“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
2 comments:
I'm the dastardly Democrat that bought the Klobuchar book and kinda forced my busy neighbor to look at it for a day or so. I first disagree that the term Centrist automatically implies Right-wing. That seems a arbitrary call. I agree that it was useful of the reviewer to include valuable historical quotes and perspective on capital and leftist analysis. It helps prove that any critique of Monopoly and Capitalism is well established and valid. Neither I nor the reviewer have actually read the entire book yet. Pretty sure I WILL read it and the reviewer is satisfied with the brief look mentioned. The solutions mentioned by Klobuchar are brief and not conclusive. But it is unfair to dismiss her mentions of various subjects at great length in the main body of the book (the parts the reviewer did NOT read). She definately mentions "banking, finance, insurance, mining, energy, oil, retail, media, automobiles, and agriculture in many points in the book. Remember the name of the book is "MONOPOLY". Each of those subjects comes under direct attack as part of the problem.
I concur that there seems to be no index listing of "military". But even a "modern" Republican like Eisenhower was among the first to warn the US (and the world!) of the dangers of a MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. He probably didn't need to read Marx to see the danger. He helped to defeat Hitler.
My credentials as a Center-Left may be challenged. But after decades of struggle in left causes it is unfair. I got a draft number during the Vietnam War. Helped in the formation of the New Left food coops, supported Indigenous movements in Minneapolis, the Black Hills, Nicaragua, and Chiapas, Mexico. Worked in neighborhood improvement groups, worked to divest the University of Minnesota from South Africa and many other progressive/left causes.
Klobuchar herself has 4 or 5 references to Eugene Debs and the IWW-Wobblies cast in a positive light. Not exactly what you might expect from a US Senator. Democrats can be allies cuz we consider ourselves to be on the Left side of politics.
Nice review and good critiques by the expert Mayday reviewer.
Hey buddy, wasn't an attack on you. Not 'dastardly!' When you read the book, send me a review/rebuttal. By the way, you posted your comment under an article on atheism, not on Klobuchar.
Post a Comment