Notes on religion and Socialism

Do the problems within Socialism and religion necessarily invalidate concepts of kindness and fairness? The inter-relatedness of life on Earth is scientific fact, not an article of religious faith or political dogma, though ‘brotherhood’ and ‘sisterhood’ is more metaphorical than literal.

Both religion and Socialism fail in so far as proponents lose sight of fairness and goodwill. Committing atrocities in the name of Socialism or religion indicates a loss of perspective, obviously.

In some unintentionally ironic way, one could argue that organized religion is ‘anti-god’ in its idolatry, that is, its fixation on systematic attempts to define the absolute according to patterns of human comprehension.

So, maybe a conception of reality on par with non-belief/skepticism would be to simply think that a divine intelligence may exist. However that view is lightyears short of supporting any form of organized religion.

As for ‘super-sized atheism’, it seems implicitly theological in that thru it one seeks to oppose what one claims does not exist. ‘Super-sized atheism’ also shares with religion the problem of excessive certainty, aka close-mindedness and arrogance. An aphorism from Nietsche comes to mind: “convictions are greater enemies to truth than lies.”

Perhaps ironically, the ‘death of God’ is a crisis only in so far as we subconsciously hold on to religious habits of thought, that is, assume that the disbelief in a god necessitates a moral vacuum.
We don’t need religion, and certainly don’t need rigid political ideology to have values. Granted, the philosophical materialist view is that purpose does not exist in the universe intrinsically, whether, for example, in the life and death of stars or in the life and death of trees.

But humans create meaning for ourselves, unavoidably in one form or another, due to how our brains have evolved. All due respect, your views on ‘absurdity’ and the ‘death of God’ come across as bravado. Have we any choice other than trying to make sense of our existence? Consciousness does not have to be eternal for it to have meaning.

As you likely know, my view is that pleasing gods is not the aim of human life; our aim is maximal fulfillment or what Maslow would call self-actualization, in my opinion. For me, the means to that is striving to meet my needs with as little harm and as much benefit as possible to lifekind. At least that’s my formulation so far, subject to revision, of course.

I relate to Michael Shermer when he writes that there is a significant degree of moral coherence across cultures, throughout millennia that apply in the majority, if not most situations, though, ( I would add) there are gross violations of those principles via systemic forms of unkindness.

We obviously don’t need religion to have values, and we don’t need to treat Socialism as a religion, to formulate and apply principles of kindness and fairness.

A problem with Marxism and Socialism is that, thru it, people have sought unity (of the the working classes) via othering (regarding the ruling class and the capitalists). Granted, that has been a form of depersonalization toward those higher up on the social strata, but it was nonetheless s a form of othering.

The othering has been more self-defeating to those socioeconomically ‘below’ thru political fragmentation than it has been harmful to those socioeconomically ‘above’ who generally are immune to being affected by depersonalization.

With political ideology including Socialism, and with religious doctrines, it seems inevitable that seeking unity that involves excluding particular classes or categories of others becomes a factor.

A problem with religion—whether it’s Buddhism with it’s notions of reincarnation and karma, or Christianity with it’s notions of heaven, hell, and sacrificial salvation—-is that it skews the moral calculus of weighing certain or potential harm against certain or potential benefits, regarding the consequences our actions have for ourselves and others (including nonhuman beings).

The inhumane excesses of supposed socialist thought, whether under Stalin or Mao (were all those historians who depicted atrocities working for the CIA ?) seemed to have resulted from treating Marxism, ironically, as a religion, in the sense of excessive certainty and confusing the map with the territory.

Marx was brilliant, but his formulations are conceptual maps, not the actual reality. He was a sort of philosopher and social scientist, not a fortune teller, as those who believe(d) in the historical inevitability of Communism would have it.