Reply #12: The Jewish Taliban at work!

[IndianaGreen]

Marxism and Religion

Written by Alan Woods
Sunday, 22 July 2001

We speak here of men, because for the great majority of written history, society has been dominated by men, and women have been reduced to the role of the slaves of slaves. Thus, man must be the servant of his lord, his king and his God, and woman must be the servant of her husband - her lord and master. For many women, the consolation of religion was the only way to relieve the intense suffering that arises from their slavery. This explains why in so many societies women are so attached to religion. Without it, their lives would be utterly intolerable. It is like a drug that numbs the senses and renders them impervious to pain. But it does not remove the cause of the pain or improve the lot of women. On the contrary. Although in its beginnings, Christianity offered new hope to women, and was contemptuously described by its Roman enemies as a "religion of slaves and women", in practice it is marked by an intense misogyny. Man's original sin was said to have been caused by a woman, Eve.

The most natural relations between men and women have been suppressed and cursed as mortal sin. St. Augustine described the sexual act as a "mass of perdition". The proper place for woman is to suffer in the service of man, a situation graphically conveyed by the sorrowful Virgin. No happiness is to be expected on this earth.

Generations of religion have set the seal on the unhappy lot of women. And what is true for Christianity is as true or even more true of other religions. There is an old Jewish prayer: "Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has not made me a woman". Under certain Moslem countries the oppression of women has taken on an extreme form - as in Iran, and still worse, Afghanistan. In India Hindu tradition has for centuries condemned widows to immolate themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands. The emancipation of women from age-old slavery is thus in direct contradiction to religion.

In most of the great world religions, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism - at least in their origins - there is an element of criticism of the world and all its works, combined with a dream of a better world, in which there will be no rich or poor, no oppressors or oppressed, in which all men and women will be brothers and sisters. In both Christian churches and Islamic mosques, the illusion is maintained of the "communion" or brotherhood of all believers, that all are "equal in the sight of God" and so on. But the following day, the rich Christian or Islamic boss returns to exploiting, robbing, insulting and cheating his worker fellow-believers the same as before. When this flagrant contradiction between the theory and practice of religion is pointed out, they will shake their heads sadly and mumble about the imperfection of human beings in this sinful world, which is very little consolation for the worker.

http://www.marxist.com/marxism-religion-liberation-theology220701.htm