On my way from the gym to Kroger the other day I was caught in VCU graduation traffic. The vehicle in front of me sported a bumper sticker with a famous quote by progenitor of communism, Karl Marx.

“Religion is the opiate of the masses”.

It dawned on me suddenly; this is the most outmoded philisophical proclamation I’ve ever read. Look around, people! Opiates are the opiate of the masses!

Not to say opiates specifically, but drugs of all shapes and sizes are what’s keeping us heavy eyed and passive as Hindu cattle. Whether they’re prescribed to you in large doses by a lazy physician or purchased on the street from your local socio-economic opressee, it’s these things which keep us down from day to day.

When white people began to infect this continent, you know what they used to ultimately pacify the resistant natives? Two things; disease and booze. To this day, the aboriginal peoples of Australia’s north country mark alcoholism as their main epidemic.

When the first black slaves were dragged here against their will were they pacified with religion? No! They felt solidarity with the enslaved Hebrews of the Pentateuch and the Babylonian exiles of the latter half of the Old Testament  and it gave them strength to and resolve to carry on and, in some cases, courage to escape! That doesn’t sound like the actions of an addict or habitual opiate user to me.

Maybe I’m wearing my puritan hat here, but I’ve always lauded myself for not engaging in any type of apologetics or argument of the “relevance” of faith. I guess I’m not selling you all religion, I’m simply saying that it doesn’t stand guilty of Marx’s accusation. If anything, it’s helped “workers of the world” to “cast off their chains of oppression.”