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. – Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” 1844
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death – the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged. – Czesław Miłosz, “The Discreet Charm of Nihilism”, 1998