Does Religion Ally with Conformity?
Why do we follow a religion belonging to our culture and a culture belonging to our religion?
Why we face a certain way in an elevator and not the opposite way around? Why do we laugh at a not so funny joke in a comedy show with a huge crowd surrounding us or at a television show with laughter sound effects? Why in a quiet room full of people we are hesitant to raise our voice? All these questions own a one-word answer — Conformity.
Conformity can be described as the humane urge to fit in the beliefs, ideas, values and rules of the society or a group in order to stick with the crowd and not experience the discomfort or the pain by going against pre-developed social norms or cultural beliefs of the society. With the emergence of social media and hyperconnectivity, conformity is not solely derived from cultural norms but people from all over the world can criticise, condemn, approve and cancel those who combat the existing social norms and go against the masses.
Religion And Conformity:
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.
— H. P. Lovecraft
Let’s not consider the part here that religion is true or not, good or bad but the fact that we are associated with a particular religion on the day we are born. Why? Because of our parents and society we live in belief in that religion, but who made them believe it? And like we did they had an option to choose between other religions or to choose one at all? What could be the reason behind this?
The answer or one of the answers to these questions is probably conformity. Our evolutionary homo sapiens desire to live in a tribe for the sake of survival and comfort and not to go against it which might result in impeded or discomfort amongst others and make us look odd or even get ousted from the tribe derives us to not break the flow.
In the same way, the majority of people in the shadow of conformity tend to persuade a particular religion, the religion of its society without even educating themselves or questioning the existence of their hierarchical or social belief.
Every society thus is a “religion” whether it thinks so or not: Soviet “religion” and Maoist “religion” are as truly religious as are scientific and consumer “religion,” no matter how much they may try to disguise themselves by omitting religious and spiritual ideas from their lives.”
— Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
