Which theorist equated religion with a drug based on the argument that religion often tranquilizes the underprivileged into accepting their lot in life?

A) Emile Durkheim
B) Max Weber
C) Thomas Hobbes
D) John Calvin
E) Karl Marx

This view of religion as an opiate was put forth by Karl Marx, who believed that religion served to distract and pacify the working class by offering them false hope and promising rewards in the afterlife, thereby enabling them to accept their current exploitative conditions. Marx saw religion as a tool of the ruling class to maintain the status quo and prevent revolution.