Essay on "Karl Marx's Critique of Religion"

Essay 6 pages (2153 words) Sources: 10

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Karl Marx Critique of Religion

An interesting role is played by religion in the Sociology world because it is an integral threaded and deep seeded that binds the disparate components of the society together. It can be perceived as a belief system that is unified and practices which are comparative to the beliefs and sacred things. The people are given something to believe in and hope by religion which shapes their feelings and thoughts. There are different views on how religion fits in the society by different sociologists though its importance can't be denied. Marx is one of the sociologists famous for his critique for religion and referring to it as opium for the oppressed masses. This depicts his stand on religion idea in sociology. He puts emphasis that in a given society, religion being one of the social institutions depends on economic and material resources and sources. Indeed Marx ideas had a revolutionary impact on the world. This paper will analyze the different criticism of Marx on religion. The strengths and weakness of these critiques will also be evaluated and finally the application of these critiques will be done on Buddhism (Elster, 1986, p.36).

Karl Marx critique on religion

Karl Marx regarded religion just like other institutions to be dependent on economic and material realities in a particular society. An independent history is not present in it but rather a creature which has productive forces. Marx wrote that the reflex of the real world manifest itself as the religious world. Through the association of society's economic structure and other social systems then religion is understood according to Marx. He regards economics as the only factor that religion depends on so much that he considers the religious doctrines to be irrelevant. This religion interpretation is functionalist where by the belief's content are not considered but rather the social purpose that it serves. The other critique that Marx has on religion is that it is an illusion which helps the society to function as it is by providing excuses and reasons. There is similarity of religion and capitalism because we are alienated from value by capitalism which take our productive labor while our aspirations and ideals are taken by religion thus we are alienated from them and they become projected onto unknowable alien being referred to as god (Leszek, 1976, p.38).

There are several reasons put forth in the critique for religion by Marx. The first one is that religion is not rational but a delusion whereby the underlying realities recognition is avoided. Secondly all that is dignified in human beings is negated by religion by representing them servile who can more accepting of the status quo. Marx adopted motto in his doctoral dissertation preface was the Prometheus words whereby he expresses his hate for all gods and they failure to recognize the self-consciousness of man as the divinity which is highest. The third one is the hypocritical nature of religion. It takes the sides of the oppressors even though it exhibits good principals. The oppressive Roman state merged with the Christian church and being part of century long enslavement of people even though the helping of the poor was advocated by Jesus. There was acquisition of as much power and property as possible by the Catholic Church even though it preached about heaven (Marx, 1974, p.173).

The atheism of Marx is humanistic. It starts from affirmation and not from negation. The human being autonomy is affirmed and the attempts to rob the creative power of the human person are involved as a consequence. Our thoughts, our feelings and our action are concentrated around humanity. The elimination of God creates a vacuum that in classical atheism that the humanity fills. God is substituted by humanity. The nature of Marx's atheism isn't pessimistic. It tends to be optimistic on the contrary due to its motivation being largely the self assertion of man. Being autonomous is the characteristic of the modern with belief of him being the highest being therefore his values must be created by him, goals and standards set by him and his salvation worked out by him. Man cannot seek support beyond himself because they is nothing which transcends his intelligence and power. His own sense of responsibility would be awakened if he puts faith in God and now perceives him as his rival (Machovec, 1969, p.188).

Strength and weakness of Karl Marx's critique of religion

There are several strengths in the Marx critique of religion. For instance his most famous statement in the Hegel's philosophy of law critique is that religion is the opium of the people. This statement is usually misunderstood because it's taken out of context. Religion wasn't the principal enemy for Marx even though he obviously had anger and dislike towards it because he didn't dedicate more time for it. In this critique, the poor are expected to have illusory fantasies from religion. True happiness cannot be found by them because of the economic realities and religion consoles them by saying its fine because true happiness will be found in the next life (Callinicos, 1983, p.319).

We see Marx sympathy because just as people who are injured physically are given opiate drugs for relief so is solace provided by religion for people who are in distress. The physical injury is not fixed by the opiate and this is the problem because the suffering and pain is only forgotten for a while. If the underlying causes are being solved then this is fine. Similarly the underlying causes of suffering and pain of the people are not being fixed by religion though they are aided in forgetting the reason for their suffering and make them to yearn for an imaginary future where there will be no pain and not work to change the current circumstances. Furthermore the oppressors who are responsible for suffering and pain are the one administering this drug (Tillich, 1948, p.907).

There are some weaknesses in the critiques of Marx on religion which are both economic and historical. This makes it hard for the unconditional acceptance of Marx ideas. The first one is that not much time is spent by Marx in evaluating religion in its general context but rather he puts his focus on religion which he is familiar with i.e. Christianity. These comments therefore don't apply directly to other religions that have similar doctrines of afterlife which is filled with happiness and powerful god. For instance only the heroes were the one who enjoyed the happy life in ancient Rome and Greece while a mere shadow of earthly existence was reserved for the commoners. This might have been influenced by Hegel who perceived Christianity as the superior form of religion and whatever is decided regarding it applies directly to the others which were lesser religion but this isn't correct (Shlomo, 1968, p.72).

The second weakness is the assertion that economic and material realities were the only determinants of religion. Nothing else is fundamental enough to influence religion but also there is no other direction which the influence can run to rather than from economic and material realities. This is not correct. Prior to Protestantism, capitalism would have emerged in countries if Mark was right because the religious system created by capitalism is Protestantism. Not until 19th century does real capitalism appear and in 16th century Germany there comes reformation which was still feudal in nature. Novel economies creation by the religious institutions was theorized by Max Weber as a result of this. The argument against Marx can be argued using historical evidence even if Weber was wrong.

The final weakness is more economic rather than religious because his critiques on society were based on economics hence his other ideas are affected by any problem in the economic analysis he proposed. Two flaws can be found in the emphasis that has been placed by Max on value concept for which human labor but not machines can create. First, more surplus will be produced by a labor intensive industry thus more profit than an industry which relies more on machines and less on human labor if Marx was correct. The reality however is the opposite. There is similar return on investment regardless of if the machines or people did the work and usually more profit is realized using machines than humans. Second, the potential purchaser's subjective estimation and not the labor input is the basis for the produced object value as is evident in common experience. Theoretically, an ugly sculpture could be produced by a worker after working for several hours on a beautiful raw piece of wood. There isn't any surety of more value on the sculpture compared to the raw wood after being worked upon by the worker and it is therefore not true that labor is the source of all value. The value of object is present in whatever the people are ready to pay for regardless of if it's the ugly sculpture or the raw wood. The religion analysis that Marx… READ MORE

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