“Religion is the opium of the masses.” – Karl Marx
Weltschmerz is a literary concept describing the feeling experienced by an individual who believes that reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind, resulting in “a mood of weariness or sadness about life arising from the acute awareness of evil and suffering.”
The term was coined by the German Romantic author Jean Paul in his 1827 novel Selina, and in its original definition in the Deutsches Wörterbuch by the Brothers Grimm, it denotes a deep sadness about the insufficiency of the world (“tiefe Traurigkeit über die Unzulänglichkeit der Welt”).
The translation can differ depending on context; in reference to the self it can mean “world-weariness”, while in reference to the world it can mean “the pain of the world”.
The modern meaning of Weltschmerz in the German language is the psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when realizing that someone’s own weaknesses are caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and (physical and social) circumstances.
“Religion ist das Opium des Volkes.” – Karl Marx
This statement was translated from the German original, “Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes” and is often rendered as “religion … is the opiate of the masses.”
The full sentence from Marx translates as: “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.”
It’s time to dust off the word weltschmerz. Unlike angst or ennui, weltschmerz springs precisely from seeing that things could and should be better.
If you’re feeling world-wearied, you may have ‘Weltschmerz’ – The disillusionment we feel when the world falls short of our expectations.
Weltschmerz: There’s a German word people use in times of despair, and it’s as apt today as it was in the 19th century.
Believing in God can trigger the same reward regions of the brain as taking drugs.
Religion can have same effect on the brain as taking drugs, study finds.
Brain scans on Mormons show religion has a similar effect to taking drugs.
What religion does to your brain.
The God drug: When religion becomes an addiction. In recent decades, the idea of recovery from addiction to religion has taken root, particularly in Christian America.
“Religion is like drugs, it destroys the thinking mind.”
This post first appeared on Malloy.rocks
Oliver, this is a part of my Reply to a post by Friendly Atheist on Substack, a while ago: "This entire incident is a symptom of the spectacularly successful con that 'religion' has perpetrated on this country and on the world, for centuries. This HUGE grift has resulted in terror, genocide, exploitation of the masses in multiple ways, brainwashing, and half-witted knee-jerk responses such as this to anything and everything deemed insufficiently subservient to religious authority."
I think this explains evangelists and their movement.