An Open Letter to a Sad or Depressed Person
Dear sad or depressed person,
In my English class, we have been completing a project about if religious institutions have done more harm than good. Through this project, I have realized that religion provided with explanations to the people’s questions through the years when science didn’t exist yet. I wanted to write to you, specifically, because you need moral support. But you might be wondering, what does this get to do with religion? Based on my research, I argue that religious institutions have done more harm than good to societies because religion was the source of lots of war and violence and religion prevented humanity from progressing forward.
To start, religion was the source of lots of war and violence. To give context on this issue, wars were the cause of religion that made it possible because people thought that their religion is better than others. According to Paul Goodman, in the work titled, “The Pros and Cons of Religion”, it states,“[That] Religion has historically been a source of war on conflict between people ever since people started believing in it. Religious people tend to believe that their particular religion is the only correct one and all the others are false.” Why is the cause of wars and violence caused by religions? The start of wars came from religion because people think that the religion they are believing is true and others are wrong. People have different opinions about everything. This information is significant because well-known wars like the Crusades, the Thirty Years’ War, and the Inquisition, shown that religion is the cause of wars. It leads to people getting hurt and being violent towards the opposing religion. Additionally, according to Paul Goodman in their work titled, “The Pros and Cons of Religion,” it states, “Religion often uses fear to gain itself power, such as threatening people with Hell.” This information is significant because, to make people faithful to their religion, they will have to follow rules to have a good or bad afterlife. Overall this data shows that religion caused harm to all of us throughout the many centuries ago.
Furthermore, religion prevented humanity from progressing forward. To give some context on this issue, religion didn’t make humans explore new ideas and discovering new topics. According to Catherine Giordano in their work titled, “Does Religion Do More Harm Than Good”, “People become used to accepting superstition instead of science, magic instead of reason. This type of thinking makes people vulnerable to all types of charlatans.” This means that people are always following religion instead of science because if people believe in their religion, they will have an afterlife. The way people think makes them exposed to fake knowledge. This information is significant because religion helps answer the people’s questions and religion kept the people from learning new ideas about the world. According to BCC, that is principally funded through license paid by the UK and has many multi-award-winning channels for children observed that in their work titled, “Reasons People Choose Atheism,” it states, “[M]any people are atheists because they think there is no evidence for God’s existence — or at least no reliable evidence. They argue that a person should only believe in things for which they have good evidence.” This information is significant because even though there is the bible accounting Jesus and stories of others. How can we believe that if the scriptures of God are true or false? Overall, this data shows that people were able to break free from the chains of religion and were able to learn more about the world around them. Humanity kept on moving with the work of science. The people had new ideas through science and eventually, people wanted to oppose the church because of their beliefs.
Some might argue, religion can bring a sense of hope to people and it gives meaning and purpose. Religion makes people happier and that people are more satisfied with their lives than non-believers. Not a relationship with God makes the people happy. Is religion the only sense of hope for people? Aren’t there other ways of hoping? While this is true, other ways that people can have a sense of hope is through support from others and some words of encouragement. Therefore, there are other ways of having hope besides religion.
Therefore, I implore you to have a talk with a friend about problems in your life and to be positive at all times so that you won’t feel hopeless, lonely, and depressed. You might be saying, “Will your solution work to my problems?” This will make a difference in your life because even though it may solve some of your problems, you will eventually change and having hope allows you to approach problems with a mindset to able to have success and increase your chances of accomplishing your task, or goals.
Thank You,
Jaden Dela Cruz
