Alan Zendell, October 16, 2023

Karl Marx said it first. As part of his philosophy that money and power should not reside solely in the hands of the wealthy, he described religion as a tool of the ruling class. Marx claimed religion pacifies the downtrodden, falsely promising succor in this life and an afterlife that is far better than our physical lives, which anyone can earn simply by following the dictates of their faith. By promulgating these beliefs, religion, especially Christianity, became a weapon of oppression.

Leon Uris described how the reactionary Catholic church in Ireland oppressed its people in his poignant novel, Trinity. European monarchs used religion to distract the masses from their real enemies – the rulers and other elites whose lust for wealth and power were limitless. Lest we forget, the United States was settled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mostly by people seeking religious freedom and an end to persecution, as our Bill of Rights clearly implies. Today, the story is repeating itself in the Middle East. The two thousand year old universal persecution of Jews is at the heart of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Hamas are surrogates for the Shia prelates who govern Iran, who vow to kill Jews everywhere.

Researchers at Cornell University found that religious conditioning is more of an oppressive force than an opiate. Sociologist Landon Schnabel used the issue of abortion to illustrate how religion has shaped political views in America. He discovered that despite being affected far more by abortion policy, women are less likely than men to support abortion rights because they tend to be more religious. Similarly, he found that Blacks and Hispanics, especially at the lower end of the economic spectrum, are more susceptible to pro-life conditioning because they also tend to be more religious. This, despite the fact that the ability to control the growth of their families is critical to their well-being.

Then, there’s the current political crisis in the United States. As two wars rage, a small minority of political extremists have paralyzed our government for more than two weeks, and one extremist senator has blocked our entire military promotion apparatus. In the latter case, abortion is the sole issue; in the former, it is one of several that drive the so-called Freedom Caucus. The Republican Party’s majority in the House only exists because they used abortion rights to court Christian voters, despite having leaders like Donald Trump, who have no respect for religious values.

Religious intolerance and bigotry are what drive hate crimes. Anti-Semitic and anti-Arab violence are rising at an alarming rate throughout western nations, and anti-Semitic and anti-Christian rhetoric drive most of the anger in the Muslim world. Wars result from two basic causes: competition for economic resources and religious differences. Religion enabled and justified the genocide committed by individuals as diverse as Christopher Columbus and Adolf Hitler. I can’t prove it with numbers, but I believe that throughout history, more blood has been shed because of religion – the Crusades, the European conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, Northern Ireland, and the perpetual conflicts around the Holy Land – than any other reason.

At the individual level, most clerics use religion as a force for good. But far too many use it for predation and control. Witness our own recent history of murderous religious cults and people who use religious control to abuse women and children. Still, today, organized religion is both an economic and political weapon that reinforces poverty and limits the power and agency of the lower economic classes. That’s not Marx’s Communist Manifesto talking; it’s the reality most people live with. It’s also at the heart of the worldwide trend toward autocracy and divisiveness, like that promoted by Hungarian President Viktor Urban and Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

The evil in this drama is neither spirituality nor belief in a supreme being. Those are very personal matters, and our Constitution guarantees that everyone has the right to their own values and beliefs.

The true evil is the effect of human nature on organized religion. Power invariably corrupts most leaders, and religion has a unique ability to foster such corruption because we all contain remnants of the primitive terrors that made humans invent religion in the first place.

It’s time the human race grew up. A big step in that direction is distinguishing humanism from religion. Valuing each other, caring for those in need, and remembering that everyone has an equal right to health and happiness are much more powerful forces for good than edicts handed done by Ayatollahs or Popes.

We don’t need opiates. We need to end hate, greed, and envy and stop trying to control each other.