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Karl Marx has said that religion was the opium of the masses. I assume that he meant the enormous effect religion has on people; they think that the one they believe in is the only right and are deaf to all other ones. For some people religion is the only thing that matters in this life and nothing else is worth thinking of. Through the ages people have fought and killed for their religion, a fact that again shows how mad and insensitive religion can make us. Not so long ago, I heard a suggestion that if Marx was alive today he would replace religion with television. In some respects this claim seems to be reasonable, but I do have to think twice before maintaining that television has replaced religion in the real life like in this sentence of Marx .
It is true that television has a great role in the life of an average human being; hurrying home after a workday to see The Bold And The Beautiful resembles quite shockingly the necessity of attending a church service regularly. And similarly to the way religion gives people hope of a better life television provides us with the means to escape from this sometimes too depressing world for a while. Formerly families used to read the Bible together, today it might be a wildlife TV-serial that gathers the family up. The Bible tells us what is right or wrong and television advertisements tell us what is the best detergent and how our hair becomes smooth and silky. Both religion and television dull and confuse our mind. Each religion explains things in a one and only possible way, there is no room for any own or other kind of thinking. Television, too, gives us very simple and one-sided views and ready and easy answers and doesn't encourage us to think independently. One more thing that is common to religion and television is the way they both twist our sense of reality. Some sects are appalling examples how religion can lead people to even such an extreme decision as a mass suicide, and I am sure that many youngsters don't realise that a kick in the head can be lethal although the heroes of TV-series never die of one or even get hurt .
Indeed, there seems to be a lot in common between religion and television, and a phrase "television is the opium of the masses" sounds, at least to me, pretty accurate. And as it is a fact that nowadays religion is much less important than it used to be, could it, then, be that television has replaced it in the real life, too? No, I do not think so. Although both television and religion offer people a way to escape from the "worldly" pressures, resorting to religion is a much more conscious and acceptable choice than getting addicted to some stupid TV-series or drugs. I cannot think of anyone being proud of his/her devotion to the telly, but, as we all know, some religious fanatics are ready to kill or get killed for their faith. This is probably because of the notion most of us fortunately still have that there is always other human beings behind every television program, not some supernatural forces that could be compared to any religious, or ideological, power .
