Jim Devine wrote:
>
>
> he's saying that the critique of religion is simply a weak version of
> what's really needed, i.e., a critique of social reality.
Yes. And I would say that on the whole it is not even useful to "confront" religion; as Miles says, following Wittgenstein, some questions are merely a distraction from focusing on the questions that are worth asking and answering. There is an intensely practical question today of how believers and secularists can work to gether to bring this criminal occupation of Iraq to an end, and for that purpose the religious or non-religious beliefs of the parties are not really relevant.
I think marxists (confining the argument to that sphere or the moment) need to be conscious of _why_ they reject religion, but I don't see how it's very important that we argue others into agreement with us on that. And actually, most of this thread has not called for a specific appeal to marxist principle. I don't see, for example, that one necessarily needs to be a marxist at all to grant the legitimacy of the Eighth Thesis on F that I quoted in an earlier post. That is, I quote it not as an appeal to authority but because it seems to me that it's a precise way to articulate a proposition which is true independently of specific marxist princple.
Carrol
Carrol