Those Who Preach Saviors and Great Stars of Deliverance Are the True Spiritual Opium!

2006/4/23 18:32:41

Old Marx had a metaphor about religion being opium. Yet in this world, names and substance often don't match. There are things with the name of religion but not the substance, things with the substance but not the name, and even things that fly the anti-religion banner while peddling religion as dog meat under a sheep's head. Therefore, to judge whether something is a religion, the key is not its name.

From Old Marx's religion-as-opium metaphor, we can discern one most basic property of religion: like opium, it relies on external forces to achieve a kind of satisfaction and produces dependency. Opium, for humans, is undoubtedly an external force. This external force enables humans to achieve a kind of satisfaction and produces dependency. And setting aside labels, all substantive religions share these two basic traits: achieving satisfaction through external forces, and the resulting dependency. These two traits can be summarized in one word: the opium-nature.

Then, does preaching saviors and great stars of deliverance possess this opium-nature? First, those who need and preach saviors and great stars of deliverance are all seeking external forces. Whether this external force takes the form of mysterious incantations, stirring promises, or something else — in short, those who do not believe that the one who ultimately saves you can only be yourself, and who must rely on external forces, are all cut from the same cloth. Second, those who need and preach saviors and great stars of deliverance all have dependency on these saviors and great stars — needing their guidance, revelations, and so on. Without such guidance and revelations, they cannot achieve various real or illusory satisfactions. From these two points, it is clear that preaching saviors and great stars of deliverance necessarily possesses the opium-nature.

Old Marx's metaphor about religion being opium is not wrong. The "Internationale" also explicitly rejects this opium-nature: "To create humanity's happiness, we must rely entirely on ourselves." Any individual or class derives their strength ultimately from themselves, with no need to anticipate or be grateful to any so-called savior or great star of deliverance. All saviors and great stars of deliverance are man-made. Even gods are man-made. Without the people who made them, even a god would be nothing!