Religion: A Fantastic Reality

Now all religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men's minds of those external forces which dominate their daily life, a reflection in which terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural ones. In the beginnings of history it was the forces of nature which were first so reflected, and which in the course of further development underwent the most manifold and motley personifications among the various peoples. Comparative mythology has traced back this first process, at least in the case of the Indo-European peoples, to its origin in the Indian Vedas, and in its progress it has been demonstrated in detail among the Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germans and, so far as material is available, also among the Celts, Lithuanians and Slavs. But side by side with the forces of nature, it is not long before social forces begin to be active, forces which confront man as equally alien and at first equally inexplicable, dominating him with the same apparent natural necessity as the very forces of nature. The fantastic figures, which at first only reflected the mysterious forces of nature, at this point acquire social attributes, become representatives of the forces of history. At a still further stage of development, all the natural and social attributes of the numerous gods are transferred to one almighty god, who in turn is himself only the reflection of the abstract man. Such was the origin of monotheism, which was historically the last product of the vulgarized philosophy of the later Greeks and which found its incarnation in Jehovah, the exclusively national god of the Jews. Religion can continue to exist in this convenient, handy and universally adaptable form as the immediate, that is, the sentimental, form of men's relation to the alien, natural and social powers which dominate them, so long as men remain under the domination of these powers. However, we have repeatedly seen that in present-day bourgeois society men are dominated by the economic conditions they themselves have created and by the means of production they themselves have produced, as though by an alien power. The actual basis of the religious reflex action therefore continues to exist, and with it the religious reflection itself. Although bourgeois political economy has opened up a certain insight into the causal connection of this alien domination, this in no way changes the matter. Bourgeois economics can neither prevent crises as such, nor protect the individual capitalist from losses, bad debts and bankruptcy, nor secure the individual worker against unemployment and poverty. It is still true that man proposes and God (that is, the alien domination of the capitalist mode of production) disposes. Mere knowledge, even if it went further and deeper than that of bourgeois economic science, does not suffice to bring social forces under the domination of society. What is above all necessary for this is a social act. When this act has been accomplished, when society, by seizing all the means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage they are now kept in by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which confront them as an overpowering alien force; when man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes -- it is only then that the last alien force which is still reflected in religion will vanish and that the religious reflection itself will also vanish with it, for the simple reason that there will be nothing left to reflect.

Fredrich Engels