Social And Historical Criticism Of Religion

Religious criticism is an important theme of modern philosophy.It is the basic process and logic of modern philosophy and religious criticism to expose the "self-alienation",returning the essence of man alienated into the "sacred image" to the human itself,and making man as the center of the world.Feuerbach summarized it as the process of "humanization of God".In order to realize the humanization of God,modern philosophy takes two paths to expand,one is the naturalization of God,the other is the spirituality of God.These two paths seem to be completely opposite,but in fact,they lead to the same destination,that is,they are to deny the existence of God and remove the absolute rule of God through the dissolution of the external entity of "God",and to recover the content of "God" in a different way into human beings.However,since the theoretical basis for religious criticism based on these two logics is the forgetting of the social and historical existence of human reality,the image of human beings restored by modern philosophy can only be fragmented and abstract,without truly achieving consciousness of "real people" and achieving a thorough critique of religion.Therefore,the religious criticism of modern philosophy,which used to save the real image of people,led to the loss of "realistic people" in an abstract way and fell into its own theoretical dilemma.Marx’s religious criticism is rooted in such a historical background.How to continue to promote the religious criticism on the basis of modern religious criticism to save the real existence of human beings and realize the thorough criticism of religion is the core theme of Marx’s philosophy and religious view.Through the premise of modern religious criticism,Marx deeply saw the fundamental problem of religious criticism of modern philosophy: the natural logic of God is completely divorced from the initiative and creative aspects,while the spiritual logic of God is completely divorced from the perceptual reality of man,so the last person can only be an abstract spiritual entity.Therefore,the modern philosophy before Marx,whether it was modern materialist philosophy or modern idealistic philosophy,carried out religious criticism based on the theoretical foundation of "abstract human",which led to the incompleteness of its religious criticism.Marx,based on a practical perspective and from the perspective of historical materialism,unified the separate nature of human beings with their subjective initiative.In human perceptual practical activities,the relationship between humans and the world is qualitatively unified.Humans are not only perceptual "natural beings",but also dynamic "quasi beings".As a result,the person that Marx reverted to is no longer an abstract "one-dimensional person" like modern philosophy,but rather a full,vivid,and lively real life existence as the subject.It was based on the perceptual practical activities of "real people" that Marx overcame the fragmentation of modern philosophy,unified the naturalization and spiritualization of God in principle,and established a solid foundation for achieving a thorough critique of religion.Based on the understanding of real people,it means that a thorough religious criticism should not only point to the concept and spiritual phenomenon of religion itself,but must penetrate through religion and delve into the real material life process on which religion exists.It is necessary to understand the root of religion,the essence,function,and historical evolution of religion from the material process of real social life,We must also start from the process of social life in this reality and seek a practical way to abolish religion.Only through practical criticism,can we transform the secular life foundation that religion can generate,achieve human liberation and happiness in reality,and achieve complete criticism of religion.This indicates that Marx initiated a new style of religious criticism,which is the "social historical criticism" of religion.This fundamentally transcends the religious critique of modern philosophy,and is the most significant contribution of Marxist philosophy to the issue of religious critique.The social and historical criticism of religion this style of religious criticism was established by Marx after arduous theoretical exploration.The theme of religious criticism runs through all stages of its ideological development,accompanied by the whole ideological process of the continuous self-transcendence of Marx’s philosophy.Marx’s philosophy to practice,historical materialism and political economy criticism marked the philosophical revolution,and its long-term critical analysis of religion highly linked together,they are the product of its religious criticism deepening,but also to establish the social history of religious criticism this new religious criticism style laid the most fundamental foundation of philosophy.Marx lived in the era of capitalism and,using practical perspectives and from the perspective of historical materialism and political economy criticism,deeply criticized the special manifestations and essence of capitalist social religion in terms of social history,which is the key content of his religious criticism.Marx believed that in the era of capitalism,in order to realize a thorough religious criticism,it is necessary to analyze the internal contradictions of capital logic,reveal the development trend of self-denial and self-disintegration of capital logic,and thoroughly criticize the foundation of the ownership of capital privatization.Capitalist private ownership is the key to achieving complete religious criticism.Only with the active development and abandonment of private ownership as the premise,can the essence of human beings truly return to humans,completely abolish religion,and achieve true human liberation and real happiness.Marx’s criticism of religious phenomena in capitalist society provides a model for us to understand and reflect on the complex religious phenomena in the contemporary world.Today,it remains an irreplaceable source of thought for us to conduct religious criticism.