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Karl Marx: Religions
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Karl Marx and Religion The creation of 'false consciousness' refers to having been led to believe something that is not true, and at the same time is disadventagious to the holder of said belief. According to Marx, religion is a false conciousness embedded into the the minds of the [P]roletariat (the working class) by the bourgeoisie (the ruling class). In other words, the ruling elite in society, promote religion to the masses in order to control them, or to maintain the obedience of the exploited working class. Religion is the Opiate of the Masses is commonly referred to by people trying to convey Marx's view of the repressive nature of relgion, and the intoxicating effect it has on individuals and groups.
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Karl was born in 1818 and baptized in 1824, but his mother, Henriette, did not convert until 1825, when Karl was 7. While the family did not appear religious at all -- it was said that not a single volume on religion or theology was in Heinrich's modest library -- Karl was raised in an atmosphere of religious toleration. There was some discrimination against Jews in the area, but general religious tolerance was the standard. Karl was sent to religious school primarily for academic rather than religious training. On the whole, the family was not committed to either evangelical Protestantism or evangelical Judaism. Vincent Miceli notes:
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The intellectual climate within which the young Marx worked was dominated by the influence of Hegel, and the reaction to Hegel by a group known as the Young Hegelians, who rejected what they regarded as the conservative implications of Hegel's work. The most significant of these thinkers was Ludwig Feuerbach, who attempted to transform Hegel's metaphysics, and, thereby, provided a critique of Hegel's doctrine of religion and the state. A large portion of the philosophical content of Marx's works written in the early 1840s is a record of his struggle to define his own position in reaction to that of Hegel and Feuerbach and those of the other Young Hegelians.
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It was from Hegel, though perhaps ... from Montesquieu, that Marx learned the holistic approach that regarded society as a structurally interrelated whole. Consequently, for Marx, any aspect of that whole--be it legal codes, systems of education, religion, or art--could not be understood by itself. Societies, moreover, are not only structured wholes but developing totalities. His own contribution lay in identifying an independent variable that played only a minor part in Hegel's system: the mode of economic production.
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Dieser Verkehrung der praktischen Verhältnisse entspricht für Marx das falsche Bewusstsein der Religion, welche nichts weiter als der „richtige“ (d. h. angemessene) Ausdruck einer falschen Gesellschaft sei. Die Religion sei die „Mystifikation“[23] einer Welt, die selbst quasi-mystische Züge trägt. In der Religion „scheinen die Produkte des menschlichen Kopfes mit eignem Leben begabte, untereinander und mit den Menschen in Verhältnis stehende selbständige Gestalten [zu sein]. So in der Warenwelt die Produkte der menschlichen Hand.”[24] So sei Religion nicht nur Täuschung, sondern besitze auch eine innere Wahrheit:
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Marx's message of an earthly paradise has provided millions with hope and new meaning of life. From this point of view, one may agree with the Austrian economist Joseph A. Schumpeter that "Marxism is a religion" and Marx is its "prophet."
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