God exists.
Okay, not that God. The depicted entity isn't real. But in a very real sense, there is a God, in the form and effects of his depiction. That God is the totality of the collective neuronal states of billions of believers, the literature and poetry paying homage to him, the infrastructure of the many denominational churches, mosques and synagogues, the customs and taboos that play out every day all over the world, and the financial resources and political power of the clergy. Clearly, God is a material force in the world, even if the entity being depicted isn’t any more real than the entities depicted in the Harry Potter novels or in the mythology of Zeus.
But this leads onto the question: why is there such a thing as the God concept, and how is it that it can hold so much sway? How is belief in such a blatantly transparent and corrupt falsehood maintained with such fervour? Put another way: how does God have so much staying power? There are several hypotheses to explain this, and none of them are mutually exclusive. All of them probably capture an important element of the truth about why God – the aforementioned collective of brain-states, infrastructure, customs, and regimentations - is a power to be reckoned with. They all take place within a historical material context, feeding off of it, reinforcing it, and being shaped by it. God cannot be separated from the social organism he clings to, and to understand one is to understand something about the other.
God as the personification of human anxiety
Human beings fear death, not just in the sense that an animal might, but in an ''existential'' sense: we can conceive of the fact that we will no longer be. We try to picture this abyss of nothingness where the human mind and all consciousness is annihilated. This self-negation is taken as the termination of our narrative in this world, with our pursuits, our problems and our happiness snuffed out. The point of existence, whatever it is, ceases to be; we no longer matter, because there is nothing left to do the mattering. When the human mind dwells on this nothingness, it recoils at the implication that our existence is not the raison d’etre of its context. Thus the mind recreates the universe in its own image, conferring to God the attributes that give human life its sustenance and purpose-driven story. The universe (but more obviously the world inhabited by people) is moulded into a gigantic orchestra playing to a tune bestowed from on high, a tune that is to be deciphered upon death, the domain of which is now converted from one of oblivion to salvation
Among all the motivating drivers for God, existential anxiety must surely rank prominently among them. As Erich Fromm said: ''Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action and decision-making which replace the principles of instincts. He has to have a frame of orientation which permits him to organize a consistent picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger which is specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind.'' Humanity thus had a powerful motivation to craft fictions about its place in the cosmos. The metaphysical scheme that was derived from this yearning was designed, whether consciously or not, to resolve this anxiety. This scheme we call religion. But while man created God in his own image, he has now become alienated even from that creation. Again with Fromm, humanity bestows upon God all of its finest attributes, and then begs God to give them back to it. God is humanity's schizophrenic offspring, embodying in itself attributes of schizophrenia, as well as encouraging within ourselves such attributes upon contact with the child.
Not only is humanity alienated from God, but God is also an alienating mechanism: he helps to maintain the political and economic hegemony of the ruling class, legitimates the subjugation of women, stifles inquiry, and sets in motion habits of subordination that alienate the masses of one nation-state from those in another. God both helps and is helped along by the class structure of society, which leads onto the next point:
God as a misdiagnosis of man’s material condition
Humans live in class societies. Classes are defined by their relation to the means of production; that is, the technologies and procedures by which human life can be reproduced. Classes are antagonistic because their interests do not fully converge but are often irreconcilable, with one class trying to co-opt the labour of another, and the other class trying to extract ever more concessions and freedoms (and, sometimes, total emancipation) from the former. Religion represents false consciousness: it posits that the human condition is determined by ''cosmic'' forces that contain within themselves the very embodiments of ''good'' and ''evil'' (concepts that are themselves only meaningful in relation to the material conditions of human beings in any given epoch, yet which are taken as ''eternal'' truths by believers in that epoch. These concepts actually evolve as the material basis for production and class antagonism changes). While humanity is set as a crucial part of this cosmic narrative, these forces are taken as being ''beyond'' humanity; that is, humanity is not taken to be their author. Such a top-down narrative is neither accidental nor inconsequential, for it finds its analogue in class structure. It is no accident that religions have almost always been on the side of the expropriating, privileged classes. They are used to legitimate the hegemony of the ruling class by invoking some version of the ''divine right of kings''. In feudal society, the gentry and the royal family (which was essentially the most powerful and well-connected gentry, able then to extend its dominions across lesser gentry and establish the first nation-states) sold, through the clergy, the idea that their lot in life and that of the peasantry represented the natural order of things (and this idea they also sold to themselves). To question these society arrangements was literally to question the word of God.
One still sees religion being cheerfully invoked by the leaders of nation-states, especially when the sheer moral corruption and banality of their policies necessitates that the crudest prejudices of the masses, namely blind faith and some version of xenophobia, be recruited. This faith, aside from helping to maintain the power and privilege of the rulers through its message of ''God and country'', also has less direct and more subtle consequences: it helps to maintain habits of subordination that states and other power structures find eminently useful. When people are prevented from thinking in a scientific way that would allow them to make conscious and concrete connections between various phenomena and processes (and therefore leaving them unable to grasp and formalise the political-economic content of the forces that shape their lives), they are also much more likely to go along with platitudes, slogans and propaganda spouted by the state's cultural managers. They are more likely to identify with a group that sees itself as inherently superior to other groups, and to support its policies no matter how destructive they are. One variation of this is called nationalism. It is the belief that to be American or French or Egyptian is somehow ''an honour''. Nationalism is really just another term for nation-state cohesion and backing for the prerogative of a local ruling class, masking itself in a mythical canon. Nationalism undermines not only broader humanity, but also perpetuates the ridiculous notion of a homogenous society in which ''the people'' of said nation have the same basic interests. In this scheme, class distinctions do not feature; there is no structural imperative for one group to control and subdue another. There is no inherent conflict between antagonistic classes, because the nation has become the focal reference point, whether you are a street sweeper or the chairman of Goldman-Sachs. Nationalism is a quasi-religious doctrine that shares features with theism-proper: it is largely faith based, it is divisive, it stultifies and regiments, and it can turn people into blood-thirsty beasts. The adrenal glands are easy to activate.
God as salvation in a horrible world
The world is, largely, a horrible place. Alongside the beauty, joy and splendour, there is an ocean of squalor, drudgery, boredom, alienation, fear, betrayal, desperation and slavish obedience to stupidity. This is not a law of nature; it is simply part of the historical context in which we live. There is a constant undercurrent of injustice that most human beings conceive of but feel powerless to stop. This injustice can feel overwhelming if it's focused upon for too long and may even threaten to toss many into the jaws of insanity. With injustice, there is naturally a desire to end it. The human being who conceives of injustice is the one who, at some level, realizes that there is a fundamental mismatch between human potential and human practice. The world is filled with ideologies and doctrines that distort, pollute, misguide and undermine the creative and nurturing impulses of humanity. However, in conjunction with the alienation inherent in class society, people are not able to scientifically and rationally identify those forces that are really behind it and the injustice that arises organically from it, because their own thinking has been to a very substantial degree shaped by those same social relations. Thus the loci of injustice will be invariably misplaced, imagined to reside in some ''outside'' domain. The emotional need for justice remains alongside the inability to target injustice's ever shifting forms; lacking a scientific account of this, a fiction is concocted that culminates in a divine justice dispenser (God); this fiction gives us at least the consolation that if justice is not done in this world, it will be done in the next. To suppose that the practitioners of injustice and despotism may never be brought to heel is too horrible and frustrating for many to bare. It is, in a sense, to admit one's one futility.
God as an explanation
For tens of thousands of years, humanity did not engage in any systematic inquiry into its own origins. It was far too preoccupied with the simple demands of survival. But in time, it did invent tales, sometimes featuring itself at the centre of concerns, to explain its existence. Humans think in terms of mind/body dualism: for good evolutionary reasons, we find it convenient to think of minds as qualitatively separate from bodies. Humans are also avid pattern seekers, again for good evolutionary reasons. These two characteristics – the folk psychology that we deploy with relation to one another, and the discernment of patterns – perhaps predisposes us to inventing fictions in which the world was designed by a Mind who organized the forests and animals and oceans. Many people continue to believe that God provides an explanation for nature and its workings. This is most graphically illustrated in literalist dogmatism. God, as traditionally conceived, might be extinguished in some ways in modern societies, but the slack is often taken up by New Age spiritualism and quantum mysticism, which regurgitates much the same comforting delusions: that the universe is fundamentally embodied with purpose and that we can ''connect'' with the universe. More importantly: that we are, in some sense, at the centre of its concerns. These new religions, which often lack an explicit God, are also outgrowths of alienation in class society, an alienation that has not abated with technology, science and democracy, but that has, in many ways, been intensified. Thus the conceit of religion - that we are important to the universe - is preserved, but is couched in the quasi-scientific language to make it palatable to modern audiences. These new religions, like the old, are expressions of a need for purpose, while dispensing with the more obtuse logic of a divine patriarch. It might even be supposed that this New Age mysticism is tailored more towards women, who have largely been liberated from the feudal obligations of traditional marriage, among many other strictures, but who still must contend with and navigate the alienation of capitalist society.
So how can religion ever be ended? It is often said, even among ardent atheists, that ''there will always be religion''. And this may be so. But the assumption inherent in this prediction is that religion is an inevitable expression of some aspect of static human nature. I see it differently: the proclivity to religion manifests itself as actual religious belief when the socio-economic context is conducive to it. The standard formulation - religion as an inevitable, eternal condition - ignores the historical materialist basis of religion. Religion may persist for a long time, but it will only be vanquished when the material forces of production are aligned with the full creative output of humanity - that is, when work has been emancipated and is no longer alienated work. This will require that people consciously understand both the technical and the social components of their work: how it relates to their society, how it benefits it and how it enriches it. And, incidentally, when classes have been abolished.
Why can religion not be abolished in class society? If people to have a rational, authentically scientific appraisal of the political-economic forces shaping their lives, they would not need to seek ''answers'' in religion; this would only by done by willfully ignoring the analysis they had achieved in the first place. To have come to such a level of consciousness, one would already have graduated beyond the false consciousness of religion, which appeals to tales conceived in ignorance. To make connections between material forces is to deny the waffle and obscurantism offered by religion. Bourgeois society is itself a bubble that prevents many from seeing this, because it constantly feeds and reinforces fictions that even its most clever and conscientious adherents are oblivious to. These fictions must produce reactions, as people try to fit irreconcilable conditions of life with one another.
