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Does Religion Empower Mankind?
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E-mailMade Popular Nov 4 2008
India :
Using god as a tool for political power, was religion’s dirty little secret, which has lost its covert quality by now. Most of us who pray, want God to make us more affluent, successful, and influential. However the fundamental premise of religion was to achieve liberation from these very worldly pleasures. Yet this elementary premise along with compassion, selflessness, forgiveness has been violated over the ages and we have seen new theories floating around, which change the original essence of most of the religions.
Every religion was institutionalized to bring fairness in society. However, every religion that exists today has failed to bring cheer to the lower strata of society, who believe and worship the faith the most. More so in many cases, religion has persecuted them without them realizing it.
When you see politicians and famous personalities making a trip to the nearest temple/mosque/church to pray in full media glare, for their continued success, you do feel that it is the most effective advertisement of religion and god. Even Sarah Palin asked God to back her run for office in Alaska.
All this footage, gives hope to the millions of people struggling in their everyday life for a better tomorrow. This reinforces their belief, that religion and god does show the true path towards prosperity. The element of fear that abandoning the faith will invite the wrath of God keeps them committed to their religion.
Religion also meant empowerment of a different kind - personal empowerment. Here too religion has had a very dubious record, and has failed to achieve any meaningful results. This makes you wonder if religion has been able to achieve anything positive at all.
However there is a new awakening in the spiritual space outside the realm of organized religion which provides hope for the younger generation.
This quest of mankind to connect with god through the medium of religion is being challenged by the younger generation. The need to connect with oneself is gaining ground and their lies the true emancipation of mankind.
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Oscar
Nov 2 2008
Oaxaca,
Mexico
It is sad, but true.. Religion has not been spared the claws of corruption, but seems to have embraced it, joined it, to belittle and manipulate all followers.
Comment Link
(Global Perspectives)
This is a very interesting article, and it asks pertinent questions.
My take?
I’m sick and tired of all these peurile Muslims and Jews and Catholics and Protestants and Janes and Sikhs and Jihadhists and Bushes and all the other messed-up people and religions and dumb off-the-shelf-ideologies and dogmas which want to control us all.
Please leave us alone!!!
We don’t need your lessons and your centuries-old-archaic violence and prejudices.
We, the rest of us, just want peace.
Go fight your wars on another planet.
John Lennon said it.
”All I want is the truth”
And, while we’re waiting, your politico-religio-financial-mafia-interest-driven-conflicts are killing people.
Respects..
My take?
I’m sick and tired of all these peurile Muslims and Jews and Catholics and Protestants and Janes and Sikhs and Jihadhists and Bushes and all the other messed-up people and religions and dumb off-the-shelf-ideologies and dogmas which want to control us all.
Please leave us alone!!!
We don’t need your lessons and your centuries-old-archaic violence and prejudices.
We, the rest of us, just want peace.
Go fight your wars on another planet.
John Lennon said it.
”All I want is the truth”
And, while we’re waiting, your politico-religio-financial-mafia-interest-driven-conflicts are killing people.
Respects..
(Global Perspectives)
Dear Lyon,
Man’s quest for spirituality attracts him to a a particular faith or religion.Thats where he gets trapped in the constricted view of that particular faith.Hence a faith or religion which does not gets institutionalized will always liberate one’s soul without the prying eyes of the institution itself.
Man’s quest for spirituality attracts him to a a particular faith or religion.Thats where he gets trapped in the constricted view of that particular faith.Hence a faith or religion which does not gets institutionalized will always liberate one’s soul without the prying eyes of the institution itself.
(Local Perspectives)
Ashoka,
What you said is PERFECT.. I couldn’t find the words to express myself.. I believe deeply, I have faith..but I do not and will not ”pray to or through” false gods dressed as men of sacred cloth to get to my God..
The church/temple/shrine is generally the guilty culprit preying and feeding on those who wish to truly follow.
What you said is PERFECT.. I couldn’t find the words to express myself.. I believe deeply, I have faith..but I do not and will not ”pray to or through” false gods dressed as men of sacred cloth to get to my God..
The church/temple/shrine is generally the guilty culprit preying and feeding on those who wish to truly follow.
(Global Perspectives)
I have a different view on the fundamental premise of religion. Historically, it was created not to liberate from worldy pleasures or to bring about equality and fairness, but to protect, preserve and empower. Remember nature and totem worship. It was all about acquistion and power. As social groups broke up and the individual emerged, resources diminished and rules of sharing and distribution had to be formulated, the scope of religion became narrower, and more self serving. It became a great disciplining tool that laid down rules, regulations and codes of coduct for the entire social group, a bit like a parallel legal system, which it is even today. So, religion was never about letting go; it was always about wanting, keeping, controlling. The moment you talk about a higher power, what else can you imagine having to do with it except reaping some of the benfits of that power? And then, what can you expect but that the most powerful has the geratest access to this higher power? Couple that origin with the reality of all resource-led conflict we see around us - wouldn’t you say that this would be a fairly predictable outcome of such a system as religion?
Religion is divisive by its very nature.. it creates groups that are opposed to each other (good vs. bad, virtue vs. vice, blessed vs. cursed, virtue vs. sin, God vs. devil, holy vs. evil... the list is endless) , speaks in absolute terms, and assumes the power to judge people... how can it be anything but corrupt?
On the flipside, I don’t see self-serving religion as an issue - after all, how does it harm anyone? It’s just another way for hapless people to feel good and reassured about themselves and believe in better futures. The problem, and I concur with your opinion there, lies in organised, insitutionalised, mass Religion. Organised religion is run by a handful of people who have the temerity to claim that they represent that higher power. They are vested with inordinate and irrational powers, and hence have the ability to condition and determine mass behaviour. Take them away - empower the common supplicant to address their own God directly and without intervention - and you will find the same Hindu/Muslim/Jain/Jew/Catholic/etc God far more benign, accepting and rational.
I think we might be making 2 mistakes - 1)confusing spirituality (which I think IS about letting go) with religion and 2)damning religion because of the misdeeds of ’religious’ people. I would be suprised if I met any religious man who was really wanting to let go of everything - if he did, why would he pray? He’d just let go, wouldn’t he?
Just because the vessel is black, it does not mean the water inside is dirty... damn the religious men, not religion, if at all you believe that religion ever had anything of any value. Or else discard the idea of religion itself - as its funadamental premise is one of inequality and power dynamics, in the garb of blessings and fulfillment.
Religion is divisive by its very nature.. it creates groups that are opposed to each other (good vs. bad, virtue vs. vice, blessed vs. cursed, virtue vs. sin, God vs. devil, holy vs. evil... the list is endless) , speaks in absolute terms, and assumes the power to judge people... how can it be anything but corrupt?
On the flipside, I don’t see self-serving religion as an issue - after all, how does it harm anyone? It’s just another way for hapless people to feel good and reassured about themselves and believe in better futures. The problem, and I concur with your opinion there, lies in organised, insitutionalised, mass Religion. Organised religion is run by a handful of people who have the temerity to claim that they represent that higher power. They are vested with inordinate and irrational powers, and hence have the ability to condition and determine mass behaviour. Take them away - empower the common supplicant to address their own God directly and without intervention - and you will find the same Hindu/Muslim/Jain/Jew/Catholic/etc God far more benign, accepting and rational.
I think we might be making 2 mistakes - 1)confusing spirituality (which I think IS about letting go) with religion and 2)damning religion because of the misdeeds of ’religious’ people. I would be suprised if I met any religious man who was really wanting to let go of everything - if he did, why would he pray? He’d just let go, wouldn’t he?
Just because the vessel is black, it does not mean the water inside is dirty... damn the religious men, not religion, if at all you believe that religion ever had anything of any value. Or else discard the idea of religion itself - as its funadamental premise is one of inequality and power dynamics, in the garb of blessings and fulfillment.
(Local Perspectives)
Excellent comment, this, and a pleasure to read. Thanks for taking the time to put your (correct, in my humble opinion) analysis up...
(Global Perspectives)
Ms Blah,
The genesis of every religion can be traced to an individual and his quest to understand oneself.Be it Gautama Buddha,Mahavira or even Jesus...they all pushed the limits of the human soul... be it for pain or suffering and came out unscathed.They wanted to tell the world that if they an do it then every human being is capable.Somewhere that message got corrupted and their teachings was institutionalized into a religion which became self inhibiting and parochial
The genesis of every religion can be traced to an individual and his quest to understand oneself.Be it Gautama Buddha,Mahavira or even Jesus...they all pushed the limits of the human soul... be it for pain or suffering and came out unscathed.They wanted to tell the world that if they an do it then every human being is capable.Somewhere that message got corrupted and their teachings was institutionalized into a religion which became self inhibiting and parochial
(Local Perspectives)
Thank you Michael. There’s a lot of what I said in there that I wish wasn’t true, but I suppose wishing things were different doesn’t necessarily make it so. On the other hand, Obama made history this morning, and it makes you want to believe, just the tiniest bit, that a collective awakening might be not an abusrd thought, after all. Doesn’t it? Of course, it has taken many years and many hearts and lives to get here, but may be like at the start of every big avalanche is the single tiny ripple, the slightest bit of disenchantment with religion, that will one day make it possible that religion be both, self serving and unifying.
Ashoka, regardless of the origin of religion - I suspect we could go to and fro on that and not necessarily get too far - we’re probably both saying the same thing on the direction. I think the fundamental difference is in your sense of something good having gone wrong, while I cannot believe that the concept of a higher being could ever have been equalising in the first place. Buddhism and Jainism, unlike most religions, are not based on the concept of a God at all, so they are exempt from most of these discissions. And they were both reactionary, triggered by the need to resolve exactly the problems we are talking about...
Thank you both, for your comments.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that people are willing to die for it, and there are others who don’t even believe it exists? Personally, I would like to be a believer... if only I could want badly enough to stagnate in heaven!
Ashoka, regardless of the origin of religion - I suspect we could go to and fro on that and not necessarily get too far - we’re probably both saying the same thing on the direction. I think the fundamental difference is in your sense of something good having gone wrong, while I cannot believe that the concept of a higher being could ever have been equalising in the first place. Buddhism and Jainism, unlike most religions, are not based on the concept of a God at all, so they are exempt from most of these discissions. And they were both reactionary, triggered by the need to resolve exactly the problems we are talking about...
Thank you both, for your comments.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that people are willing to die for it, and there are others who don’t even believe it exists? Personally, I would like to be a believer... if only I could want badly enough to stagnate in heaven!
(Local Perspectives)
Ayn Rand said it all the way back in 1943..at a time that was in many ways, quite similar to our time now.
”Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy–and you’ve damned it. That’s how far we’ve come. We’ve tied happiness to guilt. And we’ve got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace–lie on a bed of nails–go into the desert to mortify
the flesh–don’t dance–don’t go to the movies on Sunday–don’t try to get rich–don’t smoke–don’t drink. It’s all the same line. The great line. Fools think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned. But there’s always a purpose in nonsense. Don’t bother to examine a folly–ask yourself only what it accomplishes.
Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they’ll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy.
You don’t have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. ’Universal Harmony’–’Eternal Spirit’–’Divine Purpose’–’Nirvana’–’Paradise’–’Racial Supremacy’–’The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.’ Internal corruption, That’s the oldest one of all.
It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself–that will be the man who’s not after your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you’ll scream your empty heads off, howling that he’s a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries.”
”Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy–and you’ve damned it. That’s how far we’ve come. We’ve tied happiness to guilt. And we’ve got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace–lie on a bed of nails–go into the desert to mortify
the flesh–don’t dance–don’t go to the movies on Sunday–don’t try to get rich–don’t smoke–don’t drink. It’s all the same line. The great line. Fools think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned. But there’s always a purpose in nonsense. Don’t bother to examine a folly–ask yourself only what it accomplishes.
Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they’ll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy.
You don’t have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. ’Universal Harmony’–’Eternal Spirit’–’Divine Purpose’–’Nirvana’–’Paradise’–’Racial Supremacy’–’The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.’ Internal corruption, That’s the oldest one of all.
It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself–that will be the man who’s not after your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you’ll scream your empty heads off, howling that he’s a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries.”
(Global Perspectives)
Amen to that. Every word of it.
(Global Perspectives)
Ya...Ayn Rand changed my way of thinking permanently...when i finished the book it was exactly what i said! Amen!
(Global Perspectives)
i think religion is a structured way to come to terms with one self , a sort of guided tour
it has an expiry date based on its adaptation to change
religions not changing become extinct as decay starts setting in the same making it unfit
trouble is because competitive religion
my god is greater than yours
or god has appointed me as his protector ha ha
may be because of emotional attachment
may be to mobilize public for the loaves of power
decay begins the moment aggression & force comes in leading to violence
for me religion is just a concept
i try to face my self in the mirror every morning & night
when i am unable to face the reflection of my eyes in the mirror i know i am not at peace
relaxing in a quite moment & observing my thoughts & breath gives the impression of my mind being still
once my retreat is over i am ready to face my self
liked these words
picked up from various sermons
for me religion means just a word ok a therapy ,can try any which works with my system ,may be multiple at the risk of being confused
am i child with many fathers ?
who cares if the mother is the same period
it has an expiry date based on its adaptation to change
religions not changing become extinct as decay starts setting in the same making it unfit
trouble is because competitive religion
my god is greater than yours
or god has appointed me as his protector ha ha
may be because of emotional attachment
may be to mobilize public for the loaves of power
decay begins the moment aggression & force comes in leading to violence
for me religion is just a concept
i try to face my self in the mirror every morning & night
when i am unable to face the reflection of my eyes in the mirror i know i am not at peace
relaxing in a quite moment & observing my thoughts & breath gives the impression of my mind being still
once my retreat is over i am ready to face my self
liked these words
picked up from various sermons
for me religion means just a word ok a therapy ,can try any which works with my system ,may be multiple at the risk of being confused
am i child with many fathers ?
who cares if the mother is the same period
(Local Perspectives)
Very well said, Shiv. I think I’ve believed this for the longest time; unfortanately, it’s also too open ended for a system, and can work for individuals, but never a particular organsied religion as a whole. Which is why you don’t really believe in a religion at all, just in the idea of religion. Am glad you have found your peace, and hope that it will spread!
(Local Perspectives)
Different religions came into being to understand God and attain Him. The conflict started there itself. The followers forgot the very purpose for which religions were formulated and started claiming each religion superior to the other.Its a stupid fight under a blanket of ignorance because nobody in this world has seen God and the Absolute Truth. Did God come down and say that one religion is better than the other?But still we are fighting. They don’t understand religion, they don’t understand God. The very purpose of religion is defeated. It is the base human qualities that are using the garb of religion to make themselves acceptable. Had we had a universal religion or a world without religion and only spirituality this baseness would not have got an opportunity to show itself.
Yes, connecting with oneself is indeed the first step towards discovering a true religion. It empowers a new religion- the religion of humanity, equality, compassion that culminates into a true divine quest.
Yes, connecting with oneself is indeed the first step towards discovering a true religion. It empowers a new religion- the religion of humanity, equality, compassion that culminates into a true divine quest.
(Local Perspectives)
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