On 2/24/07, Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
There is a difference between the _cause_ of a belief and the expression/explanation of the belief. I do not think religion is a major _cause_ of social beliefs; it merely provides the vocabulary in which beliefs otherwise grounded are expressed and defended.
Marxists are fond of saying that religion is compatible with capitalism, and so it is, in some hands, but the same can be very well said about Marxism. As a matter of fact, it is probably easier to reconcile Marxism with capitalism than to reconcile religion with it. Religion, after all, was originally a pre-modern, pre-capitalist phenomenon, so, in order to adopt any variety of it to capitalist life, you have to twist it very seriously, almost beyond recognition. Whereas Marxism arose after capitalism, in response to it, and one of its tenets widely held by adherents to Marxism is that transition to socialism first of all demands a great deal of capitalist development, and for many Marxists no amount of capitalist development seems enough foundation for that perpetually postponed transition. :-> -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
