"The particular virtues they promote depend, naturally, on the kind of society they live in, for "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch of the ruling ideas." In the middle ages, when farming was the chief means of production, all lands were owned by bishops of the church or by feudal lords...should we be surprised, then, that the moral code of the day stressed devotion to the church, along with warrior virtues such as obedience, honor, and loyalty to one's feudal master?..."
In this chapter, Pals explains Marx's perspective on religion, which is ultimately tied to economic oppression of lower classes. Here, he discusses how religion ultimately preaches doctrines which side with the ruling class, enslaving the proletariat unknowingly to the bourgeois. This applies to the modern era, when religion promotes humility and a degree of poverty. Strangely, with the Christian doctrine's preaching of poverty and the meek inheriting the earth, it does almost create a vicious circle: the more oppressed one is, the more tied and connected to their religion they feel. Their reality validates their religion, and their religion validates their reality, creating a nearly unbreakable covenant between them.
This can even be seen in the etiological stories of the Bible--however, in a way these stories promote one's own wealth. In the old testament, we see an obvious favoring of the shepherd, who fulfills a unique niche unable to be taken by others, as the work was deemed unclean to other cultures. And, in other cultures, I know the religion is often the cause of economic overthrow, usually being the first thing affected by the harming of the proletariat. I'd be curious to see how Marx's philosophy is carried into religions beyond the Abrahamic ones.
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