Religion is the opium of the people

[Leaf]

In the television show 'House Md', House is a doctor who puts rationality above all else etc. At one point, in anger, he says religion isn't the opiate of the masses, it's the placebo of the masses. I'm sure you guys know what a placebo is. And like religion, the effects are caused by the brain's belief that the placebo is real. I thought this was a great quote! I liked seeing the implication that Marx was right about this on a mainstream show but I don't think it means anything of course. It made me laugh and I thought I'd share it.

Typically, on the show's forums, people discussed this quote yet no one recognised it as originally Marx's. Sad.

Good show.

[x359594]

Too bad they didn't use the entire quote: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed. It is the heart of heartless conditions, the soul of a soulless world. It is the opium of the people."

[Adi Shankara]

People also seem to forget that, in Marx's time, opium was seen as a double edged sword, both able to heal (as it was used as medicine) but also able to destroy (like the opium wars).

Marx never really did speak out against religion, only religious establishment. he spoke that those who follow religion do so because they feel they have nothing to gain on earth, and he was an atheist, but he wasn't as vitriolic as Bakunin was on the subject.

[praxis1966]

Marx never really did speak out against religion, only religious establishment. he spoke that those who follow religion do so because they feel they have nothing to gain on earth, and he was an atheist, but he wasn't as vitriolic as Bakunin was on the subject.

Yeah, I agree with that. I'm reading God and the State, and the fuckin' guy says things that would make even Richard Dawkins say, "Now that's going a bit far..." It's great.:lol: