authorities? Religious tenets are so vague that they can be easily reinterpreted on the spot as needed. The history of Christianity is nothing but a history of reinterpretations.
> Religious traditions don't adapt, they have to be rebuilt from
> scratch. The Catholic dogma was created as the official religion of
> European feudalism
Beg pardon? It was created several centuries before feudalism appeared.
> 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.
Again, tell that to American Protestants. Nothing is more suitable to current economic conditions than what is taught in these 10,000-member megachurches. Get thee out, earn lots of money, buy lots of stuff, and ye shall inherit the earth. What could be more suitable?
> 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.
So what do you mean by capitalism "challenging" religion? It's certainly a challenge religion is successfully meeting, by your own submission.
> The Catholic church is engaged in a desperate struggle to preserve the
> backward economic conditions in which it can survive.
? Not in this man's country.
> 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.
Well, they may have that freedom, but they can certainly choose not to exercise it, and most people do (at least in the US). They are perfectly free to be atheist, but they are just as free not to be, and 95% or so aren't.
> Christianity today is hardly a religion, it is a multitude of
> religions with irreconcilable dogmas.
You seem to have a very restricted, idiosyncratic definition of religion. Religions have always sprouted multitudes of sects with irreconcilable tenets; the nature of religion is to be vague and squishy. Consistency and precise definition of beliefs are bugaboos of religious intellectuals, who are always a tiny minority of religious populations, although they may get themselves disproportionally into positions of authority in the official institutions, as in Christianity.
> I don't really understand what fundamentalism is. It seems to be
> mainly a racket to fleece the gullible.
That assumes that it was organized from the top down, consciously, as a way to make money. If you looked at it more closely, you would see that it is in fact, I'm sorry to say, a genuine popular, bottom-up movement. Socialism, which you and I would like to see as the deep yearning of the people, just doesn't appeal to the actual people; stuff like fundamentalist Christianity is what does light their fire. So what are we going to do about it?
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt