No socialist can be religious, for the former’s ideas are based on material knowledge and the latter upon idealist belief. The rational ideas which materialists have about the world can be verified by philosophical methods which can themselves be verified. That is not to suggest that materialists can establish scientific, unchanged and absolute truths but that we can make statements capable of scientific testing which can lead us to believe that a statement is probably factual. Thus, materialists argue that ideas are responses to matter and we can demonstrate our claim by analysing history. Religious faith cannot be disproved because its criterion of truth is not material, but supernatural. Belief in the supernatural force can only itself be verified by accepting the supernatural force as the means of verification. Faith is the central feature of Christian thought. A is true because A says it is true and we must not doubt the word of A because A informs us that it is sinful to do so.
Religion is an institution. It is organised. The blood of martyrs may have been the seed of churches, but the seed sprouted from the riches garnered by churches. As the Catholic Church was the bulwark of feudalism and the aristocrats, so today the evangelical churches of America justifies capitalism and shares in its fortunes. In the class struggle the dominant institutions, including the churches, support the ruling classes. Religion sanctifies capital and makes divine profit. Business and godliness go together. The capitalist does the Lord’s work.
Many churches are fully alive to the urgency of social questions, and even to the possibility of social revolution. They possess 2000 years of historical experience to know how to sway with public opinion. They have learned how to survive and even prosper. If you can’t beat them – join them as the current pope demonstrates. A world free from wars and poverty? The dignitaries of religion can no more provide the solution than could the politicians of capitalism with whom they are allied.
To seek to abolish religion in a society founded on exploitation is futile. However, once a socialist society has been established the twin foundations of religion, ignorance and fear, will fade away. Socialism, by doing away with class exploitation and by developing to the fullest possible extent the unfathomed productive potentialities of new technology and robotics, hitherto hardly touched under capitalism, would make poverty and insecurity absolutely meaningless terms in an age of universal plenty. Whilst along with the competitive capitalism, war, the third partner in the unholy capitalist trinity, would necessarily pass into oblivion. The root causes of religion would thus disappear. The arrival of socialism means inevitably the definitive end of religion; which, deprived of all reason for existence, would become a mere anachronism in such a society. Religion is a social phenomenon in present-day society. Hence no amount of merely negative and critical propaganda can destroy it. Only the positive achievement of a classless society can do that by abolishing its causes. The war against the gods in the sky is equivalent to the class war against capitalists on the Earth.
Socialists are not atheists, insofar as we are not concerned to deny the existence of a phenomenon of which there is no proof, but materialists; our purpose is to explain the nature of the world and the position of human beings in it by means of reason and not faith. Socialists are not in favour of the banning of religions simply because they conflict with our ideas.
Radical Christianity
Whether a man called Jesus Christ lived or not is interesting, but not so vital as to destroy, or even damage the socialist case against religion and for the materialist conception of history. Workers who are suppressed and exploited under capitalism should keep their attention upon the real, material world in which they live; this is the only life we know we have and we must struggle to make it the best of all possible experiences. All religion is a diversion from the workers’ urgent task of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. Apart from this, there is no evidence which can stand up to a scientific assessment to indicate that there is a supernatural life or any of the other mumbo jumbo associated with religious beliefs.
History doesn’t move in smooth straight lines but by fits and starts, sudden breakthroughs and new pathways.
The preacher from the 13thC Peasant’s Revolt, John Ball declared: “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty”
While widely associated with Thomas Müntzer, who was a radical theologian and rebel leader during the German Peasants’ War of 1524–1525, expressed the idea that the world belongs to everyone. It was their religious belief and they wanted to establish this principle. “Omnia sunt communia, ‘All property should be held in common’ and should be distributed to each according to his needs, as the occasion required. Any prince, count, or lord who did not want to do this, after first being warned about it, should be beheaded or hanged.”
Other quotes from early proponents of Christian “communism”
“The use of all things that are found in this world ought to be common to all men. Only the most manifest iniquity makes one say to the other, ‘This belongs to me, that to you’. Hence the origin of contention among men.” – St. Clement.
“What thing do you call ‘yours’? What thing are you able to say is yours? From whom have you received it? You speak and act like one who upon an occasion going early to the theatre, and possessing himself without obstacle of the seats destined for the remainder of the public, pretends to oppose their entrance in due time, and to prohibit them seating themselves, arrogating to his own sole use property that is really destined to common use. And it is precisely in this manner act the rich”. – St. Basil the Great.
“Therefore if one wishes to make himself the master of every wealth, to possess it and to exclude his brothers even to the third or fourth part (generation), such a wretch is no more a brother but an inhuman tyrant, a cruel barbarian, or rather a ferocious beast of which the mouth is always open to devour for his personal use the food of the other companions.” – St. Gregory. Nic.
“Nature furnishes its wealth to all men in common. God beneficently has created all things that their enjoyment be common to all living beings, and that the earth become the common possession of all. It is Nature itself that has given birth to the right of the community, whilst it is only unjust usurpation that has created the right of private poverty.” – St. Ambrose. (340-397 AD)
“The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.” were also the words of St. Ambrose
“The earth of which they are born is common to all, and therefore the fruit that the earth brings forth belongs without distinction to all”. – St. Gregory the Great.
“The rich man is a thief”. – St. Chrysostom.
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