Today I am going to come to the defense of one of
humanity’s
oldest facets. It has existed as long as humans have been sentient; it
has
caused much ruckus and controversy and is famous for both dividing and
uniting
people. In the last few decades it’s taken an especially bad rap;
sometimes for
good reason, sometimes for no reason. It’s become both a trend to
practice and
to hate, and is the scapegoat for a large chunk of humanity’s mistakes.
I’m
going to tell you all today why religion is necessary. Now I know some
of you
may have just tasted bile, but do your best to be open-minded with me
here. I’ll explain how and why religion
is beneficial, how and why it has become so hated, how and why the
hatred it
garners is so unwarranted, and what I feel is the best purpose of
religion
today.
Let’s
get something out of the way here first. My father is a
non-denominational Christian reverend and minister.
He’s a well-known and respected man in the global Christian community,
and as
such he has done a lot of travelling around the world. I happened to be
there
on some of his travels and the things I’ve seen with my own eyes
contradicts the
general attitude towards religion. I have personally witnessed the
absolute
best and worst of religion from arm’s length—I’ve seen a man with next
to no
money donate the little he could afford to a local soup kitchen. The
smile that
crossed his face upon seeing people enjoying the food he contributed to
was
eye-opening. He may have been dirt poor but he made a difference,
however small
it may be. I’ve seen people in abject poverty as happy as a person can
be—not
because they are ignorant to the world outside. They are aware of how
poor they
are, but they don’t care. One tiny village in the middle of the poorest
area of
Ukraine—a place where cars don’t exist and all the huts were handmade by
the
people living in them—had a small religious population. The smiles I saw
on
their faces were some of the most genuine I’ve ever seen, and it was
because of
religion. They would get together and have their services and be as
happy in
their material ignorance as anybody I’ve ever seen. I could clearly see
that
religion almost sustained this small village. There were remnants of
communism—an old, crumbling building with statues of Joseph Stalin was
the
place they held their services, not allowing the history of their area
to
discourage them. This town would be utterly hopeless if religion weren’t
coursing through their veins.
It seems as if the last
few decades
have propagated a trendy hatred towards religion, which developed
largely in
correlation to the rise of postmodernist culture. As Western culture
moves more
and more to postmodernist thinking (which is a shame in itself), the
attitude
towards religion seems to shift along with it. Postmodernist thinking
places an
emphasis on self-interest, apathy and disregard for others, which is
opposite
to religious thinking. The further people move towards postmodernism,
the
further away they move from religion. More people in our generation are
jumping
on this bandwagon, which is saddening. It’s “cool” to hate religion
these days,
and I find it a real shame that so many people blindly buy into the
ideology. A
person blindly buying into ideology sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it?
I’m not
pointing any fingers, but amongst our age group I’ve noticed an alarming
amount
of people have settled for believing that religion is this horrible
entity,
good for nothing except propagating hatred and warfare.
This ignorant view is a
cop-out.
It’s easy to dismiss religion as poppycock and balderdash because then
you can
avoid asking yourself the hard questions and having the intellectual
debate that
fuels human progression. One of the things that really bothers me is
when
people belligerently claim that there is no God as if they know beyond a
shadow
of a doubt. The reality is that nobody 100% can know if there is a God,
which
many people seem to forget. There’s a lot of hypocrisy in atheism. I’ve
met
atheists that promote hatred and bigotry almost as much as Ann Coulter.
The overwhelming
majority of
religious people are extraordinarily kind hearted. Some of the nicest,
gentlest, most genuinely kind-hearted people I’ve ever had the privilege
of
meeting were devout Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, and Jews. The majority
of
religious practitioners only have the best of intentions, as outlined by
their
respective doctrines. Through volunteering with religious people, mostly
Christians and Sikhs, I have seen the absolute best and worst of
religion. The
worst comes from the small clusters of fanatics, and unfortunately much
of the
secular world sees these small clandestine groups of extremists—the
Muslim
suicide bombers, the Christians on the side of the road with their
ridiculous
anti-gay signs—and judges all religion by them. Not only is this
incorrect,
it’s just cheap and unintelligent to do so. When you go to a grocery
store and
pick up a semi-rotten orange, do you assume that all the oranges are
bad? I
don’t. I don’t see why anyone else should, either.
I believe that religion
today
should be used for spiritual fulfillment. Humans are naturally spiritual
beings—we have emotions and feelings, which I believe is evidence of the
soul and spirit. Religion can satiate that spiritual appetite, so long
as you don’t
overeat and start throwing up on other people. As with anything else in
the
world, it’s great in moderation, but overdoing it is wrong. Religious
gluttony
is just as bad as zealous anti-religious belief. Both are harmful, and
this is
important to understand. Definitely in the past people have used and
manipulated for evil ends, but that’s not the religion’s fault. It’s
man’s
fault for not using religion properly. In my opinion the Crusades in
medieval
times were an anomalous blemish on the history of religion.
I hope that I may have
changed some
of your minds or at least given you something to think about. Religion
isn’t
evil. Practicing religion is an honourable thing because in this day and
age
it’s simply difficult to do so. People will hate you for what you
believe, and
I respect people that don’t let that deter them from doing good things
in this
world. Religious hatred and fanaticism will never disappear, but I hope
that
I’ve prevented you today from turning on your auto-atheism and I hope
you will leave this page with a more open mind towards religion.
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