Misuse of Religion

javedkey · #1 Monday, June 30, 2014

Misuse of Religion

"And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion,
And he said:
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and surprise ever springing in the
soul, even while the hands hew the stone of tend
the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his action,
or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying,
'This for God and this for myself; This for my soul,
and this other for my body?'"

--Kahlil Gibran

As our civilization reaches its peak, it's obvious that it was created to destroy itself. Our past is the biggest proof of this theory. Through the centuries, mankind has been trying to destroy itself. World War I and II were just the manifestation of this destruction. Everything after these wars has been devoted to producing the most efficient weapons for so called "protection". Why put an end to life? Why destroy the only thing we have? What happened to God's Ten Commandments? Religion was created to help mankind overcome its fears and negative aspects. But man wouldn't be man if he didn't alter his course. Individual believes were merged to organize religion, which has been moved away from individuals whom it belongs. Politicization of organize religion has caused "eternal" struggle for separation church of state. However, separation has never happened despite persuasions; Church influence has been hidden inside of political systems. Despite its peaceful nature, organize religion has been modified through the centuries, and it has become one of the most dangerous reasons for killing, destruction and quarreling about the separation church of state and church's role in politics.
Artifacts found in the trash heaps of ancient groups of people or tribes, supports the hypothesis that most if not all of these tribes had some form of religion. Why is this? Clearly, they had a need for one. Life was very threatening and they felt that some of these treats came from some superior beings, some of whom dwelt in the sky. They therefore tried to figure out how to placate these Gods by performing rituals. Whenever a threat eased or disappeared after performing a ritual, they assumed that it was due to the ritual. Whenever a threat did not ease or disappear after a ritual was performed, they tried to modify it. These rituals and associated totems became embedded in each culture. In many cases these rituals required animal or human sacrifices.
As an example, an Incan ice maiden who lived circa 1500 A.D. was discovered (May 1996) on a 20,000 foot Peruvian peak. It is believed that this adolescent girl, decked out in her best fineries was sacrificed to a God in the heavens. She was sacrificed by a blow to the head. The shamans must have felt that if this girl was sexually attractive to them, the god or gods would also have similar feelings.
The priests of ancient Sumer must have had similar feelings about where some of theirs Gods resided because, in the absence of mountains, they built very high zygoraths. Each spring they placed a young maiden in a temple on top of each zygorath. This was done as a plea for a bountiful harvest. They had many Gods each of whom dwelt in a different place and had different place and had different responsibilities. Even the Greeks, and later the Romans, embellished this theology. They thought that all of the events that they witnessed in the nighttime sky or heavens were caused by gods moving sun and that what they know were constellations. Therefore, they sacrificed young people to satisfy God's will.
Most of the ancient groups or old tribes experienced phenomena that they couldn't fathom and came up with hypotheses to explain them. These involved anthropomorphic gods of some kind. They tried to influence these gods with rituals that made sense to humans. For example, since the males enjoyed making love to beautiful young virgins, they felt that a specific god would also. They therefore sacrificed beautiful virgins to the various gods. Did it work? They thought that it did. If they didn't, they wouldn't have continued doing it for so long. This was sunrise of our civilization, but still, it was a brutal way of implementing an old kind of religion. Many years later, the general public opinion is that we have overcome this barbarism, but have we?
Later, when Christianity came along, it was still assumed that God was "up there" in Heaven. Christianity was new religion, and in time, it was accepted by most of the people in the Old World. Christianity became a very powerful and very important aspect of everyday life. Moreover, Christians turned the church into a powerful political, economic and social institution. The church had the power to rule the mob, to collect taxes and to make law in the name of God. Furthermore, they gave the pope full veto authority over all decisions of the church council, so the council became men of straw. In one word, they became puppets.
All powerful institutions always have opponents. It was just matter of time. To protect the church's interests, all people who didn't obey the rules or didn't pay taxes were prosecuted. For this reason, member of the Roman Catholic Church made a tribunal, called the Inquisition, for the discovery and punishment of heretics. They punished all non-believers and scholars who made controversial progress in science. Most of those people were innocent, but the church wasn't taking any chances. To save the power and prestige, they executed almost anybody who was accused.
Now we scoff at such ignorance, but the church officials called older religions paganism and their stories myths. Like Christian parables though, these myths were handed down from generation to generation and accepted strictly on faith. Faith, by definition eschews logic and reason, otherwise it wouldn't be faith. Christianity just like Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and other religions, is also accepted on faith. So, calling old religions primitive ones and pagan is quite arrogant. The church overstepped its authority. It was a questionable interpretation of religion, and ever more, they broke God's Ten Commandments. This may all sound trivial but many people have been killed because their concept of God was different from someone else's.
Today, we call old Christian church barbarian, but nothing has changed since. Moreover, most of the today's religions follow the example of prosecution, and we can find this example in almost every country in the world. Of course, it is not so obvious as before, but every country has problems with fanatic religious groups. There are a thousand examples where religion was the main reason for fighting. I can mention only a few: the war between Israel and Egypt, the continuing struggle for land between the Jews and Palestinians, the struggle in Northern Ireland, then war in Afghanistan, Former Soviet Republics Chechnya and Yermenia, quarreling in India, war in Bosnia, and many more. These are only some of many examples of religion influencing conflict.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish synagogue, by the Roman Catholic Church, by the Greek Orthodox Church, by the Islamic Mosque, by the Protestant church, nor by any church or template that I know of. Most of them became corrupted and turned into institutions. Religion is not the institution of the temple, church, mosque or synagogue. Institutions are used to manipulate people, and they teach that we should love only people that are same religion as we are. Is that following the golden rule of loving thy neighbor as thyself? I do not think so.
I'm from the mixed marriage. My mother is Orthodox, my father a Muslim. By this scenario, where do I belong? Probably nowhere. However, my parents were so careful not to emphasize this difference, which I couldn't tell for the rest of my family. War in Bosnia forced me to side myself on one side, and I was forced to be something that I did not want to be. A rebel as I am, I forced my self away from those individuals, and away from the religion. That was the only way out. But the war itself and atrocities by the Orthodox Serbs, showed me the other choice I had, Orthodox religion. At the time, not a good choice. So, I had to leave, away from those who would like to enforce religion in the name of God and 'money' (sometimes these two words have the same meanings). Now, building my new life, I am seeing the same thing happening to me here in the land of freedom and democracy. So how do I fit the religion in my life? Well, very hard, but I'm finding my way.
Why put an end to life in the name of religion? It's just a simple question. If our civilization continues with this practice, we will destroy ourselves. Today's interpretation of religion is wrong, and we should return to old beliefs and try to rebuild duties require doing justice, loving mercy, loving your neighbor, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creature happy. I am not saying that all templates are bad, but we should avoid those which are turned to institutions because they grow into cancer that afflicts our civilization.

" And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their
hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.
And if you would know God be not therefore a
solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him
playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking
in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and
descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising
and waving His hands in trees. "

--Kahlil Gibran

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