In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Max Weber sought to correct or temper Karl Marx’s view that religion was always a reflection or epiphenomenon of the economic base. Although Marx’s understanding of religion was considerably more complicated and drew heavily on Ludwig Feuerbach’s idealist critique in The Essence of Christianity (1841), [...]
Tags:Calvinism·Christianity·evil·Friedrich Nietzsche·good·history of science·India·Iran·Islam·Judaism·Karl Marx·Ludwig Feuerbach·Max Weber·modernity·monotheism·Muslim·Parsis·Persia·profane·Protestant Ethic·Puritans·Robert Kennedy·Robert Merton·Rodney Stark·sacred·spirit of capitalism·truth·Zoroaster·Zoroastrianism
Though I have yet to view a single episode of PBS’ five part series “God in America,” I have been catching comments here and there which suggest it is worth watching. My avoidance to date is born of studied tedium — how much Cotton Mather and Ken Burns can one take in a lifetime?
Our correspondent [...]
Tags:Al-Qaeda·American evangelism·apocalypse·apocalyptic·artificial threats·atheism·Billy Graham·Brumaire·Cold War·communism·Cotton Mather·Dwight Eisenhower·farce·fear based religion·Fox News·God in America·Hegel·Karl Marx·Ken Burns·military-industrial complex·Osama bin Laden·PBS·politics of fear·propaganda·Puff Graham·Rupert Murdoch·Soul of a Nation·tragedy·Wall Street Journal·William Randolph Hearst
In the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), Karl Marx famously observed that “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” Nowhere is this more true than in Germany, where the mass of history is heavy and sometimes suffocating.
With this in mind, the recent furor over Thilo [...]
Tags:18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte·adultery·Arabs·Craig Martin·dead generations·enlightenment·execution·Fremdarbeiter·German Muslims·Germany·honor killings·integration·Islamist·Karl Marx·Koran·Matthias Matussek·nightmare·pre-Enlightenment·radical Islam·Religion Bulletin·separatist Islam·stoning·terrorism·Thilo Sarrazin·tradition·Turks·weltanschauung
Among scholars and historians of religion, there has long been an unfortunate tendency to treat myth as mere text — disembodied, free-floating, timeless, and ahistorical. In such non-contexts, myth is considered to be something universal or essential, that which captures and expresses archetypes, or even worse, an archaic and tentative approach to monotheism.
In the fifth [...]
Tags:ahistorical·archaic·archetype·Carl Jung·disembodied·history·Homo faber·Homo religiosus·Imagining Religion·incipient monotheism·interpretation·Io·Io myth·Jonathan Z. Smith·Karl Marx·Maori cosmology·Maori creation myth·Mircea Eliade·monotheism·myth·native·primordial·text·timeless·universal
As most social and critical theorists know, Karl Marx asserted that the “criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism” (Critique of Hegel, 1843). This is a startling foundational statement coming from Marx, who also thought that the criticism of religion was complete — a key accomplishment which enabled him to proceed with his [...]
Tags:Christopher Craig Brittain·critical theory·criticism·Critique of Hegel·Essence of Christianity·evolutionary history·Frankfurt School·Friedrich Nietzsche·God is Dead·God is Not Dead·historical materialism·human constructions·Karl Marx·Lectures on the Essence of Religion·Ludwig Feuerbach·Marxism·Max Horkheimer·Max Horkheimer on Religion·metaphysical truths·mystification·Sigmund Freud·social theory·supernaturalism
“Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the [...]
Tags:afterlife beliefs·Alexa Tullett·angst·anxiety·burials·Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right·distress·Do Hominid Burials Indicate a Belief in Spirits or Souls·effect of religiosity·Epiphenom·error reactions·fear·Future of An Illusion·grave goods·Homo neanderthalensis·Homo sapiens·Karl Marx·life after death·Michael Inzlicht·mortuary practices·Neanderthals·opiate·opium·proto-religion·received wisdom·Reflecting on God·Rhawn Joseph·Sigmund Freud·theism·Transmitter to God
There is a long and venerable tradition of examining religion within the context of political economy. Karl Marx famously declared that religion is the opiate of the masses, and explained religion as an epiphenomenon arising from an economic foundation. Max Weber reversed the causal arrow in his landmark work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit [...]
