The question of religion is not infrequently raised by socialists. A variety of cases are made ranging from the absolutely irrefutable word of God, as recorded in the sacred scripture of choice) to attempts to reconcile religious faith with Marxism. The Socialist Party responds to religious entreaties, insisting that atheism expressed as materialism is the only credible way of understanding capitalism and bringing about the conscious change required by the working class, the vast majority, to strive for and achieve socialism. Atheism is limited to merely attacking the symptom, religion, rather than the disease, capitalism.
What is religious faith? In this case, faith is belief, or trust, in a religious system, the head of which is God. In short, faith is belief in God. What is fact? Fact is truth, reality, something that actually happens; something that is made known to us by one, or more, of our five senses; something we can see, or feel, or hear, or smell. Now we cannot know God through our senses. That is to say, he does not show himself to us; we cannot hear him speak or sing; we cannot shake hands with him. We cannot send a letter or a telegram to God, because we do not know his address, nor are there any means of communication with his supposed place of abode. The reason for this negation is, there is “no such being.” The idea of God was born through mankind’s ignorance of the workings of Nature. God did not create man; on the contrary, man created God. God only exists in the imagination and has no external existence. We only hear of God what pleases certain people, for certain reasons, to tell us.
Religion—and its core belief that only some outside super-being, not humans themselves, by their own collective efforts, can bring about a better world—reflects this lack of power and lack of control over their own lives which most people experience. But most people experience this under capitalism too, which is based, precisely, on their exclusion from the ownership and control of society's productive resources and on the subordination of production to blind and uncontrollable market forces. So, a consistent criticism of religion leads to a criticism of capitalism. As long as capitalism continues—or at least until there is a mass, conscious and self-confident movement for socialism— religion, as the anti-human doctrine that we humans can’t control our lives but need the help of some outside super-being, will continue to survive in one form or another. The form changes—traditional religious beliefs are being replaced by New Age mumbo-jumbo—but as long as humans don’t in fact control their lives then religious beliefs will survive.
Religion is not simply a jumble of confused ideas. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of the capitalist class. It divides us and blinds us to the class action that is required to overcome the menace of capitalism. Religion is the ideological expression of a long-gone world and its ancient social conditions, a world of superstition, slavery and little education. Far from providing an answer to today’s problems, it tells us to put our faith in the supernatural hopes of a past age. Instead of uniting us as a class, we are to become meek and mild and submit to the whims of an ancient god that was dreamt up in the bronze age.
Many people have now largely, for all intents and purposes, given up on religion. For all that religion has been abandoned by the majority of the working class, it still exerts an obviously strong influence in many parts of the world. Where that is the case religion continues to fulfil its role as a reaction to poverty, both economic and philosophic. In extremis, the opiate proves deadly, as with the Taliban.
The Socialist Party alone maintains its hostility to all forms of religion. It considers all religious beliefs to be incorrect and a barrier to the acceptance of the socialist case. Therefore one of the tasks of a socialist is to show the falsity of religious ideas and not to compromise with them. A socialist cannot be religious, and when socialism is established religion will be dead, for the overwhelming majority of the world’s population will have become socialists. If anyone remains who wishes to tell rosary beads or sing hymns will be tolerated. But a world of enlightenment and security will not provide fertile soil for the growth of religious ideas, which flourish in the rubbish heap of misery and ignorance.
The point is not to abolish religion but to transcend it through socialism harnessing the material resources available to humanity and employing them democratically for the commonweal, if not for heaven on earth, then as close as mankind can get to it. Unless people can cast off the superstitious beliefs inculcated by priests, shamans and witch doctors then it is impossible to build a more rational society. The Socialist Party aims at taking from the masters the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen. Its object is to raise the workers from slaves to free men and women. It is therefore opposed to religion. If the workers would cast off the chains of wage slavery, then they must cast off the slavish doctrines of religion which counsel them to love, honour, and obey those who oppress them.
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