Raoul Vaneigem: Religion is the Enemy

By inaugurating close to two thousand years ago a system of exploitation of terrestrial and human nature, the agrarian revolution gave birth to a market economy of which the evolution and the forms are, despite their great diversity, marked by the persistance of several traits that are dominant everywhere: social inequality, exclusive appropriation, the cult of power and profit, work and separation that was introduced into the body between the impulses of life and the spirit, which tames them and represses them, just as it tames and represses the natural elements. The relation that, in the economy of gathering, anterior to the appearance of intensive agriculture, was established by osmosis between the human species and the mineral, vegetal and animal kingdoms has ceded place to its alienated form, to religion, which claims to subjugate the earth to a celestial empire, swarming with fantastic creatures called Gods, Goddesses, Spirits. The bonds interlaced by affection and comprehension, which emanate, have become the chains of a tutelary tyranny, cracking down from the foggy heights where the beyond of existence begins its vacuity. more...