First off, please understand that this question has very little to do with the existence of God or the correctness of any religion. Although you may feel compelled to answer with something like; "we must have public churches and open religious ceremonious because God tells us so," that limits the true scope of the question. What I am really putting into question is whether humanity still needs the common ground of God (any God, any higher power) to stay connected and maintain rules.
Starting with the first civilizations in Mesopotamia, humans have answered the unanswerable questions of the Earth and the Universe with the idea of a higher power of God. This understanding of God made people feel obliged to build massive pyramids and temples, have intense religious ceremonies, and come together to worship and even give sacrifice. The scholars of the time or "Prophets" would write stories that included valuable lessons about how to live and interact with each other, and these stories would become divine laws that the rulers would enforce on all citizens.
It is clear that organized religion has had a huge impact on humanity since those times. Hell, the crusades would not have been possible without God to unify the forces! Since people would all have to leave their homes and go to worship, a sense of community was formed amongst the people and a common ground was established amongst the entire race. Most religions contain a very similar set of values, and these values made clans change from barbaric to civilized societies. In a time of slow communication and highly separated groups of people, organized religion humanized the world.
But, is religion still humanizing the world? Does it still bring us closer together, or draw us farther apart? We now have places like India and America where communication and transportation have allowed diverse groups of people to feel connected and understand the laws even over massive areas of land. People of any religion are able to get along and obey the laws of the new ruling G, Government. Where does organized religion fit in here? Since the 'religious' value system is nearly universal, wouldn't it make more sense to teach these values to everyone in schools and thus not have the need for separate religious sects? It seems that nowadays, organized religion only creates division that leads to war and oppression. We have proven that we can get along and maintain laws without religion. Why not take it a step further and let everyone in?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Jeeze, Lee. For the most part, that was one of the most insightful and well-written posts I've seen on the blog. Bravo.
As an atheist, I believe that religion is, ultimately, a human construct stemming from ancient times, as you said. In those times, it was necessary. Theology students familiar with the "pre-modern" era know that most great human endeavors ("great" as in large, I'm not saying the crusades were great) were done in consideration of some religious belief in those times. Nowadays, religion serves an incredible amount of good, giving hope to the most hopeless of peoples and moving many to serve others. It also does an incredible amount of evil, inciting many to war and hatred.
But, think about what I just said. Do you think an Isreali or Palestinian terrorist really take up arms only because of their religion? No. Obviously, it's because in the first place they're already desperate, frightened, and raised in culture of hate. Now for the tough question, though. Do you think young Christians go and do service because they believe it's the will of an omniscient creator whose son on Earth was Jesus Christ? I think they do this because they feel, deep in their gut, that it's right. Doing it will make them feel better about themselves. They've been raised in a culture of compassion.
In this day and age, I believe that people ascribe their thoughts and feelings to God. Almost every individual person (well, at least at places like XU) has their own perspective as to how God works and what he wants. Thus, I don't think God is the cause of actions in the postmodern world. Think of what you learned about human behavior in psych class. People act based on how they're raised - they are the product of their environment and their genes. They then, because they believe in God, because they were raised that way, use religion as some sort of justification or comfort, whether they're giving their belongings to the homeless or taking up arms against infidels.
In a utopian society, religion would be completely unnecessary. However, if religion somehow disappeared or collapsed from society in its current state, I don't think it would fare very well for the well-being of humanity.
I feel very strongly that we still need religion in today's society. Lee said, "Since the 'religious' value system is nearly universal, wouldn't it make more sense to teach these values to everyone in schools and thus not have the need for separate religious sects? " However, I think that if we got away from religion, these values would be lost overtime. We need religion as a foundation. In addition, I think the modern and post-modern eras have shown that we still need religion. In the modern era, we threw religion out the window because we thought that we could find all answers through science. However, when horrors such as the sinking of the titantic and the Holocaust, it shoved us back into the reality that maybe we need some sort of religion.
I think you have a good point, Laura.
However, I think the Holocaust might be a better example for the opposite argument. Millions of Jews were killed during the Holocaust and I don't think Hitler could have convinced people to allow this amount of killing if it weren't based around religious differences.
Hitler really thought of Jews as a separate race...Judaism was merely a sign of the depravity of the "Semitic" races.
Dr. Sitter, I was waiting for someone to say that and I am disappointed it had to be you... I may be wrong, but to me it seems that Hitler (not motivated by religion) would not have been as successful as he was if the Holocaust was merely a conflict of race. Would many of the Nazis and Hitler's supporters done the horrible things they did if THEY did not think it was God's will? Please correct me if this doesn't sound right.
I don't think that sounds right, Lee. I haven't researched the Holocaust or Hitler's propaganda in depth, but I just really don't remember ever hearing a lot about the will of God in the nationalism and propaganda spree of the Third Reich. The hatred for the Jews came from the broad sort of antisemitism in Europe against the Jewish people, as a race, not their specific religious beliefs.
Really though, that's all completely irrelevant. The examples of evil that can be perpetrated in the name of religion are far more apparent in common fundamentalism found in all corners of the world.
Post a Comment