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Introducing Marx and religion

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Introducing Marx and religion (1)
• Karl Marx (1818–83) has been associated with sociological challenges to
religious claims.
• Marx was an economist, journalist, philosopher, revolutionary socialist and
sociologist.
• He was born into a middle-class family in Prussia and studied political economy
and Hegelian philosophy.
• In adulthood Marx left Prussia and spent most of his life in London.
• Here he worked with the German, Friedrich Engels (1820–95).
• Together they published several books and the pamphlet The Communist
Manifesto (1848). His work has substantially influenced subsequent intellectual,
economic, and political history.

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Introducing Marx and religion (2)
• Marx’s theories, now generally referred to as Marxism, hold that human society
works through a class struggle. This conflict is between the ruling classes
(bourgeoisie) and the working classes (proletariat).
• Marx used an approach known as historical materialism. His view was that
capitalism created social relations. Marx propounded the theory of base and
superstructure, asserting that the cultural and political conditions of society, as
well as its notions of human nature, are largely determined by obscured
economic foundations.
• Through his theories of alienation, value, commodity fetishism, and surplus
value, Marx argued that capitalism facilitated social relations and ideology
through treating people as commodities, inequality, and labour exploitation.
• These ideas are found in his writings such as Capital (1867).

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Introducing Marx and religion (3)
• 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 realisation 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.

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Introducing Marx and religion (4)
• 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.
(Marx, K. Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of
Right, Collected Works, 1976, New York)

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Introducing Marx and religion (5)
• Marx saw religion as a form of societal oppression and control organised by the
Church. He believed that therefore religion had to be overthrown.
• In particular, the power of the clergy (priests, monks and nuns) was criticised, as
Marx saw the Church as a form of social control of behaviour.
• Christian teaching about heaven, hell and punishment after death comforted
people and helped them to cope with being treated badly, as the people
responsible would go to hell.

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Criticisms of Marx (1)
• Karl Marx did not accept the idea that, for many people, religion is much more
than a comfort like a drug.
• People who are religious argue that their faith is a relationship with God. For
them, God is a real, existing being, and is not simply a product of society.
• Although it is true that many religions have oppressed people in the name of a
god, nevertheless they have also given many people a source of strength, hope
and comfort in their daily lives.
• It is also well established that during times of warfare or natural disasters
religious beliefs and practices become more important to people (as shown, for
example, with increased church attendance).

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Criticisms of Marx (2)
• It is also established that attempts to implement Marx’s ideas in society, such as
was done by Lenin in Russia, Mao Zedong in China and Fidel Castro in Cuba,
have not brought about universal happiness and have caused a great deal of
suffering.
• Also, many former communist countries have abandoned Marx’s doctrines, and
those that remain communist have adapted and changed them in the last 50
years, beginning with the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia led by the
reformist first secretary.
• Outside of the USSR, particularly in Latin America, some non-Soviet Marxists
opposed the anti-religious stance of this philosophy. The growing liberation
theology movements completely rejected the idea of a political doctrine based on
atheism.

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Criticisms of Marx (3)
• Following the break-up of the USSR in 1991 the Russian stance changed
significantly with the passing of a 1997 law that identified the importance of
Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism in Russian history.
• This would appear to show that societies and individuals with power or vested
interests do not want to abandon the model of the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat, despite Marx’s idea that this would lead to true equality and
happiness.
• Because of what people regard as being the atheistic nature of communism,
some have accused it of persecuting religion.
• A further argument is that communism is, in itself, a religion.

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