Socialist Standard No. 1386 February 2020

This topic has 3 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by Socialist Party Head Office.

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February 1, 2020 at 1:16 am #193194
PartisanZ
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February 5, 2020 at 1:37 pm #193336

rodshaw
Participant

In the editors’ reply to Stephen Murphy’s letter about religion, they comment that ‘religion – of whatever sort – is a matter of personal faith’. But on the WSM website, in the section ‘How the WSM is Different from Other Groups’, we say ‘religion is a social, not personal, matter’.

So how do we square the two statements?

February 5, 2020 at 10:37 pm #193340

ALB
Keymaster

I don’t think there is a contradiction between the two statements. People hold religious views as individuals, ie on a personal basis. That so many people do literally “believe” without reference to the facts in one sort of religion or another is a social matter, a social problem.

Socialists oppose it because all religions are wrong in their assumptions just as, for instance, reformism and nationalism are and this impedes people coming to realise what they need to do to make this life (the only one we have) as good as possible.

February 6, 2020 at 4:25 pm #193374

Socialist Party Head Office
Participant

Comment received at Head Office from Stephen Murphy to the editors’ reply to his letter:

“My only comment, reading the Editors reply, is: Reading the paragraph (‘But you posit a special case…’) – the editors really don’t like people like me, do they? Their thinly veiled anger and intolerance blazes through. God knows where s/he dug all that up from (“..religious people think..we possess a spirit that others don’t have; we see … atheism as a form of disability, we belittle others.. passive aggression etc, etc..”) Quite frankly that paragraph says more about your editorial writers than it does about the Christians I know. Unresolved issues there. I think the gist of my original letter has been answered.”
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