Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed.
by Bob Avakian
July 24, 2023
Recently, a report on carrying out revolutionary work in Harlem referred to the fact that some people there were coming out with a lot of “Anti-LGBTQ bullshit”—like “god gave men a penis and women a vagina, so that’s how it should be.”
It is heartbreaking, and infuriating, to hear this “Anti-LGBTQ bullshit” from people, like those in Harlem quoted above, who have been so terribly oppressed under this system and should be uniting with others who have also been discriminated against, brutalized and terrorized, and whose very right to exist is being viciously attacked.
This emphasizes the fact that, while upholding people’s right to religion—and uniting with religious people who take positive stands in the fight against oppression—it is crucially important to consistently and resolutely struggle for a scientific, not a religious, method and approach to reality, and wage a fierce, relentless fight against anti-scientific poison spread among the masses of people in the name of religion.
To speak directly to this garbage that “god gave men a penis and women a vagina, so that’s how it should be,” it has to be said that, if some “god” had designed the human body, then that god would be a terrible designer. To give a sharp example: Why is the human body constructed in such a way that people can choke while eating food? If a “god” actually existed, that god could have “designed” the human body so that choking could not happen; and if a god had “designed” the human body the way it is, with this possibility of choking, that god would be a sick and twisted sadist.
The fact is this: Human beings are not the product of “design,” or “creation,” by some god—they are the result of natural evolution. The book by Ardea Skybreak The Science Of Evolution And The Myth Of Creationism—Knowing What’s Real And Why It Matters provides a substantial and lively explanation of the theory of evolution and refutation of the anti-scientific claims of Biblical “creationism.” Everyone who wants to get a real understanding of crucial things about reality, and the scientific method for understanding reality, would greatly benefit from reading this book.1
Human society and its development is also not the result of some “design”—or the expression of the “will”—of some god. It is the result of human beings’ interaction with each other, and with the rest of nature, to meet their basic requirements of life and provide for future generations. Change in human society comes about through the actions of human beings—and major changes, in the whole way society is organized, come about through revolutions which overthrow the old order, and bring into being a new way of organizing society. (In a number of works, including Breakthroughs, I have explained, in basic terms, the dynamics that are involved in the development and revolutionary transformation of human society.2) And here it has to be said that the “terrible designs” of the supposed god of Christianity are not limited to the human body: they involve a whole long list of very real horrors that this “god” of the Christian scriptures advocates and insists upon. As I point out in the book AWAY WITH ALL GODS! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, the Bible, in both the old and new testaments—and the “Judeo-Christian” tradition overall—advocates and insists upon all kinds of horrors, including slavery, and violent oppression of women and gay people. (The advocacy of cruel and violent oppression is also found in the Qur’an of Islam.3)
A Scientific, Revolutionary Approach
Throughout human history, with the many different ways that society has been organized, there have been different expressions of human sexuality, both heterosexual (involving people of the opposite sex) and same sex. The question, with regard to all this, is what is the character of the relations involved: are they an expression of equality and genuine affection, involving mutual pleasure on that basis, or do they involve inequality, domination and oppression, reflecting and contributing to degrading relations in society overall?
Worshiping some supposed (but actually non-existent) god, and following the scriptures of one religion or another, will never lead to ending all the madness people are put through in this world. To do that requires taking up a scientific method and approach—the scientific method and approach of communism, as this has been further developed with the new communism that has resulted from years and decades of work I have carried out, learning from the previous experience of communist revolution, and human experience more broadly. This brings to light that the development of human society has arrived at a place where, through communist revolution, it is possible to bring into being new, emancipating relations among human beings, all over the world—a new way of organizing society that will make it possible to meet the essential requirements of a decent life for human beings, on a continually expanding basis, without any discrimination, inequality, oppression or exploitation, including in the intimate relations among human beings.
To everyone who hates the way people are treated under this system of capitalism-imperialism… everyone who really wants to see an end to the madness that people here and all over the world are subjected to, and the growing threat to the very existence of humanity, through the destruction of the environment and the danger of nuclear war between the U.S. imperialists and their imperialist rivals in Russia and China… everyone who wants to be part of bringing into being a way of living, and a future, worthy of human beings—YOU need to become part of, and to work actively to help build, the organized forces for this urgently needed revolution.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. The Science Of Evolution And The Myth Of Creationism—Knowing What’s Real And Why It Matters is available through Insight Press, Chicago, Illinois. [back]
2. Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary is available at thebobavakianinstitute.org and at revcom.us. [back]
3. A summary of the horrific oppression advocated and insisted upon in new and old testaments of the Bible is found in the section “The Bible, Taken Literally, Is a Horror,” in “Part One: Where Did God Come From… And Who Says We Need God?” in AWAY WITH ALL GODS! Unchaining The Mind And Radically Changing The World (published by Insight Press, Chicago, 2008). And Part Two of this book, “Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—Rooted In The Past, Standing In the Way of the Future,” as well as Part Three, “Religion—a Heavy, Heavy Chain” show how horrific oppression is upheld and advocated not only in the scriptures of the “Judeo-Christian” tradition but also in the Qur’an of Islam. [back]