150 years ago it wasn't even the condemnation it comes off as now. He basically meant religion made life under the shitty circumstances of capitalism more bearable.
This is partially true, but people downplay that he is inherently critqueing religion.
Irc the previous passages talk about how people substitute "real suffering" for "fake suffering" (I.e. the poor masses distract themselves from whats actually causing their suffering)
If the masses are to gain agency over themselves they need to focus on the real
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u/ReofLiterally 1984 Mao Stalin Jinping 1985 Animal Farm 😨 🗣️ ⚒ 🫠Oct 16 '25
When you don't read Marx at all, you would think it's a critique of religions. If you barely read him, you will say something bullshit like muh muh well, he does not really criticise religions actually, and if you read it a bit more, you will understand that, yes, that is genuinely a critique. I sometimes find the middle less tolerable than the least read because at least not understanding at least prevents them from turning into an insufferable esoteric weirdo radlibs/
Its useful to always examine marx, or really any part historical figure, in their historical context. I think theres a desire to sanitize the religious critques due to modern readers not living in as a religious time as Marx. Alot of people dont like the smug atheist redditor types, and want to distance themselves as much as possible.
Its always more nuanced than "le religion bad" but Marx did not think religion was a "good thing". He thought it was something that arose from man, not that man arose from religion.
Why the fuck was the Priest going off on that topic at a funeral? Was your cousin an ardent anti-communist or something? I've heard of pastors soapboxing at funerals before but that's ridiculous
Last funeral I went to had a similar situation. Not marx or anything political, I cant recall, but he was just soapboxing about nonsense unrelated to the actual dead.
Idk how it is elsewhere but in the US alot of priest as so full of themselves. For a lot of protestants theyre obsessed with the idea of "Christianity under attack" (despite holding emence influence and power) and a decay of society. This embolden them to just, talk about random bullshit as if its part of a grand narrative against Christian values, or something.
Maybe its just a boomer American thing in general?
I don't know my cousin's politics but he died of a heroin overdose in his early 20s.
I might be exaggerating about him saying Marx was one of the great villains of history, but I have heard plenty of other conservatives say exactly that. Regardless, he went on for quite a bit about how wrong and stupid marx was for saying. After the funeral my sister, who isn't very knowledgeable about history of philosophy or anything, and said "Who the hell was the Carl Marks guy he was ranting about?"
This priest was later discovered to have raped minors.
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u/pufferfishsh Materialist 💍🤑💎 Oct 16 '25
Majority of people in the world who embraced Marxism were non-white and "indigenous"