Ahmadi Perspectives on Marxism

Why Religion Degrades

The concept that religion deviates over time has been briefly touched, but it's time to go deeper. Every religion is distorted by the hands of humans. Most attribute this with human nature, and justify the change by concluding man is evil, immoral and corrupt. This is their reasoning, that man destroys religion because man is greedy and corrupted, however this conclusion should never end here. Another perspective needs to be considered on why religion degrades.

Why is it that the actions of prophets and beliefs of followers end up being two very different things? Every prophet has been aware of the ruling class and their exploitation. They have always sided with the poor and oppressed to establish their deserving economic status. Here are examples of religious antagonism towards oppression.

Buddha and Siddhartha left their aristocratic families to understand the poor and fix their problems. Jesus Christ of Nazareth was labeled as a rebel by the Roman Government and punished accordingly. The impalement on the cross is a punishment exclusively for those to commit treason against the Roman authority. Jesus Christ was a bandit in the eyes of the ruling class, and a revolutionary for the rest. The Prophet Muhammad (saw) posed a threat to all the wealthy of Mecca. He stood up against all trials and tribulations of the wealthy. They failed in all attempts of ostracizing him, using bribery, espionage, and murder. His ideas and polemics were radical for the people of his time. The Charter of Medina established equal rights for all human beings, and banished oppression against women.

The history of religion is bipolared. There are radical shifts in its ideals during and after prophethood. These shifts universally destroy the moral framework of religion, and turn it ugly. Karl Marx witnessed this ugly face, he witnessed this face at a very bad time in history, a time that screamed for help, a time before a reformer could fix the horrors. Marx learned the worst of religion, and noticed something very peculiar about this face- it beared the same features of capitalism, feudalism, and oppression. It is no surprise to conclude his distaste for religion. He saw it no different than any other system that oppressed society. This is the end face of religion, the face after prophethood. A historical analysis points out a reason why religion slowly degrades to this point.

The history bears witness to religion eventually becoming a part of keeping present hierarchical structure in place, despite contrary actions of prophets. The acclaimed religion and the present environment, distilled from social organization, emulated such structure. Religion essentially became the environment over time. A true religious person knows that their religion does not side with such oppression, so how come the religion ends up siding with it anyway? The most important question is: Why did religion become the environment?

The environment eventually changed religious ideas. The hierarchical structure of the environment eventually forced the religious ideas, however much contradictory they were initially, to conform to it. The environment is seemingly more powerful than the idea. This answer will make a materialist very happy, however not for long. This is the chicken and the egg problem.

It is clear the idea will eventually change before it could change the environment. Their constant battle will slowly end overtime with the environment winning. There is a problem with this however; if the environment always wins, then how is change and progress even possible? This is where materialists are wrong with their elitist beliefs of material superiority. Change happens when the idea works in conjunction with contradictions that opposes the material state of society- the environment. Both ideas and environment are needed for change to happen. Any idea with the right material conditions will dominate. Separately they cannot make a difference because they will slowly fail on their own. Only having a desire for universal suffrage (idea), and no means of political change (environmental contradiction), will not grant universal suffrage. On the flip side only having the political means of universal suffrage, and yet no desire, will change nothing. The political means of giving women rights in an environment where men dominate is an example of such environmental contradiction. The ability for change patriarchal structure through the means of political structure is an example utilizing an environmental contradiction. One must use this contradiction for their advantage for pushing suffrage. However having a vehicle for such change is meaningless without the driver. The idea is the driver.