Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo
There are few much more maligned books than this, I first heard about it in high school from a friend who used to joke about the sort of people who read books like it, so often indeed that it stuck in my mind. Well, wherever you are Jesse, I'm sorry but I became one of those people who read and enjoyed a book like this. I can only think people dislike it because they baulk at the title and never actually read the book, which is at worst harmless and at best an example of how people should treat each...