What does the quote religion is the opiate of the masses mean?

Answer 1

I understood this quote to mean that 'religion' in the general sense keeps the people listless and sedated as an opiate or opium leaves people. Opiates can cause a person to sleep their life away, not caring about eating, working, or even their loved ones, eventually sleeping themselves to death. But paradoxically, opiates can also alter the consciousness of the users, and free them from religious dogma. Marx seems to be implying that people should dedicate themselves to anarchy and to fighting social and authoritarian injustice.

Religion means a "set of rules", rules to follow in order to guarantee an afterlife. It's used by the people in power to control the people who are not in power (the masses). It convinces them to accept and endure the suffering and injustices in this life because heaven awaits them. It prevented the masses from questioning and ultimately changing the current ways so the people who were in power could stay in power.

The above is very near to the mark, but misses the main point. Let's put the famous Karl Marx quote in context:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

As you can see, Marx was claiming that religion is an artificial creation as a coping mechanism for people to deal with their miserable, oppressed lives. He then goes on to describe it in a manner somewhat similar to Plato's "allegory of the cave"- that people become "addicted" to this "drug", and refuse to come off it, even though their lives may be better if they did.

So he wasn't claiming that it was a way to control people as the previous answerer states; it was a way for the people to deal with their awful lives, and can prevent them from taking action to better their situation.