Religion placates the masses

Religion placates the masses. It anestatizes them by telling them that everything is just as it should be. In buddhism and Hinduism we have the law of karma. It accurately deduces that existence is propagated by a causal chain, but it extrapolates into post mortem. These two schools of thought tell us that we are born poor because of past lives. That we are trodden on because of the trodding we ourselves did in some other life. They tell us that only we are to blame for our circumstantial misfortunes. Whether it be biological misfortune, monetary, or any other, it is our fault. Religion tells us that everything is just as it should be. Then we have the abrahamic religions. The reason the royal families of Europe ruled for so long and the reason they were able to rule in the first place is because they said god placed them there. They told the trodden that everything is just as it should be, that you are there and I am here because of god's will. No matter where I look geographically there is one underlying theme among organized religion. That the world is exactly as it should be and to go against the way things are is to go against a divine order, a divine order that is much larger than you and cannot be altered. The trodden are told by the trodding that everything is just as it should be; and so social injustice lives to see another day.


Begin.

a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX
If this is as you say, then whats up with athiests.
Athiests should be up in arms. With no after life to reward them and no savior to come for them, given the state of the world that any observant person, one not held slave to the grip of religion, should be screeming like holy hell. I mean here we are sitting on the eve of destruction and where are the hordes of athiests rioting in the streets. Some how, they are just as placated as those who have religion, seems to me.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire
Being unfettered by religion is only the first step. When the veil of existential faith, mysticism and superstition is lifted one must make sense of reality. Lifting the veil is step one. There are other dots to connect subsequently.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX
If this is as you say, then whats up with athiests.
Athiests should be up in arms. With no after life to reward them and no savior to come for them, given the state of the world that any observant person, one not held slave to the grip of religion, should be screeming like holy hell. I mean here we are sitting on the eve of destruction and where are the hordes of athiests rioting in the streets. Some how, they are just as placated as those who have religion, seems to me.

Or maybe they're simply trying to enjoy what little life they have to the fullest instead of fighting with a bunch of Religious Kooks who never listen anyway.

Besides that, it's not the Non-Religious who think we're on the Eve of Destruction anyway. It's the Believers who believe in The End Times who think that. I'm guessing that is why it's the Believers who are running around right now screaming holy hell about everything and not the other way around.

Your opinion of religion is only one possible perspective. If we take your nihilist and limited definition of life then why even bother? Any experiences we have are irrelevant and futile. All love is pointless and any struggles we go through are meaningless. Why even live if there is nothing beyond this life? Everything we do dies with us and if we were or were not controlled is equally unimportant. Your opinions and thoughts don't matter and in fact the entire exercise you have undertaken to convince us of your opinion is a waste of time.

I would rather live in a world that has meaning than an unlikely scenario that this life of ours isn't in some way glorious, purposeful and logically part of some grander design. If you believe in anything you are admitting to a world of possibilities and in that world you, me and everyone else are likely wrong anyway.

a reply to: Metallicus
My diatribe was against organized religion, not every existential worldview. Where did I imply nihilism?

originally posted by: XxRagingxPandaxX
a reply to: Metallicus
My diatribe was against organized religion, not every existential worldview. Where did I imply nihilism?

What makes you think everything isn't as it should be? Do you have evidence that it should be some other way? How do you know this?

a reply to: Metallicus
I'm still waiting for the justification pertaining to my presumed "nihilistic" worldview. Unfortunately Voltaire beat me to your question, via his writing of Candide. My evidence lies in the fact that so many millions suffer at the hands of the upper echelon in the name of organized religion. Unfortunately many lack the intellectual vision to see it any other way.

a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX

I disagree with the premise. In summary, you posit that religion is meant to make everyone calm, to place people in a stupor, within which nothing phases them.

I would argue that, depending on the particular belief system adopted, and how thoroughly that belief is assimilated into the mind of the individual, a real religious experience can in fact enliven, energise, and motivate people to see what is broken in the world, and do whatever little they can to mitigate the negative factors playing into life on this planet.

The other thing to remember, is that there is a difference between taking a religious belief to heart,operating every day of your life to the best standard you can manage using the belief system you adopt to guide you though, and merely paying lip service to belief, and showing up at a place of worship to be seen to go through the motions of belief, purely as a social exercise.

More than any other thing, false belief is toxic. When dealing with religious organisations, it is all too easy for a narcissist and a manipulator, to twist a phrase, to quote out of context, and all to easy for such a person to gain power and place in an organisation, which allows them the opportunity to mobilise a significant body of people, toward whatever end they might be able to con people into achieving. That end might be utterly at odds with the gist, the thrust of the belief system they use to justify their ends, but will be used to justify them anyway.

This has happened to Christianity more times than I can count in its history, and is happening to Islam today, as well as all the other religions. Essentially, the most important thing to remember about religious belief, is that holding a faith, believing in something, does not make a person as bad as the worst excesses of the faith they hold, because almost invariably, those who are not in the news after blowing someone up, or stabbing someone to death for holding a different belief than their own, are just getting on with things quietly, doing what they can to improve the lot of the human race, by not being raging bastards all over the place.

That does not get anyone in the news. However, when ever someone does something awful because they have been conned into believing that one or another deity requires it of them, that makes the headlines, sparks debate, and all of a sudden the xenophobia is flying in every direction, with people fearing the faith and not the faithless, because they do not see the normal, free, peaceful and caring side of faith, but the rictus mask of organised religion.

My personal faith is an accord between my self and my God, and because of the toxic nature of organised religion as it stands in the world, I cannot accept the behaviour of a great many people who profess to share my faith. As far as I can tell, a great many people who say they believe in Jesus, have absolutely no conception of what it really means to follow his footsteps as closely as they can, because for many, it is all about the Church, rather than about the message which should be spoken within it.

I can only imagine that there are similar issues throughout religious circles, no matter what religion one cares to discuss. So remember to be clear in your head about what you mean. Faith, held strong in the heart, does not placate, rather it motivates. It does not make things easier, but adds layers of complexity to life.

It only fails to do these things, for people who have never really understood what it is for.

a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX

NONSENSE.

Does this SOUND LIKE

a "placating" philosophy of life?

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and ...
... Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world ...

Authentic Christianity is tireless, hard work . . . with one's self and with others . . . it is humbling, sacrificial, servant-hearted, emotionally and relationally RISKY. It is abused, trashed, harrassed, exterminated in multiple locales, bruised, squashed, unfairly maligned, hated, mis-accused, lied about . . .

.

Doesn't sound like placating, to me.

Your background is showing.
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a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX

No matter where I look geographically there is one underlying theme among organized religion. That the world is exactly as it should be and to go against the way things are is to go against a divine order,

UNMITIGATED NONSENSE.

Christianity organized the first schools and universities around the world, to CHANGE the status quo for the better for the masses.

Christianity organized countless hospitals to care for the masses around the world--typically the first in almost any given country.

Christianity continues to be in the forefront of development aid; community development; water well digging; education; medical care; food aid etc. around the world. Christians are typically the first to disaster areas with the most aid and who remain the longest after in community building work.

Your facts are simply off the wall wrong . . . and seemingly horrifically blindly biased in grossly distorted ways.

Sure, inauthentic organized pseudo-"Christianity" has been guilty of junk.

You think atheism and nihlism is lily white? What about the 150 MILLION MURDERED IN THE NAME OF ATHEISM/COMMUNISM?

OP, I agree with you. Religion when it is organized just becomes a tool of the elite to subjugate the masses. I mean how can you argue with the argument that you are a poor, dirty peasant when you are told that it is god's will to be so? Your point about Buddhism is also kind of interesting. It got me thinking, if the reason we are born into squalid conditions is because of being a huge asshole in a previous life, where are all these assholes anyways? There are SOOOO many people born into poverty and very few people born with a silver spoon in hand with the ability to step on the people below them. Of course, granted, it isn't just rich people who abuse other well-meaning people, but again acting bad deliberately seems to be a minority position. Most people seem content just to get by and live a happy life. Going by the numbers there doesn't seem like there is enough people screwing over their fellow man to justify whole continents full of people born into awful conditions.

I don't see any problem with being spiritual, but I honestly believe that any organized religion is wrong in about 90% of the stuff they say. Also the clear intent to subjugate the masses makes me less of a fan of the religions as well. That being said, as well as my above paragraph, Buddhism does sound at least more appetizing to believe in than any of the abrahamic religions.

a reply to: TrueBrit
A very well articulated post, thank you. You indicate that you are a believer in the New Testament. I can sum up the New Testament to you in one sentence. Do as you are told. In fact, Jesus, the man which you indicated, returned a slave to his master.

a reply to: BO XIAN
Authentic Christianity is subservance to god and I spoke of neither atheism or nihilism in my OP. I did not speak of the charitable deeds that organized religion does or does not do. I speak of the underlying premise. The underlying premise that everything in the world is exactly how it should be; that it is in accordance with a divine and unchangable order. All slavery is contingent on this notion, it is the essence of the slave and slave master relationship. Why seek to squelch the fire of social injustice when you have a conviction that it cannot be squelched?

a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX

You misconstrue my beliefs and convictions.

You misconstrue reality.

You misconstrue Christianity.

I'm not sure we even share a common dictionary.

a reply to: BO XIAN
Are you saying that I have misconstrued the beliefs and convictions of one or more organized religions? If so, how?

a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX

Your assertion that belief in a deity results in apathy toward current affairs, is another example of the sayings of a person whose only connection with such things as faith, has been negative. I can understand that, there is after all, a reason I no longer go to church. I have had an awful lot of negative experiences in church, many revolving around the judgment pointed at me by people who never bothered to judge me by my actions (never mind the fact that we are expressly forbidden from judging our fellow human beings, since none of us are without sin).

However, I feel no apathy about things as they are. That is why I am here on this website, why I write to my elected representative in parliament, why I get involved in community projects, and why I keep an eye out for my neighbours, and those less fortunate than myself. Although I know that eventually the end will come, that is no reason to say "well, it's all going to burn anyway... Now where did I leave my petrol can?".

There is no defeatism in a faith which has some depth to it.

Now, are there any other spurious generalisations that you would like to make about people who have beliefs?

a reply to: TrueBrit
No. My assertion is that organized religion espouses that the world is exactly as it should be and to go against how the world is currently, is to go against the divine and unchangeable nature of reality . Your personal altruistic inclinations (which I condone) have nothing to do with that fact. I'm a little confused as to what you hold contentious. You said yourself that you abandoned church.

a reply to: XxRagingxPandaxX

I abandoned the church, but not my faith. I still believe in God, and I still value the teachings of Jesus, and the example set by his actions.

That is still faith, despite not being a faith which I practice under the auspices of an organisation. So please, do not conflate Christianity itself, with the manner in which organisations claiming to identify with that faith, behave, or appear.

They are not the same thing, and to confuse one for another is unhelpful to genuine believers, and for those who have no frame of reference to understand these matters deeply at present, that's all I'm saying.

I will make the counter argument from the OP's. Not that his/her argument is without merit; but merely that it doesn't adequately explain or model the role of religion, particularly in the US, but in history generally.

In the US's revolutionary war against the UK, the religion of the rebels (Presbyterian, Congregationalist) was pitted against the church of England. Most of the revolutionary state flags and battle flags from the revolution carry religious inscriptions. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was Rev. John Witherspoon; as president of Princeton (a religious school), he was charged with using religion to stoke the fires of rebellion--turning the religious college into a "seminary of sedition." The rebels specifically appealed to religion to get the majority of colonists to rally to their cause--not placate them.

The abolition movement (outlawing slavery) was led, in both the UK and USA, by "religious fanatics" who forced their denominations to take doctrinal stances regarding slavery. It wasn't parliament or congress that drove abolition, it was Christian preachers.

The prohibition movement in the US was religious and specifically protestant in nature. While you can argue that it was a misguided policy, it is also true that before 1900. There were practically NO liquor laws in the united states. If you look at the numbers of men who died every year because they were drunk and passed out in the street, and then were run over in their sleep by delivery carts, it is on par with per capita drunk driving fatalities in the 1970s and 1980. In that case, orgs like the WCTU and Methodist church were fighting AGAINST big business (Busch, Budweiser) and the Catholic church. It was a political fight, fought in the ballot box, by religions and churches. The Methodist church even replaced the sacramental wine with grape juice (Welch was a Methodist candy-maker whose son had succumbed to alcoholism).

The civil rights movement. Was Dr. Martin Luther King Junior a medical doctor? Was he a dentist? No, he was a minister. And the organization that turned the tide against segregation was the Southern CHRISTIAN Leadership conference. And it worked to get WHITE ministers to join with Black ministers in acts of civil disobedience.