Is religion really a product of the ruling class?

[cowslayer]

I am a Marxist and thus a materialist but I have trouble with grasping the idea of religion being a tool of the ruling class.

I mean, it just seems silly. Religion evolved into a large complex way of describing the universe back when humans had no science or any way of really understanding the universe, and so non-natural, or supernatural forces were believed to have created them.

Now I absolutely agree that religion is oppressive. But so do many capitalists and centrists. The prime minister of Sweden is Agnostic and the Prime minister of Norway is an Atheist.

I might not be understanding this correctly, but do Marxists believe that religion is a tool specifically designed to oppress workers/slaves?

[Wubbaz]

I am a Marxist and thus a materialist but I have trouble with grasping the idea of religion being a tool of the ruling class.

I mean, it just seems silly. Religion evolved into a large complex way of describing the universe back when humans had no science or any way of really understanding the universe, and so non-natural, or supernatural forces were believed to have created them.

Now I absolutely agree that religion is oppressive. But so do many capitalists and centrists. The prime minister of Sweden is Agnostic and the Prime minister of Norway is an Atheist.

I might not be understanding this correctly, but do Marxists believe that religion is a tool specifically designed to oppress workers/slaves?

I do not think that religion was designed specifically to oppress workers and slaves. However, I do believe that it has been used for this purpose. There has been numerous wars that were started due to religious issues (the Christian crusades, for example), in which religion has been used as a way of persuading the working class/slaves into fighting for the ruling class. Also, genocides and murders have been and are being made in the name of religion (Sunni/Shia conflict for example, KKK, IRA to name a few).

Marx describe religion this way: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.". Religion is a tool for the ruling class to lead the working class away from class struggle.

[caramelpence]

being a tool of the ruling class.

I don't think this is really Marx's understanding of religion, at least not in the sense of religion being cynically deployed as a tool of deliberate deception, as that would postulate an unreasonable degree of rationality and collective consciousness on the part of the ruling class, not to mention a patronizing level of gullibility on the part of working people. There are some philosophers who have argued along these lines, most notably Voltaire, but I think Marx's perspective is more nuanced. In his Introduction to A Contribution to a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843/4), which is the text from which the famous "opiate" quote is drawn, Marx gives a clearer indication of his understanding of the nature of religious faith (and ideology in general) when he argues that "this state and society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world". What this point aims to convey is that religion is not something that is imposed on people from without but that it is a form of consciousness that reflects the deficient (or "inverted") nature of the world in which people live and that it therefore serves a number of social and psychological functions until such a point where it has been rendered unnecessary, through the abolition and transcendence of the material conditions from which religion arises. Religion is therefore more or less spontaneous in terms of how it comes to be accepted, whatever its specific historic origins. In other words, Marx believes that religion offers consolation (amongst other things) and this is actually apparent from the "opiate" quote as well, because opiates were associated mainly with pain relief in Marx's era, rather than with deception, as in more contemporary usage. The other metaphors that Marx deploys in the same quote are even more closely associated with consolation.

Marx is therefore open to the ways in which religion offers human beings a way of coming to terms with the world and making that world one in which human beings can live without descending into complete despair. He was also sympathetic to some millenarian religious movements that transformed latent anger into inchoate forms of political action, such as the Taiping Rebellion in China in the middle of the 19th century. He certainly cannot be likened to the contemporary hyper-aggressive atheism we associate with the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens.

[Thirsty Crow]

[QUOTE=cowslayer;2121901]I am a Marxist and thus a materialist but I have trouble with grasping the idea of religion being a tool of the ruling class.

I mean, it just seems silly. Religion evolved into a large complex way of describing the universe back when humans had no science or any way of really understanding the universe, and so non-natural, or supernatural forces were believed to have created them.
[QUOTE]
First of all, when we talk about religion, we shouldn't mix up religious aspects of tribal, pre-agricultural societies with the formation of institutionalized religion most clearly visible with the rise of what we call civilization and agriculture.

I think that to conclude the following wouldn't fall into the trap of reductionism: with the first historical appearance of production which enabled the existence surplus value (agricultural surpluses), the fromation of a specific group of people began - the priests, who were directly respnsible for the management of surpluses and other "public" phenomena. In that way, religion developed more or less simultaneously with the development and formation of first class societies.

I don't think its useful to argue along the lines you do (religion as designed "specifically" to oppress workers/slaves). Historically speaking, the picture is more complex than this crude functionalist account of religious institutions would have us think.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Like pretty much everyone else, I'd argue that a materialist analysis of religious phenomena will find religion as in part being a tool for approaching answering questions about suffering, mortality, and other parts of human life.

The cynical view of religion (especially religious structure) of being utilized to oppress people in the West probably would be tied into Liberal thought in Europe. Liberalism's worship of ideas and principles makes the "irrationality" of religion a pernicious and evil construct.

Not to say that religion hasn't been used by capital to justify itself or its injustices, but there's a bigger picture beyond that.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Bogdanov was quite clear regarding the issue of Religion:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bogdanov/1924/religion-art.htm

What should also be noted regarding religion was the importance of the early God Building Movement which had proposed a Proletarianization of Religious Figures and the building of a Secular, Pro-Scientific, Materialist and rational thinking based Religious Order in order to replace the previous order of Religious Society that has been based upon carrying out the interests of the Bourgeois Ruling Class. In this form, Religion is yet again viewed as a societal tool, but as a societal tool that can be easily used in order to bring about the interests of the Proletariat, in order to solve the issue regarding the loss of culture from the lack of religion, promoting an alternative religious culture that builds beautiful magnificent religious rituals and bases itself upon a Proletariat outlook of society. (Which Bogdanov was massively apart of as well as the Proletarian Cultural and Art Movement)

More or less however, whether a Supreme Being is existent, (Which is more than likely Non-Existent) the Proletariat during the phase of transition towards Communism requires a system that on a State-Level offers the Proletariat an alternative to the practices of exploitative Religion that had been used by the previous Ruling Class.

[Kenco Smooth]

A worthwhile point to make is that religion isn't simply an ideological or ontological position held by an individual but many massive social influences which have changed in form greatly over time and within themselves during the same time frame. 'Religions' barely fit under a homogenous definition (there's very little in common between the catholic church at the hight of it's influence and basic superstitions in small, recently settled farming communities). Trying to find a simple cause and effect explanation for religion is for this reason futile.

However it is pretty safe to say that religion is not a result (originally at lease) of economic exploitation. Many signs of religion have been encountered from times preceeding the cultivation of animals such as cattle (broadly speaking one of the first forms of private property to exist) and thus there must be another explanation. This of course doesn't rule out class having an influence on religions development but class and exploitation are not necesities for religious activities or beliefs.

[Alaz]

"Religion" may only be a small part of the metaphysical cults; though it still encompasses a wide field of subject.

I personally do not think that one guy just enlightened and said "Hey guys, let's create a specific tool to suppress people beneath us!"

This doesn't work that mechanical and cannot be explained in engineering formulas.

From the time it was used to be given meaning to obscurity, unexplained and the "unknown" to this very day, as the historical evolution progress, it got patched and then updated.

If we look at what Marxist theory puts in front of us; as a superstructural value, religion too became a tool for the ruling class/classes and got shaped according to the needs of the sovereigns. Let us take Christianity and Islam which both were created and shaped in respectively modern times. The main theme is quite similar: you will obey! No matter what the metaphorical object is, the verb and the action quite summarize the aspect.

On the other hand, as in paganism which was quite pervasive before the Christianization of Europe, and could be considered as an inspirational element for monotheistic religions, there are no red lines that even metaphorically adapted to the needs of the ruling class. Both Islam and Christianity are the modern reflections of Paganism, but the difference is obvious, they are shaped according to the needs of the ruling classes.

And especially it is important to emphasize that both these “main stream” religions, after their expiration will become (even now are) the morals of the slaves. As bile juice they'll be thrown out of the body of their sovereignty.

[Koba1917]

Well the creation of religion itself came out of mankind's ignorance and superstition.
Religion has been around before the form of governments itself in many various forms
(Shamanism, African Folk Religions, ect.). But as we see from history when ignorance
and superstition rules society we see the problems with that. One of the problems is
when the ruling class has the power and uses this superstition to control over society
they can make the masses themselves do almost anything. The Crusades are a great
example of this when the Catholic Church had great power over the Monarchs.
Karl Marx said "religion is the opium of the masses". Which he means by this is that religion has been
and can be used to give a false happiness to society. It gives the slaves of society a
reason to work really hard in their life to enjoy a good eternal afterlife. In closing religion
didn't come about because of the ruling class but has been used as a TOOL for the ruling class to oppress.:thumbup: