The Count says :

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion,  religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness  and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or  has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting  outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state  and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of  the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general  theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular  form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral  sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation  and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence  since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle  against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that  world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. 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.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is  the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their  illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a  condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is,  therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which  religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order  that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or  consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the  living flower.
22, 23 posts Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!