{UAH} RELIGION IS THE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE: ATTENTION ABBEY SEMUWAMBA, REHEMA, ROBERT ATUHAIRWE,ROBUKUI

Works of Karl Marx 1843


Abbey, Rehema, Atuhairwe, Robukui,

On the question of my being a Muslim Hater, please read here an
introduction to the concept of religion by Karl Marx, and his famous
statement that "Religion is the opium of the people" he made in one
of the firecest, ruthless and certainly greatest philosophical debates
of all time. I am not sure if you are acquainted with Philosophy as a
subject, but I studied it in great depth and am a proud owner of a
Master of Philosophy Degree, even though I am best known as a lawyer.
I am not stupid or blinkerered, therefore when I make statements on
some of the great moral issues of our time. I have no time for hate,
above all hate people who are being inexorably led to the edge of the
precipice.

Remember at this time, Karl Marx was developing his theory of
dialectical materialism and religion featured very much in his
writings, but he did not spend much time on it.. This is just an
introduction, but I can give you the general drift of Marx's
proposition that in the the end Religion is a fraud, even if some are
capable of doing good. I do not hate Islam. I simply want to lay it
out as a fraud , just like all other religions, created by MAN, to use
for purposes of winning and retaining class/political power. The
difference between Islam and the other religions is in its level of
barbarity, violence and primitivity.



Karl Marx on Religion
Is Religion the Opiate of the Masses?

By Austin Cline

,
(Basics About Atheism & Agnosticism: What They Are and Are Not
Liberation Atheology: Criticism of Theism, God, Religion as False, Irrational
Secularism & Godlessness in Government, Politics, Science, Culture, and Life
Updated Articles and Resources)


This quote is reproduced a great deal and is probably the only Marx
quote that most people are familiar with. Unfortunately, if someone is
familiar with it they are likely only familiar with a small portion
that, taken by itself, tends to give a distorted impression of what
Marx had to say about religion.

•"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


Usually all one gets from the above is "Religion is the opium of the
people" (with no ellipses to indicate that something has been
removed). Sometimes "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature is
included. If you compare these with the full quotation, its clear that
a great deal more is being said than what most people are aware of.

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.

Even worse, this "drug" is administered by the same oppressors who are
responsible for the pain and suffering in the first place. Religion is
an expression of more fundamental unhappiness and symptom of more
fundamental and oppressive economic realities. Hopefully, humans will
create a society in which the economic conditions causing so much pain
and suffering would be eradicated and, therefore, the need for
soothing drugs like religion will cease. Of course, for Marx such a
turn of events isn't to be "hoped for" because human history was
leading inevitably towards it.

So, in spite of his obvious dislike of and anger towards religion,
Marx did not make religion the primary enemy of workers and
communists, regardless of what might have been done by 20th century
communists. Had Marx regarded religion as a more serious enemy, he
would have devoted more time to it in his writings. Instead, he
focused on economic and political structures that in his mind served
to oppress people.

For this reason, some Marxists could be sympathetic to religion. Karl
Kautsky, in his Foundations of Christianity, wrote that early
Christianity was, in some respects, a proletarian revolution against
privileged Roman oppressors. In Latin America, some Catholic
theologians have used Marxist categories to frame their critique of
economic injustice, resulting in liberation theology."

Marx;s relationship with and ideas about religion are more complex
than most realize. Marx's analysis of religion has flaws, but despite
them his perspective is worth taking seriously. Specifically, he
argues that religion is not so much an independent "thing" in society
but, rather, a reflection or creation of other, more fundamental
"things" like economic relationships. That's not the only way of
looking at religion, but it can provide some interesting illumination
on the social roles that religion plays.


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A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Introduction

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Written: December 1843-January 1844;
First published: in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 7 & 10 February
1844 in Paris;
Transcription: the source and date of transcription is unknown. It was
proofed and corrected by Andy Blunden, February 2005, and corrected by
Matthew Carmody in 2009.


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For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed,
and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.

The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly
oratio pro aris et focis ["speech for the altars and hearths," i.e.,
for God and country] has been refuted. Man, who has found only the
reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he
sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to find the mere
appearance of himself, the non-man [Unmensch], where he seeks and must
seek his true reality.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion,
religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the
self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won
through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no
abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man –
state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is
an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted
world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic
compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur,
its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its
universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic
realization of the human essence since the human essence has not
acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is,
therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual
aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of
real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and
the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is
the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their
illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a
condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is,
therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which
religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order
that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or
consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the
living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he
will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded
his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around
himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which
revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth
has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the
immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to
unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of
human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of
Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion
into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the
criticism of politics

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