He considered that religion was a fantastic reflection in the mind of the powers which caused miserable conditions in earlier stages of history. He believed that increasing humanity’s control over its existence, would eliminate these fantasies that were produced as a result of humanity’s desperation with the world it lived in. Since belief in God came about as a result of a need in people for there to be some control over their existence, he therefore reasoned that by eliminating this need, religion (the reflection of this need) would gradually disappear.