A Study Of Marx’s Religious Critical Thought During German-French Yearbook Times

The issue of religion has always been a complex and important issue in the course of human social development,and Marx has paid attention to religious issues since his middle school days.During German-French Yearbook times,Marx published two articles,"Jewish Question" and "An introduction of critics of Hegel’s philosophy of right",which embodied the critical idea of religion that opened the way for Marxist religious criticism to shift from theory to reality,and had a profound impact on the formation and development of the Marxist theoretical system.Deeply grasping the critical thinking of Marx’s religion during German-French Yearbook times is also of great practical significance for us to understand and deal with the religious problems that exist in the current society.Marx’s religious critical thought in this period was formed in the religious atmosphere of the individual family on the one hand,and from the social era background of Europe at that time.The late Greek natural philosophy,the religious critical thought movement in modern Europe,and Hegel’s religious theory provided theoretical sources for Marx’s religious criticism.Marx directly inherited and transcended the abstract speculative religious critical ideas of the Young Hegelians,expounded and developed his own religious critical ideas in "Jewish Question" and "An introduction of critics of Hegel’s philosophy of right".In Marx’s view,the cognitive root of the emergence of religion lies in the transfer of man’s divinity to himself,and its social root lies in the contradictions and sufferings in people’s real life,which are directly manifested in private property in capitalist society;religion,as a social consciousness,is a reflection of the upside-down world,the alienation of the nature of the real human being;religion,as opium,paralyzes the spirit of the people and becomes politically an instrument of the ruling class to maintain its dominance.The practical roots,essence and function of religion revealed by Marx through the criticism of religion require that the criticism of religion must turn to the criticism of reality,to the criticism of civil society,to politics and philosophy.Only in this way can the task of eliminating religion be accomplished and human freedom and liberation achieved.Marx’s religious critical thought during the German-French Yearbook times not only embodied Marx’s concern for the essence of man and his exploration of the road to human freedom and liberation,but also had theoretical significance for the formulation of Marx’s proletarian revolutionary theory and the formation and development of historical materialist thought.