Didymus wrote:
Metal Head is right, Pianoman. Karl Marx did state that religion was the opiate of the masses, and in doing so, condoned the elimination of religious faith. To him, one's faith shouldn't be in some dead god, but in one's community. And if you still don't believe that Marx' philosophy isn't inherently hostile to religion, just look at the way religion was treated under Soviet Russia, and the way it is treated now under Communist China.
Yeah, but if you look at the link I provided, that quote wasn't part of his Communist Manifesto:
Page I Linked wrote:
Perhaps the most quoted reason for connecting atheism to communism comes from Karl Marx's statement:
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."
However, this statement does not come from his communist philosophy, but rather from a critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. It also does not express a statement about atheism or about the absence of a god, but rather an observation about religion. Note that many people who believe in god but who renounce religion agree with that statement.
Furthermore...
Page I Linked wrote:
Although there certainly occurred prosecutions against Russian churches in the early 1900s, the powers of communism did this out of political concerns, not for religious or atheist reasons. Communists desire the control of all social resources and this includes its religious instruments just as it does its industry and agriculture. This served as one of the reasons why Stalin reintroduced the Russian Orthodox Church where it exists to this day.
Now I agree that Communism
in practice has been oppressive of religions, but that does not necessarily mean that the
theory of Communism is necessarily Atheistic in nature. Just like people that follow Christianity can be real hate-mongers doesn't mean that's what Jesus wanted.
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