^
Related to #459.
Sounds familiar? Even the "opium" of the masses had a more spontaneous predecessor:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â Â "How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' <b>Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.</b>"Â Â â Napoleon Bonaparte.
  "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."  â Napoleon Bonaparte. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
"Opium of the people" take 2 - the version obviously given much more thought, but IMO the extreme plagiarism of ideas and even words shows:
<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Jul 20 2009, 06:30 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 20 2009, 06:30 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.nobeliefs.com/facts.htm#anchor199422
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Perhaps the most quoted "reason" for connecting atheism to communism comes from Karl Marx's statement:
<i>"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. <b>It is the opium of the people."</b></i>
This statement does not come from his communist philosophy, but rather from his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. It also does not express a statement about atheism or about the absence of a god, but rather an observation about religion. Note that many people who believe in god but who renounce religion agree with that statement. <b>Pure individualist Protestantism, for example, correlates precisely with Marx's statement.</b>
Karl Marx makes this clear from his own observation:
<i>Â Â "It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.... The emancipation of the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from religion."
  --Karl Marx (Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question, Braunschweig, 1843)</i>
That doesn't sound atheistic at all. At all.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->[right][snapback]99790[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Marx, the plagiarist. Communism, the artificial copy.
Communitwits won't like that.
Related to #459.
Sounds familiar? Even the "opium" of the masses had a more spontaneous predecessor:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â Â "How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' <b>Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.</b>"Â Â â Napoleon Bonaparte.
  "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."  â Napoleon Bonaparte. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
"Opium of the people" take 2 - the version obviously given much more thought, but IMO the extreme plagiarism of ideas and even words shows:
<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Jul 20 2009, 06:30 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 20 2009, 06:30 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.nobeliefs.com/facts.htm#anchor199422
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Perhaps the most quoted "reason" for connecting atheism to communism comes from Karl Marx's statement:
<i>"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. <b>It is the opium of the people."</b></i>
This statement does not come from his communist philosophy, but rather from his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. It also does not express a statement about atheism or about the absence of a god, but rather an observation about religion. Note that many people who believe in god but who renounce religion agree with that statement. <b>Pure individualist Protestantism, for example, correlates precisely with Marx's statement.</b>
Karl Marx makes this clear from his own observation:
<i>Â Â "It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.... The emancipation of the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from religion."
  --Karl Marx (Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question, Braunschweig, 1843)</i>
That doesn't sound atheistic at all. At all.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->[right][snapback]99790[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Marx, the plagiarist. Communism, the artificial copy.
Communitwits won't like that.