"Religion was created to control people."

[Donnac]

I’d say THANK GOD! When I was without religion, I was a mess, no moral direction. For me, it’s saved me from myself and the ways of this evil world we now live in.

 

[Guest1]

I’d say THANK GOD! When I was without religion, I was a mess, no moral direction.

How did it effect you and your daily life? if you don’t mind me asking @Donnac

 

[Zaccheus]

RaisedCatholic:

Christianity is provable, while other religions are not.

Explain. If “provable” why don’t all believe it?

It’s been proven many times over that the Earth is spherical. Yet there exists a Flat Earth Society.

If evolution has been proven, then why do all those fundamentalists still not believe it?

 

[Wozza]

.

RaisedCatholic:

Christianity is provable, while other religions are not.

Explain. If “provable” why don’t all believe it?

It’s been proven many times over that the Earth is spherical. Yet there exists a Flat Earth Society.

If evolution has been proven, then why do all those fundamentalists still not believe it?

Christianity hasn’t been ‘proven’. People follow Christianity because on the balance of probablities they feel it’s the best way to live our lives.

And evolution is a theory. You don’t prove theories. The are explanations.

 

[CathoRick]

I’d ask them which religion is controlling. If they say “religion in general”, then specifically ask them how Islam/Judaism/Buddhism/etc. is controlling. They’ll almost certainly backpedal and admit they were referring to Christianity, and from there it will become clear that you’re dealing with another run-of-the-mill privileged Western atheist whose only grievance with religion is the fact their parents made them attend church as a child.

Honestly, there is merit to some non-Catholic religions being created for the purpose of control. However, I’ll never be able to take the phrase “Religion is used to control people.” seriously simply because of how liberating Catholicism has been for me; “the truth will set you free”, as our Blessed Lord once said. Unfortunately, militant secularists will continue to regurgitate the tired old “religion is used to control people” meme and, in an ironic twist, never question or deviate from what mainstream society tells them to do as they remain slaves to their passions and filled with hatred and despair because of it.

if he is referring to the Catholic religion controlling people, especially here in the USA and Europe, I would say it’s doing a lousy job of controlling people. Might put his worries to rest.

Indeed.

 

[Cimachol]

I’ve had this conversation with people before. From the beginning of Christianity, Christians have risked oppression and even martyrdom for practicing their faith. The faith was not imposed by those in power; it persisted despite the desire of authorities to squelch it. The most controlling governments in the world have sought to extinguish our faith, not promote it. Why would this be if they could use it to control us?

Our faith calls us to obey God before earthly authorities. That makes us all potential threats to a corrupt state, not useful idiots.

 

[fhansen]

Christianity was created by God because people, in their “freedom”, were out of control. And miserable, and ignorant, and hopeless. Only revelation, only the “knowledge of God”, can awaken us and inform us as to what’s going on in this universe, including where we came from, why we’re here, and where we’re going, along with why people often act so darn bad, unreasonably so, and why truth isn’t held in very high esteem in this world, especially where it conflicts with personal interests. And why love is sacrificed or unrecognized to begin with as it opposes pride, which we tend to be addicted to. Etc.

 

[Divine3]

I’ll never be able to take the phrase “Religion is used to control people.” seriously simply because of how liberating Catholicism has been for me; “the truth will set you free”, as our Blessed Lord once said.

Amen! If only people knew how liberating Catholicism is because of one’s relationship with the living Jesus Christ. O Beata Trinitas

 

[Wozza]

Force isn’t required to control anyone. It’s relatively easy.

Let’s say that Christianity is true and all other religions are false. Has half the world been forced to believe in the wrong religion? Were they all made to believe?

 

[RaisedCatholic]

Christianity hasn’t been ‘proven’. People follow Christianity because on the balance of probablities they feel it’s the best way to live our lives.

Which demonstrates you didn’t read what I wrote. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have made that statement. The historical claims of Christianity are no-more “probable” than any other historical event you weren’t around to eyewitness yourself. Unlike other religious books, like the Qur’an, which was written by a single individual, the Bible had dozens of authors written over a millennium and a half, with hundreds of fulfilled prophecies that happened in real time & history. To say that Christianity is “probable” is to dismiss the avalanche of historical evidence and broad-brush it with all other religions that don’t even come close to the historical, archaeological, scientific, and logical arguments & evidence to back it up.

It’s been proven many times over that the Earth is spherical. Yet there exists a Flat Earth Society.

If evolution has been proven, then why do all those fundamentalists still not believe it?

This serves as an example that despite the evidence, there are people who will still choose not to believe (Luke 16:29).

Evolution is a slippery term & does not mean what most people think it means. If you mean adaptation of a organism, based on the genetic information is has, even “fundamentalists” agree with that. If you mean evolution from one kind of lifeform into a completely different kind, that has not been scientifically proven, because you cannot “add” information to the genome, which is what “evolution” the way non-theists understand the term.

 

[pulchraesamicamea]

Um…
I chose to be Catholic. And in fact I can’t lie without my faith in my disability.
Without God’s presence I’m lost from hope. And that means I get less comfort from God in pain.
So…nope. Religion was not created to control people. Religion is to have a relationship with God.

 

[Wozza]

If you mean evolution from one kind of lifeform into a completely different kind, that has not been scientifically proven, because you cannot “add” information to the genome, which is what “evolution” the way non-theists understand the term.

It may not have been missed by many that at first you complain that the information in one book written by a dozen authors or so a couple of millenium ago is more than sufficient to convince even the most ardent sceptic of the truth of Christianity and then have the temerity to wave away the galactic amount of information about evolution in hundreds of thousands of books and articles and papers written by tens of thousands of contemporary experts in dozens of fields using the most modern of scientific teqhniques.

Needless to say, it weakens your first argument somewhat.

Plus you didn’t answer question as to whether the followers of all other religions were forced to follow their particular belief.

And finally, evolution is not a slippery term at all. It’s quite specific.

 

[Donnac]

I place my trust in Jesus and live the best I can for Him. Because of that, I’m more at peace, life has purpose and meaning, I’m not afraid to die, material things/stuff aren’t as important, the burden of sin no longer weighs me down…I’ve found REAL happiness!

 

[RaisedCatholic]

the information in one book written by a dozen authors or so a couple of millenium ago is more than sufficient to convince even the most ardent sceptic of the truth of Christianity

Actually 40, not a couple of dozen, and that was one among several other criteria I gave. And just because something is from antiquity does not make it false. No one denies other ancient writings like those from Plato or Julius Caesar, which don’t claim to be inspired but nonetheless still historically true.

Plus you didn’t answer question as to whether the followers of all other religions were forced to follow their particular belief.

Again, none of them hold to the same multiple standards and criteria the Bible holds to as how it came together. See above. And these other religions do not have eyewitnesses to their claims of a messiah figure they saw rise from the dead, and then died excruciating deaths rather than deny what they saw. Christianity stands ALONE in this.

As far as your “thousands” of journal entries on evolution, the vast majority of them deal with adaptation that even the most fundamentalist Christian would agree with. As far as the ones that deal with some sort of lower life form that “evolves” into a high and completely different life form over millions of years, that has never been observed, and these papers are simply “assuming” it has. Even the fossil record has not produced millions of transitional fossils that ALL scientists are universal on agreeing what they are. Science is not determined by “majority vote,” which the evolutionary community would like us to believe.

 

[Norseman82]

How do you like to respond when someone says something like that?

My first thought would be to ask that person what he is doing wrong in his life that is causing him to be hostile to religion.

But another part of me has to acknowledge that there are people out there who do in fact use religion to hurt, bully, and manipulate people. Some do it because they are mean, some do it because they are naïve or even mentally unbalanced.

 

[Gorgias]

How do you like to respond when someone says something like that?

Smile. Pat them on the head. Give them a cookie.

Christianity is provable, while other religions are not.

It is provable that eating a Tide pod is dangerous to one’s health. So is doing drugs. So is smoking.

Not all believe it. Many do it anyway.

The fact that it’s “provable” doesn’t imply that all will accede to the proof; that says something about people, not about the proof itself.

OK, well, communism was supposed to free people from the oppression of religion, and it didn’t exactly set the whole population free, did it?

Well… it did deliver on that promise… the problem is, it set up a whole new oppressor.

No, but never mind.

The irony is too much! You asked “if ‘provable’, then why don’t all believe”… and then, when @fide explained (i.e., proved) his assertion, you acted out the rebuttal to your own implied question! “proved” → “not believed”! Good job, @MasterHaster!

It wasn’t created to control people. It was discovered that it did.

“It was discovered that it did could, if misused.”

There we go… fixed that for ya!

So how about the op suggests that we change control to ‘influence’.

Interesting take. Doesn’t every human activity “influence” others, to some degree? Then, why are we wagging our finger at one activity and chastising it as “you influencer, you!”…?

You seem to be unaware of other religions. There are a few others.

He was talking about religious movements extant in the Roman Empire, wasn’t he? You seem to be unaware of the context of his comment.

 

[Zaccheus]

Christianity hasn’t been ‘proven’. People follow Christianity because on the balance of probablities they feel it’s the best way to live our lives.

I follow Christ because I’m convinced that Christianity is true. Not because of any balance of probabilities.

But another part of me has to acknowledge that there are people out there who do in fact use religion to hurt, bully, and manipulate people.

Yep. And there are people who use politics to hurt and bully people. Some who use superior education. Some who use money. Some who use relentless mockery. Some who use their fists.
This is about the bullies, not their excuses.

 

[Potter]

To be religious to take on a discipline that gives us an outside meter to check our own behavior and thoughts against. Every aspect of culture is about control and influence of people. We teach kids to pee in toilets, not just wherever they happen to be. We teach them how to write and speak so that they will be understood, and will understand others. We teach them how to drive so that they don’t pose a danger to themselves or others. We teach them not to lie, not to steal, and to love others as themselves for similar reasons. All of culture is control and influence.

 

[PetraG]

Well… it did deliver on that promise… the problem is, it set up a whole new oppressor.

The communists in Russia and Poland would be surprised to hear that.
“Religion is like a nail – the harder you hit it, the deeper it goes into the wood.”
(Anatoly Lunacharsky, the first Soviet minister of culture and education)

Besides, when there is no identifiable period of “freedom” from the destruction (or attempted destruction) of religion and the ascension of the Communists to power, it is absurd to say the Communists ever freed anybody from anything. They did no such thing. They were selling snake oil.

 

[annem]

You cannot believe if you are deep in sin - you can’t see anything outside of the darkness