The Drawbacks of Religion

Earlier this Easter Sunday, I made a comment online concerning the ridiculousness of the holiday and the fact that so many billions of people subscribe to the belief that a man managed to rise from the dead. This was met with a question posed to me, “How do other people’s beliefs affect you?” To respond to this question, I will be analyzing closely one of Marx’s earlier pieces, the unfinished introduction to the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. While I will be using my Marx-Engels Reader for reference, you can find a copy of the essay online at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm. I will also be using personal observations concerning religion to answer this question.

I: Religion as an obstacle to human progress

“The basis of irreligious criticism is this: man makes religion; religion does not make man. Religion is indeed man’s self-consciousness and self-awareness so long as he has not found himself or has lost himself again. But man is not an abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is the human world, the state, society. The state, this society, produces religion which is an inverted world consciousness, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, its general basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human being inasmuch as the human being possesses no true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly a struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Of course, the final phrase is one of Marx’s most widely known quotes and, as Christopher Hitchens puts it in God Is Not Great, one of the most misunderstood. No one will deny that religion is extremely important to many different people. Marx certainly knew society’s need for religion, considering he was a German-Jew with many rabbis going up the family tree. This is perhaps why people are so quick to defend religion when attacked by non-believers. They will say that “it helps people” or that “people should be allowed to believe what they want; how dare you”, and that without religion, “society would fall apart”. However, while right now billions use religion to deal with their daily struggles, it ultimately is an obstacle to a better future. Marx is much more eloquent than I in describing how it is vital that religious belief be ultimately destroyed:

“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of men is a demand for real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, the embryonic criticism of this vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain, not in order that man shall bear the chain without caprice or consolidation but so that he shall cast off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man so that he will think, act and fashion his reality as a man who has lost his illusions and regained his reason; so that he will revolve about himself as his own true sun. Religion is only the illusory sun about which man revolves so long as he does not revolve about himself.”

Marx did not wish upon others that they give up their only source of happiness in life (religion) so that they could not be happy; he wished that they would give up religion in order to realize the true nature of the world so they can improve it. This is often where people get offended or simply stop listening, as they disregard this as a disrespectful dismissal of beliefs they hold dearly. The implication that their religious belief is ignorant is an incredibly offensive insult to their intellect, and, while I honestly do try to respect the intellect of my religious comrades, I cannot say that I find the belief in god (when I say god, it tends to refer to the monotheistic god) an incredibly intelligent one. While this in itself deserves a full post, I do not find it completely necessary for it to be a component of the argument that religion is an obstructive force in society. To reiterate, the criticism of religion is not necessarily the criticism of man, but the criticism of the current circumstances man lives in which forces him to use religion as a crutch.

While Hitchens often says that religion will be around so long as people still have their “silly fear of death”, I believe that it is a much deeper-rooted problem. Religion not only comforts people when it comes to death, but when it comes to reality as well. It prevents us from recognizing the serious issues in our lives, whether they are societal or personal issues. We are told to deal with these issues by recognizing that it is all part of “god’s plan”, and that, if we follow all of his ridiculous rules, we will be rewarded in the end. How are people supposed to be motivated to enact societal changes if we are tempted to believe that a splendorous afterlife is waiting for us, so long as we conform? This leads me to my next point…

II. Religion cheapens life

This is something we have seen from the beginning of the feudal systems where religions reigned supreme. Serfs were tricked into living subservient and dismal lives with the promise of a glorious afterlife, which is not entirely different from today, except our system right now is global capitalism. The very idea of a better afterlife takes away from us the motivation to make our current world a better place (tying into Marx’s metaphor of the illusory flower on the chain). Instead of recognizing the beauty of the world, our lives today are seen as a testing ground, the preliminary phase. And when we finally do recognize the beauty in our lives, we thank god for it and talk about how blessed we are. Why must we thank this person? Why do we need to be gracious to some man in the sky for our own achievements? If everything that happens is thanks to god (whether it’s good or bad), our actions lose any semblance of value. A world without religion is a world where we are able to recognize the beauties of the Earth, which is the only true reality we know of.

III. Religion is not necessary

People often say that without religion, we would have no moral values. Aside from the fact that man created religion and the moral values which come with it, I reject the idea that it is necessary to have religion to have a moral world. In fact, a more moral world can be created by abolishing religious belief.

When religious apologists talk about the lines in the bible that we like to forget, they say that the bible was written during a different time; obviously, not everything is applicable now. Well, if we are able to discern what is applicable now and what isn’t, then why do we need a bible in the first place? Of course, the commandment that says murder is wrong is going to be one that we hold onto because we know murder is wrong, but when we are told to not eat shellfish, it is incredibly easy to say that that rule is silly, because we know that there is nothing wrong with eating shellfish. It is my belief that basic moral values stem from the Golden Rule: don’t do unto others what you wouldn’t want done to yourself. So long as humans are capable of empathy, they will naturally cling to this moral value, which, in turn, creates a long line of values which creates a person moral code (as usual, this is deserving of a full post, which may or may not come in the future).

So yes, there are some commendable moral values that religions espouse, but they are values that are natural to human beings and are values that are recognized by irreligious people. In addition, the outdated values seen in various religions (just read Leviticus) which are held by the backwards fundamentalists are a bigger drag on society than the “good” values, which, as stated earlier, don’t need religious institutions to be recognized.

IV. Belief in the monotheistic god is a fascistic one

Now this idea is a bit different from the ideas expressed earlier (as well as slightly contradictory), but I want to throw all my ideas into this piece

Christopher Hitchens often compared the idea of the monotheistic religions to a North Korea of which there is no chance of escaping, not even in death. You are to become a servant to your lord, following all the ridiculous rules laid out in a book written thousands of years prior. If you do not recognize his great power, if you do not follow his rules, or if you rebel, you will be sentenced to an eternity of suffering. This differs somewhat from what Marx said; religion is not just the illusory flower on the chain, but it is the chain itself. If you do not conform, you are not rewarded. Only because of the grace of your benevolent lord are you allowed to live (on a slightly off-topic note, the very word “lord” bothers me; do people realize how it just feeds into the hierarchical structure?). The idea of a totalitarian ruler who lashes out extreme punishment is not the only thing that the monotheistic religions have in common with dystopian regimes; even the intricacies such as the all-knowing “big brother” are present in religion, as god is constantly watching your actions, whether you want him to or not. This idea disturbs me to no end, and quite frankly, I do not know how billions of people actually buy into it and claim that it helps them.

To conclude, religion chains down man (whether it is the chain itself or the “illusory flower on the chain” as Marx described is up to debate). It feeds into our ignorance of reality; not only does it give people a lack of motivation to change their surroundings, but it prevents them from recognizing the very problems of the systems which need to be changed. The values which apparently stem from religion are in fact parts of human nature or have been discovered through rational thought (the Enlightenment). It is not a necessary aspect of human life which we need to recognize, and I refuse to respect religious belief as an intelligent one.

Letting people believe what they want may sound like a nice thing to say, but it is very dangerous for people to be expected to respect every nonsensical belief. I do not believe in letting fascists believe what they want, nor do I believe in letting racists believe what they want. While I don’t necessarily believe in physically putting down certain movements, I believe that certain beliefs that are weighing down society should be attacked, and certainly should not be respected. Religious criticism, to me, is absolutely essential if we ever want to make a better world.