The Study Of Marx’s Critical Theory Of Religion

Marx’s critical theory of religion achieved a complete and revolutionary change, which is on the basis of the inheritance of all the ideological and theoretical achievements of modern philosophy. It subverted all the critical thought of the philosophers since the modern times and used historical materialism view and methodology to examine and analyze religious phenomena and religious issues scientifically. It was the first time that man explained the religious generation and development and change of objective laws in the religious history of mankind, achieving the revolutionary shift of religious criticism.Dialectical materialism and historical materialism are the cornerstone of Marx’s Critique of Religion theory. The investigation of the religion nature and the development history of religion must be based on the study on the substantial foundation on which religious phenomena occur, and the progress and change of social substantially living standards in each religious development stages, and explore the development and change of the religious phenomenon during evolution and development of social productive forces and the reality relationship between the production material ownership relationships determined by productivity development statusMarx’s religious criticism theory is the thought crystallization to the social reality, religion’s thoughtful mind. This is Marx’s commitment to the liberation of human society and life-long dedication to the ideological theory of reflection on religion. It is also an embodiment of Marx’s great intelligence and outstanding social insight.The critique of religion is an important feature in the development of modern Western philosophy, the confirmation of the relationship between belief and rationality, divine and human nature becomes both the intrinsic motivation in the development of modern Western philosophy and a major problem that modern western philosophers have to solve. The development of Marxist religious critical has the following processes: devout religious follower in the boyhood, emotion against religious in the secondary period, worship to Hegel’s philosophy at college age during the Young Hegelians idealism religious , and finally built science religious criticism on a foundation of historical materialism.According to the time of the development of Marx’s own thinking, Marx’s critique of religion mainly reflected in the literature of Marxism in his youth, his later criticism is mainly for the economic, political and social reality. Marxist critique of religion is the theoretical basis of philosophical criticism and all other critical prerequisite and he achieved his revolutionary change of philosophy by critique of religion. Max finds the alienation in the areas of economic life from the alienation in the religion. By means of understanding and experience of the Feuerbach’s materialism and Feuerbach’s interpretation of the relationship between human and religion and the exploration of alienation, Max expounds that we must use man’s social essence, social activities and social practice to reveals the essence of religion and realistic basis of religious sentiment, putting forward social practice demands to change the objective world.Marx pointed out: "Religion is the essence of reality, of human nature and of society. Religious affections are products of society. Social person belongs to certain social form. The social reality, social issues and human sensibility must be understood as a human perceptual activity and practice. The philosophers only interpreted the world in different ways, but the problem is to change the world.”Marx’s theory of human nature interpretation is completely beyond the materialism of Feuerbach. Marx’s Critique of Religion aims to achieve the free and comprehensive development of the human, and the realization that man’s comprehensive development is not an illusory process, but a real process, It based on the history facts of development of human society, stressed the need to get rid of man’s dependence on things, so that to construct their own independence in order to achieve the comprehensive development of human.Marx believed that the generation of the communist movement of the characteristics of a historical subject, is a self-abandon and self-transcendence. Communism is a movement based on highly developed social productive forces, and elimination of alienated labor and capitalist private ownership of production movement, it is the inevitable result of its own contradictions. The purpose of the communist movement is to completely change the kind of people compared with the alienation of social relations to confront is that of social relations, including relations of production to re-return to the people, the objective state of human domination. Communism as a theory is both a practical activity and a beautiful ideal for future society, the ultimate aim is to achieve human freedom and comprehensive development.The religion criticism was a start point in the development of the Marxist philosophy thought, exposing people’s self-alienation in the reality of material in the production process, it explains the religious criticism, philosophical criticism, political criticism and the dialectical relations between social criticism, and established the theory of Marx’s practice critical prerequisite. Communist ideology as the realization of the important theory of human liberation, has a historical process, and the characteristics of this process and history only in the real contradictions of society and development process to get the real explanation and description.Marx’s Critique of Religion can be regarded as the revolution of the traditional western criticism of religion, namely from the rational criticism to the practice criticism, thus it established the important theory status of Marx’s in religious criticism among the history of western religious criticism. We should take the thought and evolution of the western religious criticism as a basic clues, explaining Marx starting from man’s sensuous activity and make all religion interpreted as a social ideology, and also re-critique and deconstruction of this religion itself. Religion is not the product of human reasion, but is a product of social practice. Religion is by-product from people’s productive activity after the labor alienation, so the criticism of religion in rational transform into the field of social production, from a practical critique of rational criticism to the revolutionary change.Marx and Engels argued that to achieve the complete liberation of people the real happiness of mankind, only a theoretical critique of religion can not eliminate religion. only through the social revolution to arouse people’s awareness, destroying the social secular basis which the religion rely on .Because "consciousness of all forms and product is not can use spirit of critical to destroy, nor can they melt by in the ’self-awareness’ or ’and’ to ’phantom’ and ’strange strange shadows to’ to eliminate, and only through the actual overthrow this idealism fallacy by the reality that produced the social relations, can they destroy". TO eliminate the potential in people "self-consciousness" of the "ghost" and "strange shadow" and "strange think", we must rely on the proletarian revolution to overthrow by violence caused by the exploitation of the existing situation and the exploitation of the class system itself. Thus it can eradicate the secular roots of religious survival in order to achieve the true liberation of mankind, and achieve the ideal communist societyMarx’s critical theory of religion is an important part of Marx’s philosophy, and a guide for correctly knowing and handling religious problems for the Party and the government in constructing socialism with Chinese feature. However, for a long time after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, there is a lack of study of Marx’s critical theory of religion based on reality. Therefore, we should combine the Marx’s historical materialism development and historical materialism critical religious theory; deeply understand the change history of Marxist religious criticism ideological and forming process of historical materialism critical theory of religion. We should also formulate socialistic religion policies and build a socialist harmonious society service that fit for the situation of China by a further accurate and complete understanding and grasp of Marxism critical theory of religion.