[lbo-talk] Marxism and Religion

[Jim Straub]

I could be mis-remembering, but isn't 'opiate of the masses' only half the
karl marx religion one-liner?  Isn't it also 'the heart of a heartless
world'?  I always thought that half of the sentence acted almost a caveat, a
qualification of the flat assertion it is a consciousness distraction; that
it expressed something of the sense how, to an atheist like Karl, religion
attempted to put spiritual meaning (heart) into a world that lacks it, is
heartless in more ways than one.  But on the other hand, it's not really
heartless if he says religion puts the heart in--- that is, the religious
subjectively create on their own spiritual meaning for their world.  This
doesn't change his fundamental opinion that its in the way, but I think
reflects a more nuanced view of what the religious are trying to do for
their world through belief.

'Heart of a heartless world" would make a nice woodcut or something.
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