Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
This isn’t true. There are many people, well fed and well heeled who subscribe to religious beliefs. It is hard-wired into human beings, but in varying degrees, like sexuality. There are no wires at all in my own mind, but let those with wires in their brains get on with it, just as long as they don’t interfere with me and impose their beliefs through government. The latter is peculiar to the United States and some Moslems countries.