This quote is always taken out of context. It originally wasn’t supposed to be about how people are “stupefied” by religion, it was supposed to be a direct comparison of how Tsarist Russia used the Orthodox religion as a method of control, in the same way that the British used opium as a method of control over China.

It was supposed to be a commentary about state power in a specific time and place, not a condemnation of religion in general.

Most people aren’t ready to be unplugged. Their minds struggle to process the kind of reality the scientific method has revealed, truths that are often counterintuitive, unsettling, and far removed from everyday intuition.

Even something as fundamental as the certainty of death, the idea that consciousness may simply cease, can be too much to fully confront. For many, that is not just uncomfortable, it is existentially destabilizing. So they turn to belief systems, often inherited early in life, that provide structure, meaning, and emotional security.

That does not necessarily make those systems wrong, but they can discourage questioning when taken as absolute truth. It is easier to accept a fixed narrative than to sit with uncertainty. Very few people are willing to seriously question what lies beyond their own beliefs, about reality, the human condition, or the universe itself.

So yeah, most people are not ready to be unplugged. Many will defend the very frameworks that keep them from questioning, because those frameworks are what make reality feel stable and livable.