As mentioned earlier, four persons — Darwin, Marx, Freud and Russel stand as the stalwarts of the modern Western thought and system of life who drew the modern world onto the material lines and repudiated religion to the extent that the modern Western education is totally bereft of any notion of God.
Now, I intend to elaborate upon their materialistic views with the addition of a few others – Machiavelli, McDougall and Adler (I may have to do away with McDougall and Adler for the paucity of space), who have equally contributed to the same Godless civilisation.
But before I do that, I would like to conclude the previous write-up on individualism with the argument that while individualism constitutes one of the major components of anarchism alongside socialism, it regards religion as an evil which corrupts human nature which is essentially good.
The individualist anarchists claim that only in an anarchist society the individual will be free to realise all what is within him — when God and State are overthrown, there will be no one to issue commands, and men will enter on a blessed era of liberty.
DARWIN
Charles Darwin (1809 –1882) an evolutionary biologist claimed that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor — Ape. He introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection which , in simple terms, means that since the number of individuals born in a species is more than the number that survive, consequently, there is a struggle for existence between these individuals and, as a result, only the fittest survive. Then From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.
Without asking that if a monkey has become a man, what may not a man become, Darwinism, with the strong backing of materialism came to symbolise a triumph of science over religion and soon became a movement covering a wide range of evolutionary ideas. When accepted, as admitted science (though clandestinely), evolutionary theory leaves no room for any creator of the universe. Hence Darwinism is in complete disagreement with the ideals of Religion.
In fact, it is the Darwinian theory of evolution that has provided material to all the later day atheistic and anti-religion philosophies of the West. Darwinism is the first fruit of the 19th century materialism that influenced all the latter philosophers like Marx, McDougall, Freud, Adler, and Machiavelli, and materialistic worldviews against religion and spirituality.
MARX
Originated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), a German philosopher, Marxism is a social, political, and economic theory that focuses on the struggle between capitalists and the working class. Marx is the man whose powerful movement has dominated the recent history of Europe (Russel, History of Western Philosophy, Routledge, 1949, 706). He wrote that the power relationships between capitalists and workers were inherently exploitative and would inevitably create class conflict.
The entire structure of Marxism is based upon ‘dialectical materialism’, which refers to the notion that Marxism is a materialist worldview with a dialectic method. Through his ‘materialist conception of history’, Marx alludes that religion, along with philosophy, politics, and art of any epoch of human history is an outcome of its methods of production, and, to a lesser extent, of distribution (History of Western Philosophy, 708). Marx argues that religion continues to survive because of oppressive social conditions. When this oppressive and exploitative condition is destroyed, religion will become unnecessary. He viewed religion as “the soul of soulless conditions” or the “opium of the people”.
The condition of religion and followers of religion remained always deplorable in Marxist-communist countries. For instance, the Soviet Union, a Marxist-communist-atheist state in which religion was largely discouraged and at times heavily persecuted. Similarly, The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 and for much of its early history maintained a hostile attitude toward religion which was seen as symbol of feudalism and foreign colonialism.
FREUD
Sigmund Freud (1850-1939) an Austrian neurologist and psychologist who is widely regarded as the father of psychoanalysis, which is both a psychological theory and therapeutic system, viewed religion as the unconscious mind’s need for wish fulfillment. Freud believed that because people need to feel secure and absolve themselves of their own guilt, they choose to believe in God, who represents a powerful father-figure. Freud regarded religion and God as an illusion, based on the infantile need for a powerful father figure. According to him, religion, necessary to help us restrain violent impulses earlier in the development of civilization, can now be set aside in favor of reason and science.
Religion to Freud consists of “certain dogmas, assertions about facts and conditions of external and internal reality which tells one something that one has not oneself discovered, and which claim that one should give them credence. Hence religion has no reality in Freudian psychology.
RUSSEL
Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) was basically a philosopher and logician. I have written something earlier about him in one of my previous articles of this series. Here it will suffice to explain briefly what he has to say about religion. In his Why I am not a Christian (Routledge, 1996) (on the back cover of which The Spectator writes about him: “The most robust as well as the most witty infidel since Voltaire….”), he writes:
My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. (p21).
Russel does not seem to accept that religion has made any useful contributions to civilization other than helping in early days to fix the calendar and causing the Egyptians to chronicle eclipses.
Machiavelli
Nicholas Machiavelli (1469 – 1527), an Italian philosopher was known primarily for his political ideas. The theory that “the end justifies the means”, regardless of the question whether the ends are to be considered good or bad (History of Western Philosophy, 465), encapsulates his political and moral thought. His most famous book, the Prince, is an extended analysis of how to acquire and maintain political power. The last chapter of this book is a call “to liberate Italy from the Barbarians”. For this reason, he proposed the concept of Nationalism. The general theme of The Prince is of accepting that the aims of princes – such as glory and survival – can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends. That is why in the last eighty years, nationalism has tended to ally with parochialism, intolerance, bigotry, persecution of minorities, racialism, and finally imperialism and aggression—the record of pan-Germanism, Tsarist imperialism, Japanese militarism, Fascism, communist imperialism and above all two World Wars.
Nationalism is a feeling that my country is better than any other and right at any cost. It is different from genuine patriotism which simply means love and attachment to one’s country. Hence nationalism, at times, can generate hate for other’s country, while a patriot loves his own country without having to hate the other.
Machiavelli saw nationalism as a source of national strength, enabling the state to succeed at the necessary expense of others. He believed that, for a ruler, it was better to be widely feared than to be greatly loved; a loved ruler retains authority by obligation, while a feared leader rules by fear of punishment. Thus, religion and its values are relegated to a detestable position. Nationalism by nature is antithesis of religion. That is what Iqbal has said:
The robe of nationalism is the shroud of religion
To be concluded…
Dr Nazir Ahmad Zargar, Coordinator, Department of Religious Studies, Central University of Kashmir, Ganderbal
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.