Cdes,
I've long wanted to open a debate around religion, but the problem
would be the angle I want to open it...From the church being an organ
on civil society that has been profaned by crass materialism or the
existence of God...
Ok, allow me first to engage on the latter one and conclude with the former.
1. First, for one to utter such as words as the non-existence of God,
or His existance one should be informed by the background against
which such pronouncements were uttered. We need to first understand
that it is characteristic of any social
revolution..(communal-slavery...slavery-fuedalism...feudalism-capitalism....imperialism-socialism)
in the process of negation of that socio-economic formation to
destroy the inherent ideology that seeks to justify that particular
existing oppressive socio-economic formation. EVERYTHING IS BROUGHT
BEFORE THE JUDGEMENT SEAT OF REASON...It therefore becomes natural to
question religion, if it will seek to justify the existence of
reactionary phenomena...
It was unfortunate for religion that in his thesis on dialectics of
nature, Hegel to mingle his philosophical outlook with religion and
Christianity in particular, to create an impression of his philosophy
was religion, which is not philosophy in the practical sense of the
word...Theology has philosophy, and in fact uses the same dialectics
as well as other phiosophies like Posivitism and others...Well, in the
process of the development of Marxism, Marx was exposed to the German
philosophy which concentrated solely on two schools of thought namely:
a) Dialectics by Hegel, as well as
b) Metaphysics by Feurburgh.
Now the development of Materialist Dialectics as a world outlook was
influenced solely by these two philosophical outlooks, and notably,
their development was quite close and heated, if not emotional....when
they developed, Hegel's main abstract was that, "THE EXISTING IS
RATIONAL"..THERE'S AN INTERCONNECTION IN THE EXISTENCE OF PHENOMENA..
and when translating that to the socio-economic challenges of the then
being industrialised Germany...it meant..WORKERS HAD TO LITERALLY WORK
23 HOURS AND GET PAID MONEY TO EAT AND GET CLOTHED...AND THAT WAS ALL
THEY WERE ENTITLED TO as compensation... and the Hegelian philosophy
justified that....BECAUSE THE EXISTING as Hegel said...IS
RATIONAL...Now that was and it still is a problem...Now Feurburgh came
a diametricaly and a mutual exclusive view, which was quite mechanical
in response to say, 'NO...THE EXISTING IS NOT RETIONAL...THERE'S NO
INTERCONNECTION OF PHENOMENA...and he began to relate his
pronouncements to what was happen in the economic setup of
Germany...Now Karl Marx and Engels then..who grew up in Germany and
were seeking to find practical as well as philosophical justification
of those solutions, as part of the development of a body of knowledge
had to synthesise those two phenomena to say...NO...WAIT YOU ARE BOTH
RIGHT AND YET WRONG...IN THAT:
a) Yes there is interconnection of phenomena..
b) dialectics and materialism at an optimal level are both right...but
c) the matter is the SUBJECT...
d) the idea is the predicate...
e) he went on to say that there is nothing like a supernatural being
who happens to have solutions to all our nature's problem...
on that basis, he went on to draft historical materialism( which was
influenced by the scientific discoveries of Charles Darwin)
Now in this regard I would like to make an intervention...to say:
a) from an axiological point of view, human kind is always faced with
two challenges...humanisation and dehumanisation...in its pursuit to
its completion..(for we are not complete without having, as men and
women)
b) the vocation of humans is humanisation...as against dehumanisation...
c) dehumanisation usually negates humanisation only to affirm that as
time goes by...
c) religion is a tool in this primary human vocation...
In trying to answer on the existence of God (or not) I would say,
Marxism as a doctrine is not yet complete...for as long as science is
not complete...for an example....in 1892...Engels negates Marx's view
that "...the value of a commodity is equal to the value of social
necessary labour time spent on its production ( which in actual fact
was Adam Smith)", to say that " the value of production is equal to
the cost of production...', now that points to what Marx himself said
when asked "What is your main dictum". He said,""De omnibus est
dubitandum" ("You have to doubt everything").the one which is so often
stupidly and foolishly attributed to Marx, that he was building a new
religion without God. The greatest scientist of all times, Albert
Einstein, who was there after Marx was, quited Christianity because he
said, " God was so awesome and so great for him to be worshiped the
way christians did. Now, that was a man of celestial insights about
the existence of Phenomena...anyway...what do you make of the fact tha
Einstein's discoveries are the exact opposite of what Newton said,
whilst both are practicable..so which one is the truth...can we on
that basis therefore attribute our existence..on the basis of
conflicting and yet very practicable phenomena...
The point I'm trying to make is:
i) it quite normal in a social revolution to put everything before the
judgement seat of reason...and it will justify evil or dehumanising
practises at its own peril..let me make one little example on this
one:
THE SACP WILL OPPOSE NATIONALISATIO AT ITS OWN PERIL....now I think we
can relate well to that...
the problem with the church all the past socio-economic formations is
that it has allowed itself to be in the mercies of the ruling class
which has eventually cloaked it with its dark hegemony...
The problem with the socialists on the other hand is that they have
sought to automatically aligned it with the ruling class instead of
contesting for its terrain as a vital organ of the civil society...
Lastly, I've disccovered my religion christianity as a very fulfilling
way of life for me...light where there's darkness...hope where there's
hopelessness...for my family, it meant more love from me....for my
community more closeness with me...than in the past when I had to
treat everyone with suspiscion of being spies for whoever....
and I think I understand why Daniel Ortega...the now President of
Nicaragua had to be a born again christian whilst being a
Socialist...and a President of a country out of all socialists....
Moreover, I don't really forsee in my right frame of mind...a 90%
christian nation being turned into atheists...because their persieved
route happens to be a socialist route...Christianity has survived the
test of all times and it has never failed.....
On the question of Scientific basis of discovery...I wish to mention
that reality is that which exists outside our consciousness...and it
doesn't go woth scientific discovery...rather it is science that seeks
to discover phenomena...outside its control....those two are
separate...therefore the existence of the spiritual realm won't be
created by science...but will be discovered...like America...being
discovered by Christopher...whilst it had its own indegenous
inhabitats...
Therefore mna...I don't attest to the view that the religion speaks of
non-existant things...
I don't want to get into my own very practical experiences with
Christianity....not for this forum...but comrade and friend...I've
seen spiritual wonders with my material eyes....
Anyway, I ascribe to the ideas of Marx in as far as the theory of
socialism as well as Political Economy..though the latter has to be
revised....
Comradely regards
Xoli Dlabantu
On 2/12/10, howard matjomane <[email protected]> wrote:
> My fellow Leader,
> The problem with your article is critique without solution and infact you
> completely missed the point by mentioning the churches in their names which
> to many might regard that as an attacked on their institutions resulting in
> creating the historical perception that the communist is evil.At level of
> your leadership i will assume you have knowledge and understanding of the
> mass and how difficult is to change one culture.While you have got the point
> Comrade General you should have try to balance your article so that the
> readers can decide themselves instead of deciding for millions of christians
> that their bishops are stealing their money.
> You should also have to take in account that you cannot change the attitude
> of christians by mere writing of articles under the current conditions
> where propaganda machines and American cultural formations are well
> established accross the globe.
>
> We must understand comrades that majority of this christians are
> experiencing an extended poverty and the capital accumulation and self
> enrichment is only on the upper layer consisting of bishops and his/her yes
> MEN and WOMEN.Ours is to redirect the current christians problems and merge
> into our struggle.Ours comrade is to have the mass on our side to intensify
> our sttruggle for socialism and finally communism.
>
> We may know that God does not exist on the bases of scientific evidence,We
> may know that there is nothing like ancestors and we may know that bible is
> document to delay the struggle for better life and is full of man made
> lies.All of the above cannot be understood by ordinary peasants and workers
> and I can assusre comrade should you continue with that you will loose the
> most important support and you will infact be delaying our road to
> socialism.
>
> In short it is important that when we provide political education we must
> strtegically concentrate on the curent community problems and how YCL can
> help the communities to overcome poverty instead of concentrating on things
> that young and uneducated comrade from Ga-Moloi cannot understand.
>
>
> TamaKgoši,
>
> Howard
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 7:36 AM, patrick Mbatha
> <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> COMDRADE MAVIYO NDINISA youare raising a very sensetive issue and I agree
>> with you however I feel that this is an attack to christianity not
>> religion
>> in general.
>>
>>
>> On 2/11/10, Ndinisa Maviyo <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Let us engage on this discussion,enrich it.
>>>
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