God and the State

God and the State ( fr. Original Title: Dieu et l' état ​​) of Mikhail Bakunin wrote in 1871, is one of the most famous books of Bakunin and the anarchist movement in general. Bakunin describes therein the consequences of religion on society and tried the non-existence of God to prove.

Creation and publication

Bakunin wrote the book God and the State in February and March of 1871, he planned the work as a second part of his L'empire knouto - germanique et la revolution sociale. ( German: The Knuto - Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution ), but God and the State was not published during his lifetime Bakunin. As Elisée Reclus and Carlo Cafiero found the manuscript in the estate of Bakunin, they decided it surrendered. They gave the book its name Dieu et l' état, because their search for the name provided by Bakunin was unsuccessful ( later found in the diaries of Bakunin the actual name: Sophismes historiques de l' école doctrinaire of communistes allemands, dt: The historical sophistry doctrinaire school of communism ). The book was published in 1882 in French and was distributed as a pamphlet in Geneva. Soon after, God and the State has been translated into many languages ​​, as opposed to law and anarchy (1873 ), which was only 50 years later, translated from the Russian.

Quotes

" The sky of religion is therefore nothing but a reflection of light, in which man, spanned by ignorance and faith, again sees his own image, but enlarged and reversed, ie deified. [ ... ] The world was nothing more that the Godhead everything, and man, their true Creator, which they pulled without his knowledge, out of nowhere, bent his knee before her, adored her, and declared himself as their creature and their slave. "

" The liberty of man consists solely in the fact that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized as such and not because they are to him from the outside by any foreign will, he is divine or human, collective or individual, imposed. "

" If God exists, man is a slave; man can and should however be free: Thus God does not exist. I challenge anyone to escape this circle, and now one may choose. [ ... ] If, therefore, God existed, there would be for him only one means to serve human freedom. Cease to exist "

"If I bow before the authority of specialists and am ready to follow their information and even their line to some extent and as long as it is deemed necessary to me, I do, because this authority is forced upon me by no one, not by the man and not of God. Otherwise, I would reject it with disgust and their advice, their management and their science to the devil hunt, knowing that they me the chunks of human truth that they could give me, wrapped in many lies, by the loss of my freedom and dignity could pay. "

" Privileges, every privileged position to kill have the peculiarity of the mind and heart of the people. "

" In a word, we have all privileged, patented, official and legal legislation, authority and influence back, even if they have emerged from universal suffrage, convinced that they are only for the benefit of a ruling and exploiting minority against the interests the immense majority enslaved to turn to. In this sense we are really anarchists. "

"Until now, the whole history of humanity was only a sustained and bloody sacrifices of millions of poor human beings for any relentless abstraction: gods, country, state power, national honor, historical rights, legal rights, political liberty, public welfare. [ ... ] The fact that the theologians, politicians and lawyers will find this very beautiful, is clear. As a priest of these abstractions they live only by this constant sacrifice of the masses. [ ... ] But that the positive science until now showed the same concern ourselves, we have to realize and complain. She could only do so for two reasons: first, because they, standing outside the national life, is represented by a privileged body, and then, because it has itself set up now as absolute and final goal of all human development, while thoughtful due criticism that is able to apply them and they will be compelled to apply ultimately against themselves, would have to understand that it is just a necessary means to achieve a much higher purpose: the complete humanization of the real location of all real individuals, who are born on earth to live and die. "

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