Religion is opium of masses. Is religion the opium of the people? 2019-01-07

'Religion is the opium of the people'

But, even 2,000 years ago James already was using careful adjectives to carefully single out what was real vs just 'religion' -- Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. In the above quotation, Marx is saying that religion's purpose is to create illusory fantasies for the poor. It acts as the one good thing that makes life worth living, but it also subdues us, leaves us weak to the whims of the state and the bourgeois who control religion, and nothing fills the proletariat with more fear than eternal damnation. Thus, problems in religion are ultimately problems in society.

What did Marx mean with religion being the of the : socialism

Where do they categorize non-believers, if they included them at all? This was a fairy tale in which they were desperate to believe. While no organized religion works for me, I am very spiritual, and I do think that spirituality and eastern mysticism should be worked into this foundation. The major religious group affects the behavior of the people in power and somewhat controls their decisions due to their effect on the people. And with this crazy activity of mine, I have also been using opium. Profit is ultimately derived from the surplus value produced by workers in factories.

'Religion is the opium of the people'

Quite often, machines allow for more profit than humans. Normally calculating to the point of paranoia, these men now displayed childlike trust. Religion is not for everyone. The list could have been far longer. The Vedic worldview informs us that our spiritual development takes us through four progressive stages: dharma religious practice , artha holistic economic prosperity , kama physical and emotional satisfaction and moksha liberation from material existence. So we can't really be surprised that truth is generally accepted as lie while lie is generally accepted as truth.

Religion as Opium of the People (Karl Marx)

The religion-as-opium argument has several unstated assumptions. What are we to infer from this? Eating conveniently occupies leisure time that might otherwise be devoted to the overthrow of an unjust economic schema. But the reality is just the opposite. We can only learn to shed off some of the false hopes presented by religion if only we do not believe in the Supreme Being. Socialism is also a sociopolitical movement dedicated to the critique and dismantling of exploitative structures, including economic, gendered, ethnic oppression.

Karl Marx on Religion as the Opium of the People

I can say for sure that walking in God's love toward all is the ultimate buzz of all. Even if Weber is wrong, we see that one can argue just the opposite of Marx with clear historical evidence. The material level of existence is characterized by misery and mortality. They may recount the silencing of women, abuse of children, and casualties of religious tyranny. This caused Max Weber to theorize that religious institutions end up creating new economic realities.

Opium of the people

The problem is that opiates fail to fix a physical injury—you only forget your pain and suffering for a while. I could accept that I was a broken person in a purposeless world. Even atheists find such obsession undesirable. See how this new usage is very different than the older meaning we may have grown up with 20 or more years ago? What are we to infer from this? In the Handbook of Religion and Health, published by Oxford University Press, Harold G. How can such a dreary, draining and depressing worldview foster well-being? You could reach the reasonable thought: music sucks.

DEBATE: Is Religion the Opiate of the Masses?

Are we really dim animals, willing ourselves into submission? It has no independent history; instead, it is the creature of productive forces. That same rejuvenating potency of religion is available to us too. He could have been bigger than Bieber. Does religion divert our energy from real well-being? It knocks us all out of existence fully and forever. I knew where that dark journey ends, and I've lost a dear friend there. Similarly, the Bhagavad-gita centers on a call for devotional activism in this world.

DEBATE: Is Religion the Opiate of the Masses?

Or promise of technology for better humanity. They don't want someone taking away their thunder. Driving 40 minutes each way, crossing a state line, I dove into the deep end of the dirty baptismal. The italics are in the original. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. Caloric satiation induces a convenient stupor.

What did Marx mean with religion being the of the : socialism

Perhaps it was the succession of dramatic exits by important people from my life: first my mother moving to California, followed months later by my eldest sister's incarceration, followed yet again by my other sister's dramatic act of running away. No, because atheism rivets us to matter and material existence, which are temporary. Close examination of this old charge against religion raises the opposite question: Might atheism be the opium? For instance, Christianity encourages its followers to remain poor using bible quotes to associate richness with bad deeds. Following rules, participating in corporate worship, performing devotions, observing holidays and the like can keep the juices flowing. For Marx, an ideal economic system would involve exchanges of equal value for equal value, where value is determined simply by the amount of work put into whatever is being produced.

What did Marx mean with religion being the of the : socialism

A second problem is his claim that religion is wholly determined by material and economic realities. The Autumn of my sophomore year of highschool, I became ill. The Vedic worldview informs us that our spiritual development takes us through four progressive stages: dharma religious practice , artha holistic economic prosperity , kama physical and emotional satisfaction , and moksha liberation from material existence. It should be noted that through most of his life, Marx did not work alone—he had the help of who had, on his own, developed a very similar theory of economic determinism. This is why some people will run all day long or sit at a slot machine, or eat in excess, or control others, or obsess about a sport or a hobby, ect.