Karl Marx piti uskontoja hyödyllisinä

Karl Marx näki että uskonnoista oli hyötyä sillä ne toimivat lääkkeenä kansan kipuun, mutta Marx kuitenkin paheksui sitä miten uskontoja käytettiin vallan ja alistamisen työkaluina.

[quote]The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.[/quote]

Tuossa on kyseinen Marxilta lainattu sitaatti koko kontekstissaan. Marxin elinaikaan ooppiumiin ei ollut latautunut samanlaistabnegatiivista painolastia toisin kuin tänäpäivänä, jolloin sillä on vahva kielteinen kaiku, vaan se oli ihan tavallinen jokaisesta apteekista saatava reseptivapaa lääke jota ihmiset käyttivät muumuassa kurkkukipuun ja yskään. Tässä kontekstissa - lääkkeenä - myös Marxin yleisökin tämän vertauksen käsitti.

Tämä on usein se eniten väärin ymmärretty kohta kun sitaatti on otettu irti kontekstistaan ja tulkittuu uudelleen tämänpäivän maailmankuvan ja arvojen pohjalta.

Uusimmissa Marxin käännöksissä ei enää puhutakkaan "ihmisten ooppiumista" (It is the opium of the people) kuten vielä lukee joissain vanhemmissa käänöksissa vaan uudemmissa käänöksissä sama kohtanon nykyään käännety "massojen opiaateiksi" (It is the opiate of the masses).

https://www.learnreligions.com/religion-as-opium-of-the-people-250555

Marks oli muuten niinsanottu eskapisti.