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<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=gerald.ali@btopenworld.com href="mailto:gerald.ali@btopenworld.com">Gerald
Ali.</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:07 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Undeniable statement of Karl Marx on RELIGION.</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right</SPAN><BR></P>
<P>For Germany, the <I>criticism of religion</I> has been essentially completed,
<STRONG>and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all
criticism.</STRONG> </P>
<P><A name=02></A>The <I>profane</I> existence of error is compromised as soon
as its <I>heavenly oratio pro aris et focis</I> <SPAN class=inote>[“speech for
the altars and hearths,” i.e., for God and country]</SPAN> has been refuted.
Man, who has found only the <I>reflection</I> of himself in the fantastic
reality of heaven, where he sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to
find the <I>mere appearance</I> of himself, the non-man <SPAN
class=inote>[<I>Unmensch</I>]</SPAN>, where he seeks and must seek his true
reality. </P>
<P><A name=03></A><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>The foundation of irreligious
criticism is: <I>Man makes religion</I>, religion does not make
man.</FONT></STRONG> <A name=04></A></P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and
self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already
lost himself again.</FONT></STRONG> </P>
<P>But <EM>man</EM> is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is
<EM>the world of man</EM> – state, society. <STRONG><FONT color=#800000>This
state and this society produce religion, which is an <I>inverted consciousness
of the world</I>, because they are an <I>inverted world</I>.</FONT></STRONG>
</P>
<P>Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium,
its logic in popular form, its spiritual <I>point d’honneur</I>, its enthusiasm,
its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of
consolation and justification. </P>
<P>It is the <I>fantastic realization</I> of the human essence since the
<I>human essence</I> has not acquired any true reality. <STRONG><FONT
color=#800000>The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the
struggle <I>against that world</I> whose spiritual <I>aroma</I> is religion.
</FONT></STRONG></P>
<P><A name=05></A><I>Religious</I> suffering is, at one and the same time, the
<I>expression</I> of real suffering and a <I>protest</I> against real
suffering.</P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,
the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the
<I>opium</I> of the people.</FONT></STRONG> </P>
<P><A name=06></A><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>The abolition of religion as the
<EM>illusory</EM> happiness of the people is the demand for their <EM>real</EM>
happiness.</FONT></STRONG> </P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>To call on them to give up their illusions about
their condition is to call on them to <I>give up a condition that requires
illusions</I>. </FONT></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>The criticism of religion is, therefore, <I>in
embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears</I> of which religion is the
<I>halo</I>.</FONT></STRONG> </P>
<P><A name=07></A>Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not
in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or
consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living
flower. </P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>The criticism of religion disillusions man, so
that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded
his illusions and regained his senses,</FONT></STRONG> so that he will move
around himself as his own true Sun. </P>
<P>Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he
does not revolve around himself. </P>
<P><A name=08></A>It is, therefore, the <I>task of history</I>, once the
<I>other-world of truth</I> has vanished, to establish the <I>truth of this
world</I>. It is the immediate <I>task of philosophy</I>, which is in the
service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its <I>unholy forms</I> once
the <I>holy form</I> of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. </P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the
criticism of Earth, the <I>criticism of religion</I> into the <I>criticism of
law</I>, and the <I>criticism of theology</I> into the <I>criticism of
politics</I>.</FONT></STRONG> </P>
<P>------------------------</P>
<P><A name=32></A>The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism
of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory
also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is
capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates <EM>ad hominem</EM>,
and it demonstrates <I>ad hominem</I> as soon as it becomes radical. To be
radical is to grasp the root of the matter. </P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>But, for man, the root is man
himself.</FONT></STRONG> </P>
<P><STRONG>The evident proof of the radicalism of German theory, and hence of
its practical energy, is that is proceeds from <U><FONT color=#800000>a resolute
<I>positive</I> abolition of religion.</FONT></U></STRONG> </P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#800000>The criticism of religion ends with the teaching
that <I>man is the highest essence for man</I></FONT> – hence, with the
<I>categoric imperative to overthrow all relations</I> in which man is a
debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence,</STRONG> relations which
cannot be better described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to
introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings! </P>
<P><A name=33></A>Even historically, theoretical emancipation has specific
practical significance for Germany. For Germany’s <I>revolutionary</I> past is
theoretical, it is the <I>Reformation</I>. As the revolution then began in the
brain of the <I>monk</I>, so now it begins in the brain of the
<I>philosopher</I>. </P>
<P><A name=34></A><STRONG><FONT color=#000080><I>Luther</I>,</FONT></STRONG> we
grant, overcame bondage out of <I>devotion</I> by replacing it by bondage out of
<I>conviction</I>. He shattered faith in authority because he restored the
authority of faith. He turned priests into laymen because he turned laymen into
priests. He freed man from outer religiosity because he made religiosity the
inner man. </P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#000080>He freed the body from chains because he
enchained the heart.</FONT> </STRONG></P>
<P> </P>
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