This week a furore has blown up over threats made by the Catholic Cardinal Pell and his counterpart Archbishop Hickey in Perth against Catholic politicians who support stem cell research. Pell has raised the nightmare scenario of mad scientists cloning human-hamster hybrids from embryonic stem cells. The reality is that this technology, while still in its early stages, has the potential to cure several devastating medical conditions. While such research should, of course, be conducted under strict ethical guidelines, medieval superstitions about embryos should not be an obstacle. In the same week, several of the leading Republican presidential candidates in the U.S. made known their scepticism towards Darwinism and their support for the obscurantist notion of 'Intelligent Design'.  As one commentator remarked, doubting evolutionary theory is as scientifically illiterate as doubting the existence of atoms. Yet, not only do such idiocies not stand in the way of high political office, they are openly encouraged. Leading Republicans wear their support for Intelligent Design as a badge of pride. A Flintsone-like 'Creation' museum has just opened, which shows humans living alongside dinosaurs. This disgusting attempt to pervert impressionable young minds would be laughable; if it were not so obscene.

The rise of religious fundamentalism is proof, if any were needed, of the degeneracy of bourgeois culture. In its revolutionary heyday the bourgeoisie were in the forefront of the struggle against religion. The Separation Clause in the U.S. Constitution and the rigid separation of church and state in France are two of the crowning achievements of bourgeois democracy. In the epoch of its senescence, the decrepit capitalist class is prepared to help itself to any ragbag of superstition and mysticism to ensure its continued right to exploit the working class. In its Islamic guise, this religious reaction has reached truly barbarous proportions with jihadist thugs murdering Christians and even other Muslims with a slightly different interpretation of their sacred text. 

And yet we all know religious believers who are sincere fighters for social justice. Although implacable in his hostility towards religious mysticism, Karl Marx recognised that for many workers religious beliefs represent a reaction to the crass conditions of capitalist society and a hope for a better world. His famous 'Opiate of the people' is seldom cited in full. He wrote “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”[2] Throughout history, class struggles have taken on a religious veneer with battles between different classes being conducted in the guise of a struggle for a truly Christian or Muslim society.

All of this raises the question of how Marxists should orientate towards religion. In recent months a movement known as 'the New Atheism', led by the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, the neuroscientist Sam Harris and the zoologist Richard Dawkins have gained media attention for their forthright struggle against the Religious Right. As militant materialists, Marxists would surely sympathise with most of the points they make. However, the question of tactics is crucial. Much of the propaganda put forth by this group has an arrogant and sneering tone. Religion is treated as simply childish superstition and a product of ignorance. It is indeed true that Creationism represents such a threat due to the scandalously poor state of public education in the United States. Anyone with a basic High School understanding of biology can see the evidence for evolution by natural selection for themselves. But regrettably most workers in the United States are forced to send their children to cash-starved, overcrowded schools where demoralised teachers spend more of their time being jailers than educators. In this situation the idiotic idea that a kindly man with a white beard in the sky placed fossils in the earth just to test our faith can gain a hearing. 

Nevertheless, smug sermons from those who have had the benefit of an expensive private education are hardly likely to undermine religious obscurantism. On the contrary, religious leaders are able to portray themselves and their followers as an oppressed group being persecuted by an academic elite.  What then is the proper attitude for Marxists to adopt?

In his various works on religion, Lenin laid out the appropriate strategy. We should adopt a resolute political struggle against organised religion. In Australia this means that we need to publicly oppose the likes of Pell and Hickey. As private citizens they are entitled to their opinions, however ludicrous. But they should not be allowed to be given a special hearing simply because of the frocks and hats they don. The labour movement should be mobilised to support any politician who is being intimidated by clerics. Similarly, we should wage a resolute struggle against all attempts to have Intelligent Design taught in public schools. We should also fight for an end to tax concessions for private religious education and ultimately the integration of all schools into the state system. In the context of a socialist planned economy students can be taught the latest findings in biology and there would be no danger of Intelligent Design gaining a foothold. Perhaps Creationism could be safely taught alongside other anthropological curiosities such as oracles and witchcraft. 

In our dealings with individual religious believers, however, we should adopt a respectful manner. As Marx pointed out religious beliefs cannot be simply dismissed as mistakes. They arise from genuine material conditions. In the struggle against those conditions we can win over religious believers but only if we approach them fraternally. We must insist upon our right to argue for materialism and atheism. At the same time we should be prepared to defend religious minorities against persecution by the state. This question is particularly pressing with regard to Islam. The work of our Pakistani comrades has demonstrated that it is possible to make gains among Islamic workers. We can only do so if we avoid the mistakes made by some of the sects who have made alliances with some of the most reactionary sections of the Islamic community. Some of the sectarians have even been prepared to turn a blind eye to such practices as Female Genital Mutilation and enforced marriage in their desire to win friends in the mosque.  We should be uncompromising in our support for women's rights. Nevertheless, we should not let hypocritical cant about women's rights from a ruling class who grow rich on the sweated labour of female workers in the Third World and the unpaid domestic labour of woman at home be allowed to divide the working class on religious or ethnic grounds.  

Ultimately our strategy should be to convince workers with religious illusions that the false solidarity they seek in the Mosque, Church or Synagogue can only become genuine solidarity under socialism. In doing so, we should never forget the words of Comrade Ted Grant: “patiently explain.”

[1] V.L. Lenin, Socialism and Religion, 1905, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm
[2] Karl Marx Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right Karl Marx in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February, 1844 found at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm