Karl Marx and His View on Religion

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Karl Marx and His View on Religion

Karl Marx, the founder and main advocator of his Marxist philosophy, wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. This document was the basis for all of his thoughts and ideas of the world at the time being. One of the major topics that he spoken on was how religion affected the society and how it was an institution that was not actually necessary to exist.

Marxist VS Religion

Marx saw religion as an evil that existed in society and that it brought down all the people that believed in that religion. Marx said that, ?It [religion] is the opium of the people,?[1] and in saying this, Marx meant that religion was contagious on society. Once the society had a taste for the religion, they became totally engulfed it in, and then they do not want to get out of that way of live because they see it as a good way to live. Then even if people wanted to get out of the religion it was hard to get out because the whole society had already been infected by the ?opium.?

With the idea of equality of all people no matter what race or previous financial situation, the concept of a god was in complete opposition of the Marxist philosophy. ?Marx?s idea of God as a projection of alienated human beings whereby God becomes in rich proportion as humanity becomes poor.?[2] Marx is criticizing society and their overall views of how religion should be treated. The society is letting God become the main focus of their lives, and since they are giving almost all their attention to God, they are becoming oblivious of the other members of the society and the relationships between each other.

As society was becoming distracted by ...

... middle of paper ...

...what they have in the natural life on earth. With everyone living under the regulations of Marx?s ?religion? no one would have to have another structure of life.

Works Cited:

1. David McLellan, Marxism and Religion: a description and assessment of the Marxist

critique of Christianity (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 13.

2. McLellan, 5.

3. McLellan, 167.

4. Rev. John J. Ming, S.J., The Characteristics and the Religion of Modern Socialism,

2nd ed. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1908), 202.

5. Ming, 9

6. Bohdan R. Bociurkiw and John W. Strong, Religion and Atheism in the U.S.S.R. and

Eastern Europe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 13.

7. Ming, 224.

8. Bociurkiw and Strong, 10.

9. ?Marxism,? 2000,<http://www.faithnet.freeserve.co.uk/marxism.htm> (28 October

2001), 1.

10. McLellan, 159.

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