The Opiate of the People

I am fascinated by Karl Marx’s words, which are often quoted about religion.  Usually, they are stated in brief that “religion is the opiate of the people.”  (I think in modern society we seem to have moved to a quicker version and made “opiates the opiate of the people” with our ever-burgeoning drug abuse culture.) Actually, the whole Marx quote is kind of interesting to evaluate: “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.”

Marx actually appeared to have a real concern for the welfare and happiness of people, but I think Marx really didn’t understand religion very well.  A reasonable reading of the Bible, especially the New Testament, clearly shows a demand for an active role in this world by the believer to make it a better place for all.  Showing care for the poor, the sick, and the disheartened is clearly laid out to be the goal of Christians in the here and now.  Sure, there is knowledge of a better existence to come when life is done on earth for the believer, but that doesn’t release a believer from the responsibility for others in the here and now.  Marx, unfortunately, thought that government could and would rise to the occasion and make life wonderful for all if we could get rid of religion.  Unfortunately, religion, even by most atheists’ admissions, is the driving force in establishing moral guidance for people and governments (and I think the waning of it is one of the reasons our government in the U.S. is losing its way.)  Left to our own devices we are prone to the lowest common denominator of self-interest, and care very little about the condition of our fellow man.  The Communist experiment to drive religion out of the life of a country proved very clearly that it didn’t work out like its proponents thought it would.  The utterly ruthless amoral dictators rose to positions of power and committed incredibly heinous acts against a populace that soon sank into a collapsed economic system.

You see, if you actually pay attention to what God actually says, he really makes sense…