Marx on ReligionReligious 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.Few people would ever expect that Karl Marx is the writer of the above statement. He not only wrote it, but he did so in the same breath of his more famous dictum that religion is the opiate of the masses. How can one reconcile such different perspectives on the power and ubiquity of religion?In this compact reader of Marx's essential thought on religion, John Raines offers the full range of Marx's thoughts on religion and its relationship to the world of social relations. Through a careful selection of essays, articles, pamphlets, and letters, Raines shows that Marx had a far more complex understanding of religious belief. Equally important is how Marx's ideas on religion were intimately tied to his inquiries into political economy, revolution, social change, and the philosophical questions of the self.Raines offers an introduction that shows the continuing importance of the Marxist perspective on religion and its implications for the way religion continues to act in and respond to the momentous changes going on in our social and environmental worlds. Marx on Religion also includes a study guide to help professors and studentsOCoas well as the general readerOCocontinue to understand the significance of this often under-examined component of Marx." |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abstract activity ancien régime appears atheism Bauer become bourgeois bourgeoisie Bruno Bauer burgher capital century Christian Church civil society Communist Manifesto conceived concept consciousness constitutes criticism critique demand Descartes division of labor egoistic essential powers estranged labor exchange existence expression external fact feudal Feuerbach force freedom French French materialism Friedrich Engels German heaven Hegel Hegelian hence human essence ideas individual industry Judaism Karl Marx living Luther man's Marx material means metaphysics modern moral movement Münzer nations nature negation object opposition organization particular peasants philosophy plebeians political economy political emancipation positive practical princes private property production proletariat Protestant reality rela relation relationship religion religious revolution revolutionary sciousness secular self-consciousness sense sensuous slaves social species species-being species-life spirit struggle suffering superseded equals supersession theology things thought tion transform true universal whole worker Young Hegelians
Popular passages
Page 144 - The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Page 232 - And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Page 225 - But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Page 12 - The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors,*' and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment...
Page 146 - It has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals ; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former exoduses of nations and crusades.
Page 152 - Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.
Page 5 - 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.
Page 144 - A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals
Page 182 - The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as human sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively.