Editing Sociology of religion (section)

===Karl Marx===
{{Main|Marxism and religion}}
[[File:Karl Marx 001.jpg|thumb|Karl Marx]]
According to Kevin J. Christiano, "Marx was the product of the Enlightenment, embracing its call to replace faith by reason and religion by science." But he "did not believe in science for science's sake … he believed that he was also advancing a theory that would … be a useful tool … [in] effecting a revolutionary upheaval of the capitalist system in favor of [[socialism]]."<ref>Christiano 2008, p. 124</ref>

As such, the crux of his arguments was that humans are best guided by reason. Religion, Marx held, was a significant hindrance to [[reason]], inherently masking the [[truth]] and misguiding followers.<ref>{{cite book|last=Settimba|first=Henry|title=Testing times : globalisation and investing theology in East Africa|year=2009|publisher=Author House|location=Milton Keynes|isbn=978-1-4389-4798-3|pages=230}}</ref> [[Marx's theory of alienation|Marx viewed alienation]] as the heart of [[social inequality]]. The antithesis to this [[Social alienation|alienation]] is [[Freedom (philosophy)|freedom]]. Thus, to propagate freedom means to present individuals with the truth and give them a choice to accept or deny it. In this, "Marx never suggested that religion ought to be prohibited."<ref>Christiano 2008, p. 126</ref>

Central to Marx's theories was the oppressive economic situation in which he dwelt. With the rise of [[Industrial Revolution|European industrialism]], Marx and his colleague [[Friedrich Engels]] witnessed and responded to the growth of what he called "[[surplus value]]". Marx's view of capitalism saw rich capitalists getting richer and their workers getting poorer (the gap, the exploitation, was the "surplus value"). Not only were workers getting exploited, but in the process they were being further detached from the products they helped create. By simply selling their work for [[wage]]s, "workers simultaneously lose connection with the object of labor and become objects themselves. Workers are devalued to the level of a commodity{{spaced ndash}}a thing …"<ref>Christiano 2008, p. 125</ref> From this [[objectification]] comes alienation. The common worker is led to believe that he or she is a replaceable tool, and is alienated to the point of extreme discontent. Here, in Marx's eyes, religion enters. Capitalism utilizes our tendency towards religion as a tool or [[ideological state apparatus]] to justify this alienation. Christianity teaches that those who gather up riches and power in this life will almost certainly not be rewarded in the next ("it is harder for a rich man to enter the [[Kingdom of God|Kingdom of Heaven]] than it is for a camel to pass through the [[eye of a needle]] …") while those who suffer [[oppression]] and poverty in this life while cultivating their spiritual wealth will be rewarded in the Kingdom of God. Hence Marx's famous line – "[[Opium of the people|religion is the opium of the people]]", as it soothes them and dulls their senses to the pain of oppression. Some scholars have recently noted that this is a contradictory (or dialectical) metaphor, referring to religion as both an expression of suffering and a protest against suffering.<ref>McKinnon, AM. (2005). 'Reading ‘Opium of the People’: Expression, Protest and the Dialectics of Religion'. Critical Sociology, vol 31, no. 1-2, pp. 15–38. {{cite web |url=http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3074/1/marx_religion_and_opium_final_author_version.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2014-10-26 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140818030414/http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3074/1/marx_religion_and_opium_final_author_version.pdf |archive-date=2014-08-18 }}</ref>
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