"Gramsci's remarks are rich and stimulating, but in the last analysis they follow the classical Marxist pattern of analysing religion. Ernst Bloch was the first Marxist author who radically changed the theoretical framework—without abandoning the Marxist and revolutionary perspective. In a similar way to Engels, he distinguished two socially opposed currents: on one side the theocratic religion of the official churches, opium of the people, a mystifying apparatus at the service of the powerful; on the other the underground, subversive and heretical religion of the Albigensians, the Hussites, Joachim di Fiori, Thomas Münzer, Franz von Baader, Wilhelm Weitling and Leo Tolstoy."
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Michael Löwy, The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America (1996), p. 15
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
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Opium of the people
Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently quoted statements of German economist Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes.
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