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My previous post on burquas got me thinking, and since I have time on my
hands (our 1st May festivities went extremely well, with lots of
newcomers showing up, and money-wise we actually made a profit, a very
rare occurence) and wine to sip, I will devote this post to the topic of
religion.
Among the monotheistic religions that hold sway nowadays, Christianity
has far too many adherents, as does Islam. And Judaism, Mormonism and
Monotheistic Hinduism.
As Bakunin put it, "If God existed, we would have to destroy him." A
great part of the Socialist movement, from the French (and American)
Revolution onwards, has historically been directed towards loosening the
stranglehold of Christianity on the minds of the common people.
But as Marx pointed out, this reducing of the clergy's power was to
benefit the bourgoisie whose vague deism was perfectally suited to
establishing the universal power of "free trade". Usuary laws and
prohibitions of Sabbath-breaking were an obstacle in the way of Capital
accumulation. Religion had to adapt to Capitalism, which it did.
However, Marx firmly saw the attack on organized religion as an integral
part of the assault on Capitalism. Or rather, Marx thought that the
thought-patterns characteristic of organized religion (reliance on
clergy and condemnation of free-inquiry) were hindrances to the
emancipation of the working class. Das Kapital is replete with
derogatory statements on religion ("the sheep-nature of Christians" is
expressed through their honouring Christ as the "lamb", etc.)
And Marx was right. Religion does teach conformity and submission. Since
the advent of agriculture in neolithic times, and the demise of the
vague shamanistic numina, the power of the dead (Moses, Jesus, Muhammad)
law-givers has weighed heavily on workers. Agriculture entails the
production of a year-round surplus, thus the creation of fixed
settlements, thus the rise of a cult of the mythical ancestors, thus the
emergeance of a dominant elite, thus theocracy, thus the development of
religious forms stressing the importance of submission to earthly
authority.
As each individual's labour becomes a component of an increasingly
complex divison of labour within society as a whole, as each man becomes
a small cog in the production process, as each worker's output becomes
directed by external forces (and not to satisfy his own immediate
needs), so grows in proportion the political need to embody humankind's
productive capacities within a deity.
The first expression of this "creation of God by man" is seen in the
theocratic states of Egypt, Sumeria, Central America, Indus Valley or
China. Those are centralized states relying on stone age technology and
on scribal bureaucrats. Stone monuments record ad nauseam how the Gods
favoured such and such an overlord from such and such a dynasty, how
under his rule the Gods granted bountiful crops and victory over
less-advanced tribes. How such and such a prince built a great temple to
such and such a deity, using up the productive forces of tens of
thousands of workers. And how, fifty years later, his son was replaced
by another dynasty because of intruding barbarians eager to plunder such
a tremendous concentration of surplus-value.
Modern monotheistic religions are the products of a more generalized
system of exchange among various nations on a global scale. I personaly
think that present-day Judaism is a product of the third century BC
(Hellenism) and that the old testament is a hodge podge of various
stories about a bunch of mythical ancestors from various tribal
groupings (some of which honoured Abraham as a mythical ancestor, others
Jacob, others Moses, thus creating the need to "unify" all these myths
by making Jacob a relative of Abraham and Moses a later figure). And let
us not forget that the Jews were polytheists throughout the time of the
patriarchs, there being a tree representing the Godess in Salomon's
temple (the origin of the present-day Menorah) until it was cut down a
bit before the Babylonian conquest according to the bible itself. Well,
we all know the old testament, a uniquely stringent monotheistic
harmonization written by Yahwehists, is a long recrimination about the
continuation of pagan practises by the fickle Jewish people who kept
"turning away from God".
The Jewish bible was soon joined by the Christian New Testament, another
piece of mixing and blending and by the Coran. The Coran, just like
Joseph Smith's book, is really interesting because it was written after
Muhammad's death by gathering oral sermons attributed to the prophet
(and dismissing others). Several strata are present within the Coran,
with different theological implications. The earliest strata are clearly
derived from Jewish and Christian models, and seem to represent the
original form of the Muslim faith. The vocabulary of this stratum is
laden with Christian Syriac (Aramaic) terms whereas latter passages from
the Coran are written in a more Southern Arabic dialect.
The contradictions between the various strata were preceived quite early
and thus gave rise to the doctrine of the "supersession" of the "Medina
surates" (which are more liberal) by the "Mecca surates". And of course
the whole "Satanic Verses" thing, though this is another harmonizing
attempt.
By the way, if any scholar were to write what I have just written in
Iran or Saudi Arabia he would be in BIG trouble ...
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