this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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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 [...] 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. [...] It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. 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.
Thanks for posting the full quote in context. There is so much that can be extrapolated from there. I have already posted some neo Marxist analysis by Samir Amin on the monotheistic Abrahamic religions in the comments here.
You're welcome but I feel obligated to point out that I did leave some parts out, namely where the [...] are.
here's the full text
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
Also Marx has a lot of italics which frankly changes the tone of some of the text.