“Away with All Gods “ at UCLA
We had an colloquium at UCLA on  Away with All Gods Unchaining the Mind and  Radically Changing the World by Bob Avakian.  It featured  Sunsara Taylor and Dr. Scott Bartchy, the Director of the Center of the Study of Religion.  It was entitled  “Away With All Gods    Possibility or Fantasy”.  About 100 people came.  It was attended by students from  Dr. Bartchy’s religion classes as well as other students and professors around campus.  People were intrigued by the cognitive dissonance of the program and wanted to hear a debate.  

The colloquium consisted of a presentation of a paper by Sunsara and then Dr. Bartchy responded to it with his criticisms and people asked questions. This was  kind of a formal academic format in which new papers and new work of people is introduced and wrangled with.  It lent itself well to an engagement with “Away with All Gods”.  It was quite lively and there was some good back and forth between the audience and the speakers.  Some of the questions that came up were - the question of morality “Do people need something bigger than themselves to be moral?  Did Jesus and his teachings represent this kind of morality? What is communist morality?  Dr. Bartchy’s position on communism was “Communism would be a good system if there angels running it but since I have not seen any angels in this world it has problems.”   There was discussion and back and forth about Bob Avakian’s new synthesis on revolution and communism.  There was back and forth on the morality of the bible versus  about the   kind of world and what kind of morality based on the emancipation of humanity.  A lot of students came up to talk to Sunsara afterwards including number women who could identify with some of Sunsara’s personal struggle against the oppression of women and religious fundamentalism.  

One of the things which  was important was how many people from this broad audience (many of whom were from religious studies class) found engaging with Away With All Gods very stimulating and challenging.  It seemed most of them had never heard of this kind of communist morality and when put in opposition to the patriarchal, feudal morality represented in the bible this was something that was new and challenging. 

I think there is a basis to do many other events like this and this is part of the kind of engagements of BA’s work that we want to see more of on campus.   It was also something that people wanted to see because of the controversial nature of the question of doing away with all gods.  Many people from many different points of view found  that engaging with BA ‘s work is something that is enriching including those  who do not agree with atheism, communism.   It made me think of the part of the Engage! statement that talks about how people who have engaged with Bob Avakian’s work from their own perspective have come away provoked and enriched in their thinking.