Karl Marx critiqued capitlist economic and social organization a century and a half ago.  Time has proven his social predictions wrong, but that even a small part of his analysis has relevance for us today is indicative of how deep a social analysis he produced.  Most popular social critics are old and moldy after just a very few years, often much less than a decade.  Anybody heard of Christopher Lasch recently? (Of course not -- chalk one up for me.)

Marx believed that religion is always and everywhere a barrier to social change and social justice.

He asserted that "religion is the opiate of the people."

The key problem in our capitalistic society is "alienation from the means of production."  That is, we are merely cogs in the wheels of capitalistic production, and we get in the unthinking habit of seeing each other in terms of power relationships, always either more or less powerful than ourselves.  As we do, we become alienated from each other, too, and our lives become impoverished.  Especially in capitalist societies, Marx believes, we use people or we are used by people; we see people as means, not ends in themselves.

NOW, religion arises out of this social sickness of alienation to fill the void.  Religion promises you "pie in the sky after you die."  Life may be hard now, it will tell you, but things will be reversed after you die.  Capitalist ruling classes exploit this message by allying with religion to legitimate their own control of society are being God's will.

So -- religion is a symptom of a social sickness (alienation) that reduces pressure for social change and social justice by promoting the idea that "pie in the sky" is better than "pie here and now."

Marx, needless to say, was an atheist who predicted (and fervently hoped for) the quick death of religion.

But while religion is sometimes a conservative force in human society, and while it does sometimes stand in the way of social change and social justice, is this all it does?

Well, no -- take a look at the Weber notes for the continuing saga of religion in the academy!