KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS

ON RELIGION

Cologne newspaper, once credited as the "paper of Rhineland intellectuals," has been disrupted
by political industry advertisements. The newspaper has been criticized for its tendency to
disgust readers with politics, leading them to turn more eagerly to the luxuriant and industriously
pulsating domain of advertisement. The author of the article, Hermes, argues that the
newspaper's intention is not honorable and that it is less interested in teaching and enlightening
the people than in attaining ulterior aims.

The author argues that a party that makes use of these means (spreading and combating
philosophical and religious views in newspapers) shows that its intentions are not honorable and
that it is less interested in teaching and enlightening the people than in attaining ulterior aims.
The author believes that the state has the right and duty to silence non-professional praters, and
that a further tightening of censorship in religious matters is necessary.

The author also criticizes the state for applying too little censorship, arguing that individual
authorities have shown blameworthy forbearance in allowing the new philosophical school to
permit unseemly attacks upon Christianity in public papers and other printed works not intended
exclusively for scientific readers. He finds that with freedom of censorship there was too little
freedom of the press, and with compulsion of censors there is too little compliance by the
censorship.

In summary, the author of Cologne newspaper criticizes the newspaper for its tendency to spread
philosophical and religious views without addressing their own rights or censorship. The author
argues that the state can be reproached with undue forbearance rather than excessive rigor, but
the author ultimately finds that with freedom of censorship, there is too little freedom of the
press and that with compulsion of censors, there is too little compliance by the censorship.

The text discusses the importance of censorship in the press and its role in discrediting a freer
press movement. The author, a champion of freedom of the press, believes that relaxed
censorship allows for inappropriate outbursts of young pride, which can only be addressed by the
powers of comprehension of the broad masses. He suggests that the censorship's duty is to exist
as long as possible, and that it is not their function to act as public prosecutor but to be a
concealed accuser.

The author also criticizes the censorship for its "godless" procedure to discredit a freer press
movement in the public eye. They argue that the press can only be called "free" if it is free from
shamelessness and hypocrisy. The author does not want to limit the freedom of scientific
research, but instead emphasizes the need for a sharp distinction between what is required by the
freedom of scientific research and what is beyond the bounds of scientific research.

The leading article believes that bounds should be prescribed to scientific research, teaching it
and prescribing the length of every hair to transform a scientific beard into one of world
significance. The leading article believes in the scientific inspiration of the censorship.

The text also discusses Mr. H.'s philosophy of religion, which claims that religion is the
foundation of the state and is necessary for every social association not aimed at attaining
ulterior purposes. The leading article calls fetishism the "crudest form" of religion, admitting that
animal worship is a higher religious form than fetishism. However, the text argues that fetishism
is so far from raising man above the appetites that it is "the religion of sensible appetites."

In nations with higher historic significance, the prime of national life coincides with the highest
development of their sense of religion, and the decline of their greatness and power coincides
with the decline of their religious culture.

The author argues that the downfall of ancient states was not due to the disappearance of their
religions, but rather the downfall of the old states themselves. He cites Greece and Rome as
examples of countries with the highest historical culture, with the peak of Greece's internal
progress occurring during the time of Pericles and its external zenith during Alexander. In
Pericles' time, philosophy incarnate, Socrates, art, and rhetoric had superseded religion, while
Alexander's time saw Aristotle rejecting the eternity of the "individual" spirit and the god of
positive religions.

The author also mentions the school of Aristotle, which aimed to prove the eternal truth of Greek
mythology through force and scientific research. However, the author argues that the best
conclusions of scientific research have so far served only to confirm the truths of Christianity. He
argues that every philosophy of the past has been accused by theologians of apostotasy( abandonment
of a previous loyalty ), and that Christianity cannot agree with reason because "worldly" and "religious"
reason contradict each other.

The author suggests that scientific research should only acknowledge what conforms to one's
own view, making the argument easier for oneself. He believes that once scientific research has
made clear its content, it will never clash with the truths of Christianity. However, the state must
ensure that this "making clear" is impossible, as research must never appeal to the powers of
comprehension of the masses or become popular and clear to itself.

Christianity precludes the possibility of "any new decline," but the police must be on its guard to
prevent philosophizing newspaper writers from leading to decadence. Error will be recognized as
such in the struggle with truth without any need for suppression by external force. The state must
make the struggle of truth easier by depriving the champions of "error" not of internal freedom
but of the possibility of existence.

The author argues that philosophy asks what is true, not what is acknowledged as such, and that
philosophy's metaphysical truths do not know the boundaries of political geography. He believes
that philosophy has existed from Thales down to our time, and that it has now made greater
claims and an opinion of its own importance than ever.

In conclusion, the author's argument for Christianity is that the state is a Christian state, with its
purpose being to make dogma a reality rather than making freedom a reality.

The text discusses the concept of a "Christian" state, where the primary duty of the state is to
maintain peace and security, rather than suppress heretical errors and bliss. European states, such
as France and Prussia, have Christianity as their foundation, with the French state having equal
eligibility for civil and military posts. The Prussian Landrecht also states that the Supreme Head
of the State combines all "duties and rights of the State" in his person.

However, the text does not argue that the primary duty of the state is to suppress heretical errors
and bliss in the other world. In Prussia, marriage is partly emancipated from spiritual authorities,
and its civil validity is distinct from its "ecclesiastical" status.

The text also discusses the state's role as both an association of free human beings and true
educational institutions. The state extends its care to a broader field than the institutions intended
for youth education, and all public education is based on the foundation of Christianity. The state
educates its members by making them members of the state, changing individual aims into
general aims, coarse urge into moral inclination, natural independence into spiritual freedom, and
finding their delight in the life of the whole and the whole in the disposition of the individual.

The leading article of the text makes the state not an association of free human beings mutually
educating one another but a crowd of adults whose destiny is to be educated from above and to
pass from the "narrow" schoolroom to the "broader" one. The text criticizes newspaper articles
for not convincing a population that they are in a wretched predicament, arguing that the material
feeling of well-being and happiness is more proof against newspaper articles than the assurance
of faith.

H.'s fears that even encouragement of dissatisfaction in a well-ordered state is less likely than in a
well-ordered church, which may also be led by the "spirit of God" to all truth. He believes that
political articles are within the comprehension of the masses, but philosophical articles are
beyond it.

In conclusion, the text highlights the importance of understanding the state's role in shaping the
beliefs and values of its citizens.

The text discusses the question of whether philosophy should discuss religious matters in
newspaper articles. It argues that philosophy, particularly German philosophy, has a tendency to
solitude and systematic seclusion, which is opposed by quick-witted and alive-to-events
newspapers. Philosophy is considered an unpopular occupation due to its secret weaving within
itself, and it has never made the first step towards replacing ascetic priestly vestments with the
light conventional garb of new philosophers.

Philosophy is not the product of the soil like a mushroom but rather the product of their time and
people, whose most subtle, precious, and invisible sap circulates in philosophical ideas.
Philosophy is in the world with its brain before it stands on the earth with its feet, whereas many
other human spheres have long been rooted in the earth by its feet and pluck the fruits of the
world with its hands before having any idea that the "head" also belongs to the world or that this
world is the world of the head.

The text also discusses the introduction of philosophy into drawing-rooms, priests' studies,
editorial offices of newspapers, and antichambers of courts. Philosophy is introduced into the
world by the clamour of its enemies who betray their internal infection by their desperate appeals
for help against the blaze of ideas. The Corybantes and Cabiri first turn against the religious
section of the philosophers, partly because their inquisitorial instinct can secure a firmer hold on
the sentimental side of the public, partly because the public can feel the ideal sphere of
philosophy only with its ideal feelings, and the only field of ideas in which the public believes
almost as much as in the system of material needs is that of religious ideas.

For six years, the German papers have been drumming against the religious trend in philosophy,
calumniating it, distorting it, and bowdlerizing it. The Augsburger papers played a monotonous
kettle-drum, with all German papers bashing out about Hegel, Schelling, Feuerbach, Bauer,
Deutsche JahrbUcher, etc.

The curiosity of the public was aroused, and semi-official articles threatened philosophy that it
would have a legal syllabus officially prescribed for it. This led to philosophy appearing in the
papers, which had kept silence before the self-complacent superficiality that boasted in stale
newspaper phrases. The text concludes that philosophy is no food for the newspaper public and
that it only needs to repeat what unphilosophical Capuchins have preached about it in thousands
of polemics.

Philosophy speaks differently of religious and philosophical objects than one might have, as it
speaks without having studied them and appeals to emotions and reason. It demands faith in
one's faith, not faith in its results but the test of doubt. Philosophy is world-wise enough to know
that its results flatter the desire for pleasure or egoism neither of the heavenly nor earthly world.
The question whether philosophical and religious matters should be discussed in newspapers
resolves itself in its own emptiness.

If such questions already have an interest for the public as newspaper questions, they have
become questions of the day. The point is not whether they should be discussed, but where and
how they should be discussed, whether within the bounds of the family, hotels, schools, and
churches, but not by the press; by the opponents of philosophy, but not by the philosophers; or in
the obscure language of private opinion but not in the clarifying language of public reason.
The question is whether the press must be really the press, i.e., a free press. From the first
question, we completely separate the second: "Should politics be dealt with philosophically by
the newspapers in a so-called Christian state?"

If religion becomes a political philosophy, there seems to be hardly any need to mention that the
press may, but must, discuss political objects. The wisdom of this world, philosophy, has more
right to bother about the kingdom of this world, about the state, than the wisdom of the other
world, religion.

The truly religious state is the theocratic state, where the prince of such states must be either the
God of religion, Jehovah himself, God's representative, the Dalai Lama, or finally, as Gorres
correctly demanded of Christian states in his last work, they must all submit to a church which is
an "infallible church."

Once a state includes several confessions with equal rights, it cannot be a religious state without
violating particular confessions. Philosophy interprets the Rights of Humanity and demands that
the state be the state of human nature.

The text discusses the concept of rationalism, which argues that the universal Christian spirit
must be the spirit of the state, regardless of confessional differences. This separation of religion
from its dogmas and institutions is seen as irreligious and a threat to worldly reason. Christians
live in states with differing constitutions, some in republics, absolutes, or constitutional
monarchies. Christianity does not decide on the correctness of these constitutions, as it knows no
distinction between them. The correctness of state constitutions is judged not according to
Christianity, but according to the nature of human society.

The Byzantine state was the properly religious state, but the Byzantine state was the worst of all
states. The states of the ancien regime were the most Christian states, yet they were also states of
"the will of court." There is a dilemma that "sound" common sense cannot solve: either the
Christian state corresponds to the concept of the state as a realization of rational freedom, and
nothing else can be demanded for it to be a Christian state than that it be a reasonable state; then
it is enough to develop the state out of the reason of human relations, a work accomplished by
philosophy.

The state is not to be constituted from religion but from the reason of freedom. Only the crassest
ignorance can assert that the theory of making the state-concept independent is a passing whim
of modern philosophers. Philosophy has done nothing in politics that physics, mathematics,
medicine, and every science has not done within its own sphere.

Modern philosophy construes the state out of the idea of the whole, considering it as the great
organ in which freedom of right, morals, and politics has to be implemented. In the laws of the
state, the individual citizen merely obeys the natural laws of his own reason, human reason.

The text concludes with a philosophical farewell to Kolnische Zeitung, which was reasonable to
take itself a liberal "of times gone by." It was more reasonable that the liberal of the recent past
combated the liberals of the present, as without parties there is no development and progress.