Preview

Why Does Mankind Seem so Incurably Religious?

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
352 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Why Does Mankind Seem so Incurably Religious?
Mary Beth Lindsey
September 9, 2011
Intro to Religion
Wagner

Why does mankind seem so religious?

There is a lot of influential reasoning that can attribute to religion because some of it is man-made and the other is a divine revelation. I think that no matter what, all humans yearn for a universal presence of some kind that is responsible for our existence. Religion is thought to fulfill deep individual needs of humanity. Humans is incurably religious because of the passing of generational opinions and beliefs, such as from churches and other religious sources and organizations, and also what we learn in schools, varying from Greek mythology to evolution and more. The argument from universal belief insists that every human being has an innate knowledge of God- a sense of the divine- that these clues or arguments simply confirm it. However, Roman 1 also insists that we have a tendency to suppress this, this innate knowledge of God, choosing instead to rebel against our Creator (Romans 1:19-23). I agree with this due to the actions of society. In addition, man has always sought to worship something or someone. In contrast, a nineteenth century socialist philosopher, Karl Marx, argued that religion emerged from economic frameworks a mean for oppressing people and maintaining an unjust economic system. In his view, religion is an opiate for the masses to keep them submissive and unquestions about their lot in life. I do not think that man would use the law for an economic system or some kind of punishment. We are taught in school about religion , now depending on the approach the teacher is trying to give off can influence the outcome or the intensity of students perception of religion , because teachers/professors teach our growing youth. Religion goes beyond facts in the form of faith which has a connection to the facts. All the while, we come up assumptions when we look at the facts to determine reasonable conclusions.



Cited: Page 1. The New English Bible. London. Oxford UP and Cambridge UP. 1970. 2. atheism.about.com/od/philosophyofreligion/a/marx.htm

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Based on your observations, explain what the function of religion appears to be on Earth.…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Religion encourages citizens to be more virtuous. In the words of Tocqueville, “it [religion] facilitates their use of it [freedom],” meaning that without religion to bound human intellect, members of a democracy would not be able to make use of freedom (Tocqueville 280). Religion also teaches delayed gratification which prevents people from falling into an endless spiral of greed. Most importantly, “faith alone is the permanent state of humanity,” and without faith, humans would lose the part of themselves that gives them hope for the future (Tocqueville 284). Hope fuels humanity, and religion is “only a particular form of hope” that is potent enough to drive humanity to greatness (Tocqueville…

    • 1715 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are two primary views on the issue of whether religion is a force for social change in society. Certain theorists adopt the view that religion is a conservative force, maintaining the status quo, whereas other theorists have the belief that religion is a force for social change, bringing about revolutions in society. With all views, the lack of a universal definition of religion remains a problem. Marx for example would argue that religion inhibits social change as it legitimises and justifies the status quo, whereas this contrasts Weber’s belief would be that religion can cause social change as it helped the development of capitalism.…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    * Marxists Disagree: Religion functions serve capitalism. Karl Marx – sees religion as an ideology that is used as a weapon by the ruling class to justify suffering of poor as ‘god-given’…

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who Is Jezebel

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages

    For over two thousand years Jezebel has been known as the bad girl of the bible, the wickedest of all the women. The ancient queen has been denounced as a prophet of false and foreign gods, a witch, prostitute, killer of innocents, and enemy of the one true God. Before her time as queen of Israel, she was raised as a princess in the kingdom of Phoenicia where she grew up as a priestess of Baal, there most powerful god. The story of Baal is a god that dies in spring, and a goddess of love and war mourns. But after an endless summer with drought and famine Baal is resurrected in the fall bringing with him rain and storm. Baal because of his time of resurrection was the god of fall and autumn, rain and therefore the god of melancholia and sorrow. He was the god of storm, the maker of thunder and lightning bolts, and the god of fertility and sex. He was also known as Prince Baal or the rider of the clouds and in the bible he is often called Baalzebub, changed to Beelzebub in the New Testament. He brings with him several goddesses such as Ashera, The Queen of the Sky and Astarte, the lunar goddess symbolized as a star within a circle (often seen in witchcraft today). She also was a goddess of fertility sex, and war, this was not only a sexualized religion, but a violent one to. Slashing and cutting oneself was a part of the religious ceremonies, as was human sacrifices, sometimes even child sacrifices. Jezebels life was formed around such beliefs, and from the day she was born until her death she stayed faithful to her gods. Her background shows that this is all she knew, and in her land to worship these gods was normal.…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cited: Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, and Martin Puchner. The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005. Print.…

    • 964 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Religion is one of the ways we can show our personalities and express ourselves. Imagine a world where you have to follow a specific religion and you get punished for not obeying the law. That was the issue in 16th century Germany. The issues that cause groups of people or countries to come to the conflict was the revolts against the church and higher power. The church was put down by Martin Luther and his reform against the obscured ways of the Catholic Church.…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Before you keep reading, ask yourself this. What is religion to you? Think about the impact of religion. Think about how religion has impacted you and the people around you. Think about how religion’s impact made society to how it is today. There’s a quote from Pope Benedict XVI that explains what religions can do for us. This is what it says. “…The state does not impose religion, but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    According to Karl Marx, religion is like a social institution as it is dependent upon the material and economic realities in a given society. It is apparently the ‘creature of productive forces,’ as Marx wrote, ‘The religious world is but the reflex of the real world.’ Marx believed that all religious, moral and political life that exists is rooted in economics. He stated that people have needs and desires (material and social etc) and society structures itself to meet those needs and desires. Due to this belief, this has given rise to a capitalist society, where the workers produce goods and services and rich industrialists and landowners profit from their labours.…

    • 1693 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    That people knowingly and willingly commit evil acts. For non-believers the problem of evil presents a social, ethical and moral problem. If we accept that evil is a part of the human condition, and arises out of greed and self, to what extent should we value another person who has the capacity for such extreme evils. It becomes a large concern for atheists because how do they know others will not act out on them in an evil manor. If there is no God and our actions in this life have no consequence, then what need is there to act good and avoid evil. If people believe that there actions have no consequence they may feel free to roam around doing whatever they please, disregarding others well being. The problem for atheists is that without religion the problem of evil would be far worse. Religion plays an important role in controlling society and controlling our actions. For the non-believer trying to distinguish between evil and good is difficult if a list of rules have not been imposed by your religion. But even for none-believers there is a still a set of laws that deter them from committing evil acts. The Judicial system imposes lengthy prison time for what the country deems as an evil act. But even the judicial system takes a lot of its laws from religion. If religion did not exist society would not be as morally good as it is now, the judicial system that is a creation of a developed society would not be the same, our perception of evil and good would also be different. Earlier we explained that Hobbes thought we were all selfish creatures, only trying to better our position.x Without religion what would stop are evil impulses from being the dominant choice. Religion is not just as Marx said, “the opium of the masses”,xi but it is also the suppression of the masses. it commands people to act in a good way for fear of eternal damnation. The…

    • 2433 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The term religion comes from the Latin word ‘religare’ which means to bind. In the world today, there are different forms of religious groups and followings that have unique beliefs and practices depending on their history. It is estimated that there are thousands of religions in the world, including the mainstream religious groups and others that are not known. One of the common characteristics of religious groups is that they all believe in the existence of a supreme being. However, there are those who don’t believe in religion. For such people, religion only assumes the existence of a supreme being while there is no substantive evidence to support the said belief.…

    • 920 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Marx

    • 1839 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Group Members: Leslie-Ann Bolden, Michela Bowman, Sarah Kaufman, Danielle Jeanne Lindemann Selections from: The Marx-Engels Reader Karl Marx’s broad theoretical and political agenda is based upon a conception of human history that is fundamentally different from those of the social, and especially the philosophical, thinkers who came before him. Most importantly, Marx develops his agenda by drawing on and altering Hegel’s conception of the dialectical nature of the human experience. As Marx describes in his essay, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” and again in the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844,” Hegel did little to base his ideas in the “real” history of man.1 Instead, Hegel’s theory of the nature of man is a “mystical” one. Hegel sees history as a story of man’s alienation from himself. The spirit (Geist, God), is the “true” nature of man, and man must bring the spirit (God) back into himself through the powers of thought (most specifically, philosophy). Drawing on this idea, and also on Feuerbach (see The German Ideology), Marx constructs his conception of history by “standing Hegel on his head.” Unlike Hegel, Marx regards God or spirit as the projection of man’s “true” self. To understand the true self of man, Marx argues, one must understand his “real,” social, material conditions. He states: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” (4). From this idea, Marx proposes to understand the alienated state of man through an understanding of what he terms “historical materialism.” By understanding the material conditions of man through history, Marx argues, man can come to understand his social and political conditions. As he states, “The sum total of these [material] relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on…

    • 1839 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Organized Religion

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Ever since man has chosen to write down his history, organized religion has been a prominent topic and has influenced and shaped all people's lives. There have always been believers and non-believers. Since the beginning, non-believers have been persecuted by inquisitions, prosecuted by witch trials, and murdered by stoning and crucifying for even questioning the "truth" about a supreme being and supposed crimes against that being. Religion had a purpose in earlier times to explain life, but today science provides more concrete answers. Religious beliefs are old and outdated and people should trust the scientific facts that have been proven, not what has been indoctrinated into their heads since childhood.…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    From the beginning of human race or Homo sapiens, they were run by curiosity. Human were started to live together but didn’t know what was right or wrong, used to do things whatever wanted like killing each other, mass adultery with inter and intra species, eating whatever wanted. So there were many questions, curious Homo sapiens all over the world didn’t know the answers. After 10,000 BC by the invention of agriculture human race started to live together and social structure started to form but there was the need of some rules and regulation and some form belief system which will be abide by all people. That’s where religion becomes the principles and the only carrier of righteousness a total system of living system socially. And when human started to migrate all over the world and started to invent and discover many thing like wheel, foods, clothes and most importantly city and states and ultimately formed many civilizations. So with the religion human become civilized and it is true that every civilization of ancient and Middle Ages was more or less dependent on religion. We can see it in every civilization religion played an important role, from the valley of Indus to the rain forest of Maya also in Egypt, Rome, Greece and most importantly in Middle East.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Religious Experience

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Marx’s challenges to religious experience arguments are sociological; he suggested that the origins of religious experience are to be found in society.…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays