Assess The Marxists View On The Role Of Religion

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Assess the Marxists View on the Role of Religion According to the Marxists theory, religion is an illusion which eases the anguish of exploitation and alienation produced by capitalist society. They state that religion can help the pain by promising reward in the afterlife, make a virtue for the suffering, offer the hope of supernatural intervention to solve any problems and offers justification into social order and a person’s position in it. All these distract a person from the unfair system of capitalism. Furthermore religion also helps capitalism by diverting attention away from inequality, reproducing demand for material goods, encourage proletariat to accept their role in life and to justify inequality between classes. Religion diverts attention away from inequality by uniting groups of people, providing a sense of comfort and safety from capitalism, giving moral codes for all people to focus on rather than the inequalities of capitalist society and allowing individuals to focus on living their life morally so they have a peaceful afterlife. Religion also reproduces demand for material goods as it is a notion for respectability by purchasing material life as it shows that you are rich and successful which therefore supports civil religion – a faith in the country - and by having these goods such as a flag, it can show support in the civil religion. Additionally religion encourages the proletariat to accept their role in life by offering individuals to focus on living their life morally so they have peaceful afterlife, encouraging people to overcome challenges that may be hard to overcome and discouraging revolution and violence. Moreover religion justifies inequality between classes by providing answers to life and why people are in a particular situation and promises more in the after life so people are less bothered about inequality. These are all part of

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