Sunday, December 05, 2021

President Xi stresses developing religions in Chinese context
By MO JINGXI | CHINA DAILY/XINHUA | Updated: 2021-12-06

President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses a national conference on work related to religious affairs in Beijing, capital of China. The conference was held from Friday to Saturday. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of enhancing the religious sector's recognition of the motherland, the Chinese nation and culture, the Communist Party of China and socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The measures will help develop religions in the Chinese context, Xi said.

He urged education on nationalism, collectivism, socialism and an improved understanding of history in the religious sector to guide the adaptation of religions to socialist society.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while addressing a two-day national conference on work related to religious affairs, which concluded on Saturday in Beijing.

Stressing the importance of religious affairs in the work of the Party and the State, he highlighted the need to uphold and develop a religious theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics, work in line with the Party's basic policy on religious affairs, and uphold the principle that religions in China must be Chinese in orientation.

He also asked for efforts to rally religious people around the Party and government, foster positive and healthy relations among religions, support religious groups in strengthening self-education, and improve the management of religious work under the rule of law.

Xi said that religious activities must be carried out within the scope stipulated by laws and regulations, and should not impair the well-being of citizens, offend public order and good morals or interfere with educational, judicial and administrative affairs as well as social life.

He emphasized training of a team of Party and government officials familiar with the Marxist view on religion and religious affairs, and competent enough to engage in work related to religious people.

In his speech, Xi emphasized the full and faithful implementation of the Party's policy on freedom of religious beliefs, respecting people's religious beliefs and managing religious affairs in accordance with the law.

Religious and nonreligious people share common fundamental interests, both politically and economically, he said.

Xi also urged that the necessary support and assistance be provided to religious groups, which serve as the bridge for the Party and government to unite and contact religious figures and believers.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core has paid high attention to religion in China. Xi has made a series of instructions on religious work at important meetings and during his work inspections.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

Marx Myths and Legends. Cyril Smith
Karl Marx and Religion


Source: “Karl Marx and Religion” was written for “Marx Myths and Legends” by Cyril Smith in March 2005, and rights remain with the author, as per Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Licence 2.0.

It is vital to understand the meaning of Marx to grasp his ideas in relation to his development. In this connection, his conception of religion is one of the most important aspects of his notions.

As early as 1842, he wrote:

I desired there to be less trifling with the label ‘atheism’ (which reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man), and that instead the content of philosophy should be brought to the people. (Letter to Ruge, November 24, 1842.)

It was quite easy to deal with religion by just being against it, but that was not good enough. ‘Everybody knows’ that Marx wrote about religion being the opium of the people, so we shall look at the entire passage from which this comes.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. 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.

(Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction.)

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