Karl Marx said "religion is the opiate of the masses"

lots of folx, including @PhilosophyTube in her Antisemitism video, interpret this as Marx saying that religion holds society back

but this is entirely an anti-communist framing of it! it's completely wrong!

the full quote from Karl Marx is

"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."

that's not anti-religious, that's dramatically PRO-religious

but then, why the Opium of the People??? isn't that bad?

well, here in DARE-brain-worm-infested 2021 sure it sounds bad

but in 184x, there were NO painkillers, NO anaesthetics, surgery was EXCRUCIATINGLY painful and opium was the ONLY way anyone had to full pain

opium was widely seen by everyone in society and doctors especially as one of the few ways that anyone could get lifesaving surgeries, or deal with horrendous dental problems, and so on

opium, at the time, was widely respected and loved for the way it lifted pain away

he was not saying it to praise religion of course but to point out that religion has real reasons for existing -- it helps ease the pain of the world

he was saying it to also observe that, like opium, it is not the elimination of the source of pain, just its numbing

yes this does play into a critique of religion as consequently distracting from revolution struggle that would be the REAL cure, but the usual framing is Marx saying GRR RELIGION BAD

which is not entirely what he's saying. there's a lot more there that is lost in the short quote

and in a broader context Marx would himself certainly see that religion can, in many cases, actually be motivations for radicalism (eg. the priests who were pushing for radical change in central america who were murdered by American-trained gunmen)