The Ruin of Christ. (1916)

From the October 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

A note on a newspaper's wish for a United Church.

For nearly two thousand years people have been told that Jesus Christ came to the earth for the well-being of humanity, left a stock of immortal truths and after great sorrows returned to his Heavenly Father. From the Scriptures we read that The Man of Sorrows worked miracles, put beautiful parables into his public speeches, and was superior to the powers of Death and the Sea. In history we learn that his parentage was so obscure, the evidence of either his existence or his work so debatable, that opinion drift between two extremes, Renan believing him to be a humble, considerate man and Shelley an ambitious man who aspired to the throne of Judea.

Interest was centred on Christ until quite recently because of the nature of the claims on his behalf ; the divine power with which his name was invested, the singularity of his birth, the lowliness of his habits, his nobility and his patience. If, when we consider Jesus in the most favourable light, we find his parables not entirely uninstructive, we also see that under the care of the Church they have become either wretched or villainous. Jesus, like King Lear, gave his property into cruel hands. By popes and archbishops his ethics have been falsified ; by philosophers he has been stript of his divinity ; his Godliness has become the faith of the fool and the target of Historians. In the future, interest will centre on Christ chiefly in consequence of some articles and letters which lately appeared in the “Daily Chronicle.”

The editor of that newspaper is urging the adherents of the two-and-seventy jarring sects to unite into a common brotherhood. He thinks that with a little trimming of faiths, a modification of the gospel to meet the advancements of science, and sundry other things, that Christianity might still be a power in the land. Alas ! why do not your friends tell you, poor ”Chronicle” Editor, that a writer on such a theme may nowadays wear out a mine of nibs and use a sea of ink before a sceptic will even smile. Am I alone to tell you that you should close the lid of your pot and pack up your pens ? Your God has made another error in judgment ; you are born too late in the day. Somewhere in the sixteenth century your kith and kin in Spain did not use pens. I learn on good authority that the founder of the Spanish Inquisition, Torquemada, was never the editor of a newspaper.

But as I do not wish to be thought inconsiderate, or in any unworthy way to gloat over the downfall of Christ and his Church, I would like to openly consider some of the reasons for your proposals. Although I am an Atheist I see something infinitely pathetic in the fact that a people once so prosperous and proud, with abilities, as they once had, to construct their old giant crusades, with energy to war, with cunning enough to arrest the growth of science and art, should at last lose the power of their science-riddled Jesus and become dependent upon London newspapers.

In your columns you hint, as we have been told so often before, that religion is a necessity of national life : that God’s hand is in the work of the scholar and his influence felt in the life of the savage. With the latter half of your contention I am in complete agreement. Knowing something of the history of Christianity, and a little of the life of savages, it is difficult to see how they would lose anything by exchanging a crucifix of Christ for the images of wood and hobgoblins of stone to which they are devoted. But whatever loss they sustained, or whatever hostility the substitution aroused among the base Indians or the cannibals of Tierra del Fuego, the proposal should be insisted on English manufacturers would thus be able to export a large number of ivory Christs which are lying stagnant in the workshops. The other of your contentions I cannot so easily endorse. Voltaire, Tom Paine, Marx, Spencer, Darwin, were all great men ; so if it is true that the scholar cannot work without God’s help, then God alone is responsible for some of the deadliest arguments against his own existence and some of the wittiest satires on his own son.

We learn also that the Christian has worked and does work in the service of God. As a little pamphlet which we issue, entitled “Socialism and Religion,” deals with the birth, life, and death of the Idea of God, it will not be necessary for me to speak of it here ; I will alone consider the world’s work of his servants.

What has the Christian done in the world which the Atheist has not ? Point to an achievement of a saint who has the advantage of intimacy with the Almighty and I will counterbalance it with an important work of a Freethinker who is on no friendly footing with a divinity. Against the literary value of the Bible I place Shakespeare ; against “Genesis” and the “Book of Job” I place “King Lear” and “The Tempest.” We are told that St. Francis of Assisi held conversation with the sparrows and by the sea-side lectured the fishes. In contrast to these second-hand records of this laughable saint I place the beautiful lament of Burns over the field-mouse, written in subtle sweetness, not for the instruction of the simple creature which lost its nest under the ploughshare, but for the enjoyment of humanity. In the Psalms God gets praised in choice language, but no more tremendous melody of praise and sorrow has been penned than Shelley’s elegy on the Death of Keats—”Adonais.” Blake was intimate with the Almighty and kept in touch with the events of Paradise. Blake saw Eden and Hell. Blake had God as a model in his studio. Blake, so Blake claimed and many believed, passed through all the celestial and infernal valleys. He claimed that he had a special invitation, but I am inclined to think that it was just the result of an unsettled disposition. In any case his work has little artistic value or topographical importance. They are neither pictures nor maps of hell, so we must conclude that Blake was utterly foolish and could not learn, or that his divine instructor was out of touch with the modern French artists. I incline to the latter view after having read a biography of Blake by G. K. Chesterton. You may now agree with me, nearly-forgotten editor, that in works of beauty the saints are not supreme. But still the question remains—what have the religionists done which the sceptics have not ? For an answer we must look slightly at the noble work of the world.

Look to the early days of astronomy and you will find religion there as a worm in the bud. The slightest slip from the ritual of the Church, the publication of the feeblest heresy or the mightiest truth, was followed by hellish punishment. From the time when the priests first got power until the time when they lost it they struck right and left in a mad, blind fury. Up till the time when Voltaire lived eight million people had perished in Holy Crusades. There is no doubt the biblical God made priests in his own image.

Bruno suffered after Copernicus ; homes were ruined, arts and sciences enslaved ; authors, reformers, philosophers were blinded, branded, tortured, poisoned, or burned. Blind with the love of Christ, the Inquisitors did not know their own kith and kin. The friend of superstition died with its enemy. The poet was exiled and the astronomer murdered. Not a soul must breathe a syllable of any fresh thought. Those among our friends who know the joy of listening to or uttering fresh truths will understand the deep gloom of this enslavement. It is not alone to those rare and lonely martyrs of the cause of progress that we must always feel grateful, but also to those nameless thousands who have gone to their graves with the fire of truth in their hearts, with wonderful thoughts unpublished. Well we may remember the intellect and honesty of those olden mortals who braved the smiles, bribes, and fury of Christ’s ministers and dealt the first mortal blow to superstition, but we shall never know the details of the unhappy lives of those who were forced to let their poetry wither away—not so much as whispered—hide their yearnings, stifle their young dreams, as a mother the child she loves and yet fears to keep. We shall never be able to count the lost lives of the people, nor measure the infamies of the Church during those miserable years. The Church may do good by stealth, the rest of its work is on record,

Yet I am not of a spiteful nature, so I will offer Christians a few words of advice on how they may, if they will, become united. Do not write books, do not distribute crusts of bread, do not wage wars, for the love of God ; but sow and gather corn, weave clothes, build houses, on communal principles, for the love of humanity. Study the poets, historians, scientists, and architects, then in the music of their sentiments you will forget old hells, conjurors, and tricky heavens. In the knowledge of architecture and the love of nature which follow you will burn all the churches that have corrugated iron roofs ; in the strength of character which follows you will possess the foundations of future happiness.

No doubt you will often be told that an Atheist’s life is black and vacant. The men who repeat this stale nonsense are all men of less brain than Bacon, who says in his “Moral Essays” that “Atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, natural piety, laws, reputation, and everything that can serve to conduct him to virtue ; but superstition destroys all these and erects itself into a tyranny over the understanding of men.” Irreligion certainly accompanies an understanding of Socialism, but we Socialists can enjoy the picturesque parts of all religions, from the beautiful mythology of old Greece to that of the “Daily Chronicle.” We may enjoy the beauties of the country, the wonders of the cities, the solitude of the sea, or its commerce. The riddle of the universe is still with us to test our wits and keep them keen. Books, music, and art are now strongly established as the elements. It is not much that we lose when we lose a Christ, a priest, and an iron chapel. We are progressing. The Bible can no longer be used as a weapon against us. It is rapidly becoming an entertaining book in our hands. With our complete freedom from superstition, political and industrial as well as religious, we shall have reached the time when the Chapters of Genesis may be raised to the superb dignity of the “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The religion of Christ was no more fit for the guidance of the world’s workers than the fishing boat of Peter was fit for the circumnavigation of the world or the sandals of Joseph fit for a journey from Bethlehem to the North Pole.

But the old Church, the old slave-ship of Christ, last century was sinking fast and the wish to sail in solitary triumph was gone. Truth has been treated by their flinty clerics as a wolf with a small belly and a moderate appetite whose pursuit may be delayed with morsels of flesh. But Truth, instead, is like the sea on which no unprincipled ship can sail for long in security. The billows have been hammering at the old hulk of the Church for some ages now. Starting a voyage from Galilee, Christianity sailed smoothly for a thousand years or so, gathering up the slaves, stealing the treasures of free thought ; its blight was terrible, absolute, and swift. Thus astronomy rose like a whirlwind ; geology was as lightning. The surrounding sea beat harder and faster. The crumbling ship’s sails were ruined, its masts were snapped at the roots. The passengers and slaves rebelled and after much turmoil managed to get some kind of a Reformation. No one cared what was tossed to the sea so long as the crippled ship was saved. Year after year the storm grew worse and Christ’s compass led it astray. When their provisions were gone they turned cannibals : sect devoured sect. Last century the “Origin of Species” and the Socialist Philosophy were published and fell like thunderbolts in the old, rotten, rat-riddled, shattered ship. Amid the howling billows and gusts of wind the vessel sunk. In the wilderness of the waves it was lost with all its pretensions, tyrants, conundrums of Heaven, spectres of Hell, and the rest of its ghastly cargo.

I am afraid you cut a miserable figure, London Editor, as you stand on the shores of Fleet Street crying pitifully to the tempest: “Peace, be still !” Yet it will be interesting to see for how long an editor may sit by a grave trying to restore a corpse to health and strength, and remain free from pity and contempt.

H. M. M.

Whose thoughts are you thinking? (2006)

From the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Richard Dawkins, the biologist, has become something of a celebrity through his outspoken advocacy of atheism as in his new book “The God Delusion”. But his approach to religion is still an idealist one.

The Dawkins approach to the question of religion is, like religion itself, an idealist one: religion is false, rationally unsustainable; morally enfeebling and a basis for hatred and division. Presumably Dawkins sees the death or meaningful diminution of religion by means of secularist persuasion just as religion hopes to resist secularisation by what it sees as ethical persuasion.

Dawkins looks into the biological evolution of homo sapiens for the origin and growth of the multiplicity of religious faiths. He is speculative rather than dogmatic on the issue but much more convincing when showing how the stringency of faith-based social morality has been softened over time by an intellectual response to the social development of society. He recognises this but, unlike Marx and Engels on the question of religion, simply reports it as a phenomenon under the label of moral Zeitgeist.

Unlike Dawkins, the pioneers of scientific socialism sought to show religion as a reflex of the social organisation of society. Marx, in the Introduction to his Critique of Hegel’s of Philosophy of Right, wrote:

“This state, this society, produces religion, a reversed world consciousness, because they are a reversed world. Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritualistic point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction. The struggle against religion is therefore immediately the fight against the other world of which religion is the spiritual aroma. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.” (original italics)

It wasn’t simply a question of religion being false, or brutal or divisive; it was a weapon of the ruling class, a bulwark in the way of the emancipation of the working class, a hurdle to be overcome in the progress to socialism nor could it be overcome while the conditions that nourished it continued to exist. Thus, the socialist sees religion as an integral part of the class struggle while the secularist sees it simply as a harmful, false premise on which to base a system of moral rectitude. As far as capitalism’s subject class is concerned, whether those who govern it or those who exploit it reject or accept faith is irrelevant; the morality of capitalism is not governed either by humanistic or religious considerations but by the constraints and compulsions of the marketplace.

Inculcating religion

Dawkins deals well, even poignantly, with the religious indoctrination of children pointing, for example, to the absurd practice of labelling young children with the faith identity of their parents or guardians. Even very young children, as young as three or four are referred to as, for example, ‘Catholic’, ‘Protestant’ or ‘Muslim’ children because society accepts the legitimacy of parents or guardians or clerics or teachers hijacking the innocence of children for the inculcation of beliefs more likely to be resisted if they were offered initially to an older person. Dawkins rightly calls it child abuse with ramifications sometimes even more devastating than the sexual abuse of children.

Obviously socialists agree that the indoctrination of children is a contemptible invasion of the rights of a child but, grave as it is, it is less socially heinous than the ruthless inculcation of the appalling precepts and values of capitalism – accompanied usually by the notion of a ubiquitous Divine Policeman – to which both children and adults of all ages are remorselessly exposed.

Science and the system

Indoctrination makes a nonsense of the claim that we live in a democracy. Democracy is about choice and choice is based on information and knowledge. But nowhere in the world of capitalism are the people offered the slightest hint that there could be a way of running our society that might free us from the appalling problems that are built-in, inevitable aspects of global capitalism. Instead we have intense conditioning and thought control to the extent were we look on the utterly absurd, like war and world hunger, as natural and as inevitable as the seasons.

Capitalism and its institutions rape our consciousness and rob us of the ability to think independently. Every situation must be reasoned within the paradigm of a world in which we are beholden to a class of owners not only for our daily bread but for every aspect of our life-functions from the cradle to the grave and unless our needs are consistent with the profit needs of the owning class they will not be met.

Richard Dawkins sings the praises of science and in a general sense socialists join in the chorus. But science, possibly more than most other disciplines, is a prisoner of capitalism. The scientists have to beg at the table of the system for funding to pursue their projects; their sponsors are usually largely mammoth capitalist enterprises bent on discerning means of further enriching their directors and shareholders or capitalist governments dedicated to the overall concerns of national capitalism.

Just like the rest of us, the scientist is a prisoner of the crazy logic of the system and just  like the rest of us if his or her dedicated function does not hold promise of profit for those who directly or indirectly employ them, irrespective of the potential social benefits of their work, it will be denied funding.

The first phase in the struggle to end the political and economic exploitation of our class is to learn to question the thoughts we inherit from well-intentioned parents and teachers; to challenge the strictures of the priests, parsons, rabbis and mullahs and to question why in a world of potential abundance, where a parasite class of non-productive money shufflers and profit-takers are rich beyond measure, and the working class that produces all real wealth endure mere want or dire poverty.

Richard Montague

Is anybody up there? (1982)

From the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last year the American government published the proceedings of a conference in California in June 1979 whose ostensible purpose was to explore the prospects for research into the nature and distribution of life in the universe (Life in the Universe, NASA Conference Publication 2156. US Government Printing Office). While the case for the establishment of a sane and harmonious society here on earth is obviously not dependent on such findings, the papers do contain much of interest to socialists.

The conference considered the origin of life, life supporting environments, the evolution of complex life, the detectability of technically advanced civilisations and the problem of locating extraterrestrial intelligence. Two different though complementary approaches are encompassed here. The first seeks to develop an understanding of life and the environments necessary to support it. Such research cannot, of course, uniquely determine the existence of life outside the planet earth, but will enable attention to be focused on the more promising candidates among the heavenly bodies. The second approach has already been christened SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and involves listening for potential radio transmissions from intelligent life, and an examination of suitable stars for target. A research programme has been established to pursue these aims.

The advance in thinking in this branch of science since Darwin wrote The Origin of Species is as immense as that made in the same period in the design of weapons of war. The two are in fact linked, as illustrated by the development of nuclear bombs and the use of space-craft for reconnaissance and, potentially at least, for other military purposes. It is a mistake to think of this advance of science in terms of increasing the number of solved problems (with a corresponding reduction of those unsolved), although there is a sense in which this is a valid viewpoint. Attempts to attack one particular problem often lead to unexpected results which themselves cause new questions to be posed and fresh problems identified as requiring solutions. An example of this was the bringing back to earth for analysis of samples from the moon. The results have been somewhat misleadingly reported as having caused confusion among scientists. In fact the longterm result is an enlargement of horizons and an enrichment of understanding.

Certainly this aspect of scientific research can be irritating. It requires the modification of theories in the face of new evidence, often the abandonment of what had appeared to be promising lines of enquiry. Thus the appearance can easily be given that no progress is being made. It is here that the sniping movement calling itself Creation Science has found its opportunity. There have surely been few organisations to which the word reactionary can be more appropriately applied. Claiming that science has failed to provide the answers, it advocates a return to the old creation theories of religion. Its adherents focus on biological evolution and Darwin's work and pose the question, “Was Darwin right?”, as though they were continuing the famous debate between Bishop Wilberforce and T.H. Huxley. Their claim that the fossil record does not support Darwin is technically correct although rather impertinent. Darwin as was understandable in his time, saw evolution as proceeding at a much more constant rate than present-day evidence will support. In fact, as presented by Valentine [1], what now appears to have happened is lengthy periods of relative stability with small changes (microevolution) interspersed with intervals where more revolutionary events happened (macroevolution). Valentine writes: "A large mutation can produce a descendant which is infertile with members of its parental species, including its parents. If it can fertilise itself, however, it may propagate and thrive”. In the human species mutations are produced which differ considerably from their parents. This occurred with much greater frequency immediately following the atomic bombardment of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Like most mutations these were tragic, one-off cases and where they survived they did so only because human society can now prevent natural selection operating. The point is, however, that it was the normal human reproductive process which brought forth these ‘children’, and to claim that a ‘creator’ is at work here is worse than ridiculous.

The concept of concurrent micro and macroevolution appears to be well supported by the fossil record. Indeed in the last 20 years one of the main arguments used by “creationists' has disappeared. As reported by Margolis and Havelock [2], it used to be thought that the Precambrian rocks of the Ediacaran period (700 million to 570 million years ago approximately) did not contain a fossil record. The pioneering work of Elso Barghoorn and Stanley Tyler of Harvard University has shown that this is not the case, the difficulty having been related to detection techniques and scientific expectation. Margolis and Havelock put it thus: “These investigators realised that the conspicuous fossil record of large organisms must have been preceded by something smaller. Such ideas led them to microscopic studies of thin sections of unaltered sedimentary rocks”. Far from supporting biblical or neo-biblical viewpoint, modern science is dealing it ever more crushing blows. This message is forcefully conveyed in nearly all the papers presented at the conference. ‘Creation science', incorporating as it does a complete misunderstanding of modern scientific method, must be largely motivated by its own deadly fear of the consequences of driving God out of the heavens. The complexity of the universe, as it is now understood, shows more clearly than ever before that the idea that we can ‘know all the answers' is a religious and not a scientific one. How could the inert matter which preceded life on earth have left sign-points to show us how it came to be where it was?

When talking about the possibility of detecting the existence of life outside our own planet, we of course mean life as we know it’; that is. life that has evolved in much the same way from much the same material conditions and resources as has life here on earth. We cannot, of course, even begin to discuss any other possible method of life evolution as it would be totally outside our experience and knowledge. All that can be said is that while this possibility cannot be entirely ruled out, the chances do seem to be extremely small. The phrase ‘conditions which will support life’ must also be taken to mean ‘conditions similar to those on earth’.

The space exploration which has already taken place certainly appears to have ruled out any chance of life at the present time anywhere else in the solar system. No attempt was made by sensate beings to intercept or communicate with the spacecraft, and nowhere was a life supporting environment detected. However Chang [3] suggests that Venus and Mars may have supported some form of life in the past. As for the chances of life further afield, this appears to boil down to which is the greater of two very large numbers. The odds against all the requirements of organic life appearing on another plant, or perhaps a satellite, in much the same proportions as on earth, are obviously very great. Equally vast however is the number of heavenly bodies in the universe. The biblical writer who compared their abundance to that of sand on the seashore was considerably more right than he knew. He probably did not believe what he wrote, but he has proved not to be far out. There has even been speculation that the planet earth may not be unique — that is to say. there may be another bloke called Edge writing at this instant about life in the universe for another journal called Socialist Standard on an identical planet many light years away! Opinion at the conference was divided on this issue. Drake [4] states: “The current consensus concerning extraterrestrial life is that it exists in abundance in the universe". However in the present state of knowledge the opinion of Lovejoy [5] seems more realistic: “I think it quite reasonable to suppose that despite the immensity of the known universe, the specificity in the physiostructure of any organism is so great and its immensely complex pathway of progression so ancient that the probability of re-expression is simply infinitesimal". This, needless to say. has nothing in common with the religious view of man as the special creation of God. Lovejoy’s comments are the product of more than a century of dedicated scientific observation.

What is the real purpose of this conference? In his introductory remarks Frosch [6] said: "The ‘golden fleece' idea that searches, gropings for knowledge whose purpose we do not understand are silly and some kind of rip off, results from sheer lack of understanding, lack of imagination and lack of perception of the meaning of the history of the human race". As far as it went, this was very well said. However, it would be naive indeed to accept that the gathering was concerned with pure research for the long-term benefit of humanity. Under the present social system funds are not provided for such studies. Certain capitalist interests, of course, stand to benefit in the short term from the construction of the high technology instruments required to scan the universe for life. Spacecraft travelling up to the speed of light have been envisaged. Generally speaking, however, such interests, despite all their lobbying, are unlikely by themselves to generate enough pressure to force governments, considering the interests of the capitalist class as a whole, to provide them with the necessary finance. Not surprisingly, “earth politics" is ignored in all of the papers. This is an indication, however, that the participants implicitly accepted not only that there is no feasible alternative to the capitalist system here on earth, but that the advanced civilisations which they hope to find elsewhere will be capitalist in character also.

In discussing how such advanced civilisations may be detected, Braccwell [7] unwittingly and grimly admits this when he says, "incidental signals offer more interesting grounds for speculation. There is of course the possibility of emission from bomb explosions. Sustained nuclear reactions for the purpose of power generation do not seem a likely source because leakage would represent waste”. Unlike CND, it would appear that this author holds justifiably pessimistic views of the possibility of removing the threat of nuclear war while retaining the system that causes it. It can reasonably be assumed that the conference would have been no more optimistic about the prospect of tackling the problems of pollution and depletion of natural resources. These are also insoluble within capitalism, and are seriously worrying the more thinking among our rulers.

There are perhaps two obvious ways in which such people may see communication with other life-supporting planets as offering a way out. First, there is the hope that some "super intelligence” may be contacted who could point to solutions which have escaped dumb earthlings. However socialists see this as another form of the "great man" idea, and thus doomed to failure. Secondly, and perhaps the speculation on long-distance space travel is indicative, there is the possibility of transplanting earth capitalism to another site (and eventually wrecking this place in the way the earth is now being wrecked). This may prove to be a more practical proposition than trying to establish life support systems on other members of the solar system which are at present inimical to life. Such a migration could involve war. not only with existing inhabitants, but fierce conflict between the rival capitalist groups on earth as they try to extend their space colonies at each other's expense, just as happened here. This scepticism over motives however does not detract from the value of this publication as an abundant source of information and valuable insight into current scientific thinking.

E. C. Edge

References

(All references are taken from NASA Conference Publication 2156)

1. Emergence and Radiation of Multicellular Organisms; James W. Valentine (University of California)

2. Atmosphere and Evolution; Lynn Margolis (Boston University) and James E. Lovelock (Reading University, UK)

3. Organic Chemical Evolution; Sherwood Chang (Ames Research Centre. NASA)

4. Comments by Frank D. Drake (Professor of Astronomy. Cornell University) as session chairman for session 5.

5. Evolution of Man and its Implications for General Principles of the Evolution of Intelligent Life; C. Owen Lovejoy (Kent State University, Ohio)

6. Introductory remarks by Robert A. Frosch (President of the American Association of Engineering Societies)

7. Manifestations of Advanced Civilisations; Ronald N. Braccwell (Stanford University, California)

Halo, Halo! (2024)

The Halo Halo Column from the May 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Social media shorthand SMH means ‘shakes my head’. When the German Hindenburg airship caught fire landing in New Jersey in 1937 the radio commentator cried out, ‘oh, the humanity!’ The current seventh-century rulers of Afghanistan cause both of those reactions. The Telegraph, 25 March, reports that a Mullah there has declared, ‘we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public.’ Words fail.

*****

Fulcrum7.com in a book review says the author posits the ridiculous theory that Noah carried dinosaurs onto the Ark as juveniles or even as eggs. Because obviously think of the space a pair of eighty-foot dinosaurs would take up! The reviewer says, rubbish! Well of course. That’s like the old comedy routine where someone claims to have two lions, a giraffe and an elephant in a shoebox they’re carrying. The reviewer then says, ‘I believe the dinosaurs were among the “confused species”, which were the result of genetic engineering and one of the reasons for the Flood was to destroy those animals’. Words fail.

*****

In June 1812 Napoleon Bonaparte and his French army invaded Russia. In 1812 Mary Anning and, initially, her brother dug the skeleton of an unknown seventeen-foot-long creature from the cliffs of Lyme Regis. Now it’s known that it was the skeleton of an ichthyosaur from the Jurassic period. Mary Anning was aged twelve when she discovered this.

With hindsight, which of those two events was the most important? It’s not known if this is one of the animals that the Flood failed to destroy.

Mary Anning and her family were avid fossil harvesters selling their finds to tourists. Oxford professor William Buckland teamed up with Mary. Peal writes that Buckland was a committed Christian who had difficulty in reconciling Mary’s finds with Bible stories. To maintain his delusion Buckland said that the skeleton must have come there as a result of the Flood.

Mary also discovered a plesiosaur and a pterodactyl. She is quoted as saying that, ‘great men of learning had taken advantage of her.’ ‘They ‘sucked her brains’ of her knowledge, and stole the glory of her discoveries for themselves’ (Meet the Georgians, Robert Peal, 2021,).

*****

The protagonist sees a group of flagellants in St James’s Park. He converses about it with his chauffeur who says; ‘I find it ridiculous. If God exists and He’s decided He’s had enough of us, He isn’t going to change his mind because a rabble of no-hopers dress up in yellow and go wailing through the park.’

‘Do you believe He exists?

‘Perhaps His experiment went spectacularly wrong. Perhaps He’s just baffled. Seeing the mess, not knowing how to put it right. Perhaps not wanting to put it right. Perhaps He only had enough power for one intervention. So He made it. Whoever he is, whatever He is, I hope He burns in His own Hell’ (The Children of Men, P.D. James, 1992).

DC

Mitres and Miracles (1948)

From the February 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

On October 15th, 1947, at the Convocation of Bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Lang, mildly rebuked the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr. Barnes, for the views he expressed on miracles in his book “The Rise of Christianity.” The Sunday Pictorial published extracts from the book, and at the end of the series the archbishop appointed Dr. Blunt, Bishop of Bradford, to reply. Both bishops confined themselves to the authenticity of the gospels and the miracles.

This side of the religious question is of little interest to the Socialist, who ignores them for the same reason that he ignores so-called Lourdes cures and Mons angels. They are contrary to nature, and he cannot know all the circumstances of the happening and the telling. In particular the telling.

Nevertheless, miracles are of vital importance to the ecclesiastic. Dr. Lang admitted as much in his first protest.

While Dr. Garbett said “Acceptance of modern and scientific theories with regard to religion would leave the church only with the memory of a ‘good and courageous man,' who failed in his mission and whose body remained within the tomb.” Other bishops joined in the general condemnation, and Dr. Barnes was left in a minority of one. Needless to say they were all concerned, with or without miracles, in making religion acceptable to the credulous.

In spite of his objections to the literal acceptance of miracles, Dr. Barnes still believes in the greatest of all miracles: the creation of the world, universe or cosmos by a personal god. His explanation of the manner in which miracles came to be believed is probably true. But in retaining the creation miracle and a spiritual domain he gave away his case to Dr. Blunt. He says: “In the discussion of alleged miracles, much nonsense would be avoided by the ardent controversialists if they remembered the first rule of experimental religious psychology: spiritual truths must be spiritually discerned.” Which in plain English is a confession that religion is just a world of make-believe.

After Dr. Barnes’ concessions to spiritual power, miracles, like casting out devils, or turning water into wine, are only small fry, comparable with the spiritualist manifestations of today. And a god who could create the cosmos would take them in his stride. But Dr. Blunt said this in a round-about way. He says that man can modify the rigid working out of cause and effect, and then asks if God cannot do as much? He quotes Dr. Barnes’ statement, “That spiritual qualities do not use material media,” and then declares "This statement is falsified every time that a boy kisses his girl, or a friend grasps a friend’s hand.” 

Kissing a girl and shaking a friend’s hand, according to Dr. Blunt, are spiritual impulses causing physical effects. They are actually physical attractions evoking emotional responses; something not confined to man, but common to the whole biological world. Dr. Barnes’ second point: “Spiritual causes do not produce material effects,” is, he says, "falsified whenever a cricketer catches a falling ball, and so interferes with the law of gravity.” But the law of gravity persists whether the ball rests on the player’s hand, his head, or the ground. The player himself stays on the ground in accordance with the law; and when he catches the ball its weight is added to his own, and player and ball remain under the earth’s power of attraction. Even in its flight the ball was subject to that power. Had the ball rendered the player unconscious by falling on his head, it would have been just as true to say that the law of gravity had interfered with the life force.

Next, Dr. Blunt appealed to science, in the person of Sir Oliver Lodge, who for some years had been engrossed with psychical research under the guidance of spiritualist mediums. He is introduced with a flourish: “So it was that so eminent a scientist as Sir Oliver Lodge, lecturing to a body of clergy warned them ’not to give up the idea of miracle, just when science is preparing to concede it ’.”

On the strength of this, Dr. Blunt makes a more general statement, for which he supplies no evidence: “For fifty years science has been more and more conceding the limited scope of merely physical causation, and has been more and more admitting the power of spiritual forces in the processes of the Universe. Indeed the scientific question nowadays is not whether matter is absolute, but whether there is such a thing as ‘matter’ at all.”

When scientists popularise their ideas, especially among the clergy, they should explain what they mean by matter. As it is stated above it may mean any one of three things: an essential matter underlying all phenomena—the philosophers’ bugbear; matter in the form of atoms in motion; or just matter.

Matter and force are merely two names for one and the same thing. And this, in spite of the claim by a scientist, that a recent experiment could only be explained on the assumption that a minute quantity of matter had been converted into energy and lost. Which, in the telling, proves nothing except that it is just as easy to lose things in a laboratory as anywhere else.

The older materialistic theory was that matter in the shape of atoms in motion was responsible for everything in nature. It held the field until some hundred years ago. Its adherents were unsatisfied, they wanted to know of what did the atom consist, if force or energy was only motion of the atoms. A question that has intrigued philosophers and even scientists, and still confuses the ecclesiastical mind; as instanced by all the bishops in this controversy who insist on the influence of mind over matter. So this alleged disappearance of matter from the scene is of no help to either side in the controversy.

Throughout the middle ages philosophers thought of matter as the substance of the universe: the reality behind its manifold appearances. But neither the modern philosopher, nor the scientist has yet discovered this supposed reality, because however deeply they penetrate they still find only phenomena.

The atom idea was put forward in Ancient Greece. It served as the basis for theories and experiments throughout the middle ages. And eventually all modern chemistry was based on it. Yet the modern scientist found that its hardness was not due to solidity. That it was in fact made up of electrons, which he described as mere points of force moving at incredible speeds. He tried to separate these points of force with a process called "splitting the atom.” The measure of success achieved was plainly revealed to the world at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What a tribute to the wages system ! It drags the best efforts out of men in the service of the ruling-class. The scientist will give of his utmost to get into the four-figure wage class. All his discoveries add wealth and power to the ruling-class on the one hand, and on the other, greater insecurity and more highly concentrated labour for the rest of his class. The clergy, too, are wage workers. Badly paid in the lower ranks, but always striving for one of the high-up jobs; where they can juggle with spiritual metaphysics like “experimental religious psychology ”; and get big money by means of dignified eulogies on the sacred rights of private property, the essence of capitalist ethics, and a vital necessity for himself and the class he serves.

In spite of all the recent discoveries on the nature and structure of the atom, industrial scientists carry on with their table of elements, with its relative atomic weights, and it still works. They are continually discovering laws of substance of which man can take advantage in the struggle for existence. Most scientists, however, turn away from investigations into the nature of existence. It doesn’t pay. While labour-saving processes and atom bombs do.

The tendency on the part of the clergy to merge what they call the spiritual into human thought and mental work is the result of their inability to show, even the probability of a separate spiritual existence, so they are driven back on the mind, and some day they will discover that the mind is merely the function of a physical organ. An instance of this tendency occurred during a broadcast debate on “Belief and Unbelief,” when a prominent churchman made the absurd contention that it was an "example of the influence of mind over matter whenever he took off his hat.” Quite forgetting, in his innocence, that it was material nature, in the shape of rain, cold, etc., that made him wear a hat at all; while over-exertion on a warm day would necessitate its removal to mop his perspiring brow.

Before the clergy talk of mind influencing matter, they must first establish it as a fact that mind is something different from matter, and secondly, that it is independent of matter. It needs no scientist to tell us that there is nothing in nature that is anything in and by itself. Everything within our knowledge is a combination of many things, each of them parts of the universe, and all interdependent, related, and subject to incessant change by that relationship. In that respect the mind is no different from anything else.

Some light on this subject of "mind versus matter” was reported in the Daily Worker (8/4/47). Bertrand Russell had said "that modern physics make materialism very unplausible.” In reply to him J. B. S. Haldane said: "To my mind modern physics makes materialism far more probable than it seemed a generation ago. If the smallest bits of matter are not mere inert particles, but buzzing with activity, it is much easier to suppose that life and mind could arise from what we call dead matter. Materialists think that the gap between non-living matter and human beings is not absolute, and has in fact been bridged by evolution.”

There are, of course, no gaps in evolution; only in our knowledge of it. But the closing of the gap in our knowledge of evolution has broken down one of the main defences of the Church: the mystery of the ego, or soul, has been solved by the discovery that this is nothing but the primary sense of feeling; a quality possessed by the lowest and simplest organisms. In man this primary sense is reinforced by the development of the other four senses, as a result of the hereditary genes, and emerges as a persistent awareness of self early in life.

Mind is merely a function of the brain, just as digestion is a function of the stomach. A condition appertaining to certain dispositions of a special kind of matter evolved in the universal processes of infinite change and, therefore, like everything else, short of the universe itself, limited in its duration. Moreover, it has been scientifically established that man, during his embryonic stage, passes through all forms that have characterised his own evolution from nature’s "culture” upwards.

If spiritual merely means love, friendship or the higher feelings between men in social life, the clergy have indeed abandoned all their defences. Doctors Lang and Blunt are the diehards of a fantastic belief that a spiritual god of infinite power, who created an infinite universe and a class-divided human society, expects men to stifle the greed, hatred and conflict that such a system breeds, in order that they may inherit a state of eternal spiritual bliss. Many people, besides socialists, have already jettisoned these absurd notions. The clergy, under the pressure of scientific knowledge, the indifference of the vast majority, and a growing sense of their weakness, are being steadily forced to abandon these superstitions. They may be well-intentioned, they certainly preach charitableness and brotherly love; but the evil results that flow naturally from the conflict of interests in a class-ridden social system overwhelm their ever weakening efforts.

Brotherly feelings are only possible among those who, having discarded all forms of superstition, realise and affirm that the means of life are the common inheritance of the human race as a whole. Real comradeship is only possible with those who organise consciously to abolish this class-dominated system of capitalism, and to establish a system in which the wellbeing of the people as a whole, is the chief concern of the whole of the people.

F. Foan

Trick or cheat (2007)

Book Review from the January 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Derren Brown: Tricks of the Mind. (4 books. £18.99.)

There are not many popular entertainers and TV celebrities who declare themselves atheists and sceptical about happenings said to be paranormal. The magician and “mentalist” Derren Brown is an exception. His book opens with the words “The Bible is not history” and ends with a passage from The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. As a teenager he was an evangelical Christian, but is at pains to explain that his book is not meant as a rant against religion and claims for the paranormal and alternative medicine. And it isn’t.

He sets out to explain some of the tricks that he and others in his trade employ, even if some of the others claim rather to be exercising special powers. It’s not the magicians who make this claim but the mind-readers, hypnotists and self-styled “psychics”. Magicians do not claim to be practising magic in the literal sense; they are and see themselves as entertainers who entertain the public by what they themselves call “tricks”. Brown explains the sleights of hand by which some of these tricks are done and how to memorise things and invites his readers to learn them as their party piece. It is the self-styled “psychics” who are the problem. In his TV and stage (and private) shows Brown performs the same tricks as them, but doesn’t claim any special powers; which is why he calls himself a “mentalist” rather than a psychic.

In explaining how he – and they – do it he effectively shows that, in so far as they claim special psychic powers, they are frauds. That does not mean that they are not skilled practitioners. It is not easy to master the techniques involved: getting people to be relaxed and responsive to suggestions as in hypnosis (Brown argues that this is not a special state of mind); detecting what people are really thinking from their facial and other bodily movements (he thinks there’s a bit, but not much, in neuro-linguistic programming); and cold reading (you need to think and react quickly to be any good at it).

People who have mastered these skills can be good entertainers, though Brown has – surely rightly – no time at all for those who take advantage of the bereaved to make a show of pretending to contact the spirits of the dead (let alone those who con such people out of their money in private consultations).

In the final chapter (on “Anti-Science, Pseudo-science and Bad Thinking”) Brown comes out as an eloquent and witty defender of the scientific method and critic of the post-modernists, New Agers, alternative therapists and pill pushers, and paranormalists who challenge it.

Adam Buick

Pathfinders: Christmas Crackers (2007)

The Pathfinders Column from the December 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two of the biggest science news stories of the year, and possibly of the decade, broke in late November. One was the derivation of multi-purpose or ‘pluripotent’ human cells from simple skin (BBC Online, 20 November). Until now, the only known way to extract stem cells, cells which have the capability to turn into any of the 220 cell-types in the human body and thus potentially grow or repair any bodily organ or tissue, was from aborted human embryos. The moral issues around this have mired the science in controversy and, especially in the United States, have all but throttled research. Already a small culture of former skin cells has been grown into heart tissue which has begun beating. The consequences, if this technique works, are hard to exaggerate for many otherwise untreatable conditions, or for those people with little chance of a life-saving transplant, or for those with a successful transplant but facing a lifetime of immuno-suppressants and at risk from the mildest infection.

Of course, it might not work, but if does, it would take the worst kind of Christmas Scrooge to point out that this is rich-country technology to cure rich-country people, and which doesn’t do a whole lot for the several million kids who die every year because their mostly corrupt governments won’t spend one lousy dollar on their healthcare.

The other story concerns a Californian surfer and part-time snowboarding instructor, named Garrett Lisi, whose curious hobby just might make him as famous as Einstein (New Scientist, 17 November). For Garrett, when not surfing in Hawaii, moonlights as a theoretical physicist, and has just come up with an idea that might, from a physicist’s point of view, be the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The ‘standard model’ of physics has for the last thirty years or so made reliably accurate predictions about everything from the minutest particle to the largest galaxies, using its two main propositions, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general relativity. The problem has been that these two propositions have never fitted together. While quantum mechanics describes three of the four fundamental forces in nature, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity is the odd one out, and can only be understood using relativity. Logic dictates that there must be an underlying law which unites the behaviour of these four forces, and intuition suggests they might even be aspects of the same thing, but despite all kinds of highly elaborate ideas, such as string theory and loop quantum gravity, nobody has managed to connect them.

What Garrett has done is to take a known, 8-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points, and map all the 40 known particles in their various ‘identities’ to one or other of those points, uniquely including particles representing gravity. Rotating the pattern then gives known and observed relationships between these particles, but also throws light on new unsuspected relationships. In addition, having 20 points left with no particles to put in them, Lisi has posited the existence of 20 new particles which, tantalisingly, might be found next year when the Large Hadron Collider comes online at CERN in Switzerland. If the LHC finds the missing particles, physics will have found its holy grail, a theory of everything, the greatest advance for thirty years, and Lisi, at the very least, will surf his way to the Nobel Prize. Lisi has even devised a curious video animation which you can watch here: http://tinyurl.com/25DPF9. It doesn’t explain anything very well, but it’s quite fun to watch.

Of course, the theory still might be wrong, but if it isn’t, it would take the most miserable seasonal grouch to point out that the greatest advance in physics for three hundred years still wouldn’t mean a damn thing if we’ve killed our planet off because of our collective inability to spend one lousy brain-cell on our social and planetary healthcare. And several YouTube cynics, after watching Lisi’s bizarre ‘confetti’ video, make precisely this point. One particularly concise offering sums them up: “All I want to do is figure out how to make a living without having to go to work. Is that too much to ask?” Well, too much for theoretical physicists, anyway. Pity they aren’t asking socialists that question.

However, 2007 hasn’t been groundbreaking in every department, and there have been a fair collection of silly stories around this year. Two now sadly untraceable stories seen this year involve, on the one hand, the invention of ‘space money’ for all those space tourists of whom the likes of Richard Branson are rubbing their greedy hands together in anticipation, and the intriguing suggestion that NASA’s proposed crewed moon-base, due to be ready in 2020, won’t use money because internal trading would be seen as divisive in the colony. Extreme efforts to locate this story have turned up nothing, so perhaps it was, after all, a figment of a fevered mind.

On firmer ground, there is the continuing argument over online copyright issues. On the progressive side, the band Radiohead recently released an album online with an invitation to ‘pay what you like’. With some paying nothing, but many paying approximately a ‘fair price’ and one clearly disturbed enthusiast paying over £700, other bands are likely to follow this innovation. As this column has previously noted, the fight to preserve copyright online is viewed by many as a lost cause, and many entertainers now seek to recoup through live appearances and promotions instead of through the music. Elsewhere, a wonderful initiative by a Canadian student resulted in thousands of previously unobtainable and out of copyright musical scores being placed online, for any budding pianist to have a go at. But, like the proverbial turd on a bowling green, an Austrian company has appeared on the scene with an international, and unprecedented lawsuit which, on the mere suspicion that there might somewhere be one manuscript still under copyright, has succeeded in closing down this free resource and depriving musicians everywhere of harmless fun (Link.).

Anyone who has ever sworn at a Satnav device will be interested in two conflicting stories, one of which asserts that Satnav is better and safer than using maps (New Scientist, 4 August), the other reporting a litany of building damage and road bridge demolitions resulting from large lorries being sent down totally unsuitable roads by their ‘eye in the sky’ (Link.). It might be wise to see in this perspective the breathless predictions of one robot engineer that humans will be marrying robots within the next 40 years (David Levy, Love and Sex with Robots, publishing date 6 November). Jaded socialists will conclude from the above stories that the human race is going off track in more ways than one.

Lastly, of more interest to those socialists interested in the science/religion debate, the second Beyond Belief conference of concerned scientists has just taken place at La Jolla, California. New Scientist (10 November) takes a surprisingly disparaging view of scientists like Richard Dawkins who refuse to accord respect to religion, and this may of course be due to their high-minded moral impartiality. Or it may be the fact that they have started taking two-page advertisements from the religious Templeton Foundation, that organisation which, as Dawkins has noted, are prepared to pay huge amounts of money to ‘any scientist willing to say something nice about religion’. New Scientist would presumably have no comment to make on what must be the oddest news story of the year (BBC Online, 14 September), in which, after huge protests, the Indian Government withdrew a report to the Supreme Court which dared to claim that a rocky formation lying between the Indian coast and Sri Lanka was not in fact a bridge built by the god Ram and his army of monkeys but was a natural geological feature. Work on the shipping canal project was disrupted for months and the Interior Minister’s resignation was demanded. Who said there’s no fun in fundamentalism?

Paddy Shannon

Religion or Capitalism: Which is the Root of Evil? (2007)

From the November 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Atheists have been coming out of the closet in recent years. But will these freethinkers also embrace the “heresy” of criticizing capitalism?

Atheism—thank god—is gaining in popularity and in converts. Books by atheists have been appearing on non-fiction bestseller lists, such as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith. Even Christopher Hitchens, who has been cheering on the US imperialist crusade with his Christian comrades in the 101st Keyboard Brigade, has cashed in on the trend with his new book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

These prominent atheists have pointed out the ill effects of religion on society and exposed the errors and outright stupidity of religious thought. Such efforts are all-too necessary today, unfortunately, especially in countries like the United States, where politicians cannot even order a cup of coffee without declaring: “God bless America.” It is encouraging that atheists are now confidently voicing their ideas and that their criticism of religion has struck a chord with so many people.

 

If anything, though, the “new atheists” take religion too seriously, extending their criticism to the point that religion seems to be the fundamental cause of many—if not most—of the society’s ills. Dawkins, for instance, depicts an epic struggle between religion (evil) and science (good), while effectively detaching both from the society in which they exist and function. He and others overlook capitalism and the role that religion and science play within this system of production for profit.

 

Neither religion nor science exists in a vacuum, isolated from society at large. The pursuit of science, for instance, is hardly exempt from the life-or-death struggle to accumulate capital that is all around us. Indeed, the main force that is narrowing the directions that scientific research can take is not religion but the capitalist system of production itself.

 

Examples of this abound, whether it be the degree of intellectual energy channelled to the creation of lethal new weapons for the never-ending struggle over markets and resources, or the simple fact that any new device must not only be useful but profitable as well. Under capitalism, the development of science and technology is driven forward by the unceasing competition to raise the productivity of labour as a means of augmenting profit—not a desire to better satisfy human needs—so the potential of science to improve the quality of our lives is severely curtailed.

 

Atheists thus do science no great favour in letting capitalism off the hook and presenting religion as the primary obstacle to the free development of science. They view religion as an ugly carbuncle crouching upon what would otherwise be a beautiful and healthy body, hoping to lance this unsightly growth with the sharp blade of science. But the carbuncle of religion is more like the ones that plagued poor Karl Marx, as it will always grow back, perhaps in a more “delicate” spot, as long as society remains in a constricted and unhealthy state.

 

Having said all of that, socialists still enthusiastically welcome the new books by atheists. It is just that we would go a step further. In addition to pointing out (for the thousand-and-first time) that religion is bunk, or describing its negative impact on society, we would pose the more interesting question: Why does religious thought continue to exist (and even flourish) in modern capitalist society? That is to say: Why does “God”—who has been declared dead on so many occasions—keep popping up in people’s imaginations?

 

To answer that question we need to consider the relationship between religion and society. More specifically: What is the usefulness of religion as far as capitalism is concerned, and what aspects of life in capitalist society make religious thought appealing to individuals?

A convenient untruth

In a class-divided society, as capitalism so clearly is, religious thought comes in handy for those in positions of wealth and power. It promises workers—who happen to form the bulk of the population—that we will get some pie in the sky (after we die), as a reward for our suffering here on earth. Religious leaders encourage their working class “flock” to stoically accept their existence as wage slaves, going on about how “the meek shall inherit the earth.” The benefits to the ruling class of inculcating workers with such a masochistic outlook goes without saying.

 

Granted, the rich are lambasted in most “holy books” and told that they should give up their wealth if they hope to enter heaven. And this would pose a real concern to them if such a place actually existed. In reality, the religious criticism of the rich and powerful, far from threatening their social position, only serves to reinforce their rule. Religion may promise that the filthy rich will be punished—but the court date is in the hereafter, not the here-and-now.  

 

While religious ideology is no doubt a useful means of dampening social discontent, it would be mistaken, I think, to exaggerate how effective it is today, at least in the urban areas where most people live and work. It seems safe to say that the key ideology propagated by capitalists is not religion, but nationalism, which is more effective in blinding workers to their class interests and chaining them to a system that turns their blood and sweat into profits.

 

Capitalists, however, do not have to choose between religion and nationalism. Both come in handy as far as distorting the nature of the problems we face and offering false solutions. They also complement each other nicely: religion encouraging patient suffering, while nationalism offers a way to channel frustrations. The point to note here is simply that one important reason why religion continues to exist, and to be enthusiastically propagated, is that a religious outlook—particularly its focus on a better life after death instead of here on earth—serves the interests of the minority ruling class.

And this is also an important reason for socialists to oppose religion. Still, in our zeal to debunk religion, we should not forget that it is only one ideological form at the disposal of the capitalist class. We need to remember that our criticism of religion is one part of a broader struggle against the ideas that hinder the socialist movement.

 

The need to believe

Pointing out the benefits of religious ideology for the capitalist class, however, does not account for why individuals actually believe in religion.

 

Part of the answer to that question, as already touched on, is that religion can diminish the frustrations we experience in class society, offering the hope (illusion) of divine reward and retribution in an afterlife. It seems likely, though, that there are more people who believe in the possibility of winning the lottery some day than who truly and consistently believe in the existence of heaven and hell.

 

Perhaps some souls do invest in religious faith in the hope of later gain, or out of fear of eternal damnation, but that sort of purely selfish impulse does not adequately explain the stubborn charms of religion in modern-day capitalism. More than the temptation of immortality it offers, much of religion’s power seems to come from its view of the real world in which we live and the answers it provides to baffled and worried minds.

 

The attraction of a religious worldview is not hard to understand in the case of the early human societies. Surrounded by a natural world that was poorly understood and often experienced as a hostile force, religion provided answers and a good deal of comfort. A terrifying flash of lightning or the roar of thunder, for example, could be explained as the sky god communicating his anger or indigestion to the mortals down below. Even this early religious notion that the world is governed by the arbitrary decisions of (often peevish) gods must have been far more reassuring than a view of the world as complete chaos.

 

The development of science chipped away at those unfounded religious beliefs, answering questions about the natural world that had previously been explained by fairy tales. And with the increase in scientific knowledge, the natural world became less threatening and more subject to human control.

 

The social world, however, continued to be a confusing place. And with the development of capitalism, where relations between human beings in production present themselves as relations between things, society became even more difficult to decipher. Not only confusing, capitalist society is every bit as hostile as the natural environment was to early human societies. If the primitive hunter feared the lion in the bush or death by starvation, workers today face the danger of unemployment or crushing debt, not to mention the wars and environmental devastation that continually arise from a system driven by competition for profit. Even the “lucky ones” with jobs face the drudgery of work in the office, at the cash register, or on the production line—driven only by a dire need for money. And when boom turns to bust, or the financial bubble bursts, those workers too might be thrown out on the street. As the saying goes: “It’s a jungle out there.”

 

In the face of this dizzying anarchy that characterizes capitalist production, our knowledge gained from the natural sciences is of little help. (In fact, more than a few scientists contribute to our sense of despair by advancing the fatuous argument that selfish, competitive behaviour is a reflection of an unchanging human nature, rather than being determined by our social system.) Religious ideas can thrive in this situation. Religion not only offers the comforting thought that if this world goes to hell there is a “better world” out there after death, but also provides an explanation of why things are so bad, arguing that it is the outcome of our evil thoughts and actions. Religion even holds out the hope that life on earth could be better if we would only be less selfish and love—or at least tolerate—our neighbours.

 

By offering a criticism of the status quo, and suggestions for social improvements, religion is able to attract some of the vast majority of people who are frustrated with life under capitalism. But the superficial criticism that religion offers only serves to bolster capitalism, suggesting that the problem is our “sinful” behaviour rather than a social system that encourages and rewards such behaviour.

The “promised land”

Socialists present an analysis that differs sharply from the religious worldview (and from the views of those who mechanically apply theories of natural science to explain human behaviour under capitalism).Instead of viewing present-day society (capitalism) as unfathomable chaos or an eternal state of affairs linked to our human nature, socialists arrive at an understanding of its fundamental nature as a system driven by the need to generate profit through the exploitation of labour. It is this essence of the social system that accounts, above all, for the selfish or “sinful” behaviour that is so rampant within it. This understanding of capitalism does not exempt socialists from the difficulties of living under it, needless to say, but it does reveal the “method to the madness”—just as science has demystified nature. And this understanding is also a great source of hope. It shows us that we can solve many of the problems we face by moving beyond capitalism—towards a new, cooperative form of society.

 

In such a socialist society, where class divisions have dissolved and our lives are no longer at the mercy of the market, religion will have lost its basis in reality and its seductive powers will quickly fade away. Conversely, as long as its social foundation remains intact, religion will continue to exist—no matter how many times it has been refuted.

 

Atheists who only fight against religion—turning a blind eye to the hell of capitalism—thus ironically end up prolonging the life of their bête noire.

Michael Schauerte

Mr. Brown goes to town (1946)

From the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. W. J. Brown, M.P., in an Evening Standard article (15/3/46), "What Price Utopia?”, says Darwinism reduces man to a non-moral unrestrained biological process (unproven, of course) and has served to justify the barbarities of capitalist anarchy and the Marxian "Class Struggle.” Also Marxism is merely its application to the political field. Such trivialities are a commonplace of anti-Marxist propaganda, but Mr. Brown is as useful as anyone else to provide the means for restating some Marxist essentials.

His unsupported contention that Darwinism is unproven implies that its partner in crime, Marxism, is likewise. “David” Brown thus kills two ”Goliaths” with one stone. True Darwinism has been implemented by further research, but Darwin’s evolutionary principle of organic life—with overwhelming evidence—remains to-day the touchstone of biological science. Further, it would be a strange theory of evolution in which the theory itself failed to evolve.

Mr. Brown’s non-moral allegation exhibits abysmal ignorance as to the scope and function of the scientific method, which is a discipline of general and impersonal facts, and no more relevant to the scientist’s personal bias than pipe-fitting is applicable to a plumber’s politics. Scientific investigation is ethically neutral and no more impugned than the activity of bricklaying, regardless as to whether that activity assists in building a church or a brothel. Ethical consideration of those institutions, like other things, is a matter of social evaluation. Science as a social result is subject to social motivation, which depends on the nature of the society. In this profit-motive society, science serves to increase wealth productivity and is a social instrument for increased working-class exploitation.

In like manner is the birth and growth of scientific ideas integrated into the prevailing social structure. A closed feudal economy, with fixed hierarchical status, and where men prayed to be kept in their station of life, would have made an evolutionary conception of life impossible, even unthinkable. An early capitalism needed science, and "the reign of scientific law.” Moreover, in its quest for markets it opened up the world, and vast unknown tracts of land with unknown animals and plants, which hitherto would have made it impossible to generalise about life, could now be explored. The practical triumphs of capitalism also brought into being a leisured section who could devote time to intellectual and scientific pursuits. Thus Darwin was handed on a well documented and detailed classification of Natural History. Geological science also expanded in this expanding world and gave Darwin those vast time periods needed for the presentation of his cosmic drama. And because mid-Victorian capitalism was still expanding, what more natural that the capitalist class should, with mid-Victorian complacency, view it as the best of all possible worlds and see in Darwin’s scientific theory their own social projection as "the fittest to survive.” But the first expanding bloom has withered, and in the sombre deepening of modern capitalism’s insoluble contradictions and conflicts the theme of scientific apologetics is replaced by mysticism and miracles; virile confidence gives way to doubt and even despair, unconscious credos, perhaps, of a doomed social order.

Is there a parallel, then, between Darwinism and Marxism? The answer, is only in so far as they both reveal the same ordered pattern of evolutionary development. Purely biological considerations, however, do not hold good in social relationships. Society is not a biological organism, but a social organisation into which men consciously enter into relationships for a given end. The development of society is not a result of man’s biological adaptation of his own organs to a natural environment, but the development of productive tools—for he is the only tool-producing animal- in a "social environment.” The enormous material advance which this tool-producing ability has made possible gives to social development its unique character. The laws that explain this unique development constitute Marxism.

Marx did not invent the class struggle, he traced it to its objective source and found it was not located in the consciousness of men but in the relationship in which they stood to each other in the division of wealth. If, for instance, you have at different periods slave labour, then the feudal windmill, and later the modern power plant, then not only will you have different methods of wealth production, but a correspondingly different division of classes of owners and non-owners in the distribution of wealth as between master and slave, feudal overlord and serf, capitalist and wage dependent. The different methods of production create then their own type of economic structure, and economic struggle over the participation of the fruits of labour. This will not only profoundly affect men’s lives, but through their lives, the social institutions and ideas of the period. Productive activity and social institutions, however, do not exist apart from or prior to each other, for all these activities are found in any period as an interrelated and interacting living whole, each exercising a mutual influence on the other. Thus politics influences religion, education, law and economic struggles, and is in turn influenced by each. But the economic factor or the way men live in order to reproduce their kind constitutes the central structural factor of social life. and forms the preponderating influence in social development. The functioning of the methods of wealth production and the changes that arise in them provide the key to the driving force of social development.

The significance of changes in the instruments of wealth production is seen especially in modern societies, and in the course of development a stage is reached where the forces of production come into conflict with the relations of production, which means that the method of distributing income arising from class ownership and control does not permit the fullest expansion of the productive agencies, or as Marx says: "From forms of development of the forces of production the relations of production turn into their fetters.” The class, then, that suffers from the existing operation of wealth production must seek to strike off these fetters and secure the widest possible expansion of these productive forces in their own class interests. To-day the wealth-producing but non-owning class, the working class, merely receive, the value of their labour power, or the average sufficiency of things necessary to sustain and restore their working capacities. All over and above what they produce goes to the owners of the wealth-producing agencies, the capitalist class, in the form of surplus value. The struggle of the workers to maintain or improve existing “standards” and the desire of the capitalists for greater profits produce the mutual antagonism of class interests in the participation of the social product. The capitalist class will then seek to improve the productive efficiency of the workers as an incentive for greater profit. But on the basis of income distribution, inherent in capitalist society, certain results ensue. Working class consumption of available wealth is limited by their wages, which is a fraction of this total available wealth. The consumption of surpluses in the hands of the capitalist class and its retainers is restricted by physical limitations. This tends to lead to heavier investments of the residue of these surpluses, in industries making productive goods, rather than consumption goods. This, however, ultimately leads to greater productive efficiency and consequently to a greater quantity of commodities being thrown on the market. A point is finally reached where effective demand ceases or, to put it another way, no purchasers can be found. Overproduction then results. It must not be thought that this is under-consumption of what the worker needs, for that is merely determined by the value of the commodity he sells—his labour power. Moreover, workers' wages always tend to be higher in the boom which precedes the slump. It is his under-consumption in relation to what he produces.

To produce for use, however, would undermine the very foundations of capitalist society. To turn out wealth to the fullest extent of existing plant capacity would normally invite, comparatively speaking, a “standstill” over night. For that reason its monopolistic class character compels it at one period to restrict and destroy the wealth so lavishly produced at another. For the working class it must ever remain the system of organised scarcity.

But the working class, to secure the greatest expansion of productive forces, must become a self- conscious independent political force, having as its aim the replacement of the existing system by one based on its own economic interests. For that reason it must seek through existing agencies the control of the State, which, because of its own control of the armed forces, provides the ultimate physical sanction for all social authority. This is our own historical justification as a political party. The struggle between the working class and the capitalist class is, however, the last historic form of fundamental social antagonism. With the abolition of private property in the means of production, it is no longer a question of who shall enjoy the fruits of ownership, but the vesting of ownership in the hands of a community of free producers for satisfying the needs of society as a whole. The State itself, as an instrument of class domination, likewise disappears and is replaced by “the administration of things.”

The class struggle is not then an eternally imposed necessity of “Nature red in tooth and claw." Even within capitalism working class resistance seeks to limit the system's rapacious and degrading effects. In its final outcome the class struggle establishes universal co-operation, thus constituting the greatest progressive human force in history.

Mr. Brown's diagnosis of our troubles as a Cosmic sadness, and deep frustration, haunting and troubling man's soul, and his remedy a return to the faith of the past, with its conception of the Fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man, and duty towards our neighbours, might further suggest that there is no place for morality in the Marxist critique. That is a denial of Marx's own dictum, “ that men make history.” What Marxism denies is the relevance of an abstract classless morality in a class-divided society. Class conflicts generate moral conflicts. The shining swords of moral truths often reveal the camouflaged weapons of class interests. A system productive of class conflicts, racial hatreds, fierce national rivalries, and even though still war-exhausted can yet contemplate the final "atomic” catastrophe, "where only the stars will be neutral,” turns such alleged categorical imperatives as the brotherhood of man, love thine enemy, etc., into ghostly and grisly caricatures. There is a morality, of course, as old as man's social instincts, but each class struggling towards political maturity gives its own significance to moral concepts in accordance with its class aims. Each class then fashions its moral code. Against the "ruling” morality largely divorced from social practice, and tending to become an ethical game whose rules are politely admitted in theory, but ignored in practice, an increasingly politically conscious majority will oppose with a higher moral code, based on higher social objectives. The moral idea becomes then an indispensable feature of working-class emancipation. With the growth of class knowledge grows the moral indignation to finish with this sorry scheme of things—forever. Morality by itself cannot, however, in a class society, provide a common ethical denomination to which some general social goal is referable. Reduced to a social abstraction, it merely seeks a change of heart, but class needs are alone capable of changing a social system and realising in practice what the moral ideal merely contemplates. Because Socialism has an economic basis its ideals, nevertheless, lose none of their greatness, or impoverish in any way the rich field of human experience. It is in the struggle for what is attainable that men are motivated by that deep sense of urgency arising from deep social needs, and it is this which gives to their actions its intrinsic human character. Likewise, the brotherhood of man and duty towards our neighbour will, when based on democratic co-operative economic equality, cease to be a vain ethical plea and become integrated into the social practice—"From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs.”

Mr. Brown’s own remedy is grotesque. He proposes to retain the man-eating tiger, capitalism, and convert it into a playful pet as well, while in the moral atmosphere of the jungle he would expound the ethics of the Bible class. Like many others, Mr. Brown sees no economic problem, only a religious and psychological malaise. He thus appears to have become a neurotic victim of his own views. Having no solution for the future, he seeks salvation in the past . . . for him everywhere the horizon looms dark and menacing . . . it is the Socialist who sees on the skyline the classless commonwealth.

Ted Wilmott

Karma and the Bible (2023)

The Halo Halo! column from the July 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Karma is a bummer. Karma is a Buddhist concept allied to reincarnation. Be nice this time and your next life will be good. Be an illegitimate so-and-so in this life and look out buddy because who knows what you might come back as.

This column eschews karma and all religious fairy tales but seeing someone get bitten on the bum for previous unkindness is gratifying to the atheistic too. For future reference, we do not endorse schadenfreude. Well maybe just this once. American censors, it’s you we mean.

At the mention of Galileo, Freddie Mercury and Queen fans, and others, will start singing to themselves, ‘Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro – magnificoo,’ from Bohemian Rhapsody. Galileo Galilei was a sixteenth/seventeenth century Italian astronomer who came into conflict with the Catholic Church. His support of Copernican heliocentrism, ie, the planets revolve around the Sun, and not the prevailing religious view that the Earth was the centre of the universe put Galileo on a collision course with the Catholic hierarchy. He was fortunate to get out of it without serious bodily injury.

Nobody expects the Roman Inquisition! Whether Galileo did or not expect it, when science contradicted theological mumbo-jumbo, a heap of trouble was the result. Founded in 1542 the Roman Inquisition is still going strong. It’s now known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Among other things, Galileo found himself on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which is a list of books catholics were forbidden to read. The index was discontinued in 1966. History is littered with examples of censorship of all kinds. It never bodes well for someone or other. Which brings us to the present day.

An American writers’ organisation, Pen America (Guardian, 20 April) has been monitoring the incidence of book banning and, over a period of six months, has seen a 28 percent increase in such activities within American public schools.

Shades of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Sounds like the USA is determined to carry on the fine traditions of the Soviets and the NSDAP to name but a few.

Won’t somebody think of the children! Helen Lovejoy, wife of the Reverend Lovejoy, was forever crying out in The Simpsons. She sounds like the sort of person who would use that as emotional blackmail to impose their own views upon others.

Pen America says that bans are more common in states that are Republican-run.

A Utah school district – home of the Mormon church and a place that Joe Hill didn’t want to be seen dead in after Utah executed him – has banned the Bible (for vulgarity and violence) from school libraries and is considering banning the Book of Mormon too. (Guardian, 3 June). That’ll teach the proselytising equivalent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses! Your fairy story got banned! How’d you like that evangelists? Guess you reap what you sow. Last word to the Simpsons’ Nelson Munz: ‘Ha Ha!’

DC