[Marxism] Yoruba gods protect Fidel Castro: priest

[Walter Lippmann]

It's not what you think about life in the supernatural world that
counts. It's what you are in favor of doing in THIS life which is
decisive. When referring to "our movement", it's best to try to at
least define the terms when they aren't clear. Does Venezuela's
Hugo Chavez belong to what you call "our movement"? Well, he's a
religious believer. Would you consider Malcolm X to be a member
of "our movement"? I certainly wouldn't want to belong to any
kind of movement which excluded someone like Malcolm X because
he was a follower of the Islamic faith.

If the Bible is taken to be the LITERAL TRUTH by people who
call themselves Marxists, a travesty takes place, because the
Bible is basically a work of literature, and would be better
understood as a work of fiction, with parables and so on that
are used to draw whatever lessons are to be derived from the
book, at least by one or another religious practitioner or
preacher.

Religion in the abstract: as in how many angels can dance on
the head of a pin, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, and the
Holy Moley, that's just literature, not fact, and to discuss
it as if it were fact is to give it far more ground than it
genuinely deserves. People who get consumed about religion
in the abstract would be better served by taking a sedative.

Cuba has provided our movement with some instructive examples
of how to deal with religion when it expressed its viewpoint
on the death of Pope John Paul II. They didn't respond with
"Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish" as some around here would do.


Walter Lippmann
"I'm an atheist and, God willing, I always will be."
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LENIN:
But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing
the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an
"intellectual" question unconnected with the class struggle, as is
not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the
bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on
the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious
prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would
be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion
that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the
economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of
preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by
its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism.

Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class
for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than
unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.

That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism
in our Program; that is why we do not and should not prohibit
proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from
associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the
scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the
inconsistency of various "Christians". But that does not mean in the
least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first
place, where it does not belong at all
http://www.marxist.com/lenin-on-socialism-and-religion030108.htm 

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LOUIS PROYECT writes:
Marxism *is* atheistic for the simple reason that it is based on 
science and materialism. For example, it would be totally out of place 
to raise the possibility of Heaven in our movement as a solution to the 
environmental crisis. I understand that in religion the notion of an 
afterlife would resolve issues such as what to do with the raw sewage 
that was described in the Harper's article I forwarded but that runs 
counter to both science and to Marxism, which rests on scientific 
principles. Marxism is of course not in the business of going out and 
polemicizing against beliefs in an afterlife. There really is no point 
to that. Of course, if I had a kid who asked me about heaven, I'd tell 
him or her that it is just a bunch of crap.
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PROYECT on Che:
He was not talking about a literal spirit. For example, the Holy Ghost 
is a literal spirit. You also have angels, which are literal--like the 
Angel of Death who spared the Jewish kids in Exodus because the blood of 
a lamb was on their door. Even when my parents forced me to go to 
Synagogue, I never believed this crapola.


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Walter Lippmann
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
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