Are there any religions that don't work as crowd controllers?

Examples:

You be a good poor hindu/buddhist and don't rebel. You're poor because you did something bad in your last life. Be good and in your next life you'll be rich.

You be a good christian/jew/muslim/mormon and do as we say (it's what God wants), othewise you end up in hell.

Are the any organized religions out there that aren't like this?


[edit on 7-3-2009 by iWork4NWO]

Paganism. The modern meaning for it at least.

Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller, rustic")[1] is the blanket term given to describe religions and spiritual practices of pre-Christian Europe, and by extension a term for polytheistic traditions or folk religion worldwide seen from a Western or Christian viewpoint. The term has various different meanings, though, from a Western perspective, it has modern connotations of a faith that has polytheistic,[2] spiritualist, animistic or shamanic practices, such as a folk religion, historical polytheistic or neopagan religion.

The term has been defined broadly, to encompass all of the religions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.[2] The group so defined includes most of the Eastern religions, Native American religions and mythologies, as well as non-Abrahamic ethnic religions in general. More narrow definitions will not include any of the world religions and restrict the term to local or rural currents not organized as civil religions. Characteristic of pagan traditions is the absence of proselytism and the presence of a living mythology which explains religious practice.[3]

The term "pagan" is a Christian adaptation of the "gentile" of Judaism, and as such has an inherent Abrahamic bias, and pejorative connotations among Western monotheists,[4] comparable to heathen, and infidel, mushrik and kafir (كافر) in Islam. For this reason, ethnologists avoid the term "paganism," with its uncertain and varied meanings, in referring to traditional or historic faiths, preferring more precise categories such as polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, or animism; however others criticise the use of these terms, claiming that these are only aspects that different faiths may share and do not denote the religions themselves.

Since the later 20th century, "Pagan" or "Paganism" has become widely used as a self-designation by adherents of Neopaganism.[5] As such, various modern scholars have begun to apply the term to three separate groups of faiths: Historical Polytheism (such as Celtic polytheism and Norse paganism), Folk/ethnic/Indigenous religions (such as Chinese folk religion and African traditional religion), and Neo-paganism (such as Wicca and Germanic Neopaganism).

SOURCE:en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by iWork4NWO
Examples:

You be a good poor hindu/buddhist and don't rebel. You're poor because you did something bad in your last life. Be good and in your next life you'll be rich.

You be a good christian/jew/muslim/mormon and do as we say (it's what God wants), othewise you end up in hell.

Are the any organized religions out there that aren't like this?


[edit on 7-3-2009 by iWork4NWO]

Actually, Buddhism teaches that suffering is because of our attachment to desires and wants. The true path to end suffering and to gain enlightenment is to not want or desire anything. So it actually teaches the opposite of what you say..

Lovely question but before anything i have a question for you: Why you need any kind of religion?

Well,i know that,personally,i was in that kind of need because i was raised like that.Maybe you have that need for the same reasons too,i don't know.

Anyway,i preffer instead of an answer to give you an advice which personally i find it right (otherwise i wouldn't give it to you) on't look for any kind of religion,the only thing they can give you is hope and it might be a fake one.
Life tends to be way too rough sometimes,that's a fact and we all know it.The important is that,will you just pray that someone or something will come out of nowhere to save you or help you like a Superman or will you be ready to deal with anything by your own self?

Don't take this wrong,unlike many people in and out of ATS,i wont tell you "Yes,there is a God." or "No,there isn't a God."I don't know,simple as that.I'm just not gonna sit on my butt though to wait for something that,it might be real,to help me in times of need,from my point of view it's too much of a risk.


Just my personal opinion.

Originally posted by Oceanborn
Lovely question but before anything i have a question for you: Why you need any kind of religion?

Don't think I said anywhere that I need a religion

I was just wondering if there are any religions out that don't have the build in crowd control function.

Originally posted by its bologna

Actually, Buddhism teaches that suffering is because of our attachment to desires and wants. The true path to end suffering and to gain enlightenment is to not want or desire anything. So it actually teaches the opposite of what you say..

AFAIK Buddhism comes with reincarnation..

reply to post by iWork4NWO


My bad,my bad.I jumped to conclusions here,i thought that you were looking for a religion to follow or something.

I think i should add then that,i don't believe that there is a religion that can't or wont be used for crowd controlling.As long as there is the opportunity,there will be always at least one person to take advantage of it and i believe that opportunities like that are always around in religions.

Again,sorry for my mistake.

reply to post by iWork4NWO


Yes there are! But you have to be crazy to apply.

Originally posted by iWork4NWO


AFAIK Buddhism comes with reincarnation..

Right, but it doesn't use the carrot and the stick in its methodology, ie if you are bad in this lifetime it comes back to you in the next. More so it teaches teaches that actions have a consequence (Karma). You give bad, it comes back to you. But we need not study Buddhism to know that in life this is true.
Many Buddhists believe that you can't simply get to enlightment by living one existance. The goal to Buddhists is not to live a life of riches in the next life, but to become less attached to desires and wants.

My mother was a practicing Buddhist when I was a child, so I'm somewhat familiar. I have no religious affiliation or faith now.