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Marxist–Leninist atheism
Marxist–Leninist atheism, also known as Marxist–Leninist scientific atheism, is the antireligious element of Marxism–Leninism. Based on a dialectical-materialist understanding of humanity's place in nature, Marxist–Leninist atheism proposes that religion is the opium of the people; thus, Marxism–Leninism advocates atheism, rather than religious belief.
To support those ideological premises, Marxist–Leninist atheism proposes an explanation for the origin of religion and explains methods for the scientific criticism of religion. The philosophic roots of Marxist–Leninist atheism appear in the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924).
Marxist–Leninist atheism has informed public policy in various countries, such as the Soviet Union (1922-1991) and the People's Republic of China (1949- ), for example. Some non-Soviet Marxists have opposed this antireligious stance, and certain forms of Marxist thinking, such as the liberation theology movements in Latin America, have rejected Marxist–Leninist atheism entirely, and some Marxist-Leninist states, like Vietnam, Laos and post-Fidel Castro Cuba, abandoned anti-religious thinking and policies in favor of cooperation between religious bodies and the state for the promotion of socialism and anti-imperialism.
In training as a philosopher in the early 19th century, Karl Marx participated in debates about the philosophy of religion, specifically about the interpretations presented in Hegelianism, i.e. "What is rational is real; and what is real is rational." In those debates about reason and reality, the Hegelians considered philosophy an intellectual enterprise in service to the insights of Christian religious comprehension, which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel had elaborately rationalized in The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). Although critical of contemporary religion, as a 19th-century intellectual, Hegel pursued the ontology and the epistemology of Christianity, as a personal interest compatible with Christian theological explanations of Dasein — explanations of the questions of existence and of being — which he clarified, systematized, and justified in his philosophy.
After his death in 1831, Hegel's philosophy about being and existence was debated by the Young Hegelians and the materialist atheists — such as Ludwig Feuerbach — who rejected all religious philosophy as a way of running the world; Karl Marx sided with the philosophy of the materialist atheists. Feuerbach separated philosophy from religion in order to grant intellectual autonomy to philosophers in their interpretations of material reality. He objected to the religious basis of Hegel's philosophy of spirit in order to critically analyse the basic concepts of theology, and he redirected philosophy from the heavens to the Earth, to the subjects of human dignity and the meaning of life, of what is morality and of what is the purpose of existence, concluding that humanity as a species (but just not as individuals) possessed within itself all the attributes that merited worship and that people had created God as a reflection of these attributes. About the conceptual separateness of Man from God, in The Essence of Christianity (1841), Feuerbach said:
But the idea of deity coincides with the idea of humanity. All divine attributes, all the attributes which make God God, are attributes of the [human] species — attributes which in the individual [person] are limited, but the limits of which are abolished in the essence of the species, and even in its existence, in so far as it has its complete existence only in all men taken together.
Feuerbach thought that religion exercised power over the human mind through "the promotion of fear from the mystical forces of the Heaven", and with "an intensive hatred of the old God" said that houses of worship should be systematically destroyed and religious institutions eradicated. Experienced in that praxis of materialist philosophy, thought, and action, the apprentice Karl Marx became a radical philosopher.
In his rejection of all religious thought, Marx considered the contributions of religion over the centuries to be unimportant and irrelevant to the future of humanity. The autonomy of humanity from the realm of supernatural forces was considered by Marx as an axiomatic ontological truth that had been developed since ancient times, and he considered it to have an even more respectable tradition than Christianity. Marx held that the churches invented religion to justify the ruling classes' exploitation of labour of the working classes, by way of a socially stratified industrial society; as such, religion is a drug that gives an emotional escape from the real world. In A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx described the contradictory nature of religious sentiment, that:
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Marxist–Leninist atheism
Marxist–Leninist atheism, also known as Marxist–Leninist scientific atheism, is the antireligious element of Marxism–Leninism. Based on a dialectical-materialist understanding of humanity's place in nature, Marxist–Leninist atheism proposes that religion is the opium of the people; thus, Marxism–Leninism advocates atheism, rather than religious belief.
To support those ideological premises, Marxist–Leninist atheism proposes an explanation for the origin of religion and explains methods for the scientific criticism of religion. The philosophic roots of Marxist–Leninist atheism appear in the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924).
Marxist–Leninist atheism has informed public policy in various countries, such as the Soviet Union (1922-1991) and the People's Republic of China (1949- ), for example. Some non-Soviet Marxists have opposed this antireligious stance, and certain forms of Marxist thinking, such as the liberation theology movements in Latin America, have rejected Marxist–Leninist atheism entirely, and some Marxist-Leninist states, like Vietnam, Laos and post-Fidel Castro Cuba, abandoned anti-religious thinking and policies in favor of cooperation between religious bodies and the state for the promotion of socialism and anti-imperialism.
In training as a philosopher in the early 19th century, Karl Marx participated in debates about the philosophy of religion, specifically about the interpretations presented in Hegelianism, i.e. "What is rational is real; and what is real is rational." In those debates about reason and reality, the Hegelians considered philosophy an intellectual enterprise in service to the insights of Christian religious comprehension, which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel had elaborately rationalized in The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). Although critical of contemporary religion, as a 19th-century intellectual, Hegel pursued the ontology and the epistemology of Christianity, as a personal interest compatible with Christian theological explanations of Dasein — explanations of the questions of existence and of being — which he clarified, systematized, and justified in his philosophy.
After his death in 1831, Hegel's philosophy about being and existence was debated by the Young Hegelians and the materialist atheists — such as Ludwig Feuerbach — who rejected all religious philosophy as a way of running the world; Karl Marx sided with the philosophy of the materialist atheists. Feuerbach separated philosophy from religion in order to grant intellectual autonomy to philosophers in their interpretations of material reality. He objected to the religious basis of Hegel's philosophy of spirit in order to critically analyse the basic concepts of theology, and he redirected philosophy from the heavens to the Earth, to the subjects of human dignity and the meaning of life, of what is morality and of what is the purpose of existence, concluding that humanity as a species (but just not as individuals) possessed within itself all the attributes that merited worship and that people had created God as a reflection of these attributes. About the conceptual separateness of Man from God, in The Essence of Christianity (1841), Feuerbach said:
But the idea of deity coincides with the idea of humanity. All divine attributes, all the attributes which make God God, are attributes of the [human] species — attributes which in the individual [person] are limited, but the limits of which are abolished in the essence of the species, and even in its existence, in so far as it has its complete existence only in all men taken together.
Feuerbach thought that religion exercised power over the human mind through "the promotion of fear from the mystical forces of the Heaven", and with "an intensive hatred of the old God" said that houses of worship should be systematically destroyed and religious institutions eradicated. Experienced in that praxis of materialist philosophy, thought, and action, the apprentice Karl Marx became a radical philosopher.
In his rejection of all religious thought, Marx considered the contributions of religion over the centuries to be unimportant and irrelevant to the future of humanity. The autonomy of humanity from the realm of supernatural forces was considered by Marx as an axiomatic ontological truth that had been developed since ancient times, and he considered it to have an even more respectable tradition than Christianity. Marx held that the churches invented religion to justify the ruling classes' exploitation of labour of the working classes, by way of a socially stratified industrial society; as such, religion is a drug that gives an emotional escape from the real world. In A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx described the contradictory nature of religious sentiment, that: