The Origins of Religion

0. Prelude

We aim at two issues with this article. First of all; we want to build up our discussion on why atheists should take communists seriously. We believe that a marxist explanation of concepts such as "human nature", "morality", "ethics" etc. would be inspiring in resolving the confusions that occasionally arise in atheist circles. This is our first aim.

For an unprepared reader, it would be surprising to see Joel Kovel starting his book The Enemy of Nature with a comparison of Marx and Darwin. It is due to a very elegant approach that a book, which offers a frame of class struggles for the ecological crisis, reserves its introductory chapters to Darwin. And this brings us to our second aim: We believe that a discussion on the origins and the development of religions can be employed to exemplify the materialist worldview.

In accordance with its aims, this article will be rather abstract. Yet, with the awareness of the fact that we will not present any ideas that were not available up till now, we will choose to abstract from examples rather than providing a theoretical presentation.

1. Why was Marx fascinated by The Origins of Species and why did he send a copy of Capital to Darwin?

Marx points out an objective phenomenon when he states that capitalism revolutionizes the forces of production and will sweep all other relations of production. Also, Darwin declares the results of his research and not a situation he likes or prefers, when he puts forward the natural selection thesis. The scientific analyses of these persons do not prove that they fancy the results: That Darwin observes wasps place their larvae inside caterpillars in order to eat them alive does not mean that he enjoyed it. Likewise, it would be absurd to claim that Marx rejoiced to note the commodification of everything in the world.

The scientific propositions of both Marx and Darwin explain how the past came through to the present, and not how the future will be. As they are not psychics but scientists, they analyzed parts of innumerable parameters on which the knowledge of future rests. Neither would Darwin explicitly assert which species would evolve in the next million years, nor would Marx say which type of government would be adopted in a given century.

We open up a parenthesis here. A scientific claim does not prophesize, but by definition makes predictions about the future. This future can be, as in the case of physics, an event to be observed in the future, or, as in the case of history, a document to be discovered in the future. We hope it is clear that the above paragraphs are not meant in this sense.

Furthermore, the comprehension of the laws that brought the past to today enables to produce hypothetical scenarios of the future. It is a reasonable consideration to estimate (with some margin of error) which genetic features would disappear under given climatic and geographical conditions. Similarly, one does not need to wait until the 20th century and see with one's eyes to understand that capitalism would eradicate the Asiatic type of production. We close the parenthesis.

Marx and Darwin were searching for the laws driving the processes. However it was only Marx who could see the parallelism between the two scientific analyses. While he sent a copy of Capital to Darwin with this excitement, Darwin put the book aside without reading it.¹

Yet Marx was right: While Darwin was investigating the formation of the species, Marx was investigating societies.² The theory of evolution described how the genetic code which is more suitable to given conditions survived through natural selection, whereas historical materialism explained how a society established superiority over others by adopting more progressive relations of production.

2. The question of the origins of religions

To think that the question of how religions emerged would clarify the issue of religions is as ridiculous as supposing that one could predict which species would arise by knowing why a certain mutation took place.

Hundreds of thousands of new ideas emerge everyday in the world. There are thousands of messiah and prophet candidates available. We do not even count the new-age religions.

The point is not how an idea has initially emerged; the point is how an idea, once emerged, has survived throughout history. An idea can survive only if, in the given period of history, it offers a structure capable of eliminating its disbelievers.

It is not a coincidence that both Moses and the Catholic Empire have come through ideologies that aim to increase the population.³

When Moses defines the family as a norm and oppresses any homosexual experience, and when the Roman Empire declares every sperm sacred, the societies that adopt these ideologies gained an advantage over the other societies around. Human reproduction becoming such a hype, and the cognition of sex and reproduction as one and the same thing are due to this historical process.⁴

3. Intermezzo: The question of ethics

Let us not miss the opportunity here, to touch upon one of the subjects that is thought to sweat atheists. As all other social phenomena, from esthetics to languages, morality and ethics are historical as well. It is understandable that, in the philosophy of ethics, a distinction between morality and ethics was made; yet this situation led to a delusion among some atheists in the direction that we would be able to establish an ethics excluded from the society and history. Of course we can get outside the generally accepted ethical realm built by the rulers, but humans cannot go out of historicity. All human production (including opposing views) lies within history. The question is to understand how a certain view gained validity throughout history.

All moral questions, from finishing the food on your plate to not killing human beings, are results of the historical selection we mentioned in the first section. New moral statements, on the other hand, will gain as much validity as they survive this historical process.

Let us now focus on heterosexism, as it is a particularly delicate subject. Independent of our fancies, mechanization created the potential of the production becoming independent of concrete human presence. Yet this potential cannot be actually realized within capitalism (or more generally, in class societies): Machines do not produce surplus value. In a system based on exploitation, human has to be the primary element of production.

On the other hand, societies took action to utilize this liberation potential of mechanization for humane use. Large masses of people demanded the just distribution of wealth that came out. Owing to the rights gained in these struggles, production and power has become partially independent of population; that is, having more population began not to directly imply being more powerful. In proportion to this independence, superstructure institutions, such as family, have dissolved.⁵

Thus appeared the objective possibility of humanity freeing itself from the elements of alienation such as sexism and heterosexism. The rights gained by years-long struggles of militant activists should be seen in this frame; and not in that sexism were dogmatically “bad” and activists finally convinced other people to this argument. We are now fighting to abolish an element of alienation which we discovered at a certain period of the development of the means of production.

Now it would be beneficial to recall the parallelism between Marx and Darwin we suggested in the first section. Understanding the relation between the emergence of an idea and how it is widely accepted among the society is similar to understanding the relation between how a particular gene emerges and how it attains a place in the gene pool of a species. The legitimacy of an idea is not measured dogmatically and in abstract terms, but with its effect in the real world. Homosexuality is not abnormal because it is abnormal; homosexuality is abnormal because those who claim that it is have seized the power.

4. Human nature

Historicity is the key to understand humankind. The distinguishing characteristic of humankind among other species is that it has history; that the activities of previous generations shape the nature of future generations. Human individuals confront a social phenomenon that is extrinsic to them and that imposes itself to them. They produce on the production of past generations. Humankind has a history. Animals do not.⁶ This is the defining property of human species.⁷

Therefore, the question of what constitutes “human nature” is beyond the limits of biology proper. Moreover, as Richard Dawkins rediscovered through memetics, it is sometimes outside of biology proper. Dawkins especially exemplifies this by referring to diseases that need extensive care beginning from birth. If it were left to purely biological and genetical dynamics, such diseases should have disappeared from human species, as the diseased individuals would perish in natural ways. Yet societies have found numerous ways to deal with these situations, and they secured not only that the patients survive but also that they are capable of having babies in a healthy way, whereby transferring the relevant genetic code to future generations. Dawkins argues that in this example, the memetic code overrules the genetic code. The framework we summarized in this essay fits well into this explanation and further clarifies the laws of selection for “the memetic code” - namely, the development of the means of production.

What we wanted to emphasize here are that the “human nature” is changing way too fast compared to the biological evolution scales and that it by definition depends on time and space.

5. Epilogue

Let us briefly summarize our claim: To understand religion, it is unnecessary to understand how the idea of religion initially emerged. The question is how religion survived throughout generations, and this is an eminently materialistic question.

The survival of supernatural views and institutionalized religion is hidden in the fact that they reshaped and stretched themselves in all necessary ways in order to further develop the means of production. We gave instances of this in the preceding sections. These instances were, of course, not aimed at given an ultimate explanation about the roots of religions, but at exemplifying the attempt to understand religions, as historical phenomena, within history and the laws governing it.

In today's world (as a matter of fact, since at least two centuries), religion has no historical excuse anymore. Now, religion forms an obstacle in front of the development of the means of production and in front of humans creativity. The search for supernatural answers is regressive exactly in this sense of the word. (We addressed this subject in our previous article: “An introduction to why atheists should take communists seriously”)

A species that searches the causes of the floods and droughts all around the world which are becoming more frequent and intense in the moral degradation instead of climate change is bound for extinction – taking hundreds of thousands of other species with it. A species that, based on the argument “They have it; ergo⁸, we should have it too.”, produces nuclear weapons, potent to destroy all life on earth several times, and makes them the plaything of arbitrariness in the bargains of the ruling class, is indeed bound for extinction – taking hundreds of thousands of other species with it.

Richard Dawkins would say that the human species needs a dramatic change in the memetic code. Among friends, we call it the communist revolution.

1   As the great majority of the pages of Darwin's copy were found to be uncut, we deduce that he did not read Capital which Marx sent to him personally. (see Marx of Respect, Friends of Darwin)

2   "Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history.” (Friedrich Engels's Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx)

3   We hope that the evolutionist inside you would warn you: Moses or the Roman Empire may or may not know that population plays a crucial to strengthen power and to develop the means of production. Independent of whether this suggestion was made consciously, these ideas had objectively come to power.

4   We find it worth mentioning that, in textbooks of history, the extensive historical analysis on nationalism is passed over when it comes to religion. Yet we believe that the understanding of nationalism, which we are able to analyze thoroughly thanks to numerous data and documentation, would clarify many issues on the nature of religions.

5   We should make a remark here. We do not claim that family has dissolved. We claim that family has dissolved as much as the link between population and power has weakened. We describe the measure of this to be roughly as human labor going out of commodity production. It is a truism that today there is a reverse trend to this. What we want to emphasize is the parallelism between this historical process and the development of the morality institutions that have a dialectical relationship with it.

6   A comprehensive analysis of this topic is available in Turkish in this link: Yusuf Zamir – Yabancılaşmış Faaliyet

7   What one should observe here is that our definition is empirical. That means, this definition is not based on our personal taste but on the reality.

8   therefore

Feodalism is not anti-capitalism.

This short text is a commentary on the discussions on the pseudo-convergence between the islamist movement and the left. It was originally written in Turkish, elaborating on a very specific occasion that triggered the discussions in Turkey. Therefore, the text is Turkish in nature. Yet, we believed that this discussion is worth translating for the English-speaking audience.

You cannot discover America twice.

The left-wing has been materialist – at least since the publication of Holy Family by Marx and Engels. There is no such thing as non-materialist left; leftist ideas start by understanding this world with the tools of this world.

For those who consider religion as a theological issue, all history is a succession of inconsistencies and absurd personal choices.

From the institutionalization of the Jesus myth by the Roman Empire in the 3rd century to today's religious generation project¹;

from gods who stone homosexuals to the prohibition of women driving a car;

from the US President invading Iraq by saying “god talked to me last night” to the Turkish mild fundamentalist government taking part in this invasion;

all our sufferings are only caused by some bad bad persons misunderstanding one or two books.

As for us, religion is an earthly issue. It is a social-political institution that has arisen under certain historical circumstances and managed to get stronger in time.

The issue is not how to interpret religious scripts as the act of interpreting religious script is itself earthly and historical. We are not open-minded to inventions such as a socialist-oriented interpretation of racism, or homophobic anti-capitalism.

1 May 2012

We have another “the civil youth” case.² Today, after years of struggle, when we gained our 1st of May protest of 300 thousand people in Taksim square, we are asked to appreciate an “anti-capitalist muslim youth” of some 100 people participated in the march.

All bourgeois media (as if agreed before) consensually emphasize “the most peaceful 1st of May march” and at the same time putting this group in front. That means, the bourgeoisie (and the Turkish bourgeoisie has a very solid class consciousness) also realizes what we said above and acts accordingly.

In this world where money is the god of gods, each proletarian is a born-atheist. Those who didn't like the new gods shouldn't expect us to go back to older gods anymore. This is our final struggle.

1  A reference to a speech of the Turkish Prime Minister

2  A reference to a small political group in Turkey

An Introduction to Why Atheists Should Take Communists Seriously

0. Introduction

With this essay, we intend to extend the discussion initiated in a previous essay titled “An Introduction to Why Communists Should Take Atheists Seriously”. In that piece, we pointed out the convergent characteristics of atheists and communists (historical approach, revolutionary approach, militancy) and emphasized that freedom from religion aimed at by atheists can contribute to communist political programs. Hence, in the conclusion, we stated that

It is part of the duty of the atheists to listen to what communists can offer them in their march against religions. ... Atheists should take it seriously to form comradeships with the organizations that are closest to their views, namely communists.

We now would like to elaborate on this phrase.

For the sake of continuity, we will use the definitions adopted in the previous article: By the words communist and socialist, we will mean a person who employs the materialist conception of history and who aims at the Aufhebung¹ of private property of (at least) the means of production. (These two items we take as definition will lead to the answer presented in the title.) Moreover, we will maintain our distinction between non-believers and atheist; we will characterize a non-believer by her/his choice not to believe in the existence of some sort of a god, whereas by atheist we will mean someone who deliberately rejects either the concept of god, the possibility of god, the probability of god, the existence of god, or at least the institutionalization of god – depending on how much thought she/he has given to the issue.

1. Is it correct to stigmatize communists as atheists/irreligious?

In short, the answer is yes. Historical materialism requires one to use scientific method when analyzing social phenomena.² Communist theories explain phenomena such as nations, patriarchy, industrialization etc. in terms of the historical development of the productive forces. Religion is not exempt from this analysis. For a communist, to create such an exception for religions (or anything else) is a methodological mistake and is clearly anti-Marxist. In Turkey and all around the world, communist organizations mostly managed to avoid making this mistake. They have nothing to do with the god delusion – no matter how much they would like to respect the values of the society. The communists are bound to irreligiousness.

Furthermore, historical materialism explains how religions survived till now. This explanation is not only better than the speculations of liberal atheist thinkers (that are based on non-religious dogmas), both also stronger in the sense that it provides an outline of how religions are to be abolished.

Monitorizing the historical development of productive forces unfolds the rise of religions and how they became reactionary. For instance, the Abrahamic religions have built partiarchy and heterosexism in Europe and Middle East. In a period when a state's power was determined by its population, it was the correct political tactic when Moses prohibited homosexuality altogether, or when the Catholic Church declared every sperm sacred. One can enlarge the list of these examples; and the historical correctness of such tactics is proven by the fact that the Catholic Church, almost two millenia after its foundation, is still the richest mafia and the strongest illegal political organization in the world. (The task of integrating the Arab society to this division of labor, which has become widespread in Europe and Anatolia, was taken by Mohammed.)

Yet, the historical correctness of these moves has become a historical fault with the rise of industrialization. In a world where a single software can be distributed to the use of billions, in a world of nuclear weapons capable of destroying humankind several times, population is far from expressing power. Capitalism did revolutionize the economic structure, and actually, that revolution was against the past objective bases of religions. It is not a coincidence that religions have lost their power with the rise of capitalism.

However, when capitalist production itself became reactionary, that is, when it became an obstacle for the productive forces, capitalism cooperated with all the other reactionary ideologies in hand; which comes very handy for understanding the recent resurrection of religions (and nationalism and racism). (This is also the explanation of the facts that witchcraft – which was considered to be a mere superstition in the Middle Ages – was suddenly recognized by the Church in the Early Modern Era in order to play the people off against itself and to create a social hysteria, by inventing various scapegoats (especially women). )³ And this brings us to the second part of the essay.

2. Who are more atheistic, communists or atheists?

Most atheists aim no further than secularism carried to its end, that is, the complete separation of the state and religions. This is a liberal demand within the scope of capitalism. However, as argued above, this “solution” is superannuated together with the capitalist system. For communists, both the state and religions are political problems as superstructural institutions of the class society.

Moreover, there are more gods now. Manifesting itself in forms of money, free trade, wage-labour, commodification, profit maximization, economic development etc. (which we can summarize as offsprings of private property), a bunch of taboos and non-criticizables surround our lives today. Atheism should be the rejection of not only creator gods but also all kinds of “omnipotents”. In this sense, communists are more atheistic than atheists. If you are an atheist who would be satisfied by a genuine secularism, then communists (rejecting the sovereignty of money) are one god ahead of you.

3. Who, if not communists?

As communists are more atheistic than atheists, they always took side of the secularists and atheists in religious issues. This would suffice to argue that atheists should take communists' words seriously; but there is more to it.

Religion is not a discrete, ahistorical problem. For careful eyes, there is only a formal difference between the ecology movements who fight against nuclear plants or hydro plants planned in the name of “national growth” and who choose the ecosystems over the economy, and the atheists who are indignified by a government who plans to raise a religious generation to “protect moral values” and who don't postpone happiness to other worlds.

In our previous essay, we noted that

a typical atheist is well aware of the difference between the pope and a Christian layman, and how they create each other in the course of history.

Religion is not only a sociological phenomenon but also part of the power relations. One can well think religions to be independent of the power relations, but this is not the way to win the struggle against religions. While it is part of the duty of the communists to mobilize atheists in favor of the emancipation of humanity, it is one of the most important duties of the atheists to take communists seriously in the march to save the world from all gods.

1  Depending on the context, translated as Abolishment or Transcendence

2  This is the starting point of Marx's criticism of Hegel. In Hegel, philosophy is upside down, since Hegel described the world as the manifestation of the Idea. However, scientific method requires to first look at observable reality to make abstractions out of it. Hegel puts everything into historicity, but dogmatizes history itself. Marx repeats his emphasis on scientific method on the discussion of how the value of commodities are determined. He explains exploitation by analyzing surplus-value and labor force, and observes that, due to these notions, exploitation cannot be done away with without the Aufhebung of the private property of the means of production. This is why the socialism described by Marx and Engels is scientific socialism.

3  We are aware that this paragraph needs more argumentation, but to keep the essay within its scope, we will be satisfied by leaving it as it is.

Who needs our "needs"

1. Introduction

There is a common misconception of the increasing energy demand and therefore an essential fallacy in energy policy discussions. We are asked by the right-wing politicians to believe that according to this and that economic parameters, we need nuclear plants and “clean” coal plants in order to avoid blackouts. On the other side, more “responsible” politicians¹ claim that renewable energy resources are enough to satisfy the needs of the society. In the end, all the discussion seems like we are all investors trying to figure out which energy sectors are better for the well-being.

I must open up a parenthesis here to note a couple of things before I state my argument. First, we are most surely not investors; quite the opposite, we as the labor force are one of the commodities to be invested on. Second, renewable energy resources are most certainly not enough. And this is not because there is not enough sun or wind in some geographical region, it is because there is no such thing as enough in this social system. The world is not enough.² Thirdly, I should also note that if you compare the recent data on carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere with the investments in renewable energy market, you will recognize an almost complete match in data. Of course this doesn't show renewables emit carbon dioxide; but it might perhaps trigger some thoughts about why investing on renewable energy sources cannot be a solution to the climate crisis. I close the parenthesis.

What I argue in this short essay is that these sectoral comparisons and the confusion on which energy is “clean” and which is not are immediate corollaries of an underlying misconception on the too generally defined term “needs”.

One of the misunderstandings on this issue started with the development of discussions on whether climate change was natural or human-caused. In that case, climate scientists demonstrated there is significant anthropogenic effect involved; that is, it does not occur naturally due to some changes in solar activities or due to a natural cycle in the climate, but it has positive correlation to human activities in the world. As a scientific discussion, this makes complete sense; but if you try to historicize the climate crisis and put it into a social context, it is rather misleading. It results in the delusion that we as individual human beings are the cause of global climate change. I will argue for the opposite: We as individual human beings are the victims of global climate change, which is caused simply by the capitalist system.³

2. Do “we” “need” “these”?

“These”

An earthquake in Istanbul would flourish the health sector and would create new investment opportunities for corporations working on construction sector. You can make up your own examples: An oil spill in the middle of ocean; an epidemic affecting millions of people; bombings of this and that country to bring democracy or whatever, huge forest fires opening up agricultural areas... 

These are not daily-life practices for – well, most of – us. But I believe it is more than relevant. Take military for instance. United States reserves 4.7% of its national GDP for military expenditures, which amounts to 698,105,000,000 USD. But US is not an exception: France uses 2.2%, which means 61,285,000,000 USD. The list goes on. NATO expenditures in 2010 were 1,084,915,000,000 USD.⁴ I kindly urge you to try to read these numbers out loud. These are not for our use.

A typical javelin missile costs some 80,000 USD. They are used in wars as if one is feeding the pigeons. And it is good for business. It is in fact by far better for business than are producing apples or founding an elementary school. It means an eventual increase in gross domestic product. It would also increase the energy demand.

And this applies to the previous examples in a more or less similar fashion. These are things that the world economy most certainly needs. But the question is: Do we need these?

“Need”

“Here are just some of the energy steps that go into making your English muffin. (1) The wheat is taken by a fossil-fuel-driven truck made of nonrenewable resources to a (2) large, centralized bakery housing numerous machines that very inefficiently refine, enrich, bake, and package English muffins. At the bakery, the wheat is (3) refined and often (4) bleached. There processes make up for nice white bread, but rob the wheat of vital nutrients, so (5) the flour is then enriched with niacin, iron, thiamine, and riboflavin. Next, to insure that the English muffins will be able to withstand long truck journeys to stores where they will be kept on shelves for many days, or even weeks, preservative (6) calcium propionate is added, along with (7) dough conditioners such as calcium sulfate, mono-calcium phosphate, ammonium sulfate, fungal enzyme, potassium bromate, and potassium iodate. Then the bread is (8) baked and placed in (9) a cardboard box, which has been (10) printed in several colors to catch your eye in the shelf. The box and muffins are placed within (11) a plastic bag (made of petrochemicals), which is then sealed with (12) a plastic tie (made of more petrochemicals). The packages of English muffins are then loaded into (13) a truck, which hauls them to the (14) air-conditioned, fluorescent-lit, Muzak-filled grocery store. Finally, you (15) drive two tons of metal to the shore and back and then (16) pop the muffins in the toaster. Eventually, you will throw away the cardboard and plastic packaging, which will then have to be disposed of as (17) solid waste. All of this for just 130 calories per serving of muffin.”⁵

Do we need each of these steps? Or is it perhaps only because it turned out to be cheaper in a specific world economy that each muffin should follow these steps? What we needed in this particular scenario was just a muffin for breakfast, but what the capitalist system needed to produce it results in an ecological disaster. It is not our personal fault that we asked for a simple muffin for breakfast. Yet, it most certainly is our fault if we do not fight against the capitalist system and give consent to the destruction of all the world as we know it.⁶

“We”

What we need is comfortable transportation from one place to another, what the corporations need is that we spend as much as possible during this activity: therefore SUV's and double-roads. What we need is to talk with our family and with our friends a couple of times a week, what the corporations need is that we spend as much as possible during this activity: therefore cellphones with an expected lifetime of three months and low-quality disposable cellphones. Notice my repetition on the fact that the capitalist system needs only one thing: profit-maximization. A human need makes sense for capitalism as long as it is marketable.

Yet if something is marketable, this does not mean that it is a human need. Do we need advertisements at every point we look at? Do we need banks? Do we need wars on oil? Do we need unemployment?⁷ These are needed only for the maintenance of capitalism. These are not our needs.  

A deeper analysis that I will skip here would demonstrate that capitalism indeed needs ecological crises as much as it needs economic crises. For an amazing elaboration on this subject, I enthusiastically refer the reader to Joel Kovel's brilliant book The Enemy of Nature.

3. What every environmentalist needs to know about capitalism

The solution to the ecological crisis, and in particular the climate crisis, has nothing to do with nuclear energy and has almost nothing to do with renewable energy resources. We, as the communists, propose a reduction in total production, a notion in direct conflict with capitalism. We do not promote the construction of solar power plants. We promote the closing down of around half of the existing power plants, and this we propose to do without diminishing the total wealth in the world.⁸ Only after reducing the energy “demand” by at least one half will we be considering to replace the rest of the power plants with renewables. Only after the abolishment of private property of the means of production is it possible to differentiate our needs from the needs of corporations. Only after the formation of a communist world will it be possible to investigate real human needs. Not before that.

It is not our needs that are the primary cause of global climate change. Global warming is not a direct consequence of our daily-life activities. It is due to industrial, agricultural and commercial activities driven by profit-maximization. There is a tremendous divergence between what we really demand and how the capitalist supply mechanisms work. We are not responsible for causing the ecological crisis, we are the victims. We are the ones who are still starving due to severe droughts, we are the ones who recently had to leave their homes to the extreme weather events, we are the ones who suffer from excessive precipitation. Also, we are the ones who have the need, right and power to put an end to our sufferings. No wind energy company will do that for us.

1 Al Gore is the leading figure here.

2 An inspiring article by John Bellamy Foster argues the impossibility of the coexistence of capitalism and degrowth.

3 I hope the reader understands where I am heading. I am obviously aware that capitalism only defines certain social relations and is therefore human-caused in the strict physical sense. It is in fact an alienation of real social relations: It does not designate a connection between people; instead, people are means for capitalist notions to connect to each other.

4 Keep in mind that some very big economies such as China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, Australia are not members of NATO.

5 Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View (New York, Viking, 1980), p.131.

6 Here is another common misunderstanding I should avoid: “The world as we know it” does not only refer to unhappy polar bears, sad coral reefs, melting ice covers on the mountains and some endangered species, it also refers to whatever you understand from human civilization. The question really is about socialism or barbarism.

7 “In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.” Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party.

8 Well, we most certainly promise to make away with the inequalities in the distribution of this wealth. But that is irrelevant here.

An introduction to why communists should take atheists seriously

0. Preliminary remarks

I should start by saying that, contrary to the historical development of the words¹, I will use socialist and communist interchangeably to refer to a person who agrees that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and aims at the Aufhebung² of private property of at least the means of production.

I will also make a distinction between non-believers and atheists here. While a non-believer can be someone who simply chooses not to believe in the existence of some sort of a god; I define an atheist to be someone who deliberatively rejects either the concept of god, the possibility of god, the probability of god, the existence of god, or at least the institutionalization of god – depending on how much thought she/he has given to the issue. I should point out that this convention will explicitly distinguish radical secularists and atheists.

1. Atheists feat. Communists

There are several crucial points common between atheists and communists, but the strange tension between the two creates the impression that the communists do not notice the potentials that are waiting to be realized in the atheist movements.

Contrary to the popular straw-man fallacy³, atheists already know that religion is a means used by the oppressors in the class struggle. Whether an individual atheist calls this phenomenon class struggle or not is only a matter of theoretical maturity. It is enough to note that a typical atheist is well aware of the difference between the pope and a Christian layman, and how they create each other in the course of history.

This leads us to the most essential common trait between atheists and communists, which is that they almost always stick to the historical approach when analyzing social phenomena. Atheists are not satisfied by simply rejecting some particular gods, they go quite a few steps ahead by analyzing how religions were developed historically. This is “most essential”, since once a person is determined to criticize the most strongly established taboos in the world and started to analyze its historical background, it requires a very small perturbation to encourage this person to criticize other phenomena of alienation such as nationalism, private property and human nature. The atheists, just like communists, are immune to any dogmatic opinions.

To be able to criticize an established dogma is one thing, but atheists are far better than that. They also reject the whole conception in an unusually conscious fashion. It is crystal-clear for the atheists that they will never succeed in convincing an archbishop about the nonexistence of his god, and that this is not because of the weakness of their arguments but because of conflicts of interests. The historical approach enforces the atheistic struggle to be a political one: The churches and mosques will not disappear because everyone becomes a non-believer or a skeptic at the least; people will be able to question their metaphysical beliefs only after the abolishment of religious institutions. This brings us to the second common trait between atheists and communists: the revolutionary approach. Whether today's atheists are willing to organize such a revolution is a different topic (and a very inspirational one, indeed), my point is that atheists know that there is no other way for humanity to be freed from religions.

Thirdly, to reject god(s) requires much more bravery than to aim at Aufhebung of private property. As Karl Marx has nicely put it in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, “private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.” Therefore, in theoretical grounds, a proletarian does not fight against her/his rooted values when aiming at the Aufhebung of private property. On the other hand, an atheist, by rejecting the existence of a god, also jumps over the dogmas on heaven and hell, meaning(s) of life, and the weird first cause discussions. This in turn results in a substantial militancy on the side of the atheist, even if she/he is not aware of this. I postpone the discussions on whether this substantial militancy can be turned into a political struggle and how to do it to another essay.

2. Atheists vs. communists

Communists generally defend the rights of atheists and atheist causes, but communist organizations are reluctant to embrace their objectives. While this probably results from a populist maneuver on the side of communists when it comes to religious issues, there is also another essential divergence between the two categories, a divergence of objectives.

Atheists work for the freedom from religions, instead of the bourgeois notion of freedom of religions formed by freedom of the state from religions. Generally, communists aim at a radical secularism, which would somehow lead to a materialist formation of the society. Some also add that the abolishment of the dualism between the civil society and the political society will bring about this conclusion. Communists consider human emancipation a very precious aspect of the struggle, yet by an ungrounded reference to Karl Marx's views⁴, they insist on emphasizing on the political emancipation. This fact generates a ridiculous divergence by creating the image that while the communists will make the revolution, the atheists will remain revolutionaries afterwards too. In fact, this divergence resembles the two sides of a zipper. They fit perfectly well, provided they are zipped up together.

Human emancipation is the starting point of all the socialist ideas, yet the political atmosphere usually throws it out of focus. Once remembered, the radically progressive side of the atheistic movements will come to light. In fact, atheists are very much ready for such an approach as no atheist claims to ban religious beliefs but intends to abolish the religious institutions. And this is simply radical secularism as mentioned previously.

In fact, such a comradeship between atheists and communists will be very fruitful for the communists to reveal the hypocritical freedom of the bourgeoisie by replacing it with the deeper term emancipation, and therefore strengthening the soft spots of socialist organizations on freedom of opinion, freedom of religion etc. It is obvious for an atheist activist that a Muslim is not free just because she/he is a Muslim, since she/he is diverted from the materialist understanding of the material relations. This is crucial, as most socialists would agree, when discussing what kind of alienation and freedom we are talking about.

3. Who, if not communists?

It is part of the duty of the atheists to listen to what communists can offer them in their march against religions. Atheists are and also feel themselves under constant threat while conservative viewpoints gain audience through nationalist and fundamentalist hate speech by right-wing political parties. Atheists should take it seriously to form comradeships with the organizations that are closest to their views, namely communists.

It is part of the duty of the communists to mobilize atheists in favor of the emancipation of humanity. The atheist movements and atheist individuals are probably one of the most progressive social categories in today's world. As mentioned previously, they also have the potential for a determined militancy combined with an internal tendency toward the critical method. Such a bright movement cannot fit into any organization other than a socialist one. Either communists will embrace atheist politics, or watch this huge potential die away with the rise of regressive capitalist policies.

1 yet perhaps more appropriate in view of Karl Marx's use of the words

2 Depending on the context, translated as Abolishment or Transcendence

3 Straw man fallacy is an informal fallacy in argumentation in which the arguer creates the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar and yet unequivalent proposition, where the later proposition is generally rather simplistic and easy-to-refute.

4 This should be a topic of another essay: On On the Jewish Question