[lbo-talk] There. Is. No. God.

Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
Sun Mar 5 09:49:40 PST 2006


On 3/5/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> > [clip]
> > but the shift for me was never one of the scales falling from my eyes
> > (per saint paul). it was much more gradual than that and, loooking
> > back on it, was much more about getting things done.
>
> "More about getting things done" seems to me a nearly perfect
> description of the practice. And that brings us back to marxism as a set
> of tools for understanding and acting in the world rather than a belief
> system to which one owes allegiance.

absolutely. i have always objected to and been irritated by introductory texts on religion that insist on lumping "humanism" and/or "marxism"/"communism" in with religions, but the objection may be a bit disingenuous for precisely the reason you're mentioning. i don't see marxism as a religion to which i owe allegiance, and the use of capital or whatever for me is much more like reading plato (or derrida ;-) than like reading something i consider scripture. but there are people who latch onto communism or marx in precisely a religious way. i would rather that not be the case, but wish doesn't make it not so.

The core of xtianity, it seems to
> me, is that belief in itself is the highest good (Whosoever believeth in
> me etc), and I put no stock whatever in belief as an end in itself.
>

if we could amend that to read, "the core of certain forms of xtianity", i would be happy to sign on. xtianity is in my view no more *essentially* fideocentric than islam is *essentially* violent or terrorist. there's a lot of bible and there are lots of ways of reading the bible.

j

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