[Marxism] Re: Religion and opium

["Tom O'Lincoln" <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The passage we're discussing begins as follows:

"FOR GERMANY THE CRITICISM OF RELIGION IS IN THE MAIN COMPLETE, and
criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism. Man, who looked
for a superhuman being in the fantastic reality of heaven and found
nothing there but the reflection of himself, will no longer be disposed
to find but the semblance of himself, only an inhuman being, where he
seeks and must seek his true reality."

So Marx wasn't really setting out to criticise religion in this text.
Previous philosophers had already done that sufficiently. The question
then becomes: why, despite our brilliant critique, do people still cling
to religion? And from here, as others have pointed out, he concludes
that we need to overturn capitalism if we want religion to fade away:

"To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to
demand their real happiness. The demand to give up
illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a
state of affairs which needs illusions... Criticism has torn up the
imaginary flowers from the chain not so that they will wear the chain
that is without fantasy or consolation, but so that they will throw it
off and pluck the living flower..."

This is particularly relevant today given how paranoid sections of the
left are about Islam.



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