Religion
Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religion[a] refers to belief and reverence in the supernatural, often including a set of rituals or practices. Religion generally provides implications for the whole sphere of life, concerning people's customs, values, societal structure, etc. Religion has historically acted as a major component of a societal superstructure.
History
Origins
Class society
Opposition to religion
In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
— Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto
Paris Commune
Russian Revolution and Soviet Union
"The Party stands for freedom of conscience, for the right of people to practise any religion they please. Does this mean that the Party will stand for Catholicism in Poland, for the Orthodox Church in Georgia and for the Gregorian Church in Armenia? That it will not combat these forms of world outlook?" —Joseph Stalin, On the Road to Nationalism
Analysis
Religion and radicalism
Religion, especially Christianity, often has quite large significance in capitalist countries, especially ones such as the United States.[2] It is often used by the fascists and fundamentalists to justify certain opinions. An example is using Leviticus 18 and 20 ('You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination' and 'If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.') to justify homophobic opinions. Religion has also been often used to control the public in different ways, for example to justify hierarchy or placate people into refusing change. As Marx said: "Religion is the opium of the masses."
List of notable religions
Christianity
Christianity is a varied group of religious creeds stemming from the New Testament and the teachings of its central figure Jesus of Nazareth. According to the New Testament, Jesus was a divine being capable of performing miracles, but also shared human traits and focused on human issues such as equality, oppression, poverty, and ethnic division. Christianity has historically been the dominant religion of Europe, and often has served as a tool of oppression and more infrequently a weapon against it. With the rise of colonialism and imperialism, the Christian religion was imposed on various other populations around the world by their colonial masters.
Neo-paganism and new age
Neo-paganism is a category of religious beliefs which emulate historic polytheistic traditions prior to the introduction of organized religions such as Christianity. Neo-pagan faiths include Heathenry, Hellenism, Kemetism, and others. Although neo-paganism is sometimes employed by reactionary elements to propagate their views, there is nothing inherently far-right in neo-pagan practices.
New age religions arose in the West as part of the then-ongoing counter-culture movement. New age beliefs may include Wicca, Thelema, Satanism, and Theosophy. Satanism is the inversion of the Christian worldview in which Satan holds positive aspects and is worthy of adoration.
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic and monotheistic religion based on the teachings of Muhammad and the writings contained in the Quran. It is the major religion of up to 49 countries in the northern part of the African continent, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, with the majority of Muslims located in Asia. It shares many features with Judaism and Christianity such as the prophets Abraham and Moses. There are about 1.9 billion Muslims in the world. Making it the world's second-largest religious population after Christians.
Animism
Animists believe that all objects, animate and inanimate, have spirits within them. All material objects make certain and unbounded choices and there is no distinction between the corporeal and incorporeal. Animism is considered to be one of the earliest religions, and abounds in primitive communist societies, especially the native American societies of North America. Other animist societies include the Japanese Ainu and Ryukyuan peoples.
Shamanism is a related belief revolving around shamans, who can interact with both the souls and the matter itself. The purpose of the shaman is to intermediate between the two and perform a balancing act between humans and the souls that they interact with. In practical terms, they are there to guide the tribe so they do not eat too much and go hungry, or eat too little and let the animals or objects overwhelm them.
Shintoism
Shintoism or Shintō (Jp: "way of the gods") is the traditional animistic and polytheistic folk religion of Japan, as well as a state cult which survives to this day. Shintoism was traditionally a strict religion based on class hierarchy in which the shogunate dictated which rituals and religious interpretation were acceptable. For example, the Tokugawa Shogunate required subordinates to be Buddhists. Other times the practices and religious rituals can be more lenient. Shinto shares many features with shamanism in that all things possess a certain essence, people can be considered kami (spirits), and so forth. The Shinto cult evolved after the Second World War, and in its current form serves as a reactionary organ of the Japanese state which reveres Japan's war dead.
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. Founded by the enigmatic Zarathuštra (known to the Greeks as Zoroaster), it professes a dualist worldview in which good and evil are controlled by opposing forces, ultimately controlled by the righteous Ahura Mazda and the wicked Angra Mainyu. It is generally accepted[who?] that Zoroastrianism influenced the duality present in Hellenistic Jewish thought as well as Christianity. After becoming the state cult of Achaemenid Persia in the 4th century BC, Zoroastrianism enjoyed a millenium of state support and widespread practice until the Muslim conquest of Persia in 654 AD. The persecution of Zoroastrians in Muslim Persia was thorough, and today there are less than 200,000 practitioners worldwide.
Confucianism
Taoism
Judaism
Hinduism
Buddhism
Obon festival
Obon is a Japanese festival celebrating the visitation of the dead to their loved ones. It occurs on the 13th to the 15th of August and is celebrated by hanging lanterns in front of your home and visiting burial sites. It has many similarities with the Mexican día de muertos. Near the end of the ritual it is customary to let the lanterns float into rivers and streams. It originated in India and has its origins in the story in which a subordinate of Buddha's mother that is deceased was in anguish. The Japanese obon may come from a Sanskrit word meaning "to hang upside down"[3] referring to the pain and suffering of Buddhist purgatory.[3] Obon is also practiced in India and China.[citation needed]
Religious tolerance
Origins
Genghis Khan was known among many titles, the "defender of religion". This was due to the actions that he had done against the Christian Khan Guchlung in which he took in Religious dissidents and waged war on the Khan annihilating him.[4] It is known that the raided towns and assimilated cities were allowed to practice their own religion. There were internal conflicts within the Khanates after Genghis. One such example was Ghazan in which he persecuted the Buddhists after his conversion to Islam.[5] Since then the Turkic-Slavic peoples held on to this concept and it pervades into literature and philosophy in the Eurasian sphere of influence.
In modern European history, the concept of religious tolerance is linked to the outcomes of the European wars of religion, including the 1555 Peace of Augsburg and the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Religious tolerance replaced the early modern objective of standardizing and reforming religious worship with .
In the Muslim world, religious tolerance is linked to the concept of dhimma (Arabic: "protection; guardianship").
References
Notes
Further reading
Marxist works on religion
- On Religion (compilation of writings by Marx and Engels)
- On Religion (compilation of writings by Lenin)
- History of Religion (1989 Soviet work)
- The Origins of Christianity (by a British Marxist)
- Marxism and the Renegade Garaudy (1974 Soviet work, Chapter V discusses the possibilities and limits of dialogue between Marxists and Christians)
- Theses Concerning Thomas Müntzer, 1489-1989
Religion in the Soviet Union
- Church and Religion in the USSR (1982 Soviet work)
- Freedom of Conscience in the USSR (1983 Soviet work)
- Jews in the USSR: Figures, Facts, Comment (1984 Soviet work)