The philosophical milieu in nineteenth-century Germany from which Marx emerged held similar views and came to the conclusion that “the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.” But it was precisely these ideas that Marx himself eventually came to reject. As Rodriguez points out, Marx came to understand religion “as a symptom and not the disease,” and “as a source of solace” that would not disappear “until the sources of people’s pain—an unfair economic system—had been eradicated.” These are the ideas expressed in a much-quoted essay that Marx wrote in 1844: 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. isreview.org/issue/63/marxism-and-religion
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:32:38 +0000
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