What’s It For?
No, really, what’s the real purpose of religion?
I’ve read a fair number of articles by former ministers of Christian churches. Some are conflicted, some are now atheists, some struggling with their beliefs vs. the reactions of both their former church officials and congregationists. Both positive and negative. Fascinating stuff, and one can learn a lot that for me, confirms what I see as some major issues with Christianity in this country which explain a lot about the maddening state of politics we’re contending with today.
But to me, one thing stands out — one thing seems to be a constant, but a lot of these folks can’t see it, especially those still believers.
Ask yourself, what’s the real purpose of religion? Hang on, don’t start yet, don’t answer. You think you’ve got one, but be careful here. I don’t mean Christianity, I mean all religions. So, as you think about it, take a dive into history. Look around the world. Out of all of the thousands of religions fronting for all those some nine thousand or so gods/goddesses I’ve seen lists of, what’s the commonality?
Not the commonality of the deities, the commonality of the religions. There’s a difference. Deities range from the ones stuck living in trees to the ones like the Christian god who made it all. There isn’t a lot of commonality there except for their ability to do magic stuff humans can’t (or couldn’t in ancient times before technology, anyway.)
But aside from the deity, there’s always a human organization positing that deity’s existence, preaching about them, and pushing/leading the worship of them. Can you think of a single deity that didn’t in some way, have human social support? That existed because the deity itself visited people, talked itself up, helped people, kicked the asses of those they opposed, or openly opposed competing deities? That had no real group or organization supporting his/her existence, but did that him/herself?
Come on, just one, now.
No?
Funny, I’ve never heard of one, either.
So, in reality, there’s your commonality. Every human worshiped deity history knows about has had that one common thing — a group of people who believe (or say they do), organize to bring in more supporters, support others who believe, and usually have a leadership of some form who leads the worship, teaches the young and preserves the belief system from generation to generation. Now not all do the “spread the word” thing, no. Some are more insular and prefer no strangers get involved. But, they’ve still got leaders who lead the worship, teach and keep it going.
Now, that we’ve got that behind us, ask why. Why do they exist? What’s the benefit? Who benefits?
Think about it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Oookay, ya back already? That didn’t take long, I hardly got through my mail yet, darn it.
So…what did you come up with? Take another moment, click on the comment button and let us all know your thinking. Do that, then pop back up here and I’ll continue.
(While I wait, I’ll pop out back and check on my little hummer buddies)
Ok, finished? If ya need more time… no? Alrighty then.
In a recent article, the ex-pastor had one of many issues with his former position, hidden among the others, that to me, truly epitomize this reality. He complained that many of the higher ups had more of a fixation on rising in the ranks than pastoring, and he was often forced to overcome his own thinking in favor of preaching a set doctrine. One intended, in his words, to keep the flock present and depending on the church for their continued “salvation.”
These two things get to the root of the problem.
In almost every case, religion becomes an organization, however loosely organized. Once it does, at some level, that organization depends on the members, the worshippers, flock, congregation, whatever term they use, for its continued existence. And religions almost always use a generational educational model to do that. Teach the kids. Get ‘em while they’re young and innocent and can’t think for themselves.
That’s the key.
Forget getting saved. Forget any afterlife, or future lives, none of that matters. How do I know? Simple. Watch what they teach over time.
It always changes.
Always. In every religion in which we have an extensive source of their writings or sacred scriptures over centuries, that becomes obvious. For the ones that don’t write it down, a generational passing of information by mouth always introduces changes. That’s just human memory — it just works like that.
From generation to generation, for the bigger more influential ones, one can look at their writings and see clearly that when a generation comes along where the old stuff doesn’t suit, or is a problem politically, they’ve got no qualms about making the changes that make a difference to eliminate the problems. Especially in Christianity, one can see this over the centuries. Nothing ever stays the same!
So in a word, the major similarity and the main reason religion exists is, at the very foundation of its existence, to exist.
To remain, and to remain in power. Remember those guys who wanted to rise in the hierarchy? Ya think they’d be happy with just some power in their church organization, when there’s a lot more power to be had in the political realm?
Yeah. That.
Look, the United States is, to this non-professional-historian person, the first country I’m aware of that attempted to condition the powers of its government to eliminate religion from being controlled by or controlling that government. Every other government structure we know of in mankind’s history had had some form of religion as part of it, or tightly controlled by it or controlling it.
You’re welcome to correct me if you know of any that were like us. (And do not try and claim the Communists were some form of atheistic thing. Their issues were not with the idea of gods, but with the organizations that could and mostly did claim social loyalties — loyalties they wanted for themselves. So those organizations were suppressed over competing loyalty issues, not religion, per se.)
That, in a nutshell, is my point. No matter how people may claim otherwise, religion is not, at the very foundation of its existence, about anything except simply existing and gaining as much power and influence as it can. Everything else is there to gain the favor and loyalty of the society it exists within. I think the fact that the current struggles of the major religion in the US is proof of that.
Few Christian groups are defending biblical Christian values. The most visible and active groups are fighting for power and influence, knowing that the numbers of those loyal to them are shrinking. The values aren’t that important. The power and the influence over the government is.
Make no mistake.
Think about it.
Thanks for reading!
