Religious Warriors With No God
Understanding why the self-described irreligious target the religious.
While leaving a bar with my wife, a gentleman sitting near us looked up and said, "Goodbye and God bless." Now if I assumed that this gentleman was Christian, nobody would bat an eye. Most people would accept that. His words reflect something specific about him and how he views the world.
How many other phrases do we use which say something deeper about our world views? What if I described someone as being "trapped in the wrong body." What would that mean about how I saw the world?
Body and Soul
Can a woman be trapped in a man's body? Can a man be trapped in a woman's body? Or, to be more inclusive, can a person be trapped in the wrong body?
This is a phrase we've mostly all heard and bandied about as if it's perfectly acceptable and something we all understand. But what does that even mean?
To be a person trapped in the wrong body, we first have to assume that person and body are two separate things. We have a person, and we have a body. It’s easy to understand what a body is. We all obviously have one which we can see and touch and do the same with other bodies. But what is this thing people are referring to as “a person” when using these phrases to describe the human condition?
What is a “person” and where does it come from? At what point in the life of a body does the “person” get placed into the body? During the life of the body, where exactly does the “person” reside in that body? When the body dies, where does this “person” thing go? If the “person” can be trapped, who exactly is doing the trapping or who made that mistake if it was trapped in the wrong body?
By now, anyone with any sense can see that to say a person is trapped in the wrong body assumes some metaphysical or at least pseudo-religious standpoint with respect to humanity. It's a statement that is fundamentally religious.
At the very least, it's not scientific. It's assuming that we have what could be characterized as souls and that these souls, in this case, can have a gender. Each soul would have to come preloaded with a gender in order to be trapped in a body that doesn't match their soul's (person's) gender. And that's not to say gender dysphoria doesn't exist. It absolutely does and has for as long as we have history. But that's not the same thing as what the phrase to be "trapped in the wrong body" assumes. The DSM never used that kind of language when describing gender dysphoria. The DSM never used religious language.
Unwittingly Religious
What I see is a religious substructure being adopted by people who are emphatically saying they are not only irreligious, but often anti-religious.
And yet many of the people who use that phrase or at least accept it, think of themselves as rational, secular, or atheistic. But that's ok, because we all do that. Humans see the world not just as a group of facts. We gather facts and fit them into the narrative we have that exists prior to the gathering of those facts. And at the bottom of those narratives are assumptions about the world we rarely wrestle with and often don't even know we have them. Especially those who claim to not be religious.
And this is why people, especially leftists, often act with religious furor even while saying they are not religious. Their assumptions about the world we live in are religious.
But who are these "leftists"? What is meant by the term?
Leftists are as Leftists Do
By "leftist" I am referring to anyone who sees society as purely socially constructed in a way that restricts people from expressing their authentic selves, and that the proper ethical stance towards that socially constructed reality is in opposition to it.
This is different from what we commonly refer to as "liberals". Traditionally liberals were simply those with an American worldview who had a less rigid disposition around change as compared to their conservative counterparts. Liberals tend to be more open to adjusting the rules in order to expand liberty to more people. Although there has been much more overlap between liberals and leftists as progressives become a powerful force within liberal and American Democratic groups.
Now people who call themselves "progressive" or who sympathize with recent critical theory movements like Critical Race Theory (CRT) or what is being called "transgenderism" often baulk at the comparison to being a leftist and/or a Marxist. But a quick look at what they say and do reveals that the assumptions they make about the world and how to take action in it all come from the same place: Marxism. (Not to mention that any first hand account of Soviet gulags or Chinese re-education camps reveals that the communists themselves constantly referred to their ideologies as "progressive".)
And by acting out Marxist ideas, does that not make you Marxist? By saying things and using phrases that assume Marxist presuppositions, does that not also tie you into a belief system whether or not you understand or admit it?
If a person acts in the world by adopting Christian principles, does that not make them a Christian? And by doing so, do they not implicitly adopt the foundations of Christianity including all of those from Genesis on?
And wouldn't that be the same for any consistent line of thought or any other theology? I can't accept principles of geometry without accepting principles of arithmetic. If you abandon the idea that 2 + 2 = 4 then all mathematics beyond that crumbles. The proofs no longer work.
The same goes for critical theories and their resultant ideologies. They evolved from Marxism theology and hold onto the fundamental framework and principles of Marxism.
Theology? Yes, Marxism is much more like a theology than a study of economics.
Marxism as a Theology
It's important to remember why Marx was studying economics. It wasn't to understand and then explain economics. His ultimate purpose was to understand economics in order to understand how man in his current state was formed into what he was.
Marx saw the differences in class amongst people and attributed the difference to the economic situations they were in, rejecting any innate nature and diversity of that nature. Marx sought to explain economics in order to explain the nature of man. So when he talks about "seizing the means of production", it's not simply how material items are produced. He is talking about seizing the means of how people are produced. In his mind, to control the economy is to control mankind.
Marx saw the bourgeois (capitalists) as people who controlled the means of producing mankind. The bourgeois used their power to trap or imprison people into a consciousness that accepted the power structure. Seizing the means of production from the bourgeois meant seizing the power to produce the nature and consciousness of man. The social construction of man was the special power of the bourgeois.
The shift from Marx's focus on economics to a focus on cultural power came after the failure of the Russian Revolution, which for Marxists, needed explaining.
Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, after being imprisoned by Mussolini's fascists, wrote extensively on the cultural power that would be needed in order to transform societies into socialists and then communist societies.
This is the framework for all modern leftist ideas, actions, and phrases. The social construction of man produces the nature of man and to improve man, one must take control of the means of producing man from those who have trapped him in his current state. They must take control of the economic, and now cultural forces that produce man as he exists today.
This is a fundamental shift away from Christianity or any religious concept of humanity. For any Marxist or leftist, it's not God that creates mankind and his nature, it is man who produces man.
Man is not made in the image of God, but made in his own image.
This is why leftists insist on the concept of social construction, but more so in a way that separates it from any underlying biological reality.
The Social Construction
Usually social constructs are the "meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event.” But even though they are shaped and varied by different human cultures, they still reflect the social manifestation of an underlying reality.
Money is a social construct, as of course the little pieces of paper aren't specifically valuable in and of themselves, but they represent a reality. Money is tied to the reality of what it takes to earn it. It represents the value we place on labor, innovation, etc.
The same goes for gender.
There is an aspect of social construction to gender as we see with varying cultures, but gender represents the reality of sexual reproduction and the social effects of that permanent human structure. It's not an arbitrary creation of anyone with power. People with power at times look to enforce those structures for nefarious reasons, but the structures themselves are not arbitrary. And this fundamental concept that our societies' social constructs are arbitrarily created for power by those with power is at the base of the actions and phrases used by leftist adherents to these leftist ideologies.
For example, to state "trans women are women" requires gender and/or sex to be a social construct not tied to any underlying reality. The concept requires a biological man to be equal in womanhood to a biological woman, which requires us to assume that the category "woman" is a social construct not tied to any underlying reality. Otherwise, if there is a tie to biology that determines womanhood, then trans women are trans women, not women. Their biology would set guidelines and limits around their identity.
The same dependency on a social construction of humanity that uses power to trap people is required for all of the leftist critical theory ideologies.
Modern feminism sees patriarchy as the power that produces culture and society. They see the masculine and feminine dyad as a social construction not tied to any underlying biological differences. Challenging the patriarchy is a way to seize the means of cultural production and change people in the society they are trapped in.
Queer theory sees heteronormativity as the power that produces culture and society. Adherents see the normalization of male/female monogamous relationships as a social construction not tied to any underlying biological reality. Challenging or "queering" heteronormativity is a way to seize the means of cultural production and change the people in the society they are trapped in.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) sees whiteness or white supremacy as the power that produces culture and society. Race is the social construction created for power. Challenging whiteness as a cultural power is a means to seize the means of cultural production and change the people in the society they are trapped in.
Marxism sees capitalism as the power that produces culture and society. Seizing the means of production - capital - is a means to seize what produces society and produces man.
All of these ideas are the same fundamental framework with their eyes on different means of socially constructed power unrelated to any underlying reality. They all see human existence as the consequence of one power dynamic or the other, or as an intersection (Intersectionality) of all of these power dynamics. The correct posture to approach these power dynamics is in opposition to them. Their duty of conscience is to stand in opposition to the arbitrary power dynamics by challenging them. This is their “praxis.”
"[R]eligion can be defined as a comprehensive belief system that addresses the fundamental questions of human existence, such as the meaning of life and death, man’s role in the universe, and the nature of good and evil, and that gives rise to duties of conscience. –Ben Clements, Cornell Law Review, 1989"
All of these leftist ideologies share the same underlying foundations in how they see mankind and how the nature of man is produced. They all assume that man produces his own nature through the structuring of society and uses that power to trap others into that society for their own benefit. This is their fundamental axiom underneath all of their ideas, phrases, and actions. It's all about the social construction of society and the sense of being trapped in a false sense of reality. It’s a religious view of humanity and provides a duty of conscience with respect to what should be done about societies structure.
That might feel uncomfortable to people who have adopted some of the modern political stances and postures but claim to be irreligious. But I don't see how a person can adopt an idea without adopting its assumptions.
If you say that a person can be trapped inside a body, you assume that a person and body are different things that exist independently and can be trapped.
If you say that "white supremacy" needs to be abolished you assume that it is a force that generates the nature of society and the people in it.
If you say "down with the patriarchy" you assume that this patriarchy produces the nature of society and the people in it.
If you support bailing out rioters who destroy private property because you have no respect for private property, you accept Marxist fundamentals about the corrupting nature of private property.
That's just as fair as assuming the guy at the bar who tells you to have a blessed evening is likely Christian.
Leftism looks less like a religion because they say they have no God. But they have simply put man in the place of God as what constructs society and man’s nature. This is how they justify the seizing of cultural and economic power. They see it as a necessary tactic to produce a better society and better people.
Leftist fundamentals assume that the nature of man is created by man and can be changed by man. Judaeo-Christian fundamental ideas view the nature of man as fixed in the image of God, not man. These two concepts of the nature of man are in direct opposition.
And this is why leftists are so antithetical to religions, because religions, especially Christianity, challenge their fundamental axioms. They're competing for religious space.
It's a religious war.