'Religion a tool of oppression Essay\r'

' morality is an outstanding spirit of deportment; it influences a high comparison of numerous subjects. The odd part is that many hoi polloi be non actu eachy clear on what a worship is. in that respect atomic number 18 some(prenominal) key aspects that make something a pietism although the require details go off vary. In reality in that respect is no firm par bothelism on bonny what a trust is. holiness is defined by the online dictionary as‘a set of pictures concerning the cause, nature, and answer of the universe, especi solelyy when trained as the creation of a preternatural agency or agencies, ordinarily involving devotional and ritual observances, and a great deal containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs’, ‘The body of persons adhering to a particular set of flavours’.\r\nReligion is a spirit system that uses symbols to allow concourse to explore their spirituality. Religions usually rely on narra tives and symbols that be apply to volunteer a meaning to life or to explicate things like who or how the universe was created. In humanitarian close to religions hand an ethical codeal comp whiznt that teaches battalion how they atomic number 18 expected to live.\r\nThere is a propagate of variation within this as can be seen by the number of religions that exist in the world. In occurrence there is no firm agreement about what constitutes a religion and what does non. One aspect of religion that applies in all cases is that it is a mankind process. Having a personal belief system does non make it a religion. By definition a religion is an organized activity that involves new(prenominal) people.\r\n roughly religions bewilder a hierarchical system for exercising with priests and bishops and so on tho this is not required. more or less religions also sop up a specific ordain of worship and there are usually sermons, festivals and many other activities that are p art of the process. None of this is strictly required; the only requirement is that the religion be a belief system that is held by a group of people who publicly share that religion. only in practice the vast majority of religions have some aspect of these things. A lot of religions have been established in drastically different ship canal with the differences largely being cultural.\r\nThe largest difference in most cases is that some religions put the importance on belief whiles others put the emphasis on practice. Basically this pith that in some cases the most authoritative thing is that you count the doctrines of the religion while in other cases it is more important what you do than that you actually believe what is being taught. It’s a known circumstance that religion is used to emphasise the importance of field pansy and harmony between individuals for example some of the equitys do by the organization is influenced by Christianity’s ’10 Comman dment’. All Religions teach parents how to train or discipline their children, how to over bewilder trustworthy obstacles and also what to and what not to do, religion does these things by bright a reenforcement and punishments in the afterlife, paradise for the overcompensateeous followers and condemnationfor the people which disobey\r\nDiscussion\r\n only, religion is criticised of being a tool of oppression, a sociologist, Karl Marx famously estated that â€Å"Religion is the opiate of the people” that statement clearly shows that he’s thought that religion was a lie by the ruling powers for example, the queen mole rats presidents etc., to keep their subjects submissive and manipulable, and to give them confide for the contiguous life so they would not confusion in this life.\r\nAlso, other Marxists sociologist, Louis Althusser, brought forth the sentiment that religion serves the friendship by being the ideological state apparatuses, this basic ally means that the higher(prenominal) class recover over the sketching class by tyrannical people’s ideas, values and beliefs. This means that the higher class just brought forth religion as a way to control the massed that all their knotty work ordain be rewarded in the next life or will be punished if they try to rebel the higher class’s control over them.\r\nThe medieval theology presented the last of the time a concept called ‘the divine right of kings’ this therefore basically means that whatever the king said were directly from God and should be set as the decisions of God. This was just the latest of manifestation of the inclination of an orbit of ancient dictators to place themselves as identical with God, as the Roman Emperors would do, having the citizens bow in worship of them. In actual fact, history swarms with examples of power starved governments and individuals apply God, gods and religion as a mean of exculpation for their thou ghtless and self-aggrandizing use of political power. So then, is religions especially precisely the Christian confidence, then, simply another scheme imposed upon the masses to keep them obedient to the law of the land, no matter how unfair the law may be to stop them retaliating?\r\nA advert from the Bible, Hebrew 11:1 states that ‘To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see’if this communeage is clearly and carefully looked at with the thought of it being used by the government or higher ruling classes as a tool of oppression, then it’s clear that this is used as a reassurance to its followers not to uncertainness the passages in the book and have faith that all the deceit they are exposed to is for their own nice. In the Bible, the passage Matthew 10, talks about Jesus direct out his disciples out into the world, instructing them to preach his gospel no matter what the subsequences may be as well(p) as warning them of the resistance and acts of hatred they will encounter just because of their message, Jesus says‘\r\nThink not that I have bewilder to circularise counterinsurgency on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance a reachst his father, and the daughter against her begin, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household’ When the disciples went forth and began to teach, they were arrested repeatedly. At one court hearing they were asked if they had not understood that they were not allowed to teach the Gospel of Jesus, to which they replied, â€Å"We ought to obey God preferably than men.”So therefore the real question is has religion been used as a tool for governments and political science to control the masses? Absolutely.\r\nHowever, there is one piece found in all such religions that is prominently absent in proper Christianity. That is the idea that real religion consists of obeying a set of laws in crop to gain eternal reward.In ancient Egypt the deceased are judged by their deeds in life, their souls being weighed against a feather. If the soul is not weighed down with wickedness, they pass into the area of the gods. In modern mean solar day Islam there is a similar belief where Allah judges the dead, weighing their bail bond to the laws set forth in the Quran against their satanic deeds.\r\nIf Allah deems that the person’s obedience was greater than their disobedience, they pass into paradise.Even in Roman Catholicism, a person mustiness constantly confess and make amends for their evil, adjacent the various rituals of the Church in articulate to gain salvation. When a religion forces constant performance from its followers, promising the highest reward for obedience and the most monstrouspenalties for failure to execute, that religion has a controlling effect that cannot be overstated. The f ollowers of the religion become absolute slaves to the performance demanded by their faith. There is also a strong proclivity to hypocrisy in such religions, since the followers ply to overestimate their own righteous performance while looking down on others. Proper Christianity, however, is no such faith.\r\nWhile every other religion offers only enslavement to law, Christianity offers freedom from law and laws. This is wherefore Christians have always obeyed a power that transcends government, often to the violation of those governments. Because those who must follow laws in order to obtain God’s favour come to resent those laws, but those who are freely forgiven and adopted have a loyalty that surpasses compulsory obedience. They have a loyalty to God that stems from bottomless gratitude On the other hand religion is not all gloom and doom, religion is inevitable in our day to day life.\r\nReligion is an important part of life for many people. Even people who are not a ll that religious by nature consider it to be important. The question is why do they intuitive feeling this way? The reason is largely down to the belief that society of necessity religion. As a society we benefit from our collective religious beliefs. In fact there are many people who would reason out that we could not function without religion. The biggest reason that society need religion is to regulate behaviour. Most of the laws that we follow right away have their basis in religious teachings.\r\nThere is considerable debate as to whether or not religion is required to make us good people but what is beyond dispute is that the rules for what is delightful for society are largely based on religion. Without religion we would almost certainly live in a different type of society, it can be debated whether it would be better or worse but it would certainly be different. Since a major switch over like that would be impractical it is important that we take religion. The other big reason that society needs religion is that it teaches self-sufficiency. Virtually all religions that teach that you are responsible for taking care of yourself. While they all support the idea of charity, none of them teach that evaluate charity should be desirable.\r\nThis has fostered to encourage the work ethic that is needed to make society successful. Therefore it is important that people continue to desire to do the work that is necessary. Society is largely based on the idea of cooperation. This can be a bit of a tricky issue since as humans we are selfish by nature. There is an obvious conundrum here; we need to work to adopther to be successful but for the most part we can benefit personally by being selfish. Religion has proven to be an effective way to get around this problem.\r\nReligion teaches that we should work together and help each other and it discourages the kind of selfish behaviour that would make a functioning society impossible. sure there are selfish people who are willing to take advantage of others for their own benefit. However the fact that the people who do this are in the minority is largely down to religion.\r\n'