{"id":686,"date":"2007-12-14T19:13:43","date_gmt":"2007-12-14T19:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2007\/12\/14\/religion-the-methamphetamine-o\/"},"modified":"2007-12-14T19:13:43","modified_gmt":"2007-12-14T19:13:43","slug":"religion-the-methamphetamine-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/14\/religion-the-methamphetamine-o\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion: The Methamphetamine of the Masses…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nOr maybe even PCP<\/em>…<\/p>\n

If religion was merely an opiate, that would be cool. There would be a lot of stoned people waking around. But it could be argued that religion is a harder drug, one that makes people do harder, more unsavory things than just sitting around bleary eyed and happy. Like killing people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new book addressing the horrors of religion is in press. This is Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World<\/em> by Bob Avakian.<\/p>\n


\nAvakian takes an explicitly Marxist approach to examine the question of what harm can come from believing in god (any god). He asks why the “Bible Belt” is also the “Lynching Belt” and if the intensifying conflict between US imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism is shaping our modern real politik<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’ve not seen the book because it is not printed yet, but I’m sure I’ll write a review when I get a copy. The book’s web site<\/a> includes a few passages to whet your appetite, in which the author addresses …<\/p>\n

… the argument that is not infrequently made … including by people whose stance is to oppose religion in general … that while all religious fundamentalism is bad and harmful, there is something particularly evil and dangerous about Islamic fundamentalism. This, for example, is the position of Sam Harris,… and it is the stand rather obviously and quite aggressively insisted on by Christopher Hitchens, whose recent book, and in a concentrated way its title, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, encapsulates the contradiction I am speaking to here. On the one hand, … Hitchens’ book is a broadside against religion in general; but the first, and main, part of the title involves … a very definite salvo directed against Islam in particular…<\/p>\n

… it should be very clear that, with regard to the scriptures and the religious tradition of Christianity there is no basis for arguing that it is, in any fundamental or essential sense, different from or better than Islam….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A bit of the table of contents should give a feel for what this new book will address:<\/p>\n