Marx's Critique On Bruno Bauer's Critique Of Religion

Marx's critique of religion is deeply influenced by the young Hegelians in the early stage.As Marx's former theoretical instructor and ideological comrade-in-arms,Bruno Bauer,the leader of the young Hegelians,plays an important role in the shaping process of Marx's critique of religion.Bauer's critique of religion is based on his philosophy of self-consciousness.He exerts the subjective factors in Hegel's speculative philosophy to the utmost.He criticizes Strauss' so-called universal beliefs.From the perspective of historicism,he reveals that the gospel story originates from complete fiction,and that Christianity originates from the Greek and Roman world both in ideology and reality.He believes that alienated self-consciousness is the real foundation of Christianity,so only the elimination of alienation of self-consciousness can completely eliminate religion and ultimately achieve human liberation,which depends on unremitting religious and theoretical criticism.When Marx gradually deepened his research in this field,he found that the real root of religion lies in the field of social production,so he began to start from the field of social production,emphasizing social practice,and embarked on a more revolutionary road of religious criticism.He accused Bauer of the limitations of his criticism of single religion and pointed the criticism at all religions;he was not satisfied with Bauer's exposing the origin of religion,but to reveal the root of all alienation;he promoted Bauer's rational criticism to the level of practical criticism.He transforms his religious criticism into a criticism of social reality.Marx's transcendence and transformation of Bauer's critique of religion is an important theoretical starting point for his own ideological development.The philosophical transformation he achieved strongly attacks the pure rational thinking mode of metaphysics and brings the real people back to the philosophers' vision.At the same time,his critique of religion has important guiding significance for criticizing the alienated reality of capitalism,reflecting on the religious conflict and constructing of socialism at present.