Dr. James Spencer has an article today arguing that our government must begin treating certain ideologies that have religious tendencies what theya are: religions. The article can be found at Townhall.com and is entitled Beyond Religion: The First Amendment and Ideological Groups.
People on both sides of the political sphere claim that the First Amendment — which guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition — is being taken away or misappropriated somehow. Yet, as we worry ourselves about the relationship between the state and religion, my concern is that we are allowing the state to offer preferential treatment to ideological groups with religious-like characteristics. Such an allowance will likely lead to the same sort of problems our nation’s founders sought to avoid with the First Amendment.
The First Amendment is both crucial and insufficient because it does not address the state “establishment” beyond religion, despite the rise of ideological groups that share many of the dynamics and functions of religion. As important as the First Amendment is, it only addresses the exercise of governmental influence in and through formal “religions” (e.g., Christianity). The goal here is not to reinterpret or even revise the First Amendment, but to highlight its limitations and to point to a dynamic between the state and ideological groups that may well have similar consequences to state establishment of religion. At this point, ideological groups whose beliefs and practices distinguish between sacred and profane while forming a community (however loose) with a specific, relatively inflexible, view of morality may be empowered by the state to force that understanding of morality on those outside the ideological group — just as they fear religion would.
For instance, James Lindsay argues that the social justice movement, which is rooted in critical theory, tied to identity politics, and cultivating a community (however diffuse), “takes on many of the qualities of a religion and should be recognized and treated as such, at least culturally.” If it is the case that we should treat the social justice movement as a religion, we would do well to apply the establishment and free exercise clauses to this movement as well.
While some citizens may want Christians (or adherents of other religions) to keep their faith out of politics, they may not recognize the religion-like characteristics of other groups. By not recognizing the potential problems created by the state’s “establishment” of ideological groups that have a sufficiently “religious” character, we may well be subjecting ourselves to the same sort of tyranny the founders of our nation sought to avoid with the First Amendment: a state which leverages a particular articulation of sacred and profane for political ends, disregarding pluralism and individual rights by preferring one sect over others.
I urge gentle readers to read the entire article, and thing about its consequences. Right now, the government at various levels can be said to be "establishing" the religion of Islam, of CRT and Social Justice, climate change and others. And then there is the granddaddy of them all, Marxism. Which brings us to the American Thinker by author Richard McDonough entitled The Marxist Religion.
Marx is famous for his anti-religious view that “Religion is the opiate of the masses;” the view that religion, specifically Judaism and Christianity (“the Jew being a practical Christian and the practical Christian a Jew”) is like the addictive drug of “money worship” that people take to deaden the pain of their oppression by capitalism. For Marx, these religious superstitions must be replaced by the enlightened science of Marxism that, stating the “laws of [economic] motion” in human history, will liberate human beings from capitalist oppression for a full rewarding human life.
Karl Popper, however, showed that Marxism is not a genuine science because it is not falsifiable. Whenever Marxist predictions fail, which they regularly do, instead of revising their theories to take account of the facts, Marxists employ ad hoc hypotheses to save their theory, e.g., when the socialist revolution did not occur when and where Marxism predicted it would, Marxists just made excuses.
In fact, Marxism is not absolutely opposed to religion. Marx is hostile to traditional religions because it aims to replace traditional religious belief in a transcendent God with a materialist religion that deifies man himself. Marx is hostile to Christianity and Judaism because he sees them as competitors with Marxism’s own materialist religion.
The idea that Marxism is a religion is not new by any means. Jonah Goldberg, in his book Liberal Fascism notes the religious nature of Marxism. But he was surely not the first. And indeed, it is that religious nature, that faith in Marx's pronouncements, that makes it so hard, indeed nearly impossible, to reason someone out of this faith. Marxism substitutes the state for the transcendant God. It substitutes man's changable notions of morality for the unchanging morality of God. But McDonough explains it as Goldberg, whom I suspect of being a secular Jew, could not:
In the Biblical story, humanity begins in an innocent paradise of union with God in the Garden of Eden until the Fall in which Adam and Eve commit the Original Sin of disobeying God. Consequently, they and their descendents are expelled from paradise and forced to travel a long painful historical journey until the Messiah emerges from the “chosen people,” the Jews, and, in the final confrontation between good and evil in the apocalypse, redeems humanity.
In the Marxist story humanity, begins in a primitive idyllic tribal communism in which everything is shared equally between members of the tribe. Unfortunately, the emergence of private property leads to a lengthy historical class struggle between the capitalists and the workers (the “proletariat”) until, in the penultimate battle, the socialist revolution, the workers free humanity from capitalist oppression and bring about a full-fledged communist Utopia.
Marx has simply replaced the original idyllic Judeo-Christian paradise, the Garden of Eden, with the original idyllic primitive tribal communism. The Judeo-Christian original sin of disobeying God is replaced by Marxism’s original sin of creating and instituting property. The Judeo-Christian struggle between good and evil is replaced by Marx’s class struggle between capitalists and workers. The Bible’s “chosen people,” who are the Jews, are replaced by the proletariat (workers) who are chosen by Marx’s “laws of [economic] motion” to lead the revolution. The Bible’s final apocalyptic battle between good and evil is replaced by the socialist revolution. The Biblical notion of heaven is replaced by Marx’s materialist heaven -- communism -- on earth. The Bible’s ultimate communion with God is replaced by Marx’s communism (communion) with one’s fellow man. In brief, the Marxist account of the historical struggle that begins with the original tribal communism and ends with a return to a more enlightened communism at the end of history is simply the Biblical salvation story translated into Marx’s “materialist” terms. Indeed, Marx would have understood this himself as he was very familiar with Old and New Testament imagery and doctrine as well as patristic literature.
At the very least, no federal money should be going to climate change efforts either for or against. It is a religion and should not be either established or disestablished. Let it compete on an equal plane with all other religions. The same applies to ever other ideology that seeks to be unfalsifiable. That means, of course, that all the monstrous ideologies like CRT and transgenderism, that the education establishment is trying to cram down our chidren's throats would not be allowed, for the same reason that enforced prayer is not allowed.
People can believe what they want. They can be Christian, or Jew or Muslim. They can believe in a Marxist Utopia or in any other sillu thing. However, the government must not take sides. Rather they must protect and defend the Constitution for all Americans without putting the thumb of government on the scales of justice. The government should not be in the business of choosing winners and losers.
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