> >I have to side with ol' Whiskers on this one: religion is the opiate of
> >the masses. Theological debate is nothing more than a
> >symptom of and a distraction from the sensual-practical problems that
> >plague workers in a capitalist society. --If all the energy people have
> >devoted to "the question of God" were redirected to organizing workers
and
> >dealing with tangible social problems > like poverty, the world would be
an
> >immensely better place.
Luke wrote:
>Next to heaven, even naively utopian socialism doesn't look like anything
>special.
I might've been a bit too cryptic here. Anyway, Miles, your argument above is a manifestation of Marxism in its most vulgar and least plausible form (what Dennett would call "greedy reductionism"). Chuck recently wrote in response to Carrol, "Besides the life of the mind didn't begin or end with Marx." Similarly, spiritual yearning didn't spontaneously arise with the advent of capitalism, and there's little reason to think it would necessarily evaporate upon the realization of something better.
-- Luke