"Religion...is the Opium of the People" - What did Marx Mean?

by cofty 82 Replies latest social current

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  PSacramento

  Which can be summed up as a belief that this life is not all there is. That justice will prevail in the afterlife, that suffering is somehow all for the good even if we can't understand how.

  No, not really, not all religions beleive that.

  But all of these delusions are just what Marx said they were, opium. They may soothe the pain of reality but they also dull the rage we ought to feel at injustice and the urgency of change. I can't thank you enough for raising Mother T. as a perfect example of the way religion makes a virtue out of the suffering of the oppressed but does nothing to challenge the status quo.

  Yes, in the case of MT it woudl seem that She did nothing to change the status quo, though having read from those that actually met her and saw what she did, that doesn't seem to be their view.
• 

  PSacramento

  I was referrig to the bulk of Christianity in the late 19th century when Karl Marx made that famous religion = opium comparison.

  I don't think Karl was that familar with world religions, but on the surface I can see how HE drew that conclusion, even if the conclusion was wrong.

  Nowadays, society has not only become more secularized, but Christian religions in general have become more "liberal". Nonetheless, the "pie in the sky when you die" mentality defines Fundamentalist Christians. While they may have some charity towards their own members (And in extreme exceptions, which I've personally witnessed, towards others.) they have, co-influenced by their political conservatism, a total disregard for the poor.

  I don't know any fundamentalists so I can't comment on that.

  Those who are poor and Fundamentalist Christians are simply self loathing hypocrites who grovel in the ideology of those who despise them as they cash in their welfare checks.

  If that is the case then we have a HUGE example of not enough Christ in the lives of those people, not an example of too much.
• 

  cofty

  having read from those that actually met her and saw what she did, that doesn't seem to be their view.

  If you do some research online you will find testimony from some who volunteered to work at her "clinic" for the dying in Calcutta and were appalled and disolusioned by her lack of concern to actually do anything practical to improve their miserable plight.