The Roots of Religion
The roots of religion, according to Marx, lie in forces and influences within the material world. Religion has no real independent existence, but is merely an epiphenomenon, a symptom of something more real and substantial that lies underneath it – namely, the material world. “The religious world is but the reflex of the real world.” Thus Marx argues that “religion is just the imaginary sun which seems to man to revolve around him, until he realizes that he himself is the centre of his own revolution.” In other words, God is simply a projection of human concerns. Human beings “look for a superhuman being in the fantasy reality of heaven, and find nothing their but their own reflection.”
Since religion is the product of social and economic alienation, Marx argued that radical social change would abolish the ultimate cause of religion, and hence bring about its irre- versible decline. Those wishing to eliminate religion should thus focus their attention on securing revolutionary political action, which would permanently eliminate the factors that led to religious belief in the first place. “The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly a struggle against the world of which religion is the spiritual fragrance.”
