Marx on Religion

Question 1

Marx on Religion

Answer 1

• Human Invention
• Should be studied, not discarded, as it tells us a lot about the human condition. Furthermore, rejecting religion will not provide liberation.

Question 2

Marx’s Quote on Religion

Answer 2

‘The sigh of the oppressed creature […] it is the opium of the people’

Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx, 1844

It acts a painkiller, as religion provides a faux happiness and a retreat from reality.

Question 3

Lenin’s understanding of Marx’s analysis of religion

Answer 3

Lenin saw churches as ‘organs of bourgeois reaction” which were used for “the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class”

Question 4

How did Marx see religion as necessary and a protest?

Answer 4

Religion in this world of exploitation is an expression of distress and at the same time it is also a protest against the real distress.

Religion continues to survive because of oppressive social conditions. When this oppressive and exploitative condition is destroyed, religion will become unnecessary.

At the same time, Marx saw religion as a form of protest by the working classes against their poor economic conditions and their alienation