Marxist views on religion

• Religion as an ideology - legitimises inequality 


  Suggest that the suffering of the poor is inevitable and god given. Religion misleads the poor into believing they will be rewarded in the next life
• Religion as an ideology - legitimises power of ruling class


  Religious teachings encourage proletariat to believe the way society is organised is gods will.
• Religion as an ideology - spiritual gin

  Lenin - religion is doled out to the masses by the rich and powerful in order to keep them confused and in their place. Lenin believed that the ruling class use religion to manipulate the masses and prevent them from overthrowing the ruling class by keeping them in a mystical fog to obscure reality.
• Evaluation of religion as an ideology

  1. Ignores positive functions of religion set out by functionalists
  2. neo Marxists see certain forms of religion as assisting not hindering the development of class consciousness
• Alienation

  The lack of power, control and fulfilment experienced by workers in capitalist societies which the means of producing goods are privately owned and controlled
• Religion as a product of alienation - suffering as a test of faith 


  Religion makes a virtue out of suffering
• Religion as a product of alienation - existential security


  Religion can offer hope of supernatural intervention to solve problems on earth: make it pointless for humans to do anything significant to help improve their current conditions
• How does religion legitimise inequality?

  Misleads poor into believing that suffering in this world would be rewarded in the next
• Religion as a product of alienation - promises of an afterlife

  Promise of an afterlife gives people something to look forward to. It is easier to put up with misery now if you believe you have a life of eternal bliss to look forward to after death
• Evaluation- Althusser

  Rejects the idea of alienation as being unscientific and more of a romantic notion of people having a true self.
• Religion as an opioid of the masses

  Marx - religion dulls the pain they face by offers of a temporary high through promises of an afterlife in order to distract them from their exploitation- similar to drugs
• How does religion act as an opioid?

  By dulling the pain of the oppression people face for offers of an afterlife
• 3 ways religion is like an opium

  1. Dulls pain of exploitation
  2. religion gives a distorted world view, offers n solutions to earthly misery but can offer an afterlife
  3. the temporary high that followers feel whilst taking part in rituals
• Evaluation of opioid

  Abercrombie, hill and turner - religion doesn’t necessarily function as an ideology to control the population.

  in pre industrial society christianity was a major element of ruling class ideology but had little impact of peasantry