[lbo-talk] Marxism and Religion

[andie nachgeborenen]

Joanna has a good point about the demands for
irrational belief and obedience that are made by
secular institutions, which are every bit as strong if
not more so than those made by religious ones. For
example the acceptable range of legitimate political
discourse, as we here and others have often noted, is
very narrow and requires one to profess belief in
propositions at least as strange as the Virgin Birth,
such as the unquestionable beneficence of US and
Israeli intentions, the moral authority of free
markets as opposed to government action and the
badness of taxes, the fact that we are the Greatest
Country In The World, etc. 

Actually I think, and tried to suggest before in an
awkward way, that most religious Americans don't give
a hoot about theology and aren't interested in
believing preposterous things or in blind obedience to
irrational commands. (Look at what most Catholics do
about contraceptives and even abortion.) I think that
most religious Americans have a sort of civil religion
that is a fairly big tent. Without paying too much
attention to the tenets of whatever faith they may
profess, they find (as a rule, I think) that it's
enough if other people have some sort of, preferably
Christian in some broad sense, faith, this basically
as a sort of loose assurance of enough shared
background to have some common ground for trust. I
think what most religious Americans get from their own
participation in religion, apart from the usual vague
comfort of the feeling that someone is watching over
them in a benign sort of way, is a sense of community,
maybe even a real community, that is hard to find
elsewhere.

--- joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:


> Jim Farmelant wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:47:35 -0800 joanna
> <123hop at comcast.net> writes:
> >  
> >
> >>Doug Henwood wrote:
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >>>Who said churches are emancipatory? They tell you
> to believe  
> >>>improbable things, and are full of commandments,
> rituals, and  
> >>>prohibitions!
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>Have you been to a Quaker meeting lately?
> >>
> >>Or sat in meditation?
> >>
> >>Or even for that matter, stepped into a Unitarian
> church?
> >>
> >>Just curious.
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >Alas, the Quakers, Unitarians and Zen Buddhists
> comprise
> >only a tiny fraction of the religious believers in
> the US.
> >For most American religionists, religious faith is
> the
> >demand that one believe all sorts of improbable
> things
> >and obey non-rational or irrational commandments
> >and prohibitions.
> >
> I'm sure you're right, but I don't see how that
> demand is different from 
> other secular/cultural demands for blind faith and
> obedience.
> 
> Joanna
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ___________________________________
>
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> 

 
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