Week 5 - Wed

I thought the quote by Fidel Castro was relevant to the class discussion on Marxism but a little hard to understand. One of our classmates raised a good question about the nature of Marx's exposure to Christianity, Church and/or the Sermon on the Mount. Its interesting that Marx was raised as Catholic for a few years and then Lutheran later. Certainly Marx was familar with some Christian liturgy. However Marx was adamently against religion as a fundamental piece of society's fabric. He saw religious faith as an excuse to not work for justice in the here and now. I cannot picture Marx employing the Sermon on the Mount to support any of his ideology. The Sermon on the Mount has its under pinnings in the supernatural and meta-physical nature of God's kingdom. While the Sermon is meant for real world application, eschatological elements cannot be distilled away from it. The Sermon taught that how we live here and now has an effect in the spirit realm and defines our place in the world to come. Something tells me Marx would never have subscribed to this.