Never discuss politics, sex and ...

 “Godless – 150 Years of Unbelief,” edited by Chaz Bufe, 2019

This is a rollicking stroll through the writings of free-thinkers since the early 1800s.  It is mostly essays from anarchists, feminists, labor activists, historians and autodidact intellectuals or writers.  Christianity is the main target, with side-swipes at Islam, Judaism and Hinduism.  Socialists understand religion is materially based in class societies and useful to the upper-class.  As such it is not just an intellectual struggle as so many pure atheists maintain, but will weaken and disappear when material conditions change.

So with that caveat, it is odd that, at this point in history, we even have to discuss this issue.  Science, logic, history, sociology, politics, economics and knowledge have accumulated to such a degree that almost anyone can see through the religious charlatans worldwide.  But nearly every ruling class finds the church or cathedral or synagogue or mosque or temple useful and there is the rub.  Many of these writers point out the hostility of the Bible and Christianity to women and to sex, while ignoring slavery, war, poverty and all manner of social crimes. 

Here’s a taste!

Johann Most (1883) – Most describes the “cloud lollers” and “terrorists of hell.” And God as the model for the “ideal despot” who “resolved to destroy all mankind by means of water” along with “his prison, hell, his handyman, the devil.  God to Most is an “all wise bungler,” head of a “malignant trinity.” Then there is Eve, “Adam’s bond servant.”

Matilda Gage (1893) – “Woman’s increasing freedom within the last hundred years is not due to the church but to the printing press, to education, to free thought …” “The most stupendous system of organized robbery known has been that of the church towards women…”

Ambrose Bierce (1906) – “Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel.” “Pray, v. To ask the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”

Chaz Bufe (1996) – “Mystic, n. A man or woman who wishes to understand the mysteries of the universe but is too lazy to study physics.”  “Spirituality, n. A meaningless but uplifting term of self-congratulation often found in dating site profiles.”

Emma Goldman (1913) – Goldman eviscerates Christ’s ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ starting with idiocies like “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” “Christ and his teachings are the embodiment of submission, of inertia, of the denial of life.”  “The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the hereafter and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth.” 

Sèbastien Faure (1914) – “To create is thus a mystical, religious expression…” “God being eternal, the universe is also eternal, and if the universe is eternal, it is because it has never commenced, because it has not been created.”

E. Haldeman-Julius (1942) – “Inspired?  The Bible is not even intelligent.”  “If the Bible, which Christians believe is the word of God, is inspired and infallible, why does it have two distinctly opposite versions of many things?”

Joseph McCabe (1936&1943) – 3 historical essays by McCabe: into the roots of Christian traditions in prior pagan religions; how Christianity supported slavery for centuries; how the Judeo-Christian religion denigrated women from its beginnings.  This is great stuff!  No quote does it justice.

Pamela Sutter (2001) – “One in four Americans believe that God intervenes in sporting events.”  “Everybody wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die.” 

Chaz Bufe (2001) – “The overt racism of the Book of Mormon.” “When you talk to God, it is prayer.  When God talks to you, it is schizophrenia…” (quoting Mulder);  “Christianity has a morbid, unhealthy preoccupation with sex.” (Note: fundamentalist religion positions on lots of kids, abortion, masturbation, divorce, birth control, sex education, women’s orgasm, homosexuality, women priests, celibacy, Puritanism, marriage, being barefoot and pregnant, housewifery, rape, modesty, etc. etc. etc.)

S.C. Hitchcock (2009) – “The Oxford Dictionary defines faith as a “firm belief, especially without logical proof.’”  “The universe … would be neither created nor destroyed.  It would just BE.” (quoting Stephen Hawking, who in contradiction, also believed in the Big Bang.)

An informative book on a group of atheists thinkers and their writings on religion.  Note the positions denying the Christian origin myth of the Big Bang.  The collection also makes it clear that early feminists were hostile to the teachings of various churches.  A chuckle-fest for some, informative for others, a waste of time for those with their head in the clouds.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to search the 14 year May Day archive with these terms: “Rise of the Nones,” “God is Not Great,” “Libertarian Atheism versus Liberal Religionism,” “Female Genital Mutilation,” “Annihilation of Caste,” “Jude the Obscure,” “Spiritual Snake Oil,” “American Theocracy,” “The God Market,” “Religulous,” “Astrology,” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” “The Da Vinci Code,” “The Dark Side of Christian History,” “To Serve God and Walmart.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!

The Cultural Marxist

May 21, 2021