Taj citat Marxa je nažalost uglavnom korišten u tom osiromašenom obliku koji gotovo pa skroz reformulira kontekst. Cijeli citat je puno, puno potentniji i zanimljiviji.
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.
Gdje Marx ispravno postulira da je jedina prava borba - ona za univerzalnu pravdu i svijet u kojem nam neće trebati zaklon od nehumanosti i eksploatacije. Religijska misao se ne može 'iskorjeniti' dok postoji tolika potreba za utjehom, mirom i nadom da će bar iza ovog života postojati pravda. To ne mogu nikakva naučna dostignuća, teroija evolucije ni progresivni koncepti - samo jednakost i univerzalna pravda za sve.
