The Varieties & Illusions of Religious Experience: Chapter 3, The Opium of the People

i.
We have been talking about the function of religious belief.

Summarizing the recent essays, we've noted how an examination of the function of belief alters the classic questions concerning the validity of religious belief. Specifically, if the function of belief can be identified--the origins and motivations of religion--we might have in hand an explanation for the existence of religion without ever appealing to the historical or evidentiary particulars of a given faith. The assumption is that once the function of faith is specified religion has been "explained" as a natural phenomenon and, thus, its metaphysical content can be dismissed. The "truth" of religion is found in its function rather than in its creeds.

In my last two essays we've reviewed accounts regarding the biological and psychological functions of religious belief. Summarizing, biological accounts suggest that the function of religious belief is fitness (survival and reproductive success). For example, the biologist David Sloan Wilson has argued that religion reinforces group selection pressures allowing one group, a cohesive, cooperative religious group, to out-compete a more disjointed, individualistic and selfish group. In this scenario religion originated and persists because of its biological functionality. It aids in fitness.

In the last essay we examined Freud's psychological account regarding the function of religious belief. In this psychological account human existence is full of paralyzing anxiety. Humans feel vulnerable in the face of disease, tragedy, and, ultimately, death. These anxieties can be debilitating. Thus, religion emerges and persists to attenuate these anxieties, to render existence benevolent and explicable. In this scenario religion serves an existential function.

In this essay we turn to a third group of functional accounts. These accounts address the social function of religious belief.

ii.
Political thinkers have long speculated upon the role of religion in social control. In egalitarian hunting-gathering tribes social sanction and stigma were generally enough to enforce behavioral norms. However, with the advent of larger city-states social control became more difficult and problematic. To render political authority more potent the authority of the King was consistently mingled with the Sacred. This conflation gave the sword of the state--the ability to punish or go to war--divine legitimacy. From the Pharaohs to the Caesars to the English Monarchs to the Kings of the Old Testament political and divine authority have been fused. The function of religion, thus, is to render the King terrible enough to be obeyed.

But more than this, religion provides support for the social norms and order of a given society. This divine endorsement facilitates the daily interpersonal interactions that make for a well-functioning state: Cooperation, trust, reciprocity, thrift, work ethic. Similarly, divine warrants are used to sanction certain behaviors that harm the state. These are the "sins": Stealing, dishonesty, sloth, violence. Virtue lists are thus generally comprised of characteristics that facilitate group functioning. Vice lists are generally antisocial behaviors. In this functional role religion begins to partner with pre-existing biological tendencies that facilitate group cohesion. Kin selection, reciprocity and group selection accounts of human evolution show that humans, as an ultra-social animal, possess innate prosoical tendencies and traits. Humans are adapted to thrive in social groups. That is, there exists raw biological material that can be exploited by the state. If ritualized, inculcated, and enforced the innate cooperative capacities of humans can be enhanced. Laws, norms and the potential for social stigma reward cooperation within a population and inhibit defection against the group. In this formulation religion performs a social function that partners with biological mechanisms resulting in the collective good.

Taking stock, these accounts regarding the social functions of religion are coherent and plausible. Undoubtedly religion serves dual social functions: Legitimizing the authority of the state and supporting prosocial behavior. But these social functions are not, inherently, deflationary critiques of religion. As we noted in the essay concerning the biological functions of religious belief, we are not overly concerned with a critique that points out that faith makes the world run better. If it is being argued that religion is promoting civic peace, justice and virtue then religious believers would not be overly worried about this functional account. Believers would, in fact, largely agree. Of course, religion also produces violence and conflict but it is generally conceded that this is a failure of the mechanism rather than a manifestation of religion's functional purpose.

iii.
Generally speaking, specifying the social functions of religious belief is not inherently destabilizing to faith. However, stronger more deflationary accounts have been articulated. In these accounts religion isn't making social life better for all. Religion isn't fostering the common good. Rather, religion is being deployed unevenly. Specifically, religion is the tool of the powerful who use it to keep the less powerful away from revolutionary ambitions. Religion, in this account, is the servant of the status quo, keeping marginalized and powerless groups in their place. This form of social control isn't healthy or to be embraced. This is a much more deflationary functional account of religious belief.

The most famous example of this functional account comes from Karl Marx. Most people are familiar with Marx's functional account of religious faith: Religion is the opiate of the masses. But Marx's attitude toward religion was much more subtle and nuanced than what is observed in that lifted quip. I say lifted because the context of the opiate remark contains positive sentiments about religion. The sentence prior to the opiate formulation 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.

Marx didn't speak much about religion and the opium-formulation is contained in one of his longer and more direct comments about the social functions of faith. This discussion comes from the Introduction of Marx's 1843 book on Hegel's philosophy. The full quote is as follows (emphasis mine):

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. 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. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

It should be clear from this quote that Marx was not universally hostile to religion. That is, Marx considers religion to be the product and expression of legitimate human suffering. Religion is "the expression of real suffering." Religion is "a protest against real suffering." Religion is "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions." I think every religious person would heartily endorse those sentiments and characterizations.

But at the end of the day religion is just "the opium of the people." Religion is an "illusory happiness." The people need a "real happiness." The way forward is to "call on [the people] to give up their illusions."

For Marx religion isn't the disease per se. It is, rather, a symptom of the disease. The oppressed pour their hearts into religion, expressing their real and legitimate pain. But this expression, according to Marx, is keeping them stuck. By pouring their suffering into religious illusions, by giving that suffering solace and consolation, this suffering isn't translating into collective outrage and social agitation. Religion is capturing a profound human experience, it's just not helping. It's a drug that alleviates suffering but allows the underling disease (social inequity and injustice) to go unaddressed. Religion is the "halo" around social injustice, the true source of our "vale of tears."

Because religion is an expression of legitimate suffering, the sigh of the oppressed creature, religion has an enormous potential to affect social change. Liberation theologians have long known this to be the case. The issue is one of translation and redirection. That is, suffering should not be allowed to terminate and dissipate in religious ritual. When it does the socially transformative power of suffering is lost. Religion becomes the opium of the people. The goal is to move the suffering through the ritual and translate it into concrete social action. When this happens religion can be a powerful agent of change. The Black church during the American Civil Rights Movement is a historical example of this. The sigh of the oppressed people was translated into social activism.

For Marx, therefore, religion isn't an evil. It is, rather, a chronic temptation. Religion-as-opiate allows suffering and outrage to dissipate and find consolation. Revolutionaries are, thus, chronically struggling against this temptation, trying to get the people to find "real happiness" on this earth rather than an "illusory happiness" in heaven.

iv.
Personally, I find Marx persuasive on this point. I think history demonstrates that religion can dissipate suffering and outrage and thereby inhibit calls for social change and activism. Churches tend to support the status quo and the powerful.

But at the end of the day defenders of religion can effectively sidestep the functional critique of Marx. First, as we've noted with Marx, the opiate-function is by no means the sole or unique purpose of religious faith. That is, Marx is not concerned with religion per se. He is, rather, concerned with the complicity of religion. And I think many religious people would heartily agree with Marx on this point.

Second, Marx can be sidestepped because his opium-formulation folds into the Freudian critique discussed in the last essay. Marx is simply discussing the social implications of religious illusion. Marx and Freud are making the same point: Religion is a form of consolation, a drug, an illusion. For Marx it's an opiate. For Freud, a narcotic. Freud's account concerns the experience of the individual, a focus on anxiety-reduction. Marx focuses on the social implications of allowing suffering to terminate and dissipate in religious ritual. But in the end both argue that the function of religious belief is one of consolation. Providing religious believers with an "illusory happiness."