Friedrich Nietzsche believed that the Christian church transvaluates the natural human instincts by assigning supposed divine intention to rules such as “You shall not kill.” He argued that Christian prophets usurped the concepts of morality and ethics to further their interests and assigned additional fake meanings to what was previously simply assumed. Furthermore, he disagreed with Jesus’ treatment of reality, which he, in Nietzsche’s eyes, abandoned in favor of God’s kingdom.
Sigmund Freud interpreted religion in the context of his psychoanalysis theory, perceiving it as the manifestation of the subconscious need for wish fulfillment. In his eyes, religion was a pain killer to a human mind, looking to absolve itself of feelings of guilt and insecurity. Religion, according to this framework, was an easy and comfortable solution since it provided a believer with a seemingly clear path to eternal happiness in the afterlife.
Karl Marx insisted that religion was a social and economic control tool applied to the lower classes by the upper classes. He believed that religious teachings, particularly for Christianity, were utilized by the existing establishment to distract the oppressed from the injustices of their positions. In his discussions of this argument, he particularly emphasized the ways in which core Christian values of humility and compassion can be abused by the more privileged and famously called opium for the masses. He is frequently quoted in conversations that center on the controlling power of religion, which is largely in line with its role as a moral framework.
