What did Marx mean by calling religion an opiate? Being a materialist, Marx, of course, holds to the view that religion is ultimately man made and not something supermaterial or supernatural in origin. “Man makes religion,” he says.

The "new" world order of capital The collapse and the destruction of the socialist states in Europe, especially the Soviet Union paved the way for capital to subjugate all areas of social and cultural life under its interests. Pre-existing crises have worsened and new trouble spots have emerged.

The topic of this discussion opens up the possibility of a creative and illuminating exchange of views about the consequences of the onslaught by forces of capitalism for working people across the world and independent countries.

Globalisation, as the present phase of world capitalist development is known as, is a development that can be understood mainly on the basis of the internal laws and the dynamics of the functioning of the capitalist economic system.

Britain has the third highest number of companies in the top 500 global companies by capital value after the US and Japan. In total 36. Their composition has much to tell about the nature of British capitalism.

The Project of Political Resolution being discussed in the party collective hits the bull's eye as it identifies the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist character of the anti-neoliberal struggle. The document is incisive as it proclaims that there is no viable and lasting ways out of the Brazilian crisis within the limits of capitalism.

One of the most difficult questions faced by contemporary dialectical materialism is the concept of progressive development in the world of nature. The applicability of the term "progressive" to particular stages in the evolutionary development in the biological world is till problematical.

For a movement to gain power and create a new society – and that’s what we are all about in the end – political imagination as well as historical memory are vital at every turn. For many progressives and left minded people, however, given our nation’s present political conjuncture, this may not seem like a propitious moment for dreaming and imagining.

This is the only book in English that covers the development of the history of philosophy and its intersection with Christianity during the entire course of the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from the fall of Rome and the Western Empire to its own fall in 1453 A.D....We should feel some solidarity with Plethon even 550 years on as, Tatakis says, he believed “happiness emanates from the organization of the state” and in his memoirs, he “emerges... as the forerunner and anticipator of many socialist and other modern concepts.”

The conventional view of the communist movement was that after the revolutionary forces won political power, the period of consolidation would be relatively brief and new forms of popular power would emerge to replace our hopelessly corrupted political institutions.

For a movement to gain power and create a new society – and that’s what we are all about in the end – political imagination as well as historical memory are vital at every turn.

Karen Armstrong’s Buddha, published as a Penguin paperback in 2004, is not only a bestseller but has been praised as "invaluable."

"There’s one rule for the rich... Anyone trying to redistribute wealth in a market economy may be up against a law of nature."

The big bang, widely accepted in a variety of forms by most physical scientists today, was first put forward in rudimentary form by a Belgian priest-astronomer, Georges LeMaître, in 1927.

With all the talk of Red State religious reaction and the Republican-Evangelical alliance, I thought it time to bone up on Theology.

In 1925, John Scopes, a high school biology teacher in Tennessee, was found guilty of violating Tennessee law against the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Even the strongest adherents and theorists of globalization can find themselves outsmarted by the extensiveness of this phenomenon and by the largely ineffective tools developed for studying it.

The tsunami disaster that hit the countries bordering the Indian Ocean caused widespread devastation, with more than 150,000 people dead, thousands injured, and still many thousands missing, most probably dead.

One of the late 20th Century’s most influential thinkers died last Friday (Oct. 8) in Paris. Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of "deconstruction" has influenced religion, psychotherapy, feminism, law, Marxism, literary criticism, architecture, art and cultural studies.

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Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chaibong have edited a book called Confucianism for the Modern World (Cambridge, 2003). In their introduction the editors discuss the contemporary relevance of the Confucian tradition (the purpose of the book). The question is – is Confucianism a dead tradition or is it meaningful for the contemporary world?

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