"[T]here are still plenty of people who will tell you that the most evil thing about Karl Marx was what he said about religion. He said it was the opium of the lower classes, as though he thought religion was bad for people, and he wanted to get rid of it.
"But when Marx said that, back in the 1840s, his use of the word "opium" wasn't simply metaphorical. Back then real opium was the only painkiller available, for toothaches or cancer of the throat, or whatever. He himself had used it.
"As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something with which they could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it, OK?
"He might have said today as I say tonight, "Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm so glad it works." --- Kurt Vonnegut, ARMAGEDDON IN RETROSPECT
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