dimreepr

That has no bearing on Marxist analysis. Really, why not? Much like the American constitution, it made sense at the time and from his perspective... One day, a cave will seem like heaven and tomorrow we'll forget it's comfort...

We'd have to trust it first...

OK, let me try again, from the beginning; Clearly Marx recognised that religion teaches contentment "the opiate of the people" and suggested that is a bad thing, as in it insidiously undermines society and promotes apathy in the face of a government that feeds off them. I disagree with his interpretation of what contentment, and by extention religion, means to society; it's certainly no stretch to say "Contented people = peaceful people" and if we extend the drug analogy, some drugs are more insidious than other's; for instance, a drunken bloke slam's down his pint and says "right, you're going down" because he doesn't agree with a perfectly reasonable thought; meanwhile a stoned bloke says "na, your alright mate, you wanna toke". Bearing in mind, how the Russian revolution worked out; was it better before or after, and for whom?

What's God got to do with it? I'm an atheist, you don't need a God to understand religion.

Indeed, see above...

Indeed, which makes you so sure that your enemies don't exist, at least on an intellectual level...

Good business owner = got lucky. Bad business owner = got unlucky... How could an AI change the odds of delivering on a 50:50 bet?

It means, religion's not your enemy, "THEY" are...

"And those who were seen dancing, were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Rito.

Well, if you insist on snipping the sentence "to further clarify my position.", then I can only conclude, your misunderstandings are deliberate, in order to slip the punch/question perhaps...

And I was responding to yours, to further clarify my position.

What's more practical than a healthy state of mind? Whatever the circumstance, imaginary or otherwise; for instance, you find yourself in an intolerable situation, is it not practical to invoke an imaginary friend to make it a torlerable situation, until such times when a smile is possible? Even an inmate on death row, can find God/imaginary friend (according to a recent BBC documentary) and look forward to tomorrow, seems a lot healthier than plotting one's own death in a land of plenty...

The odds are, the house always win's, until they don't...

If we accept the limitations of our freedoms imposed on us by our own society, then we have to accept that we are all oppressed; from North Korea to Norway, but from Norway's POV, it's so easy to see the obvious oppression in North Korea, that it blinds them to their own and makes it acceptable to lay a portion of the blame on its people. Our culture teaches us everthing we need to fit in and especially how to "succeed", in that culture; in my culture (nominally atheist) success is excess, more food than we can eat, a bigger house than we need (too display to our rub in the face of our neighbour's and a big fence to stop those pesky economic migrant's from rummaging in our food filled bins. So, as an atheist, I think my culture would benefit from a bit of politics free religion. Tell that to the great one, Cassius Clay Also see above...

Rito...

Did you not choose your path?

If you haven't been hungry enough to eat from a bin, then I agree, communication is impossible. And you'll never understand how a God can grease your wheel's...

It's intersesting to note how often this is used to provide an escape clause, from this inquiry.

And all I'm saying is, oppresion is subjective and most people, oppressed or otherwise have enough to eat day to day, and decent shelter can be a cave if it's cold and raining. I'm not saying they should be content because of what's to come, I'm saying they can be content because of what's come before (religion in this case), as the sermon on the mount is trying to teach, heaven is here and now and hell is never finding that out. Catch 22 is a joke!!! "me, happy happy happy, dead: you, worry worry worry, dead" Yes it does, it's just that polititions catch up much faster than priest's and we tend to ignore the lesson's of history...

That tends to happen when we don't have enough to eat (feeding of the 5 thousand springs to mind), the political/philosophy pendulum swings in an equal and opposite way...

Indeed, even the oppressed.

How do you know the oppresed aren't content? We all have a boss even the POTUS; it's perfectly possible to be content with a boss/oppressor (god and sundry others) (especially the kind one's) that let's you have enough to eat, and share with your family and friends, a roof over our head's and the time to appreciate what we have, that, often, the boss doesn't; because the boss struggled so hard to protect their privilege that they forget the pleasures of sharing. Ying Yang... Turning the other cheek has nothing to do with war, defend yourself first, otherwise you won't have a cheek to turn; turning the other cheek comes after the war... You make more friends with missionaries, when the missiles are no longer needed... Really??? I'm all ears...

Carefully...

In any given society you will find, the privileged and the, so called, oppressed (your words); when they're in balance the Lord builds a folly, so the oppresed can work for their bread and be satisfied with it's effort to provide for itself, and the Lord gets to keep its privilege; it's a ying yang/good v evil kind of thing, as explored in many a religious philosophy... WTF are you talking about? Did Putin blame religion for his invasion? Or was it him that keeps negging me?