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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!uwvax!myers
From: myers@uwvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Give me that old time opium!
Message-ID: <193@uwvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 11-Apr-84 13:54:44 EST
Article-I.D.: uwvax.193
Posted: Wed Apr 11 13:54:44 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 07:22:14 EST
References: <549@aplvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 14

>I read somewhere that when Karl Marx uttered his "religion is the opium
>of the people" remark, he meant it in a positive way.  Positive in the
>sense that opium at the time of Marx was an invaluable medicine.  Can
>anyone shed any light on this?

>					Don Davis

No, he didn't.  If I recall correctly, this quote is from "On the Jewish
Question", a response to Bruno Bauer's "The Jewish Question".

Marx was not arguing that religion is a priori bad, only that it tended to
be used by the ruling elites to keep people from questioning their condition
in secular society.