Religion as the Opiate of the Masses

I think this famous Marx quote first appears in the introduction of Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and I think it is famous from being in the Communist Manifesto, correct me if I am wrong here?

The form of the quote in "The Critique" is "It (religion) is the opium of the people". This quote is often cited, and often taken at face value to mean that religion is not for enlightened person, but rather something indulged in by the ignorant. Those who accept this quote at face value view religion as just something the ruling class keeps in place to pacify the exploited in an anti-revolutionary manner.

Marx's meaning is actually far deeper and more relevant. The quote in "Critique" is in the context of religion being dialectically both an "expression of real suffering, and a protest against real suffering". Without real suffering even the (ignorant or not) masses would feel no need to turn to religion. Religion is not always imposed by an aristocratic ruling class (as in pre-bourgeois revolutionary France), sometimes it is used by the oppressed as a means to get through the day. For a good example of this look up "Liberation Theology"

I read Marx's point to be that there is real suffering in the world, and we need to remove religion to begin to address it (this is contrary of course to Liberation Theology, which is part of the reason I think they are no better than social-democrats). When suffering is removed in the mind from the realm of the real into the realm of the supra-real it becomes impossible to address in the real. If I am poor and jobless because God is angry then the solution is to sacrifice my favorite sheep (or Lily). On the otherhand if I am poor and jobless because the demographically tiny capitalist ruling class has crashed our economy, evaporating the jobs of millions of proletarians (and however you want to define service workers) then the solution may be to remove the capitalists.

It goes without saying then that religion and socialism are incompatible. Many have argued that socialists are "soulless", and that it is impossible to be both socialist and believe in a higher power. I think socialism is incompatible with religion, but does not have to be with spirituality or belief in a higher power. I myself lean towards atheism in terms of a god who takes an active interest in our lives, but if Stephen Hawking doesn't know what happened before time started at the big bang then I sure as hell don't. So that being said it is possible to be spiritual and socialist, just not religious and socialist.

As Marx himself said (also in the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right "It is the task of history, therefore, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world." ie. it is our task as Marxist historians to pull back the veil of religion and establish the truth of the material world, and thus capitalist exploitation. (Yes Ian I know that was a very "Orthodox" statement to make.

Religion is the opiate of the masses, not that it makes them feel warm and fuzzy and forget their pain, but rather that it fogs their minds and causes them to misplace their suffering onto something out of their control. The true path to the end of misery for the human race is neither god nor the end of exploitation, but one leads nowhere and the other is a step in the right direction.

on postmodern spirituality

Spiritual fulfillment like most things loses its individual necessity when the totality is embraced. There is no need to find god for the individual, there is no personal quest. Becoming part of the social advancement lends itself to a certain acceptance that not only is the individual no more important than other individuals, the individual matters as a member of the whole.

All actions have innumerable ripples through space-time, so a personal belief that individuality shapes the totality can become enough. When all actions have by definition unforeseeable and unending consequences, the quest of the individual seeking eternal existence, or salvation, or both, becomes one of the individual participating in (contributing to) existence of the whole.

fear

In a world without god, or where science is god if you prefer (although the two concepts are vastly different), some argue that personal development becomes irrelevant. I would argue this concept is just plain wrong. Personal, and thus development of the totality is what we should and do live for.

My hope for eternal life lies in my dialectical interactions, shaping and being shaped by the totality. There is a considerable arrogance underlying this idea, however because this type of interaction is shared by all people I feel my arrogance is justified on this point. We are all shaping the future...it is our responsibility to try to shape it for the best (responsibility to who? or what?).

My hope for utopia lies with human technological advancement. Some "believers" may consider this a cold, and as one told me, "hopeless" way to go through life. It is not, it is more than enough. Look at the wonders around us.....that we all contribute to in some small way. God is not necessary to have a life worth living. Advancement has become central to so many. I am just starting to formalize it.

Hopefully the small void I feel in the part of my conscious that I recognize from my youth as my soul is just the unfulfillment of so much of my life's work, or a leftover of my Catholic roots, hopefully....