Socialists do not criticise any one religion in particular. We are very egalitarian. We criticise all religions as having no basis in scientific fact and whose origins were a primitive explanation of events for which early human societies could find no explanation. Later religion became to be used as a means of social and political control both in nomadic tribes and urban conclaves.
Unlike other political parties, Socialists of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are not prepared to compromise our position and embrace superstition, faith and ignorance. We do not want the religious vote at elections or support radical Islam like the capitalist Left, notably Respect and the SWP or Christian fundamentalism like the Republican Party in the US.
Religion: A Useful Fiction
Religion is a fiction but a useful fiction for keeping millions of workers throughout the world tied to spiritual leaders who then tell them what to read and how to think. An important Socialist principle is that workers do not need leaders, either political or spiritual. The SPGB is unique in not allowing someone holding religious beliefs to join the Party.
And the actions motivated by superstition, faith and ignorance were at play in the riots allegedly against a film portraying the Prophet Mohammed as an adulterous psychopath and fraud. Those groups who attacked the US Embassies in Yemen, and Egypt and the Islamic terrorists who murdered the US Ambassador and three other diplomats in Libya were merely carrying out the orders of professional politicians sitting somewhere remote and safe in the Middle East.
These political and religious leaders have an agenda against Western capitalism, particularly the US with its support for Israel, which those they manipulate into rioting and killing just do not share. The class system and the division of the country into rich and poor exist in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt just as it does in any other capitalist country. Workers in Middle Eastern states have common interests with workers in Europe, the US and Israel. What unites all workers is the private ownership of the means of production and their class exploitation.
Few, if any of the demonstrators had ever seen the US-made film “The Innocence of Muslims” just as only a few Salmon Rushdie devotees had ever read the Satanic Verses before it was unceremoniously burnt by a mob in Bradford on 14th January 1989. The riots were not spontaneous but organised. The ruling class in Middle Eastern countries has long learnt the value of religion and has used it ruthlessly to pursue its own interests.
Socialists are not naïve. In many countries of the world religion is the main conduit through which vested political interests take place and are played out. A similar situation took place in 17th century England during the Civil War where politics and class interests were fought out through religion; the Divine Right of Kings defended by the Royalists, appropriation and interpretation of the Bible by religious sects, the God-given commons of the Diggers, the theological liberty of the Levellers and so on.
As Marx said of religion; one religious group holds that only their religion and their religion alone emanates from God while all the other religions are man-made. In fact, all religions are man-made; and we use “man” with no care for “political correctness” for few if any religions have been established by women who usually end up being repressed by them.
The non-religious inquiry and critique of religion and religious texts which began in the 18th century when a non-religious position could be held without fear of imprisonment, torture and burning at the stake has caused defenders of religion a problem. Free and critical enquiry into “sacred texts” like the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran has shown them to be inconsistent fables with no supernatural foundation. Instead of mounting a rational defense of their belief system, theologians have increasingly resorted to ad hominen attacks against the person.
So the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, accuses Richard Dawkins of anti-Semitism for criticising the Hebrew God of the Old Testament while the historian Tom Holland is accused of “Islamophobia” for calling into question the historical origins of Islam and Channel 4 is forced to cancel a private screening of the film, Islam: The Untold Truth after receiving “specific and credible” threats.
Instead of mounting a defense against the baseless attack on Richard Dawkins, the Independent, bastion of “Liberal values”, passed over the Rabbi’s comment in silence while the newspaper dispatched journalists to carry out a particular nasty hatchet job on Tom Holland without once criticising those groups whose threats stopped the showing of the Channel 4 film. A new generation of “useful idiots” appears to make the same mistake as a generation of liberals and Left-wingers did in the 1930’s when their hatred of US capitalism made them willing apologists for the atrocities carried out by Stalin and his followers.
Darwinianism has kicked the foundations away from under all religions. There is no teleological (first cause) explanation for human existence. No wonder that the Christian and Islamic fundamentalists so despise and fear Darwin’s theory of evolution and want creationism to be taught to school children in its place. Untenable ideas always want special pleading; a need for special protection of the State; a cry for intellectual ring-fencing and the imposition of no-go areas to their own faith.
There is, however, no God in the “God particle”. The underlying reality of the universe is natural not supernatural. As the scientist and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace once remarked to Napoleon who asked him where God was in his science: “I had no need for that hypothesis”. There is more in Laplace’s partial differential equations than anything to be found in religion.
Socialists accept that in politics there has to be a battle of ideas. Nevertheless, the best way to win that battle is for ideas to be analysed, criticised, accepted or rejected through open debate and discussion. Nothing should be off limits and that includes religion no matter how hard and painful it happens to be to those holding religious beliefs. Religion is not a private affair. Religion is a social construct; a social institutions with an impact on human action.
Unlike some on the capitalist Left who are prepared to abandon their own ideas, beliefs and principles because of some infantile sense of guilt about slavery and the British Empire, self-loathing for being born with a silver-spoon in their mouth and fear of being called a “racist” – perhaps more heinous than being called a “Marxist”, Socialists do not accept self-censorship and if our Socialist criticism of religion offends then so be it. We do not discriminate; our critique is of all religions not one in particular.
We might be criticised for being anti-religious. We hold our hands up and say “yes we are”. Organised religion like nationalism is an impediment to the growth and dissemination of Socialist ideas. However, this does not mean that belief in the supernatural, or any other individually held irrational belief, will be banned or forbidden in a Socialist world any more than knocking on wood or crossing fingers. Tales, fables and story telling would continue to form part of a lively cultural community. But surly we can all enjoy the lives of fictitious characters without believing they are real whether they are James Bond, Jane Eyre or Jesus Christ?
All religions, by definition, deny the self determination of society and advocate, no, insist on the uncritical and blind following of an all-powerful leader, God, who will condemn you to an agonising eternity of endless torture if you fail to follow his command. Socialists don’t need a leader, we can think for ourselves.
The overwhelming majority of people in a Socialism world will not be burdened with religious ideas. They will be enjoying fulfilled and creative lives in a social system in which exploitation, poverty and ignorance will not exist.
