[lbo-talk] Re: the gibson jesus

[andie nachgeborenen]

Of course you are right that there is a  lot of bad
religion in this country, but that does not mean that
all religion in this country is bad. If there is an
organized left in America, it is a religious left,
based in the churches. Quite apart from the Quakers
and Unitarians, whom, I suspect, are largely upper
middle class, there are black Southern Baptists,
probably the single most progressive organized fgorce
in the country, and United Methodists (technically, I
hear W's denomination! -- hard to believe, but maybe
they are different in Texas), which have a wide, deep,
working class base and (from my experience) excellent
politics.

And while I'm a nontheist myself, I don't think that
politics should depend on metaphysics, so apart from
casual chitchat with friends, I don't talk about it in
politics. Do you think it's a good idea to make a
point of attacking people's deepest beliefs on
relatively peripheral matters, rather than trying to
make common cause with them on points where you can
agree? As long as others have a real commitment to
progressive change based on conviction, does it matter
if their convictions  differ from yours?

I agree with W that religion is not why this country
is so backwards. That is a Voltairian prejudice. It is
not materialist. Marx, also a nontheist, diagnosed the
problem correctly, and having done so did not bother
to make religion a target. If it really is the soul of
soulless conditions, it may dissipate when conditions
are better. That may account in part for the relative
irreligiousity of the European social democracies.

jks


> > Spare me the Frank Capra-style sentimentality
> about numinous lefties
> > you've known, jks, and wake up and smell the
> Middle Ages!  Who cares
> > what effete Unitarians or Quakers think about
> anything -- they're
> > yesterday's Good News, so to speak.  The ascendant
> New Age
> > Christianity is quite a different beast -- deeply
> antirational,
> > nationalistic, pro-military, all manner of evil
> things.
> > 
> > I think the US, in particular, will never have
> decent social services
> > -- and, more distantly, that there will never be
> any prospect of
> > socialism here -- so long as so many continue to
> look skywards for
> > guidance and solutions to social injustices and
> other real problems of
> > life.
> > 
> 
> ___________________________________
>
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