[Sketchy]

I have been into a series on TV lately called "John Adams" on HBO. I am studying him in school. He has some very powerful rhetoric, especially concerning religion. The following is a quote from one of his speeches (in real life, not on the show);

"They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure; with a power of dispensation over all the rules and obligations of morality; with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes; with a power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from allegiance; with a power of procuring or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude to him and his subordinate tyrants, who, it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God and that was worshipped."
- John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1763

Is he referring to the fallacy of the institution of religion, as in the church, or is he referring to the power of religion over government, as in separation of church and state? Or am I way off in my analysis? Look forward to your thoughts!

[Zyx]

Karl Marx had written "Religion is the opiate of the masses" and it captures this quote just the same. Although, honestly, it reads more like a criticism of the Pope than 'religion' unless the Catholic faith were the only religion known to John Adams.

However, it is important to note that most people in modern societies are opiated. A Chinese friend just asked me about why Americans were so religious, but I reminded him that the Chinese were 'cultural' and, moreover, dropped the old Chinese rule of how one could overthrow an emperor legitimately. I too reminded him that the English literally gave the Chinese opium to overtake them. So, critiques on "Religion" should be more critiques on "opiates." Nevertheless, religion is certainly an opiate.

[Sketchy]

He was heard to say in a later speech (referring to a country's Declaration of Independence) "the most important thing East of Jerusalem". So this may be evidence to support your theory that he either only knew or only acknowledged the Catholic religion/state as the "opiate" Marx described. Although you could take the same argument and apply it to any religious or political following (as you said with the Chinese culture).

An interesting comparison between the two philosophers and statesmen none the less.

[Zyx]

Although you could take the same argument and apply it to any religious or political following

Not quite. His specifics were unique to the papacy.

African Traditional Religions (ATP) don't have shamans that can controllingly channel a deity. Moreover, ATPs weren't practiced in particularly oppressive societies.

Religion as opiate has to do with an expectation for some activity, the activity which is being opiated. John Adams and Karl Marx are truly only denouncing Western societies and their emulators. For although the Ancient Egyptian Rain Makers (their religious figure) eventually became the Pharaohs, their practices weren't opiates as the Egyptians weren't oppressed and opiated against activities.

In the West, indignities and exploitation are encourageably suffered under the pretext of a better afterlife--that's an opiate against fighting the indignities and exploitation. You see?

[Sketchy]

I stand corrected. Almost any traditional Western model of religion. So, if his specifics were to the papacy, could one say that Marx and Adams were not opposed the idea of religion in these African/Egyptian belief systems? In other words, would they support the belief systems that you mentioned, which did not opiate the population?

[Zyx]

Well, I'd imagine that they'd oppose them for other reasons, being mythical and mystical as they were. But it can't be claimed an opiate if there's nothing being opiated. If the Church were not so abusive or powerful, it is doubtful that Adam's critique would have been as it were. As to Marx, I did not follow him enough to know whether he criticized religion for being mythical (he probably would have, however, considering that he was a 'materialist.')