Letter: Is there a hereafter? (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is there a hereafter?

A correspondent in last month’s Standard asserts that “there is no life after death, re-incarnation, or other hereafter” (p.16). Why is this so? Please do not evade the question (which you are wont to doing). Such a bold contention is as much an article of faith as “Credo in unum Deo.” Were it a rational doubt, I would heartily subscribe to that view. Since Marxism purports to set out the truth, it inevitably breeds its own conspiracy theories of ignorance. Now can it not be that its atheistic standpoint merely arises from some such theory?

What other grounds are there for actually advocating this belief? Furthermore, although “the advantages of religion to the capitalists are pretty obvious,” this lot can by no stretch of the imagination be censured for preaching from pulpits. What needs to be established is why the clergy should lend tacit support to the “bourgeois mammonism” of today (look at the “Rerum Novarum” doctrine of Pope Leo XIII).

What this all boils down to is that an utter denial of all religious teachings belies a fundamental distinction between religion as a “temporal” institution and religion as theology. A bellicose attitude towards all aspects of the latter is not only groundless, but completely irrelevant. Moreover, it is liable to alienate the religious minded workers of the world and further entrench the anti-socialist bias of religions. Whatever the case may be, surely Socialism is far more than the elevation of mundane desires to a philosophy of Life?

Andrew Cox

Reply

The article in the January Socialist Standard was not attempting to disprove the existence of the “Hereafter.” You will recognize that it is a supernatural phenomenon whose continued “existence” in the form of religious belief relies on both obscuring and eluding scientific fact. In this respect you fail to put forward any facts which we can comment on, or which lead us to doubt the view expressed in the article. Our point was to show that the groundless belief in imaginary concepts has, and will divert workers from critically examining the material conditions existing on the planet Earth.

Such a state of mind is directly beneficial to the ruling class. Not only does it accept the class nature of society as being part of the “natural order of things,” but it is positively protective towards it. We were not suggesting that members of the capitalist class regularly enter church pulpits in order to project this view. Although some members may do so on occasion, it is largely members of the working class who do this work for them.

We note that you are prepared to assert without elucidation that “Since Marxism purports to set out the truth it inevitably breeds its own conspiratorial theories of ignorance.” If by this you imply that the Object of the SPGB is aided in some way by cultivating an ignorance of certain facts, we must disagree. Our efforts have always been directed to fully examining every kind of social and political phenomenon and in presenting our analysis to as many people as we can. This is a crucial factor in our work for when the working class applies scientific analysis to material conditions, capitalism itself will be abolished, and supernatural beliefs will no longer retard the establishment of Socialism. The working class has nothing to gain from ignorance; it is the ruling class who have everything to lose from education.

Editors.

C. Joyce, N.10: Letter and reply in our next issue.

D. H. Scrivens, Swindon: Many thanks for your letter of appreciation.