Marx called religion the 'opium of the people' — and meant it as sympathy, not insult

The full passage calls religion "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world" — a real response to real suffering, not mere delusion. Marx's point was that religion numbs pain caused by unjust conditions, so abolishing belief does nothing on its own until you also abolish the conditions that make people need the comfort.

— Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right — Introduction, 1843