p ... Religious misery is at the same time an expression of real misery and a protest against this real misery. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart 20 of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of a soulless system. Religion is the opium of the people.

p The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their true happiness. The demand to give up illusions about one’s position is the demand tor the rejection of a position whidh needs illusions. It follows that criticism of religion is criticism in embryo oi the vale of tears, the sacred halo of which is religion.

p Criticism has discarded from the chains the false flowers which adorned them-not so that mankind should continue to wear these chains in their form devoid of all joy and pleasure, but in order that it should throw off the chains and stretch its hand for the living flower.

Criticism of religion frees man from illusions so that he should think, act and build his own reality as one who has freed himself from illusions, who has become a rational man, in order that he should revolve around himself and his own real sun. Religion is only an illusory sun which moves around man until he begins to move around himself....