Kant Marx Religion

Srilalitha Cunkari

Fridays- 9:00am-9:50am

In Kant Marx's, Religion as Alienation, alienation is described as being deeply into an organized religion as well as economic, political and social theory of that time. He argued that alienation does not come from ideas, but rather from the material conditions of political economy that people are suffering from and that it is our material needs that primarily directs our fundamental interaction with the world rather than ideas. Kant Marx was a logical person who did not believe in the unseen truth and wanted evidence in order to believe in religion. He wanted people to see things beyond religion because he didn’t want the society to blindly believe in something that cant be seen and had his own

He compared belief systems based on faith to a drug, where the intoxicated isn’t in proper conscious or control of his/her surrounding. Marx suggested that faith offered people an misconception of safety that was based on an unknown future where the people didn't try to fix things problems themselves and left it up to god. Marx states, “Religion, he says, is pure illusion. Worse, it is an illusion with the most definitely evil consequences”(Marx 258), explaining how he disagrees with people blindly believing in a power named god to take control of their lives. Further, he believed religious people tolerated difficult life situations in expectation of a glorious result. He theorized that the difficulty of the poor was not a result of God's will but rather was caused by distress and confusion. He advised for people to focus on the reality of their situations, which would enable them to stand up against things pulling them down and not just leave it thinking God will take care of their difficult situations. Additionally, he saw the refusal to conflict as a way the religious helped carry on systems of inequality. He had a functionalist definition of religion, that understanding religion is dependent upon what social purpose religion itself serves, not the content of its beliefs. His opinion is that religion is an fantasy

First is that religion is irrational. He writes, “After all, if the truth is that there is neither a God or a supernatural world, being religious is no different that being addicted to a drug, like opium. It is pure escapism”(Marx 259). He claims that people don't have logical reasoning behind believing or following a certain religion and they just go by delusion leaving the reality behind it. Second, that its hypocritical. Although it may tell you about valuable principals it sides with the bad deeds. Marx isn't fully opposed on religion, he understands that people are in distress and that religion allows them to stay clam but it only lets you forget your pain and suffering for a certain period of time. This can be fine if people are also trying to solve their problems and working on their circumstances now instead of entirely leaving it up to god's