_ 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.
^^^^^ CB: Yep opium of the people, heart of a heartless world, and inverted consciousness of that world, the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification, as well as the fantastic realization of the human essence; and , my favorite, it is the halo round the vale of woe (tears).
"Opium of the people" is less than half of what he says about religion.
http://marxists.nigilist.ru/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. 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 encyclopaedic 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.