The Opium of the People

Karl Marx's famous words about religion being "the opium of the people" have been quoted so often, they have become a cliché. So it was interesting to read it in its wider context today:

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

In other words, he is not against religion per se, but against the harsh conditions under which people live which, for him, necessitate a turning to religion as a solace for the hardships of the world. I think he also believed that religion kept people docile, more accepting of the "vale of tears" which was their daily lives. 

And yes, I see his point. Or at least, I do up to a point. If someone's life is miserable and hard, it may be a comfort to reflect that there is something better to come in the next world. That they will somehow be rewarded for their stoic acceptance of misery and harsh circumstances in this world. And I can understand that his real concern was to alleviate the "real suffering" of the people, so that they would not need this solace. Marx believed that if people's lives were more comfortable, less bleak, they would not need religion as a solace.

And to some extent (some would say, to a large extent), his thesis has been proved, here in the privileged West, in the last seventy-five years or so. As people's lives have become more comfortable in material terms, there has been a great turning away from religion. A fascinating article about religion in the UK on Wikipedia states, "The familiar starting-point, a classical model of secularisation, argues that religious faith becomes less plausible and religious practice more difficult in advanced industrial and urbanized societies. The breakdown or disruption of traditional communities and norms of behaviour; the spread of a scientific world-view diminishing the scope of the supernatural and the role of God; increasing material affluence promoting self-reliance and this-worldly optimism; and greater awareness and toleration of different creeds and ideas, encouraging religious pluralism and eviscerating commitment to a particular faith, all form components of the case for secularisation."

And yet, many of us persist in believing in something "more", something "other" than what we can perceive with our five senses. There is a sense that there is something beyond the material world, some spiritual connection to something greater than ourselves. I believe that if in one sense, religion can be called the "opium" of the people, having a religious or spiritual faith can also be strengthening. It can help the individual to stand their ground on issues they care about and to work for good in the world. It can help them to cope when "shit happens" (as it surely will), but can also add an extra dimension to joy.

I can only speak for myself, but my life has been rendered immeasurably richer by my religious faith.

Unitarianism - Philosophy or Religion?

I have just enrolled on a fascinating online course, entitled Humanity and Nature in Chinese Thought, which is about the various schools of philosophy in classical China. The lecturer, from Hong Kong University, is Professor Chad Hansen, and in the first lecture he made an interesting distinction between what is a religion and what is a philosophy:

"[One] way of making the distinction, if we don't look at logic, ... is that what marks a kind of philosophy as religious is that it has some sort of reliance on authority. The obvious one would be a supernatural god. If you depend on God to be the determiner of truth and falsity, rather than argument and logic, then that's a form of religion. It would also be a form of religion even if there were no God. If you depended on a text, a particular text, or on a particular tradition, if you insisted ... whatever is true comes by a kind of unverifiable experience, a revelation, or a vision, or some mystical experience that cannot be evaluated, criticized, or studied by science, then I would call that religious.

And what I would call philosophy, is anytime the content of thought is the result of discussion, and exchange, and contending, if the schools are disagreeing and as a result they make intellectual progress; that is they move from less adequate to progressively better theories, because the arguments make them reconsider and re-evaluate and make progress. Then I would want to call that philosophy rather than religion because it's free from authority, and it makes progress through discussion."

I'm not sure I agree with him. Unitarians would seem to fall between his definitions. Unitarians today believe that although we may develop spiritually within a particular faith tradition, "such development is greatest when the believer is in active and critical dialogue with it." (Cliff Reed) This is the antithesis of the traditional view of authority, which requires unthinking submission to a particular creed or set of beliefs. It means that Unitarians can be open to inspiration from whatever source it comes - in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys.

Our view of authority has modified over the centuries, from a dual belief in reason and scripture, to our current position that "each person is his or her own final authority in matters of faith." (Cliff Reed) The authority of individual reason and conscience is held to be supreme, but it is important to be a member of a religious / spiritual community to which you can bring your questions and your doubts, in the sure knowledge that they will be met with a broad, questioning tolerance. The interplay of individuals' beliefs is one of the great strengths of a Unitarian congregation - the bouncing of ideas off each other means that we can never be complacent about what we believe. It is stimulating to belong to such a community, but can be very hard work. Nothing is set in stone, and each individual is responsible for keeping his or her mind open to new ideas, so that our faith can grow.

So is Unitarianism are philosophy or a religion? I think it is both/and, rather than either/or, and stronger for that.