“…It is the opium of the people…”
20 April 2007 by Naomi
Shortest:
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
German economist & Communist political philosopher (1818 – 1883)
In context:
Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
From atheism.about.com:
In the above quotation Marx is saying that religion’s purpose is to create illusory fantasies for the poor. Economic realities prevent them from finding true happiness in this life, so religion tells them that this is OK because they will find true happiness in the next life. Although this is a criticism of religion, Marx is not without sympathy: people are in distress and religion provides solace, just as people who are physically injured receive relief from opiate-based drugs.
The quote is not, then, as negative as most portray (at least about religion). In some ways, even the slightly extended quote which people might see is a bit dishonest because saying “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature…” deliberately leaves out the additional statement that it is also the “heart of a heartless world.”
What we have is a critique of society that has become heartless rather than of religion which tries to provide a bit of solace. One can argue that Marx offers a partial validation of religion in that it tries to become the heart of a heartless world. For all its problems, religion doesn’t matter so much — it is not the real problem. Religion is a set of ideas, and ideas are expressions of material realities. Religion is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself.
Still, it would be a mistake to think that Marx is uncritical towards religion — it may try to provide heart, but it fails. For Marx, the problem lies in the obvious fact that an opiate drug fails to fix a physical injury — it merely helps you forget pain and suffering. This may be fine up to a point, but only as long as you are also trying to solve the underlying problems causing the pain. Similarly, religion does not fix the underlying causes of people’s pain and suffering — instead, it helps them forget why they are suffering and gets them to look forward to an imaginary future when the pain will cease.
Maybe that’s why we can’t change the minds of the fundamentalists: we can’t offer them a better drug, Our social issues of Poverty, Ignorance and Injustice are still with us. It’s the height of irony that religion imposes its own injustices on so many…
Until we create a society that is more attractive to them than the one they exist in now, they will remain addicted to the false promise of an afterlife.
(Click on the image and feel the “luuuvv”!)
20 April 2007, on 1:40 pm
And we shouldn’t want to offer them a better drug. What we offer is a life free of drug addiction. The society we are creating is altogether better than theirs, but they’re addicts, and their drug is socially acceptable, so getting them off this needle with be harder than getting a basehead into therapy.
20 April 2007, on 2:14 pm
Thinking with my fingers, sorry if this doesn’t make sense.
People use religion to mask reality. So saying that “Religion is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself” implies that reality is the disease. This is not true. Some people just can’t, or don’t want to face, among other things, mortality. So they cling to religion to the point that it becomes an addiction, a disease.
Unless they can find value and happiness in a finite life without gods, as we atheists do, there is no way to wean them from their drug.
20 April 2007, on 8:11 pm
When I click on the picture, it says it’s private and won’t let me see it. So, is that the love I’m supposed to feel? Rejection?
21 April 2007, on 1:26 am
Ooo! Right up my alley, so to speak. I call myself a Marxist and this is one quote that often gets misquoted or quoted entirely out of context. You put together a good summation there, but I think it is important to note that Marx never condoned abolishing religion (as some people will insist, but those are the same people who totally freak out when you mention Marx because they think you’re a scary, scary communist).
Anyway, I’m digressing, but the point I wanted to make was that Marx was opposed to the way that religion was/is used by the ruling classes to control, manipulate, exploit and oppress the proletariat. It is also yet another way to exploit class structures. Look at Protestantism, for example: there are certain sects of Protestantism that are perceived as being of “higher class” that others. Presbyterians are considered the wealthy, country-club type. Baptists are as common as day labourers. The freaky snake handlers (is that Pentecostals?) and their ilk are kind of like street junkies. All the classist alienation within just that one branch (Protestantism) of one religion (Christianity) is enough to boggle the mind.
I could keep going on, but I’ll spare you.
21 April 2007, on 7:19 am
I’m sorry, Marcy. I’ve fixed a link to it at “feel the luuuvv”. It appears what I, as a mod, can do is not always universally possible.
The “wedding cake”/pyramid is topped with $$$ and all the tiers rest on the backs of us all. We support the governing classes, the religions, the military, the aristocrat-mogul classes — they rest on “we work for all; we feed all”.
It’s an enlightened idea that we should share ALL. But, to borrow from addiction-modeling, things haven’t gotten bad enough for us — yet! And change won’t come until it does…
21 April 2007, on 7:31 am
[...] It’s time for an intervention! By Naomi This is a follow-up to Karl Marx’s “…It is the opium of the people…” [...]
21 April 2007, on 9:59 am
Part of the drug is prayer. And from prayer people get answers. How is this possible??
When someone has a problem what they need to do is make a decision on what to do. People already know the options or can find them, what they are uncertain about is what option to take. Prayer for the godpeople, silent meditation for the rest of us, helps us make a choice.
What I have found is that whatever choice is made you can make it work for you. Godpeople think that god helped them not realizing that they are in control. Responsibility for what good happens passes to god and when things go wrong you pray again. Sooner or later all works out “praise the lord”.
The silent time in church helps these people slow down, calm down, think straight and hopefully not screw with everyone the rest of the week. The fundies enjoy screwing with everyone all the time.
21 April 2007, on 11:21 am
Talking about addiction, it’s interesting to me that many of the people I know who are xians are not only addicted to religion, but other things as well and they all seem to feel “helpless” to do anything about those addiction and their god doesn’t seem to hear any of their praying and crying even en masse.
21 April 2007, on 12:32 pm
Okay, one more time: the link is fixed. And for whatever aggravation this has caused, I am most sincerely sorry!
21 April 2007, on 12:40 pm
And, Star, some of the most obnoxious former-addicts become the most rabid and relentless (and tedious!) fundamentalists.! President George W. Godsend falls somewhat in that category, in that he is a dry-drunk that parrots the “gawd is good” dogma drivel…
Second correlation is the Amway pyramid. I have been tricked, not once but twice, into attending one of their “fellowships”. After that, we began calling them “Ammies”, as in “moonies”.
In fact, during the second tricked-into-attending, when it dawned on me what I was sitting through, I stood and said out lout, “You tricked me! This is just Amway!” And walked out, feeling smug.
The husband-and-wife never spoke to me again.
22 April 2007, on 10:04 am
Naomi tricked again?
Would it have been more fun to prove all the assumptions of making money wrong! Like attending church and standing during the sermon and arguing with the pastor.
it is a pyramid, you are not going to get rich, the products cost to much, and hardly anyone is going to buy them. If they were so great, Jewel would sell them.
22 April 2007, on 1:37 pm
cco: In thinking back on that incident, I wonder now what people thought of my actions. No, not the “amway recruiters” — I’m sure they were furious. And they may have said something soothing to the guppy/suckers.
But think of the reaction of the rest. The odds are that one or more began to doubt, either because of my behavior or the behavior of recruiters, or both.
Having politely sat through one, I know how they play on our fantasies of “incredible wealth”, of the home/car/clothes/travel “trappings” that they (even me!) envy in others and desire for themselves. They leave you with the meme that one need do nothing more than bring others in under them. If they bring enough into the “fold” under them, they can get a better home/car/wardrobe/travel agent.
Back when that happened (c.1981), we weren’t aware of Mr.Amway (Dick DeVos) and his fundamental/evangelical background. He is another spider providing another strand in the Jerry-Dobertson-directed web hellbent on a Theocratic-takeover of our government!
22 April 2007, on 2:35 pm
Naomi, I used to work for a company as a “propaganda writer” for one of those pyramid companies that incorporate god belief into their sales pitch/business. I know exactly how they operate. Someone put up a blog though exposing them for what they really are.
Some longtime friends of ours did the Amway thing for awhile back in the early 80s and tried to sell us their “package of dreams” and we said we will just see where they were ten years later. They insisted they would be rich and living in a mansion and have cadillacs and send their kids to boarding schools. It was at that same time they joined Amway that they became super fundamentalist xians (he had been Presybterian, and she was a non-practicing Catholic).
Well, that whole Amway thing didn’t work out and they dropped out of that whole cult and got into another one selling bee pollen and vitamins, trying to sell us first, of course. I was allergic to bee pollen and basically told them that idea wasn’t going to fly either — it was just another scam. They were really ticked at us for not being “supportive” of their dreams.
They ended up ditching that after a few months and then they gave up on the get-rich-quick schemes, however they stayed with their fundamentalism. Sadly, however, their marriage fell apart (so much for Jeebus walking with them in their lives as they still proclaim since they had to sell a beautiful home to split the money and now one is living in a tiny apartment and the other in a teeny house and struggling to make ends meet). I guess Jeebus didn’t want them to succeed at anything!
22 April 2007, on 3:24 pm
[...] (First posted at God is for Suckers!) [...]
23 April 2007, on 12:59 pm
Star: I was allergic to bee pollen and basically told them that idea wasn’t going to fly either…
Funny pun! “Bee”…”fly”…get it?
23 April 2007, on 6:06 pm
Eve, that must have been a subconscious play on words.
I guess I am just naturally “witty” 
24 April 2007, on 2:06 pm
[...] If this it true, and it seems plausible to me, coupled with “opium of the people” and the “addiction model“, there is a low probability they will budge on the faith part and only slightly higher odds on the religion part. [...]
24 April 2007, on 2:48 pm
[...] (First posted at God is for Suckers!) [...]
24 April 2007, on 3:56 pm
Star, you’re a gifted wordsmith – even when you’re not trying!
25 April 2007, on 7:53 pm
This reminds me of the radio station I had on today. I wasn’t paying attention and tuned into a fundy station. i couldn’t really hear it too well until the DJ came on. he started the whole god thing and then he said something really funny. He said, “it is through your prayers that we are able to support this station” So please contribute what you can to keep us on the air. Meaning “Give us your money”. I thought it funny because he starts with prayer being the cause but in this reality knows full well that it is hard earned cash. What a shyster.
26 April 2007, on 10:51 pm
[...] If this is true, and it seems plausible to me, coupled with “opium of the people” and the “addiction model“, there is a low probability they will budge on the faith part and only slightly higher odds on the religion part. [...]