Yeah, dumbshits, Marx never said "religion is the opium of the people" he said:
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.
I don't really see much criticism of atheism in the passage provided, nor in the source document, but indeed, militant atheism, especially as suggested by the new atheists is just as troublesome as religion can be.
he says he rejects the label & wants to treat with the essence & the social context of philosophy itself
In this "Contribution to the Critique of the Philosophy of Right" Marx is saying in 1843:
"Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics"
"The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man – hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be better described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings! "
Criticizing religion isn't ultimately the target of humanity's ire, but a way to bring us toward criticizing the institutions & conventions that do hold humanity back in a visceral way
In 1844, Marx writes about the critique of religion as contributing to the formulation of socialism, but that “Atheism, as a negation of God, has no longer any meaning, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation”
This is important because it’s still about the material bearing that any of these philosophical renderings has on social life, and on the individual
“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”
Dogmatic atheism for Marx in this sense is to attack humanity’s means to abstractly or at the most socially alleviate its own suffering
Further, Marx writes: “everyone should be able to relieve religious and bodily nature without the police sticking their noses in"
In Capital Marx writes this: “This antagonistic stage cannot be avoided, any more than it is possible for man to avoid the stage in which his spiritual energies are given a religious definition as powers independent of himself. What we are confronted by here is the alienation [Entfremdung] of man from his own labour”
So while Marx was under the influence of the Enlightenment & specifically of Feuerbach’s critique of theology (Feuerbach himself also rejected puerile “atheism” as such), Marx is approaching these things from a historical standpoint to reveal the very human essence at the heart of such striving
Yeah, dumbshits, Marx never said "religion is the opium of the people" he said:
See, he never said ittttt there were several additional even more scathing words in the middle there too!
the scathing words are mostly against atheism as such
I don't really see much criticism of atheism in the passage provided, nor in the source document, but indeed, militant atheism, especially as suggested by the new atheists is just as troublesome as religion can be.
Can't win, you get fucked coming and going.
he says he rejects the label & wants to treat with the essence & the social context of philosophy itself
In this "Contribution to the Critique of the Philosophy of Right" Marx is saying in 1843:
"Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics"
"The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man – hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be better described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings! "
Criticizing religion isn't ultimately the target of humanity's ire, but a way to bring us toward criticizing the institutions & conventions that do hold humanity back in a visceral way
In 1844, Marx writes about the critique of religion as contributing to the formulation of socialism, but that “Atheism, as a negation of God, has no longer any meaning, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation”
This is important because it’s still about the material bearing that any of these philosophical renderings has on social life, and on the individual
“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”
Dogmatic atheism for Marx in this sense is to attack humanity’s means to abstractly or at the most socially alleviate its own suffering
Further, Marx writes: “everyone should be able to relieve religious and bodily nature without the police sticking their noses in"
In Capital Marx writes this: “This antagonistic stage cannot be avoided, any more than it is possible for man to avoid the stage in which his spiritual energies are given a religious definition as powers independent of himself. What we are confronted by here is the alienation [Entfremdung] of man from his own labour”
So while Marx was under the influence of the Enlightenment & specifically of Feuerbach’s critique of theology (Feuerbach himself also rejected puerile “atheism” as such), Marx is approaching these things from a historical standpoint to reveal the very human essence at the heart of such striving
Refuse to believe he wasn't just randomly mashing the typewriter for this sentence