How religion impacts modern society

Religion, over many centuries has become a focal point for both society and the manner in which societies behaves. Since the emergence of the homo sapiens species, human have always been fascinated with the unknown. Religion was man’s first attempt to make sense of the world around them and interesting phenomenon that have occurred. Due the early history of man, religion acted as a pseudo-science designed to explain naturally occurring behaviors in society. During these periods, long and severe droughts were explained by an angry God. Rain was described as God weeping. Eruptions of volcano’s where explained away as the anger of the Gods. Each of these have later been validated and explained by science. Society now knows that rain is caused by precipitation, drought is much more common in the world and not a result of an inappropriate worship of a God. Although, science has shown many of the claims of religion as false, it still plays a major role in society. It is my claim that many of these roles are predominately negative and that religion should be eliminated to help improve society overall (Dawkins, ).

Religion has a very storied and hypocritical past. Early in human history, religion was use as both a weapon and means of controlling civilization. During the beginnings of religion, humans were primarily hunter-gathers. Due the need to continually move, settlements, towns, and cities were not formed. Instead hunter gathers formed temporary homes designed specifically for short durations. As this form of life required constant movement, communal networks were relatively small and never exceeded more than 100 people. Once the networks became too large, it was much more difficult to feed and care for all members in the network appropriately. Soon, humans began to learn how to farm and an agricultural society began to emerge. This allowed society to stay in one specific area for a long period of time. It also allowed larger settlements to form as farming could support larger populations. As more and more hunter gathering tribes began to join the communities, cities eventually formed. Unfortunately, as more hunter-gathering tribes joined a city, their traditions customs and belief came with it. This caused numerous disputes, between tribes within the new formed city. Thus, these cities needed a method to control all members in the city with a common set of rules, regulations, beliefs and behaviors. Through this desire for order, religion was formed and created. However, all of the tribes were simply unwilling to follow a sole leader, so God was used as a means of “Choosing” his leader. Here, through the power of religion civilization believed that God had chosen their leader and where much more to follow the individual. This was the start of religion in our modern society. Even today, Americans believe their wealth and status is partially given to them by God. Slavery and the concept of manifest destiny gave white men the power, from God, to enslave, kill and murder millions of native Americans and African Americans. Through the Crusades, religion was used to liberate Jerusalem from the surrounding area of Islamic rule, again killing many millions of people in the name of God (Van Biema, 2006). Terrorists, believing the developed world to be evil, commit suicide bombings, killing many innocents, again in the name of religion. Each of these instances along with many others have formed much of the basis for modern society. The way our schools are structured, the way western governments operate, security in Airports, respect for varying religious views, and even humanitarian aid all have their basis in religion. Overall, I believe that all things being equal religion plays a negative role in society (Abbate, 2009).

Opposing views state many of the “good” elements of religion in the form of humanitarian aid, the establishment of schools, and high moral and social standing. Although true, my contention is that all of these elements would exist without religion being present. We have seen instances of this occurring throughout history. Non religion individuals during times of war often sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Now according to some religions, the individual who sacrificed his life for the sake of saving his fellow military personnel would go to hell if he had not accepted a certain God into his life. It appears to be implied that only God provides morals, when in fact those who are not religious are often of high moral character as their religions counterparts (Austin, 1990).

The opposition says that religion empowers its followers to behave admirable in the context of society. I agree with this to a certain extent, but can make the argument that religion has caused religions in aggregate to behave terribly. Many of the most damaging and deadly wars in society are often universally based on some factor or religion. The introduction above mentions slavery, the war on terror, the crusaders, and the Israeli-Palestinian war just to name a few. In many instances, many individuals in these wars are killing other people because they believe their respective Gods have ordered them to do. Ironically, many of these religions preach have mandates that those who practice the religion shall not kill other humans. Its ironic that many of these mandates are eliminated for the sake of convenience and expanding a religions influence. We have seen many religions use they power and influence on society in negative ways as well. During the economic resurgence of Europe in the early 13th century, individuals could essentially purchase their forgiveness from the Roman Catholic church, thus providing the church with more power and influence throughout the region. History is littered with instance after instance, war after war, and fraud after fraud often universally having religions undertones within the behavior (Dawkins, 2007).

Next the entire concept of a God appears to be counter to the moral high ground argument that many religions individuals use. Here, moral action loses all credibility because those who do so in religions circles do so with an expectation of reward. This therefore undermines the selfless behavior as they are doing it because, “God says so.” These individuals then expect a reward through eternal salvation in heaven which undermines the act to begin with (Achtemeier, 1992).

Religion was man’s first attempt at science, but as civilization has grown so much since the creation of the bible, man of the stories which are expected to be believed are simply too farfetched to believe. For example, the bible tells a classic story of Noah. Here, Noah is told that a flood is coming and therefore need to first build a boat to house all the animals in the world, and then needs to go and collect two of every species on the face of the earth, somehow put them on the boat in a middle eastern habitat, and finally keep them alive for 40 days and for 40 nights. The bible wants you to believe this occurred over 2000 years ago with a man with little to no engineering, animal care and boating experience. Thus Noah, somehow went to somehow was able to keep penguins from the north and south poles, capture elephants from Asia, and Koalas from Austria. He apparently did not do a great job, as evidence has shown that no Koala fossils exist outside of Australia. There have been no fossils, no evidence of deification, no Koala blook, DNA or evidence whatsoever, that it ever existing outside of Australia. The same goes for many other species that were around 2000 years ago (Dawkins, 2000). Simply put, this story is a lie perpetrated for sake of religion. There are many instances of this scattered throughout the bible such as man being swallowed by a whale and living, a man losing his phenomenal war strength because a woman cut his hair, a man parting a entire sea in half while being chased, a burning bush that can talk, a snake that can talk, a man being put in a furnace and not burning, and much more. Each of these stories is told with many practitioners believing them to be true. It is this unwavering truth in the face of overwhelming evidence that is counter to this occurring that causes religion to be so dangerous. The same manner that Christians believe in the farfetched stories above, many other religious groups such as the Taliban believe killing Christians will give them salvation. Both sides appear to be unwavering in their beliefs which ultimately undermines societal growth as a whole. It is therefore my position, that religion and their inflexible views in the light of evidence is not good for society. These beliefs are what has caused a lot of the prior misery in civilization that still to a certain degree exists today. Man has learned and developed so much that many of these concepts man has transcended. We no longer need to believe that one man collected two of every species on the face of the earth 2000 years ago. We no longer need to believe that a man was swallowed by a whale and lived or that a suicide bomber will be rewarded with 72 virgins in heaven. The science and evidence point to this not being true and should there by cast out.