“Religion is the opium of the masses” is the argument often used by atheists to dismiss religion, without addressing the substantial issues it addresses. Its well-known proponent is Karl Marx.
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
What does this religion-opium argument imply? Atheists allege that just as opium intoxicates people with illusory feelings of well-being without offering any real relief, so does religion. Only when people stop taking opium will they shake off the opium-induced feelings of illusory well-being and strive towards real well-being. Atheists believe that the same applies to religion – only when people shed the false hopes offered by religion will they strive for actual well-being.
This argument has several unstated assumptions. Because these assumptions are not subject to serious intellectual scrutiny, the religion-opium argument continues to hold a charm that stems largely from wordplay. Let’s examine these assumptions in the form of three questions.
1. Are the hopes offered by religion false?
2. Can we have real well-being without religion?
3. Does religion divert our energy from real well-being?
Are the hopes offered by religion false?
Religion usually centres on the existence of a benevolent God by whose grace we can attain a world of eternal happiness. It frequently tells us that our present world is a station, not a destination. It is a place we pass through during our journey towards eternal existence. By living in this world according to God’s guidelines, we can live fruitfully and evolve towards spiritual perfection.
Are these religious beliefs false?
By material methods of observation and inference, we may not be able to conclusively prove the other-worldly truth-claims of religion. But we can definitely look at its this-worldly effects.
Unlike opium that harms our health, religion heals us in many ways – physically and mentally. In the Handbook of Religion and Health, published by Oxford University Press, Harold G. Koenig, MD; Michael E. McCullough, PhD; and the late David B. Larson, MD, carefully reviewed no fewer than 2,000 published experiments that tested the relationship between religion and everything from blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and stroke to depression, suicide, psychotic disorders and marital problems. Some of their findings are:
“People who attended a spiritual programme at least once a week lived average seven years longer than those who don’t attend at all. Religious youth showed significantly lower levels of drug and alcohol abuse, premature sexual involvement, criminal delinquency and suicidal tendencies than their non-religious counterparts. Elderly people with deep, personal religious faith have a stronger sense of well-being and life satisfaction than their less religious peers.”
Koening’s conclusion? “A high SQ (Spiritual Quotient) faithfulness to God appears to benefit people of all means, educational levels and ages.”
These findings are so consistent and compelling that Dr. Patrick Glynn in his book, God – The Evidence, poignantly states their implications: “If this (religious belief) is an illusion, it is, first of all, not a harmful one, as (Sigmund) Freud and the moderns taught. On the contrary, it is mentally beneficial. It is also, more puzzlingly, physically beneficial. And strangest of all, by deliberately interacting with this illusion in a sincere spirit, through meditative prayer, one can create improvements in symptoms of disease that otherwise cannot be medically explained.”
His last comment refers to the findings like those of Dr. Herbert Benson in his book, The Relaxation Response, that the benefits of religious belief are greater when those beliefs are deeply cherished, not nominally held. What are we to infer from this? Is religion an illusion that somehow accidentally offers real benefits? And is it such a peculiar illusion that the greater our belief in it, the greater the benefits?
Can we be open-minded enough to consider a more natural and logical inference? Could it be that religion may not be an illusion at all? Might religious belief and practice be harmonising us with some deeper reality, a harmonisation that helps our mental and physical health?
Atheists often like to lay the blame for much of the violence on the feet of religion. However, statistics reveal that violence has been far more in atheistic parts of the world than elsewhere. R.J. Rummel in the book, Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917, documents that the victims of the Marxist governments amounted to 95,200,000. By comparison, the battle-killed in all foreign and domestic wars in this century total 35,700,000.
In utter disregard to such serious analysis, the religion-opium argument swaggers with intellectual arrogance. It summarily dismisses religion by equating the beliefs of religion with the fantasies induced by opium. Isn’t that what intolerance is all about – aggressively dismissing ideas that contradict one’s own beliefs? The religion-opium argument reflects an arrogant intolerant faith, the faith known as atheistic fundamentalism. Of course, this atheistic faith conceals its intolerance under the garbs of science, secularism and social progress. But when we strip it of its misdirecting jargon, it stands exposed for what it is: a fanatical belief in disbelief.
2. Can we have real well-being without religion?
Atheism assumes that the material level of existence is the only reality; whatever well-being is to be had should be had at the material level alone. Atheists believed that if people stopped taking the opium of religion, then they would strive for and achieve real well-being at the material level.
Has that hope been realised by the propagation of atheism and the relegation of religion to the sidelines of intellectual and social life, as has happened in many parts of the world in recent times?
Not at all.
The material level of existence is characterised by misery and mortality. As Marx’s religion-opium quote indicates (“religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature”), we are all oppressed creatures.
If we reject religion as an opium, can we free ourselves from the oppression of our inevitable mortality? No, because atheism rivets us to matter and material existence, which are temporary. Atheism implies that:
*We are material beings who will end with death. And death comes arbitrarily on anyone at any time. It knocks us all out of existence fully and forever. Period.
*Our life has no ultimate purpose or meaning. We are made of nothing, but particles of matter that are moving about endlessly and meaninglessly.
How can such a dreary, draining and depressing worldview foster wellbeing?
A godless soul-less worldview makes life meaningless, purposeless – worthless. It drives millions to ennui and despair. Millions bury themselves in pointless distractions like video games, spectator sports and entertainment. As American thinker, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, has commented about contemporary society, “Marx was wrong – religion is not the opiate of the masses, baseball is.”Our culture, by labelling religion as an opiate and making people turn away from it, forces them to seek refuge in such opiates.”