This is one of history's most eloquent assertions of anarchist philosophy: religion is fundamentally the impoverishment, servitude, and annihilation of humanity. It is a weapon of the state. According to Bakunin, it had to be abolished before the right to self-determination could be achieved. God and the State remains a mind-opening experience, even for those who are not fundamentally sympathetic to its premise, whether as an introduction to anarchist ideas, an atheist manifesto, or a summation of Bakunin's thought.
