it is flat-out not true to say that Karl Marx referred to religion as an opiate.
What he says, I can quote it from memory,
from his contribution to the critique
of Hegel's philosophy of right is this:
He says religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature
The heart of the heartless world.
The spirit of the spiritless situation.
It is an opiate for the sufferer, the people.
He goes on to say,
the demand to give up its illusion,
Is the demand to give up the condition that requires illusions.
He closes by saying that criticism has plucked the flowers from the chain.
not so that men and women may wear the
chain without consolation.
but so that they may break the chain
and cull the living flower
