Karl Heinrich Marx was a philosopher and a revolutionary who inspired a foundation of many communist regimes during the twentieth century through his numerous works. He was a trained philosopher but later on, focused more on economics and politics. Originally born in Germany to a Jewish lawyer, Marx studied law in Berlin, where he came across the ideas of Hegel von Feuerbach, whose claims on religion he accepted and criticized. He received a doctorate in philosophy and later moved to Paris in France, where he became a revolutionary communist. He would later become expelled from France and move to Brussels for a short while then to London with his family, where he spent the rest of his life. Marx would then end up with numerous writings that form the basis of ideas known as Marxism, which range from society to economics, religion, and philosophy.
Karl Marx defines religion as the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as in the spirit of a spiritless world. He calls it the opium of the people and pure illusion. Thus, Marx sees religion as economic injustice and an expression of material realities. Religion becomes a tool oppressors use to make the oppressed to feel better about their distressful experiences of poverty and constant exploitation. It creates illusory fantasies for the poor whom the economic realities prevent from finding true happiness. So they rely on religion, which tells them it is okay since they will find true happiness in their next eternal life. Therefore, from the definition, Marx has the idea that man has created religion as a means with which he meets his requirements, which makes his description a good one. He sees religion as a consequence of an underlying evil in which man has yet to find himself.
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He refers to religion as the heart of the heartless. He sees religion as harmful in that it prevents people from seeing or realizing the class structure and oppression around them, and can prevent a revolution which can lead to a greater good. Religious distress expresses real distress while at the same time, protests against real suffering. Religion intends to make people live better lives, make society a better place, but at the same time, objects when the status reaches. Those who spread and use religion intend to show how it holds people at heart, but then how they use religion to oppress their subjects shows how heartless they are. A religious society becomes insensitive about real and essential matters with religion as its heart.
Marx compares religion to opium, and therefore, he gives a hint of faith being sedative. Once sedated, an individual lives in an imaginary world in which he meets all their needs and vested interests. He believes that religion has certain practical functions similar to how opium operates in a suck person. Opium drug reduces the immediate suffering of a sick or injured person, thereby giving them pleasant illusions accompanied with the strength to carry on. Thus, religion helps humans forget their real world, as people with vested interests use it to attain their otherwise limited needs and interests. Marx's view and definition of religion mean that religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression. It retards economic growth as it blunts the sharp intelligence of humans and limits their productive capacity. Besides, religion, according to the definition, teaches humans to be submissive and docile, a spiritual drug in which slaves drown their human image. The comparison of religion to opium brings a deep insight, which makes the definition even better since even in the modern world, there exist individuals who would prefer going to Church other than working with the belief that they would have all that in their next life.
Consequently, religion has been inflicted on people to make them forget the prevailing political and economic conditions, which explains the approach the ruling class adopted based on religion, which involves massive exploitation of the people. The state of the society remains worse as long as religion exists since through religion, poor and oppressed people can survive and change their conditions to be better as they can respond to issues such as poverty, social injustice, and global warming. Religion should be a personal affair, and the authorities and government should not impose religion on anyone. In certain places in the world, there exist situations in which people still cannot freely practice their religion.
Although Marx proves his points in the definition, it has limitations. It is true to say that there exists oppression in religion and that it is comparable to opium, which gives an illusion, thereby making people keep going even in worse situations. Still, they are a result of the practices which occur within religion. Although there exist oppression and heartlessness in religion, they result from the religious traditions within a particular belief, with Christianity being one of the many. However, his comparison of religion to opium holds ground, especially in the case of Christianity. In some churches, believers still have the opinion that prayers are all they need when they fall sick, that God would heal them. Besides, they blindly follow church doctrines, which may be outdated, for instance, the objection of the use of a condom by the Catholic Church, which would cause a massive spread of HIV/AIDS.
Additionally, Marx only focused on Christianity with which he identified the most, which limits his definition of religion. His description holds for religions with similar doctrines of a powerful God and happy eternal life after death. However, they may not apply for other radical religions. Furthermore, he made economics the basis for all his analyses of the society, religion included. Therefore the agreement with Karl Marx's definition of faith is partial hence there should be modifications. It would have been better if Marx defined religion by first stating the aspect of unification and common beliefs with which a community identifies but has developed into a state of oppression in situations in which individuals are not allowed to practice their religion freely. The aspect of the absence of freedom is what brings about oppression, heartlessness, and makes religion comparable to opium.
Therefore, in conclusion, religion should be defined as a system of beliefs that unite into a single community called the Church with the aim of ultimate transformation and is characterized by common beliefs and practices, some of which are oppressive, exploitative and manipulative. The definition incorporates part of Marx’s definition because of its essential aspect depicted by the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world in which people are manipulated to believe those good things await them in eternal life. There should be factual reasoning with regards to religion on how people should practice, not being oppressed, and not being told unrealistic things. Religion needs to aim at transforming believers and hence should be dynamic to be in line with the changes that have occurred since its introduction up to the 21 st century. Outdated practices need to be abandoned, and believers should be enlightened about every aspect, which would lead to their ultimate transformation, which should be the ultimate goal of religion.
