Relgion and Marxism

[rob9443]

Bertrand Russell argued the following.

The Jewish pattern of history, past and future, is such as to make a powerful appeal to the oppressed and unfortunate at all times. St Augustine adapted this pattern to Christianity, Marx to Socialism. To understand Marx psychologically, one should use the following dictionary:

God = Dialectical Materialism
The Messiah = Marx
The Elect = The Proletariat
The Church = The Communist Party
The Second Coming = The Revolution
Hell = Punishment of the Capitalists
The Millennium = The Communist Commonwealth.

The terms on the left give the emotional content of the terms on the right, and it is this emotional content, familiar to those who have had a Christian or Jewish upbringing, that makes Marx's eschatology credible

You could make a similar list for the religion of market fundamentalism (or worship of the golden calf)

God = The Market
The Messiah = Adam Smith
The Elect = Entrepreneurs
The Church = Corporations
The Second Coming = Fall of the Berlin Wall
Hell = Bankruptcy
The Millenium = The pefect global free market.
Holy city = Chicago
Icon = The sign of the dollar.

[christie malry]

I don't know how the buddhists have managed to get by...

[rob9443]

Buddhism is as much a philosophy as a religion. You can be a Buddhist without believing in a God as such.  It is far more sophisticated than the Abrahamic faiths, and there is no conflict between Buddhism and science whatever.

Here's the Bergonian view on why the Marxist dogmatic hostility to religion was a big mistake:

http://www.bergonia.org/Gov/socialism&religion.htm

[christie malry]

It was more of a flip aside than anything. The point being that there is, as you said yourself, an alternative to this whole unanswerable authority paradigm (if I can use that word without sounding like a management consultant). I'll check out the Bergonia link though.