I was wondering, since religions are fundamentally social structures built to set hierarchies and justify inequality, and all religious dogma and theology has failed to disprove the null hypothesis of atheism, does it hamper a comrade's integrity if she is conflicted in shedding off her circumstantial religion?
What do you guys think?
If you were raised under religious conditions then feeling conflicted should be expected.
Dialectical materialism, the philosophy underpinning the Marxist understanding of the world, expressly denies 'metaphysics', the idea that the world is affected by powers 'beyond' observable physical reality. Dialectical materialism is the idea that all systems in the world, including human society, develop based on their own internal contradictions - this description breaks down if at any moment god (or angels, demons, spirits, magic, the zodiac, qi) can step in and change the world 'a-causally'. And, as the history of Marxist thought and action shows, using this methodology can give profound insight into the state of the world as it is, as well as the ability to predict how it will develop. There's a reason "tankies are burdened with always being right" is a meme.
However, in practice, how much do you need to take this to heart as an active communist? Ask yourself, are you in an organization? Are you personally having to plan and strategize? Would your religiosity affect the way you plan and strategize, such as by "leaving something up to god?" If not, then whether or not you try to rid yourself of your faith is up to you. I personally do not believe in any religion, and more than just the 'negative' belief of liberal athiesm I have the positive certainty of a well-tested philosophical worldview.
But, while I believe that ultimately religion will completely disappear in a fully-developed communist society, as the material causes of religion are both entirely revealed to and eliminated by the conscious action of the workers - AND I believe that the power of organized religion must be challenged and disrupted by any successful communist movement - I also recognize religion as a real material force and a response to material conditions that have to be abolished first, before religion can disappear. And as the most recent season of Blowback shows, in Afghanistan the communist party tried to go too fast in their campaign against religion and alienated a large section of their people, ultimately leading to their destruction. If they had gone more slowly, and matched the pace of secularization with the development of the productive forces and the understanding of the workers, they may have succeeded.
So, in terms of your personal life, you have lived in the material conditions of a religious community that inculcated religion in you. Some people from such backgrounds have a sudden moment of rejection, some do not - if you feel a struggle inside yourself, then you can only proceed at your own pace. But fundamentally, as long as your actions are guided by a materialist understanding of the world - in pursuit of the emancipation of the working class - then what's going on in your head doesn't make you any less of a genuine communist.
I don't necessarily disagree with your first paragraph, but isn't it more that materialism denies unevidenced or particular interpretations of 'metaphysical' forces? Like the kind of acedemic theological ridiculousness of contemporary theories like the hidden hand deity, or the dualistic clock mechanism analogy of the physical world?
I mean by this, that its more anti-obscurantist, and pro-investigation. By which I mean, that those theologies/philosophies were presenting god-of-the-gaps type approaches. If you take deific (or demonic or whatever) influence/action to simply mean 'force' or 'causality', which I think is accurate, the issue isn't so much with label given to the force/action, but rather its explanatory power, and whether it is possible or not to know more, investigate further.
To explain what I mean, in the modern day we take the same approach, at least in terms of things we don't fully understand or want someone to learn as an axiom, like 'Brownian Motion' - what else is Brown in this except a minor 'wind deity' or 'wind spirit', just as to some of our anscestors Thor was a thunder and lightning deity (as in, a teaching label to help grasp a phenomena, its associated phenomena, and how to approach it)? And spooky action at a distance, or god of the gaps, hasn't gone anywhere either (at least until further investigation occurs), in for example the recent 'quantum physics' movement, and elsewhere. Our modern academies all subscribe, at least in public, to a 'let there be light' creation myth in the 'big bang' theory.
In this sense, materialist analysis isn't I don't think 'unreligious' (you can find a similar approach laid out in Sanskrit 'religious' texts for example), or even non-metaphysical, but rather contrary to obscurantist dogma. The problem isn't necessarily calling greed after a particular demonic entity, but rather how useful that label (and associated teachings) is in understanding what greed is as a phenomena. Spirits, qi, magic, and so on are just helpful (ideally but not always) labels for the often confusing, poorly understood phenomena that make up the world and particularly our place in it.
Like if a Christian were to say 'there is one God, and He has a plan according to which history occurs', is it especially different in meaning to saying 'there is a universe, and it operates deterministically, like a machine'? Of course maybe the former is not so good because it can lead to interpretations that are difficult to reconcile with observed reality, but it can also lead to an interpretation that is the same as the latter - the gaps and forces involved are either labeled 'God' or 'undiscovered/unknown processes'. Of course, one gives faith (something that is as important as knowledge) and humanises (makes relatable, more comprehensible by association) the processes, while the other doesn't, which I think can lead to nihilistic interpretations. So its sort of swings and roundabouts in that sense. The issue I think is whether either lead to 'don't investigate further, no progression required' or alternatively 'find out more about God's plan or the machine' so to speak.
I suppose I'm not sure that the description actually breaks down with the introduction of a particular label, as you say. It certainly can do, but it can also serve as a short-hand, and as a reminder of related concepts, and as a teaching method.
Personally, I consider communism, or 'public ownership doctrine' (and leftism more generally) to be as much a religion as any other, although one I certainly subsribe to. I think 'way' (path) as used to translate various East Asian practices is a better word, but the word religion itself seems to me to mean the same thing, rewalking (and re-interpreting/updating) an established path. I don't think it really matters what labels are used - God, Force, etc as long as they put you on the correct path as it were, so I don't really view 'dialectical materialism' as opposed to or different from religious thought (in general, not in particular), or separate a 'philosophy' from a 'religion' as such.
I don't know if the above makes sense - as before, I'm not disagreeing so much with what you wrote, just that I'm not sure it in presenting Marxist philosophy as an opposite to religion in general (rather than in particular, contemporaneously) is the case. I think the opposition that 'leftists' have toward other religions, is the same that any new religion has to older ones, in order to progress it must throw out the useless parts, and keep the useful parts, of the old religion, which means there will always be a conflict.