A question on religion

[BintuluChuchGuy]

Hi everybody

just asking on how to respond to statements like ‘the world would be better off without religion’.

Many people today think that religion just causes controversy and then end up in wars or extremism.For me religion should be something good,but the way the world is now,im having doubts.

But then,when I reflect on people like Mother Theresa,I feel that religion is good.

What are your thoughts when facing statements like this?

 

[Mark1970]

To be blunt, the problem isn’t with religion, it’s with the people who practice it (i.e. all of us). We’re all affected by original and actual sin (apart from Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary, of course), which means that we’re prone to sin, not acting as we should. Our actions often give scandal, especially to those who aren’t able to differentiate between the religion itself and the actions of the people who practice the religion. This allows some people the blame the religion and then say “The world would be better off without it.” My own view is that people will always use some ideology to cause controversy, wars and extremism, if there was no such thing as religion they would find something else.

 

[Acapiteadcalcem]

It’s a sad fact of history that religious people have often behaved in very inhuman ways and have indeed been at the root of violent and cruel acts. Even within our own Church we find shameful things in our history.

But this is not the whole story of religion and certainly not of the Church. Just from a purely material point of view, religion and the Catholic Church in particular has contributed enormously to civilisation: art, philosophy, architetcure, culture, science, technology, law and so on.

Consider for example the concept of the university, which is a Catholic invention. The very first university was founded in 1088. Throughout Catholic medieval Europe, more than 40 more universities flourished due to Papal and Episcopal mandates. There were no secular universities for hundreds of years after this. The same can be said of orphanages, schools and hospitals. Today, the Catholic Church provides 1/4 of all the world’s health care. Consider furthermore the work that the Church and Christian communities do in developing countries today. I have just returned from slums in Kenya, where the only evidence of genuine solidarity and action with the poorest people there is inspired, funded and lived by Christian men and women either singly or in religious communities. You will find such unsung heroes around the world, working quietly and heroically with and for their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Don’t be alarmed or disheartened by the shrill voices which like to point self-righteous accusing fingers at the Church and at religion in general. These voices have always been with us, and we find evidence of them even in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Letters of Paul, Peter, John and James. As Christ himself said (John 15:8), “if the world hates you, remember it hated me first”.

Where we have genuinely gone wrong and lost sight of the Gospel message, we should be quick to be sorry, to acknowledge our failings and to make things better with the grace of Christ. At the same time, we should not accept that this is the whole story–or even the bulk of our story. It is not.

The bottom line is, people who accuse religion of being the source of all evil start with the atheistic assumption that religion does not represent any authentic connection with a Creator. The assumption is that there is no Creator to be worshipped and followed. If indeed that were the case, then religion indeed would be largely a waste of time. Such people also rely on a false reading of history which most reputable historians discredit (see for example, ‘God’s Philosophers’ by James Hannam–an excellent read).

Hope this helps!

 

[AlanFromWichita]

There are many religions, but Truth is Truth. The religions all seek that Truth, whether they call it God or something else.

Some seem to be more effective than others at bringing people to a high level of spirituality, as evidenced by the fruit of the spirit and by the way they act in terms of what I think are the basis of everything good: the two Great Commands Jesus gave us, to love God and to love our neighbor. To me, those are actually different ways of saying the same thing for whatever you do for the least of Jesus’s brothers and sisters, you do to Him.

So if a religion tends to make people angry, hateful, and want to kill, then I say it isn’t very effective at finding Truth. If they bring people to peace and love, that’s better.

I see two parts to it: a) spirituality, and b) religion. A person can be very spiritual and loving and not be Catholic, and a person can be Catholic and highly uncharitable.

Without religions and specifically the Catholic Church, I believe that we here in the U.S. would have far fewer freedoms than we do, under a much more oppressive government. IMO, religions are worldly Institutions, but they are established to guide us into union with God. In the Catholic Church, we have apostolic succession, and can trace our roots back to St. Peter, whom Jesus named as the founder of His church. She is operated by humans, though, and has done things that were questionable – like the Inquisition – but it was the early Catholics who authored the New Testament and protected it at the cost of scores of lives in order to bring it to us today.

Protestant religions have varying degrees of fidelity to Christ’s word, but they are all branches off the Catholics. Some non-Catholic “Christians” are quite rabid in their hatred of the Catholic Church (Jack Chick comes to mind) which is interesting because their primary weapon against us is the Bible which they got from us – except for a few OT books they took out of it such as Sirach and Wisdom.

That said, there are some wonderful Good Works done by some non-Catholic churches, even in conjunction with the Catholic Church, such as the Lord’s Diners here in Wichita. Placed in two poor areas of town, they serve hundreds of people a hot dinner every night, 365 days a year, no question asked, and without the paperwork, bureaucracy, and waste that inevitably goes along with efforts by the government to help the poor. It is under the authority of the bishop, but its donors and volunteers come from all faiths. Catholic Charities helps people with counseling on a sliding scale, helps the poor pay their bills, and operates a food bank, as examples of what they do. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is a wonderful organization, one of the very few charities my father gave significant financial contributions to. At one point when my own family was in deep financial trouble due to my disability and was right on the verge of losing our utilities, St. Vincent de Paul members came to our house, reviewed our finances, and ended taking our bills and paying them. They didn’t give us the money; they actually took copies of our bills and paid the bills directly over the phone with a credit card, so literally the next day we were current on all of them. That was quite a help. No, the world would not have been better off without them.

Then there is Cursillo, which among other things has a prison ministry. Many non-Catholic religions also have prison ministries. Then there are the missions, which do wonders with an amazing “bang for the buck” at helping those who are in conditions awful beyond my comprehension. Then the is Blessed (Mother) Theresa – need I say more?

Human beings throughout history have had a propensity to control, manipulate and enslave each other. Even with their faults, if there were no religions, I’m guessing we would live in a terrible world, with no discernible freedoms and no basic purpose other than to serve the powerful. We might not even have developed our intellect enough to realize that is what we were doing, so basically we’d be like other animals, and our medical and other technology would be essentially non-existent.

Alan

 

[JRKH]

Hi everybody

just asking on how to respond to statements like ‘the world would be better off without religion’.

Many people today think that religion just causes controversy and then end up in wars or extremism.For me religion should be something good,but the way the world is now,im having doubts.

But then,when I reflect on people like Mother Theresa,I feel that religion is good.

What are your thoughts when facing statements like this?

The best response is to gently correct the thrust of their statement.
Simply respond, “The world would be better off without hate and greed”.

Very often people choose an “institution” (religion, government, some nation or other), and point to it as, “The Problem”, when in fact it is something much more basic that is the real problem. Something that pervades all institutions - that is what we call sin.

So - those who make the comment are not wrong in the sense that they desire there be no war, it is simply that their focus is wrong.

Peace
James

 

[St_Francis]

The idea of secularism as we know it arose in response to the wars between denominations of Protestants, so the idea that religion is bad and causes war is a sort of founding “fact” of modern political philosophy.

But when we consider the much greater excesses committed by secular rulers like Stalin and Lenin, in North Korea, Cambodia, the list goes on and on, I think it is clear that while some religions may “cause” war (in that much of the Koran calls for war and is emphasized by some groups of Moslems), secularism can lead to even worse atrocities like the starving of entire nations.

 

[RosaryFan]

Hi everybody

just asking on how to respond to statements like ‘the world would be better off without religion’.

Many people today think that religion just causes controversy and then end up in wars or extremism.For me religion should be something good,but the way the world is now,im having doubts.

But then,when I reflect on people like Mother Theresa,I feel that religion is good.

What are your thoughts when facing statements like this?

How could the world be better off without religion? Then **NO ONE **would have morals!

 

[fred_conty]

HI,
A better question would be; what do you think would happen if we shut the doors of all the churchs?