Throughout history there has been a need for mankind to group and come together as a society based on religious beliefs. Now that the world is ever more transparent and interconnected, do religious groupings still make sense and benefit society?
This may not be a popular opinion, but maybe with something called reason I can make my point before you hate on me. First off, Christians make up one third of the world’s population (and 76% of the US), with Islam being one fifth, Hinduism at 13%, East Asian Religions (Buddhism, Chinese Folk, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, etc.) at 13%, indigenous tribal religions at 4%, and a few others coming in at less than half a percent each such as Judaism, Rastafarianism, Scientology among others. That leaves 14% to atheism or non-theist, aka people going to hell.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews all believe in the same god. All three have rich histories and present day occurrences of war, murder, conflict, and squabbles between each other. Religious wars go against all morals the religion stands for and when loosely translated or manipulated it is reworked to make murder okay as long as it is pagan, non-believer, infidel blood that is spilled. Society uses religion as a huge basis for culture and dictates how people run their lives now and throughout human history. Whether it has been one god, many gods, or a godly tyrant ruling under god’s guidance, religion has been present in all previous empires and thriving civilizations. Now all such empires have fallen. There has to be another way.
It is also very ironic just how religions spread. Take Christianity for example. Jesus was a Jewish prophet who escaped death as a baby and came to the holy land of Jerusalem following the very same path many had foretold. Romans did not take kindly to the anti-Roman sentiment he was spreading and the Jews in desperate need of a leader instead turned their backs on Jesus. The Romans made an example out of Jesus to quell his rebellious teachings. The Jews would later stand up to the Romans and fight for their freedom and Jesus’ teachings would spread throughout the region thanks in large part to the forming of the Catholic church in, you guessed it, Rome. Quite ironic how religions evolve and double ironic for me using the word evolution to describe religion.
Judaism is the basis for the two major religions of the world yet only accounts for barely 1% of the world’s population itself. Irony once again with how successful these spin off religions became and how Judaism suffers through the ages. Just proves there is no one true religion and to really believe there can be multiple religions out there and have them all be true is insane. How do we know what is real when the stories we choose to base our life around are 2,000 to 6,000 years old. Then the religions that are about 100 years old and very well documented just seem so outrageous and ridiculous (Scientology) that there is no way people can stand behind it either. 2000 years from now maybe Scientology will be the dominant religion. I bet if each person went back in time and knew the real story of how their religion started they would most likely come back to the present as non-believers.
Religions spread on faith, corruption, and exploitation. Prophets come and go, some are revered, others cast away from society. Genocide always finds a way to blemish our history whether its the Crusades, Holocaust, Jihad or any holy war, killing is conceived as how “god” intended it. Often misconceptions of others and your own religion leads to bias and unfriendly views toward other groups of people just because we choose to be ignorant.
Religion has failed society in trying to make life here better. Clearly religion was created long ago as a way to control populations from getting out of hand and strive to make the quality of life slightly better with the harsh realities of death and suffering surrounding you wherever you go. In modern times we have used science, technology, and historical understanding to improve the quality of life and get a better understanding of human life in general. We don’t have an answer for why we are here and can’t find an answer to why we choose blind faith instead of scientific reason. We must all accept one another on this planet as humans and not classify one another as different, less equal or as an enemy based off of history or a different set of morals/beliefs. There is no way each individual can forget about their specific past and their ancestors past so to forget history is not what I am saying we need to do. All I am saying is we must accept one another on a human level and build toward a better future. Instead religion reminds us of a bigger picture of hate and falsehoods that distracts us from the now.
Personally I must reason with the lack of evidence and omitting scientific fact when I enstill my faith in science. We are lucky to be here, and our Earth we continually realize every year is ever so more unique. Let’s keep it unique and try to come together and unite in our unavoidavle globalist future. Keep religion to a celebration of the past and not a means of segmentation for the present. We do need to come together as one and religion has proven time and time again to not be the answer.
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Every logical and satisfying answer exists for a person who’s willing to ask the question. I have observed that the reason we don’t have an answer for why we are here is we would rather make an uninformed “leap of faith” than ask the real question: Why? This is because asking why is hard. It takes time, effort, discipline and, the most difficult part, a constant re-evaluation of ourselves, our lives, societies and belief structures. The alternative is, in ever case, a leap of faith whether you choose to believe in what are generally called “Religions” or the Secular Religions of today: atheism, agnosticism, capitalism, globalism, universalism, hippism, socialism, communism, politicalism. As human beings we are programed by our societies and tend not to do anything that would compromise are preexisting belief systems (barring traumatic life experiences). As a result we tend to live our entire lives in some for of a Leap of Faith in something. So to pin the the blame on religion doesn’t seem to do justice to reality. Let’s pin the blame on ourselves and our tendency to not continual challenge ourselves to ask the question: Why?
Well put. You bring up some great questions. Most importantly the last. I feel Religion is not the answer to the question of why? We fill our heads with the illusion that it is. It is instead what we settle for and ignore the search for the real answer. I blame ourselves as well, except it is difficult to go through life always seeking the answer to why? So some will always turn to religion. We allow religion to then shape our lives, tell us how to be and accept it. That is why I think we should seek the answer and not settle for the illogical answers that are already provided to us. Maybe the answer isn’t out there and the only way to know is in death. However it is hard and scary to come to the realization that death is in fact the answer. Especially if death ends up being nothing but a cease of existence and perpetual nothingness. Death may not answer any questions, but only create more unanswerable questions. Then we turn to religion to give us an answer so that we can settle on a seemingly acceptable belief and carry on in life. Unfortunately it makes both ends of the discussion very trivial and hard to accept.
I thoroughly agree that religion IS the problem a great deal of the time and it’s a scourge on our world. Adherents waste a major portion of their lives talking to nonexistent beings and worrying about the “afterlife” — which may or may not exist.
Rather than spending their lives beholden to made-up answers about existence, why not accept the novel idea that the meaning of life IS life itself? Beyond that, everything else is pure conjecture.