Hoelscher prefaces his essay with a quote from Marx's Capital, which expresses the essence of the Marxian view:
The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only then finally vanish, when the practical relations of every-day life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature.For more, see my web page Karl Marx on Religion: Sources & Quotations.
Hoelscher convincingly demonstrates that the Atheist Plus "movement" and Richard Carrier specifically have not the slightest understanding of class inequality and include the issue of poverty at most as an afterthought. On the other hand, atheists who do emphasize the class issue, like Michael Parenti, are ignored. Hoelscher makes light of Greg Epstein, who "holds the odd and unfortunate title of “Humanist Chaplain” at Harvard University"and whose book Good Without God curiously omits the issue of poverty and class oppression.Yet religion and economics are inseparable, and a staggering percentage of the world's population is condemned to poverty.
Hoelscher also refutes the notion that the “secularization thesis” has been decisively refuted by the likes of Rodney Stark and Alister McGrath .
Hoelscher wants to account for this flagrant blindness. He attributes it to classism. But he doesn't limit his criticism to atheists lacking in class consciousness. He also indicts leftists who dismiss religion as being a problem at all, for example Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, the Marxist literary theorist and apologist for religion Terry Eagleton, and left-wing journalist Alexander Cockburn. The popular philosopher-mediocrity Alain de Botton also gets a comeuppance. Sam Harris gets the analytical thrashing he deserves. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's reactionary politics are also noted.
Richard Carrier gets taken apart a second time, this time for his praise of Obama, whose anti-working class presidency is treated at length.
Hoelscher reminds us via a speech by Barbara Ehrenreich, "that there is a vast and largely forgotten tradition of blue collar atheism in America, usually called freethought, in the nineteenth century . . . " There is no such talk about the working class today. Haven't I been saying this for years? Thank you.
