Yes, capitalism is a religion, or at the very least it's like a religion. It has become the secular religion of the modern world. I'll try to explain why I believe that's the case.
source: YouTube
"Faith" is belief without reason. All we have is belief; there's almost nothing we can really know for sure. Even science doesn't deal in certainties; it only gives probabilities and every scientific theory is open for adjustment and revision as soon as new facts become available. But in general, what we believe to be true is backed by reasoning, evidence and logic. That's not the case with religious belief or faith. Faith is belief without evidence or reason, it's belief because you've been told to believe it, by your parents, your culture, your school.
I've watched countless debates between atheists and religious apologists. "Apologetics" is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. The problem is that their arguments are always fallacious and based on faulty reasoning. The reason for this perpetual failing is simple; there's no way to prove the existence of a god. The word "supernatural" says all we need to know: it means "above nature", or outside nature, and we can only prove that which is in nature. Cause and effect only works within the confines of our four-dimensional universe. So, if God is a "timeless, spaceless, immaterial" entity, there's no way his or her existence can be proven. There's only faith.
I hope you start to see the resemblance between religion and the overarching paradigm of our time, which is capitalism, free markets and trade. The capitalist religion has been given a name, "Capitalist Realism," by Mark Fisher, and in his book he describes this unmovable and unquestioning belief in capitalism as follows: "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."
It's what we've been raised with. We've been told by our parents, our culture, our schools, that capitalism is the best there is, the best we can do. The capitalist apologists readily admit that it's not perfect, but that it's better than all that came before it, and best aligns with what they've come to take "human nature" is. And just like the religions of old, the belief in capitalism is a "trickle down" belief; it comes down on us from high up above. In fact, when you think about it, everything that's designed to keep the status quo intact comes from the upper echelons of our society. For example, many people believe that racism is a thing of the working - and lower classes, when in fact it was made up by the rulers who want to divide us, aided by elitist scientists who conjured up all sorts of pseudo-scientific proofs to show that intelligence rises with the lightness of skin color.
When capitalist apologists rave on about how capitalism has raised most of the world's population out of absolute poverty, know that it's a blatant lie. It's a numbers game, and we all know that there's lies, damn lies, and statistics. If we exclude but one country, China, from this calculation, the numbers aren't as favorable anymore. And isn't China our new scary communist enemy? If that's the case, it's communism that's responsible for the eradication of most of the world's poverty, right? But then again, the capitalist apologists label China communist or capitalist whenever it suits their purposes. But most of us don't think about these things; we live, breathe and die with capitalism, so it really is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. We don't question the capitalist apologists nearly as much as we do the religious apologists.
But there's another way we can link religion and capitalism, and for that I refer you to the below linked video. In it prof. Richard D. Wolff explains how capitalism's rise was confronted with, and how it dealt with the predominant religion of the time, Catholicism. You see, it's a sin, according to the Bible, to charge interest on loans. According to the Bible, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for the rich to enter heaven. According to the Bible, capitalist practice is sinful. Watch the video to learn how the capitalists squared that circle.
Ask Prof Wolff: Is Capitalism a Religion?
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