Editing Karl Marx (section)

==== Religion ====

Marx agreed with [[Ludwig Feuerbach|Feuerbach]] that religion is a human construct reflecting human conditions ("man creates religion, religion does not create man"), but analysed this in historical, not abstract terms. He saw religion as both an expression of suffering and a protest against it. In his 1843 essay ''[[Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right]],'' Marx sought to distance himself from [[Young Hegelians]] like [[Bruno Bauer]], whose religion-focused critique, in his view, could not be a solution to human suffering without a transformative critique of society. [[Criticism of religion|Critique of religion]] would be ineffective without changing the real social conditions of which religion is only an expression.<ref name=":2" />
According to [[Shlomo Avineri]], the famous passage from the introduction to this essay is, though often only partially quoted, "both more complex and more profound" than would seem, and Marx here expressed "empathy, not scorn" for religious feelings:<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Avineri |first=Shlomo |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1089573903 |title=Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution |date=2019 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-21170-2 |series=Jewish lives |location=New Haven, Connecticut |chapter=2. Transcending Hegel - Religion and Opium |oclc=on1089573903}}</ref><blockquote>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]].

<p>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.<ref name="MarxO'Malley1977" /></p></blockquote>Similar to the later views of [[Max Weber]], Marx believed that religion plays a [[Legitimation|legitimating function]] for the dominant classes by providing a divine sanction for [[Economic inequality|inequality]] and existing social conditions, and that for subordinate classes religion offers an escape:<ref name="SwatosKivisto1998" /> like an [[opiate]], alleviating pain but not offering a cure.<ref name=":2" /> Marx's [[Gymnasium (school)|gymnasium]] senior thesis at the {{Interlanguage link|Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium (Trier)|de|3=Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium (Trier)|lt=Gymnasium zu Trier}} argued that religion had as its primary social aim the promotion of [[solidarity (sociology)|solidarity]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}