Sport as the Opiate of the Masses Marx argues that religion is the opiate of the masses; he says that religion is an ideological tool used to defend the interests of the dominant in society that are the wealthy and those in high positions of power. Religion is able to pacify the poor lower class of society by giving them something to look forward to besides their dull lackluster lives that are made that way by injustice in the social system. Sport is the new Opiate of the Masses it behaves in the same way religion does as it is used as a deterrent from our everyday lives. Religion main function is to preserve the status quo, which means that it serves the “haves” and keeps the “have-nots” down in their place. Sport may be very different from …show more content…
Religion is the number one thing that distracts us from the daily social and economic struggle; it promises that after this hard and painful life we are promised an eternal and glorious one where nothing goes wrong. Marx says that Religion tells the poor that this life is ok because true happiness will be found in the next life. Going back to the quote Marx said, he continues on to say that Religion is the heart of a heartless world. Marx essentially gives religion some credit by saying that Religion tries to become the heart of a heartless world, even though Marx is very critical of Religion he acknowledges “Religion doesn’t matter so much it is not the real problem. Religion is a set of ideas, and ideas are expressions of material realities. Religion is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself.” Marx then goes on to critique religion again by relating Religion to an opiate drug, like the opiate drug Religion only helps you forget the suffering and gets people to look forward to an imaginary future afterlife (hence opiate of the …show more content…
Not only does it captivate the hearts of millions but it influences our culture, society, and economy. Sports are the new opiate of the masses; just how Religion touched millions of people and influenced them now so does sports in our society. For example 64% of Americans watch American Football, now let’s do the math. There are around 320,900,00 people in the U.S. so if 64% of Americans watch football then the math comes out to 205,376,000 people watching Football yearly. That right there shows just how much of an opiate sports are. If that many people are willing to sit in front of a TV and watch a sports game just think of how many people play sports. Our athletes are looked at as heroes and in our dark and painful world we love superheroes. So what’s better in our world than real life superheroes, nothing. This is why they are given special treatment just like how men of God were back in the day when Religion was the opiate of the
The fear of early twentieth century dystopian writers is the fear that people in general had in this era; what is the impact of communism or what the future of religion with evolution and Darwinism would be. The may concern was that if religion was obsolete, what would replace it as the moral compass of the people. One of the most important individuals of the early twentieth century Karl Marx had his own philosophy for a replacement. The role of religion in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is stated as,” But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis…’" (Marx 19) That new bases he mentioned in the quote is the state, the new morale code that society must follow.
Marx argues religion acts as a drug to be more exact like opium. People who usually do drugs do it typically because it is an escape from their problems. Likewise, people typically follow a religion because it help’s them escape from their problems. Following a religion helps them to numb the pain of reality. Some people born in society have it better than others and for those who do not religion turn into a great hope for them. Additionally, Marx goes onto say religion is man made and we do not need it to survive. Furthermore, the more people have the less they tend to care about religion. For example,
Marx predicted that religion would disappear as a phenomenon of false (because there is no God, according to Marx), and churches will become museums. All see how the number of churches in the world increases, a church becoming the heavy believers. However, the council rejected Marx, and yet kept his not believing in God.
In this essay Karl Marx will be discussed using his arguments concerning religion and religious institutions which is thought to play a powerful role in influencing a society and the lives of its members. Karl Marx (1818-1883) referred to religion as the ‘opium of the people’ (1975), like a misused drug it administers to true needs in false ways, however Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) defines religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which united in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them”- Elementary Forms of Religious Life, however they both agree that religion is an important aspect to society. This essay
Karl Marx’s most prominent quote on religion refers to the contentment of the maltreated oppressed and the satisfied oppressor due to the desensitizing effect of religion. This perspective derives from Marx’s direct contact with the immense complications and disparities of the proletariats as well as the over-abundances of the bourgeoisie of his era. Unfortunately, traces of the accuracy of this inference are evident in the world’s history as well as current society. Marx concluded that religion numbs those suffering and those who inflict the pain into a dazed state of contentment without correcting the root of the issue.
Religion has an important impact on everyday life. Society uses religion to express themselves through faith, God and worshiping. Sports are also a type of religion in today’s society. People worship their teams at games and pray before every game. Sports and religion tie directly into people’s lives every day.
"Karl Marx on Religion: The Opiate of the Masses?" About.com Agnosticism / Atheism. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2014.
Marx’s opinion is that religion is an illusion that provides reasons and excuses to keep society functioning just as it is. Much as capitalism takes our productive labor and alienates us from its value, religion takes our highest ideals and aspirations and alienates us from them, projecting them onto an alien and unknowable being called a god.
I believe the question posed by Prebish asking whether sport is a parallel to religion or identical means that sport is very closely related to the same principles. It is an organized institution dealing with faith, discipline, tradition, rituals, and has devout followers, as does the religious institution. When a sport can bring its followers to an experience of the ultimate plateau of complete focus, oneness, devotion, and the quest for salvation, I believe this is identical to religion.
Sports may have impacted our culture much more then we thought it would, and keeps impacting. Sports have affected some of the most important aspects of life, such as jobs and money. It has also affected things as little as who we look up to and how we dress. Culture means “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.” The definition of sports is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” So when we put two and two together we get a a nation or world that has changed due to sports. Back in the mid and late 1900’s sports were used to see whose way of life was better. As time went on and keeps going on, we
Marx argues that religion is just a man-made thing to create a community because humans can’t survive without community. He says that the communist government can replace the feeling of “being equal in God’s eye” to “being equal in the eyes of the law” (Wolff, 2003). Marxism fights for the freedom of the working class, who are usually paid minimum wage just to survive (Blunden, n.d.).
Marx saw religion as a tool for class oppression because of the conflict it provided for societies. According to Marx, “religion is the opium of the people” and “religion promotes stratification because it supports a hierarchy of people in Earth and the subordination of humankind to divine authority.” Marx believes that man makes religion, and not vice versa. He argues that religion is a mere product of man and is for people who have not won himself or has lost himself again. He calls for the banishment of religion stating that religion is just an illusion of happiness and the abolition of it is a demand for real happiness. Religion highlights social conditions and causes people to think and act the way religion teaches instead of having individuals act based on their own agency.
Marx saw religion as an evil that existed in society and that it brought down all the people that believed in that religion. Marx said that, ?It [religion] is the opium of the people,?[1] and in saying this, Marx meant that religion was contagious on society. Once the society had a taste for the religion, they became totally engulfed it in, and then they do not want to get out of that way of live because they see it as a good way to live. Then even if people wanted to get out of the religion it was hard to get out because the whole society had already been infected by the ?opium.?
Sociologist have highlight various ways society and religion are interconnected, First I discuss Karl Marx’s idea that “religion provides comfort quells dissatisfaction” (Mirola, Emerson & Monahan, 2011 page 5) believed that religion support individual and take people out of oppressive conditions. In other words, religions justify the fact that inequalities, and discrimination, are all something that is not good and we as people should not allow it to come in between us. Religions helps to protect the people from laws that work against people, and it justify the power and rules that against the oppression of the vulnerable people. It also comfort and console those who are in pain and suffering.
Karl Marx was known in sociology history as the master builder of social science. Marx believed that history was made up of steps and controlled by a class conflict. In today’s social problems we face a wide range of conflict Marx 's might analyze very differently then how today 's humans beings would.