Some people does not the whole of the people or major portion of the people. Karl Marx's statement is applicable for the society where most of the religeous leaving people take control over the religious people.

@allmighty Acording to the Pew research center, most of the people leaving religion are under the age of 30. I don't think there are nearly as many non-religious people taking control of religious people as religious people trying to control non-religious people based solely on demographics.

If you ask me, I would say that the traditional religion is being replaced by a new religion, complete with its own messiah and holy books. It is more than possible that these ideas are being spoon fed to the American public through information technology by a rising power that has a great deal of interest in changing the global ideology.

Marx is speaking of religion from the context of the Industrial Revolution. His remarks here are from the introduction of his work ‘ A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right”. Furthermore, here religion is an allegory for all things which distract the exploited from their stratified position.

As usual with most internet quotes it is taken out of context to suit a rhetorical argument.

The work is an analysis of the relationship between civil society and political society and particularly alienation theory.

Sadly, this is usually ignored and his introductory critique of religion overshadows the major thrust of the piece.

@Geoffrey51 ^ ^ ^

@Happy_Killbot Not sure what that means?

Yes, he wasn't being critical of it, merely observing that it was something that distracted people from changing the inherent unfairness of society by challenging the status quo. Instead, people were fed the lie that they would receive a greater reward in heaven for accepting life's inequalities.
Only an equitable society can be a fair one. But life is often about the stronger stepping on the bodies of the weaker to get a greater share of the pie.

Same here, I think Marx made a point when he said religion was the heart of a heartless world. I think he understood why poor people embraced religion. They needed something.

Only one thing wrong with that statement, Communism is totally without a heart. It steals everything from everybody in order to give it to someone else! Except for the ruling elites, nothing is stolen from them, but they are rewarded for stealing from others.

@Logician Marx is not speaking of communism. He is referring to alienation.

@Geoffrey51

My comment was supposed to be addressed to SKH78. Maybe I did s/g wrong and it wound up in the wrong place.