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Primeiros Passos #31
O que é Religião
What is the meaning of religion in a world come of age, in a world in which some claim that God is dead? In this profound and lyric essay a Brazilian theologian addresses this question. His carefully wrought work will be valuable for classroom use in introductory courses on religion and in study groups; it will be welcomed by theology students and all thoughtful and probing Christians.
"As Alves's earlier work, Tomorrow's Child, What is Religion? is an enchantingly written almost poetic masterpiece which is accessible to a wide readership. His critique of technical mentality and nationalism is a helpful corrective to our scientifically oriented West; this critique is likewise a little recognized but important part of the dialogue going on in liberation theology. This is not liberation theology, make no mistake. But it deserves to be heard for the contribution it can make when joined with the more political economic critique of that movement."
- T. Richard Snyder, Dean of Doctoral Programs, New York Theological Seminary
"As Alves's earlier work, Tomorrow's Child, What is Religion? is an enchantingly written almost poetic masterpiece which is accessible to a wide readership. His critique of technical mentality and nationalism is a helpful corrective to our scientifically oriented West; this critique is likewise a little recognized but important part of the dialogue going on in liberation theology. This is not liberation theology, make no mistake. But it deserves to be heard for the contribution it can make when joined with the more political economic critique of that movement."
- T. Richard Snyder, Dean of Doctoral Programs, New York Theological Seminary
- GenresReligion
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
1 person is currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Rubem Alves
179 books156 followersRubem Alves é um psicanalista, educador, teólogo e escritor brasileiro, é autor de livros e artigos abordando temas religiosos, educacionais e existenciais, além de uma série de livros infantis.
Durante sua infância, enfrentou os problemas comuns ocasionados pelas freqüentes mudanças de estados e de escolas. Tais mudanças influenciaram sua atitude de introspecção que o levou à companhia dos livros e ao apoio da religião, base de sua educação.
Presbiteriano, tornou-se pastor. Teve três filhos, e entrou numa crise de fé decorrente de um problema de saúde na família, tendo assim de abandonar o pastorado. Apóstata do cristianismo, tornou-se crítico da religião organizada. É considerado persona non grata na Igreja Presbiteriana, pelas suas posições liberais e anticlericais. De volta ao mundo secular, tornou-se escritor e acadêmico.
Durante sua infância, enfrentou os problemas comuns ocasionados pelas freqüentes mudanças de estados e de escolas. Tais mudanças influenciaram sua atitude de introspecção que o levou à companhia dos livros e ao apoio da religião, base de sua educação.
Presbiteriano, tornou-se pastor. Teve três filhos, e entrou numa crise de fé decorrente de um problema de saúde na família, tendo assim de abandonar o pastorado. Apóstata do cristianismo, tornou-se crítico da religião organizada. É considerado persona non grata na Igreja Presbiteriana, pelas suas posições liberais e anticlericais. De volta ao mundo secular, tornou-se escritor e acadêmico.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 6, 2023
Read this at the suggestion of a friend who studied theology in Brazil and who I invited to host one SCM reading group meeting. He suggested a reading from this book. Since I borrowed the book from my school library to copy the chapter to circulate, I figured I’d read the whole book, since it was very short. I ended bringing it to Mexico with me in December and read most of it on the flight back.
I find Brazilian liberation theology really interesting, namely because it is still a fairly strong political force. MST, one of the largest openly Marxist movements in Latin America, regularly hosts events where Brazilian liberation theologians like Leonardo Boff speak and MST actively engages Brazilian faith communities in radical action. Father Dario Bossi, a Brazilian cleric who spoke at a mining justice panel I helped co-organize for SCM, identified the work of MST in engaging faith communities in protest of a Vale mining project in Brazil. All this to say that I take Brazilian liberation theology very seriously, and hope to read more in the future.
Alves was of particular interest to my friend because he was uncommonly a Protestant, whereas many of the big names in Brazilian liberation theology are Catholics. I first came across Alves as an undergrad student who was fairly into postmodern and process theologians that were fairly influenced by Alves work on theopoetics. But never did get around to reading Alves himself.
I disagreed with some of Alves' philosophical approaches, largely when it came to things like nature-culture binaries or certain strains of techno-pessimism. But overall, this was a fairly enjoyable read. Some excerpts:
“Marx was convinced that religion bore no guilt at all. And he was convinced that nothing was more impossible than the elimination of ideas, over false ones, from peoples’ heads. And I imagine clerics and religious people may rub hands in glee. “Finally we have discovered a Marx on our side.” Nothing could be further from the truth, Religion was not guilty for the simple reason that it made no difference at all… How could religion be accused of responsibility if it were nothing more than a shadow, an echo, an inverted image projected upon a wall? It was not the cause of any. thing. A symptom, perhaps. And because of this, the philosophers who had presented themselves as dangerous revolutionaries were nothing more than replicas of Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.”
“It was not consciousness that determined life, Marx held. It was life that determined consciousness. And he asserted: The phantoms formed in the brains of men are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises" (Marx and Engels a: 42). For:
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men--the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men at this stage still appear as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. [ibid.] "Man makes religion," said Marx, "religion does not make man" (Marx and Engels b: 41). It is fire that makes smoke; smoke does not make fire.
“What is alienation? To alienate property means to transfer to another person the possession of something that belongs to us. I have a house: I can give it away or sell it to someone else. By this process it is alienated. An alienation, therefore, is not something that happens in peoples' heads. It has to do with an objective, external process of the transfer from one person to another of something that has belonged to the first party.
Why is work marked by alienation? Let us return for an instant to work which is not alienated-work that is creative, free, as Marx imagined. Its essential mark is this. The person desires something. This desire stimulates the imagination, which visualizes what is desired, whether a garden, a symphony, or a simple toy. Imagination and desire inform the body, which gives itself wholly to work, out of love for the object to be created. And when the work is over, the creator contemplates his or her work, sees that it is very good, and rests. What happens to those who work within our present conditions? In the first place, they have to alienate their desire. Another's desire has now become their desire. They work for someone else. In the second place, the object to be produced is not the result of their decision… In the third place, and as a consequence of what has already been said, work is not an activity that brings pleasure, but an activity that brings suffering… Finally, work creates a world independent of the will of workers . . . and capitalists. For the capitalists are also alienated. They cannot do what they wish. All of their conduct is rigorously determined by the law of profit.”
“They possess only their bodies. In order to produce they must couple themselves to machines, the means of production. The machines and the means of production are not theirs and are governed by the profit motive. And so it is that the very concept of alienation reveals to us a society divided into two groups. Two social classes. Two completely different ways for the body to be. Workers are coupled to machines, and because of this have to follow the machines' rhythm and do what they demand. This will leave marks on the hands, the posture, the face, the eyes . . . especially the eyes.”
“‘Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion,
its universal ground for consolation and justification.’ [Marx and Engels b: 41]
Indeed, when the oppressed poor, from the depths of suffering, stammer, "It's God's will," all logical reasons and arguments are over, injustices are transformed into mysteries of unsearchable designs, and their own misery into a trial which is to be supported with patience, in the hope of eternal salvation for their souls. And the powerful use the same sacred words and invoke the divine power as an accomplice in war and plundering.”
“People cannot be persuaded to abandon their religious ideas. If people hold such ideas it is because their situation demands it. It is necessary, then, that their situation be changed, the wounds healed, in order that the illusions disappear.”
“…then, to the analysis which Marxism makes of religion as the opium of the people should be added another chapter about religion as the weapon of the oppressed, inasmuch as Marxism rightfully would have to be included as one of the weapons. It appears that the Marxist criticism of religion does not do away with it, but merely begins a new chapter. For, as Albert Camus correctly observes, Marx was the only one who understood that a religion that does not invoke transcendence should be called political.”
“And thus religion is preserved as dream. The only problem is that, at the moment in which the dream is interpreted and understood, God disappears: heaven becomes earth, what was up there re-appears out there ahead, as the future. And the images that religion took to be portraits of the most beautiful and most perfect being are instead seen as constituting a horizon of hope on which people spread their desires, the utopia of a society in which the present is magically and miraculously metamorphosed by the person who breaks the chains to pluck the flower, not because of pressures from the outside, but in response to the dreams that come from inside.”
“Thus the religious experience depends upon a future. It nourishes itself on utopian horizons that the eyes cannot see and that can be contemplated only by the magic of imagination. God and the meaning of life are absences, realities for which we yearn, gifts of hope. Indeed perhaps this is the great mark of religion: hope. And perhaps we can affirm with Ernst Bloch: "Where hope is there also is religion.””
I find Brazilian liberation theology really interesting, namely because it is still a fairly strong political force. MST, one of the largest openly Marxist movements in Latin America, regularly hosts events where Brazilian liberation theologians like Leonardo Boff speak and MST actively engages Brazilian faith communities in radical action. Father Dario Bossi, a Brazilian cleric who spoke at a mining justice panel I helped co-organize for SCM, identified the work of MST in engaging faith communities in protest of a Vale mining project in Brazil. All this to say that I take Brazilian liberation theology very seriously, and hope to read more in the future.
Alves was of particular interest to my friend because he was uncommonly a Protestant, whereas many of the big names in Brazilian liberation theology are Catholics. I first came across Alves as an undergrad student who was fairly into postmodern and process theologians that were fairly influenced by Alves work on theopoetics. But never did get around to reading Alves himself.
I disagreed with some of Alves' philosophical approaches, largely when it came to things like nature-culture binaries or certain strains of techno-pessimism. But overall, this was a fairly enjoyable read. Some excerpts:
“Marx was convinced that religion bore no guilt at all. And he was convinced that nothing was more impossible than the elimination of ideas, over false ones, from peoples’ heads. And I imagine clerics and religious people may rub hands in glee. “Finally we have discovered a Marx on our side.” Nothing could be further from the truth, Religion was not guilty for the simple reason that it made no difference at all… How could religion be accused of responsibility if it were nothing more than a shadow, an echo, an inverted image projected upon a wall? It was not the cause of any. thing. A symptom, perhaps. And because of this, the philosophers who had presented themselves as dangerous revolutionaries were nothing more than replicas of Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.”
“It was not consciousness that determined life, Marx held. It was life that determined consciousness. And he asserted: The phantoms formed in the brains of men are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises" (Marx and Engels a: 42). For:
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men--the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men at this stage still appear as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. [ibid.] "Man makes religion," said Marx, "religion does not make man" (Marx and Engels b: 41). It is fire that makes smoke; smoke does not make fire.
“What is alienation? To alienate property means to transfer to another person the possession of something that belongs to us. I have a house: I can give it away or sell it to someone else. By this process it is alienated. An alienation, therefore, is not something that happens in peoples' heads. It has to do with an objective, external process of the transfer from one person to another of something that has belonged to the first party.
Why is work marked by alienation? Let us return for an instant to work which is not alienated-work that is creative, free, as Marx imagined. Its essential mark is this. The person desires something. This desire stimulates the imagination, which visualizes what is desired, whether a garden, a symphony, or a simple toy. Imagination and desire inform the body, which gives itself wholly to work, out of love for the object to be created. And when the work is over, the creator contemplates his or her work, sees that it is very good, and rests. What happens to those who work within our present conditions? In the first place, they have to alienate their desire. Another's desire has now become their desire. They work for someone else. In the second place, the object to be produced is not the result of their decision… In the third place, and as a consequence of what has already been said, work is not an activity that brings pleasure, but an activity that brings suffering… Finally, work creates a world independent of the will of workers . . . and capitalists. For the capitalists are also alienated. They cannot do what they wish. All of their conduct is rigorously determined by the law of profit.”
“They possess only their bodies. In order to produce they must couple themselves to machines, the means of production. The machines and the means of production are not theirs and are governed by the profit motive. And so it is that the very concept of alienation reveals to us a society divided into two groups. Two social classes. Two completely different ways for the body to be. Workers are coupled to machines, and because of this have to follow the machines' rhythm and do what they demand. This will leave marks on the hands, the posture, the face, the eyes . . . especially the eyes.”
“‘Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion,
its universal ground for consolation and justification.’ [Marx and Engels b: 41]
Indeed, when the oppressed poor, from the depths of suffering, stammer, "It's God's will," all logical reasons and arguments are over, injustices are transformed into mysteries of unsearchable designs, and their own misery into a trial which is to be supported with patience, in the hope of eternal salvation for their souls. And the powerful use the same sacred words and invoke the divine power as an accomplice in war and plundering.”
“People cannot be persuaded to abandon their religious ideas. If people hold such ideas it is because their situation demands it. It is necessary, then, that their situation be changed, the wounds healed, in order that the illusions disappear.”
“…then, to the analysis which Marxism makes of religion as the opium of the people should be added another chapter about religion as the weapon of the oppressed, inasmuch as Marxism rightfully would have to be included as one of the weapons. It appears that the Marxist criticism of religion does not do away with it, but merely begins a new chapter. For, as Albert Camus correctly observes, Marx was the only one who understood that a religion that does not invoke transcendence should be called political.”
“And thus religion is preserved as dream. The only problem is that, at the moment in which the dream is interpreted and understood, God disappears: heaven becomes earth, what was up there re-appears out there ahead, as the future. And the images that religion took to be portraits of the most beautiful and most perfect being are instead seen as constituting a horizon of hope on which people spread their desires, the utopia of a society in which the present is magically and miraculously metamorphosed by the person who breaks the chains to pluck the flower, not because of pressures from the outside, but in response to the dreams that come from inside.”
“Thus the religious experience depends upon a future. It nourishes itself on utopian horizons that the eyes cannot see and that can be contemplated only by the magic of imagination. God and the meaning of life are absences, realities for which we yearn, gifts of hope. Indeed perhaps this is the great mark of religion: hope. And perhaps we can affirm with Ernst Bloch: "Where hope is there also is religion.””
April 19, 2020
"Há certas situações que as palavras deixam de significar, abandonam o mundo da verdade e falsidade e passam a existir do lado das coisas. Quem confunde coisas que significam com coisas que nada significam comete graves equívocos." Um livro muito bonito, explicações históricas e filosóficas sobre a religião. A importante relação entre religião, opressor e oprimido. O sentido da vida.
May 11, 2022
Só quero ler meus livros hot mas a unicap quer me converter 😭😭😭
March 5, 2022
Mais um livro da academia, para mais um trabalho que acabei, e mais uma obra que eu me encontro impressionada. Acho que eu não esperava a densidade de contexto histórico e psicanalista e político relacionado tão finamente com o mais conceitual, e simultaneamente com aquilo que não se fala, da religião. (Nem uma vez o Rubem fala de religare ha!) O final se conclui de uma forma tão tremenda que nem é necessário falar do tal religare batido: a leitura nos faz buscar essa conexão, ou melhor reconexão. Muito bonito, queria mais livros tão interessantes e montanha-russa como esse. Minhas definições de esperanças foram atualizadas
January 29, 2022
Religião e Ciência
O contraste entre a ideia de religião e de ciência é um dos recursos de que se vale Rubem Alves para responder à pergunta que dá título ao livro. A partir do local para o qual a ciência empurrou a religião, discute seu significado e a (im)pertinência de situá-la no plano da subjetividade. Para Rubem Alves a ideia de religião liga-se à busca pela felicidade, à utopia e à esperança. Em sua descrição destacam-se a empatia e a alteridade, dois motores do pensamento do Autor.
O contraste entre a ideia de religião e de ciência é um dos recursos de que se vale Rubem Alves para responder à pergunta que dá título ao livro. A partir do local para o qual a ciência empurrou a religião, discute seu significado e a (im)pertinência de situá-la no plano da subjetividade. Para Rubem Alves a ideia de religião liga-se à busca pela felicidade, à utopia e à esperança. Em sua descrição destacam-se a empatia e a alteridade, dois motores do pensamento do Autor.
May 1, 2017
Pequeno, mas espetacular.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews