Like Gods, Like Devotees: Religion, “the Opium of the People”?

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eligion—“the opium of the people”? That sounded more of an insult and invective than a truth when Karl Marx first etched it. Everyone who thought themselves sane vilified and condemned the author if not to death but at least, to “hell.” The faithful ones considered the utterance blasphemous. But was it?

Of course, Marx might have meant it as such—a terse pungent remark towards organized religion. But has religion lived to demonstrate otherwise since the utterance of those words? That may be a controversial question, I am sure.

No doubt, there are many commendable things one would point to, to the credit of religion. For instance, I think of the once homeless who have now found a place to call home; the orphaned who were it not for some religious organization were forever doomed for the jaws of illiteracy and ignorance and a couple more of such appreciable developments.

Nevertheless, the inter-faith animosity; rising violence and intolerances in the name of faith and religious affiliations still extant in our communities is something that sometimes compels some of us to think that perhaps Karl Marx was in a way right. Religion is possibly the opium of the masses. It robs the majority of those who embrace it of their rational faculties just like the drug suspends its victims’ sense of judgment. If it is not, then perhaps the gods are to blame. We must be having violent, immoral gods who do not see the value of human life let alone respect freedom of choice among many other things. Consequently, as the saying goes: like mother, like daughter, it is similarly the case that like gods, like devotees; we are mere reflectors of the gods we worship for no one can ever rise above their deities!

Otherwise, where is the sanity of humanity gone when in the name of religion we can afford to raise our machetes and guns against our so called “heathen” or “infidel” brother or sister? Why should my religion cause me to think that all other folks are wrong and therefore deserve death if they do not subscribe to my religious propaganda? 

You tell me it is all because of sin; that’s true. But, was religion not supposed to put an end to that by bringing about change in the human heart? What is the use of clinging to something that has no transformative value? 

Else, if what JESUS claimed in Matthew 7 and 25 is true, then we are all doomed unless we do something about this situation because we are misrepresenting the gods to the universe. In his discourse, Jesus identified himself as the Great Judge who will sit in the throne of God—in short, he claimed to be God who will judge the world. Consequently, he said that at the judgment hour, He will condemn some of us who have been diehards of religion by telling us that he never knew us despite the religious zeal we had while we walked on this planet (Matthew 7: 21-23; 25:31-46). If he was right, then perhaps His God is a moral and sane God that one may still wish to try.

Otherwise, either some gods are disgusting if their devotees, prelates and prophets are anything to go by, or some religionists are disgusting and detrimental not only to society but even to their gods. Either way, there is need for urgent remedy or we perish!