Marx and Engels' View of Religion Essay

Karl Marx was born in Prussia on May of 1818 to a middle class Jewish family. As an adult, Marx attended school in Berlin where he discovered the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. Hegel’s main concept was the idea of dialect, which can be explained as the process of logical argumentation and refutation. Marx was greatly influenced by Hegel, which is shown in Marx’s belief that history evolves through a series of predictable conflicts (A+E Television Networks, LLC. 2013). Marx also believed social divisions and civil unrest were due to the increase in industrialization and the widening gap between rich and poor.

At the beginning of the semester, I wrote: “Religion is the institutional manifestation of feeling and believing in something beyond yourself” (Kelley 2016). Twelve weeks later, I consider this definition incomplete and problematic; nevertheless, it reveals how religious thinkers such as James Frazer, Emile Durkheim, William James, Mircea Eliade, Jeffrey Kripal, and Bruce Lincoln infiltrate our quotidian definitions of religion. In this paper, I hope to develop a new conception of religion, recognizing the impact of such historical thinkers on personal conclusions. In other words, I hope to show that we are

Marxism tries to explain things by look at the world differently, the purpose is to look at the existence of a world or of forces beyond the natural world around us, and the society we live in. It looks for concrete, scientific, logical explanations of the world. The Marxist theory developed when Karl Marx and his friend Frederich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848, focuses on class in societies, Marxism attempts to change the world while other philosophies look to merely understand it. Marx wanted to better understand how so many people could be in poverty in a world where there is so much wealth. His answer was simple: capitalism.

     The Communist Manifesto was written by two world renowned philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This book was produced in an era of great suffering and anguish of all workers in a socially distressed system. In a time when revolutions were spreading through Europe like wildfire, Marx organized his thoughts and views to produce the critical pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto”. Marx’s scrutiny illustrates his belief that unless change is to occur the constant outcome will repeatedly remain uniform. This is a novel that displays the differentiation between the Bourgeois and the Proletariat. Class relationships are defined by an era's means of production. Marx’s

They decided that it is not the ideas and thoughts of individuals or society as a whole that drives progress forward but it is the material circumstances under which people live that determines how they think and act; in their own words ‘Consciousness does not determine life, but life determines consciousness’. These two philosophers therefore believe, like Feurbach (an extremely influential philosopher, especially on Marx) that philosophy must begin with the finite, material world as this is the only way that philosophical problems may be overcome; thought does not precede existence, existence precedes thought. For example in an article written by Marx titled ‘The Jewish Question’ the racist and stereotypical nature of the Jew is discussed. The majority of people at that time, under the Hegelian influence, would see with their ‘idealist eyes’ that the problem of Jews is in religious consciousness which could be resolved by establishing a new way of thinking.

Society is flawed. There are critical imbalances in it that cause much of humanity to suffer. In, the most interesting work from this past half-semester, The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx is reacting to this fact by describing his vision of a perfectly balanced society, a communist society. Simply put, a communist society is one where all property is held in common. No one person has more than the other, but rather everyone shares in the fruits of their labors. Marx is writing of this society because, he believes it to be the best form of society possible. He states that communism creates the correct balance between the needs of the individual and the needs of society. And furthermore thinks that sometimes

Following the Industrial Revolution in 19th century Europe, change was in full swing and religion began to have different meanings for different people. The upper-class citizens used Religion, namely Christianity, and the power that it possessed in an attempt to keep their high status in society, while the lower class turned to faith so that their lives could possibly improve. Instead of religion being the cornerstone of faith and worship amongst all people, it was being used for power and money by the upper class. Even worse, religious leaders were using the upper class people as well, gaining money and authority from their endorsement. A man by the name of Karl Marx saw

. ‘The Young Hegelian’ looks to the philosophy of Hegel, especially as expressed in The Phenomenology of Mind, to try to understand more about how Marx came to his beliefs.11 The well-known passage in the in Phenomenology concerns the relationship between master and slave. The example given by Hegel as dialectic profoundly influence Marx’s idea concerning the relationship between capitalist and proletariat. ‘The Young Hegelian’ looks to the philosophy of Hegel, especially as expressed in The Phenomenology of Mind, to try to understand more about how Marx came to his beliefs. . Hegel's philosophy seemed mystifying to Marx, until applied to the real world. The notion of ‘Mind’ became ‘human

My interpretation of the Karl Marx claim that Religion was the “opiate of the masses” is that of comfort and need. In my opinion, religion was created for that purpose, to help people accept and cope with death, unexplainable occurrences, to give solace and guidance. Opium, during the 19th century was given for a multitude of reasons, pain management, “women troubles”, colicky babies, and depression to name a few, therefore, comfort, yet often times people became addicted to opium, which created the need and/or yearning for it. I agree with Marx, in that I believe religion was created by man to control the masses, however, I do not believe spirituality or faith have anything to do with religion. In the instance of pork, prior to refrigeration

I strongly agree with Marx on the fact that there is “blind faith” involved in many religions, for instance, individuals unthinkingly practice religions in order to cope with detriments occurring in their lives. I believe this due to the fact that individuals instantly use religion as a crutch whenever something bad happens in their life. Religion is something commonly practiced in order to see the good in life, it contains the set of guidelines and rules (10 commandments) that are set in place in order to assure that an individual will enter heaven so long as they abide by these rules. The majority of individuals in our society strive in order to to get to heaven and they perform several deeds in order to get there, however, individuals

This week’s readings presented Marx’s thought of Feuerbach’s work, whose concepts I am not familiar with, however, I can infer that Feuerbach has discussed materialism and religious self-alienation in length; and explored Marx’s view on materialism, production of consciousness, communism and much more. The collection of Marx’s theses and his other writings reflected upon many of his doctrines, including materialism, religion, and alienation, but perhaps the most iconic work would be his empathy on propertyless labor selling their labor and humanity to their oppressor, property-owners.

The Hegelian dialectic has been utilized by numerous people throughout history, this is acknowledged by Karl Marx. Marx believes that in a time of conflict between royals and townspeople, which revolved around unequal distribution of resources, the Hegelian dialectic was utilized to synthesize a new idea called capitalism. The development of capitalism resolved the conflict between the royals and townspeople. Consequently, a new contradiction arose as result for the materialistic society, which is the conflict of the capitalist versus the working class. It is predicted that, as per Hegel, the presence of these contradicting ideas will eventually result in the creation of a new one.

The introduction of The German Ideology can be attributed to the intellectual influences Karl Marx received from the philosophy of George Friedrich Hegel (“Karl Marx”, par, 2). Hegel’s philosophical concept was based on the idea of the dialectic, which was initially used to describe the procedure of logical argumentation and refutation. While earlier philosophers had treated this signature concept as a process of generating accurate ideas, Hegel argued that these ideas develop based on a constant procedure of disagreement and resolution. He

A religion can be seen as a unified system of beliefs and practices which are relative to sacred things and beliefs (Giddens 1972, p.224). It can shape ones thoughts and feelings and gives people a sense of hope and something to believe in. All three main sociologist writers Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim offer different perspectives on religion and how important it is to society. Some of the theorists chose to have a positive view whilst others argue the unimportance of religion. This essay attempts to discover which theorist has the most accurate perspective of religion in modern times. This is done by firstly explaining the basic ideas regarding to religion put forward by Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Then both Marx's and

In 1943 Marx wrote the “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction.” In that unlike Hegel, Marx took a bottom to top approach. He focused on the real subjects rather than the