Marx and Religion

“The religious reflections of the world can only vanish when the practical relations of everyday life offer man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations to his fellow man and to nature.” – Karl Marx

So much can be said about religion; it has started wars but it has also caused peace; it has destroyed families and out casted minorities but it has also saved millions of lives and brought strangers together through a common belief. Its scale is massive and is something that can not be ignored and is something that will never disappear. Or can it?

What I believe Karl Marx means by this statement is that religion will vanish completely when the negative aspects of capitalism or capitalism itself has been removed, this however is a huge claim to make and hard to prove. Marx believed that religious beliefs have social causes which is something I am willing to acknowledge, being an atheist I share a similar belief to Marx in that Religion stems from the stories of people who don’t have the capability to understand the world around them, if something is uncomprehendable to someone than a more simple explanation will suffice and this more simple explanation then becomes religion. Marx then goes on to say that as the hierarchy and classes of human society grows and develops that religion becomes a way for leaders to justify the system they are in ruling over. This is why religion is majorly capitalist because the rulers of the world use it to gain power and money. Rulers that range from the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt to the earlier monarchs of England were thought of as conduits to the Gods themselves and this was thought fact by the society at the time. However this doesn’t explain why the people who don’t win though capitalism still follow religion, only why the rich would believe in religion. Marx said that these people see religion as a solution to the suffering and oppression that they face and that is why they follow it.

So why does Marx believe that religion will disappear with the collapse of capitalism? We can view the example of a farmer. A capitalist farmer when facing drought will pray for rain so his crops will grow which in turn will make him enough money to live. A communist farmer however has no need to pray when he is facing drought as he knows he will be supported by the communist regime and the society he lives in. This change of society completely eliminates the necessity of religion. Or so it would seem. In reality it is not as simple as the farmer example. Religion isn’t only caused by the perversions of a capitalist society; it is also here to answer questions in relation to the universe like “Where did humans come from?” and also to help deal with personal problems such as behavior to others. These are things which no social system can solve.