Religion is a Drug

Marx called religion an "opium," arguing that religion served to make people feel better despite the horrible social conditions they had to endure. Others call religion a drug in the sense that it is addictive despite being harmful - this is the "drug" meaning which has become common today, even though it does not match what Marx meant.

Andrew Anthony writes for the Guardian:

Religion - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism etc, etc - is by definition irrational and, more than that, it is an irrationality that lays claim to the complete truth. How dangerous is that? The fear of offending religious, cultural and even racial sensibilities has grown so pervasive that hardly a word of sense is openly spoken on the matter. A telling example of this tendency is the debate, or controversy, that is beginning to take shape around Mel Gibson's new film, The Passion, the filmstar's directorial interpretation of the gospels.

What we can be sure of is that while it is perfectly acceptable to denounce Gibson's film as anti-semitic, few critics will go so far as to call it anti-sense. As a consequence, the only people who do bother to draw attention to the contradiction between individual self-determination and God's omnipotent will - people, for example, such as Richard Dawkins - risk appearing like strident fanatics themselves.

There is a lot of truth in that - no matter how nonsensical a religious doctrine is, pointing out that it is nonsensical will typically be labeled as "fanatical," not the devoted belief in that nonsense. Why is it acceptable to criticize religious doctrines from another religious perspective, but not from an irreligious perspective? Why the idea that a belief is "intolerant" given a hearing, but not the idea that the same belief is simply absurd?

Read More:

• Religion 101
• Philosophy of Religion
• Books on Religion and Religious Beliefs