12-05-2013, 03:24 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-05-2013, 03:34 AM by FireIceTalon.)
It pacifies people in the sense that those who follow its doctrine submit themselves to the will of a perceived supernatural entity, in addition to being used as a tool to control large groups of people by having them be convinced (despite not having a shred of empirical evidence) that the "next life" will be better (or that there even is a "next" life), and also being used a crutch in the current life for making an inhumane world feel or seem more humane. As a result, many act against their own rational material interests because of the ideological control that religion has on many of its followers - whether it is on their own accord or by the power of a ruling class. Or, in Marxist terms, false consciousness. When he said "religion was the opium of the masses", there was more than grain of truth to the statement - although I would argue that Nationalism is beginning to override religion as the most prominent form of false consciousness. One might argue that it already has been for some time.
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"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)