Does anyone feel like religion is designed to control a large mass of people?

Question

Being born a Muslim female i had time to explore a little of both worlds: submissiveness to Islam and Hayat-tu-Duna(misspelled) and i starting to think religion is designed to keep order and control the minds of a large mass of people.

Do you agree of disagree and Why???

Answer 1

If that was the case why have so many dictators tried to kill religion?:

Only by destroying religion can you control the masses!

That's the hope of the Atheist leaders of the world. and you can believe this it is not to free you from any bounds.

Answer 2

Well of course it is.  It has always been a great political tool for the elite to contain the masses.

Answer 3

No kidding. Why else was spreading their religion such a huge point for the British while they built their empire? Without it, British values had a harder time sticking to the colonies.

Answer 4

Yes.  It's pure socialism.  

Answer 5

what is the purpose of your life???

http://www.youtubeislam.com/video/1874/P...

Answer 6

Well, let's look at the history of beliefs and religions. Prior to Judeaism and Christianity or even Islam, most every culture had a multi deity belief system. The Greeks and Romans were more defined and intricate. Even in the Christian bible, the telling of the daughter that took her fathers God/ess statues and hid them, is proof to that fact.

The change to a single deity belief came out of the need to group large tribes together and to control a mass of people to one idea. It was much simpler. Before the single deity beliefs, the belief in multi deity, which in most the commanding deity was a female aspect.

Since men were the "warriors" and protectors of the tribe or communty, the figure of a male dominated deity came into play. The God of the Abrahamic religions first started it's existence as a "war" god. A god of power, prowess, strength, with vengence and the law of rightousness for it's people. As man progressed scientifically and techonologically, the single deity "god" became more of an intellectual being but still with the power and strength that mimic'd the major Gods of war and justice to the known world which were the Greco Roman deities. Even over the thousands of years of Egyptian rule, their deities became fewer and fewer until only the female and male god and goddess were left, then only the combination deity of the Sun was prominant and that was about until 900 ad. This is when the Islam faith began to grow as well as the Christian faith. Only a very few nomadic tribes and distant communities still held on to the ancient beliefs until forced conversion was established. The councel of the Holy men of each religion became more of a necessity rather than a councel of elders and much of the monarchies over the past 1500 yrs have been influenced to make decisions based on religion and it's dogma rather than common knowledge and equality. Not until the last 100 yrs and even in the past 30yrs, many of these Abrahamic beliefs have noticed that it is no longer a belief in the divine but a belief in the divine rule. Not much different that a Cesar style rule. So yes, instead of both sexes having a ruling aspect only the male aspect came into play with God being the ruling aspect and the female being the lesser, such as Mary from Christianity or even Eve from all three. And yes, the story of Adam and Eve was created to show the female aspect as the lesser deity because the "God" of the garden had created Adam and was created by God in his image (showing male dominance over female)  and then female was created from Adam by God showing that God showed favoritism to the male species. These were the creations of the lesser "gods" or "deities" which is considered the first man and woman to rule the Earth.

Now, religion as in organized religion, is a bad thing. Believing in the same belief, depending on that belief and how it works equally and no one is lesser than the other, is ok. Organized religion is meant to convert and conform in a way of control. A religious ideal or belief of a persons personal vision is not.

Blessings

Answer 7

No....Communism was though... Christians are free to come, Go and think as they please... God bless you !

Answer 8

Some religions are designed to control a large mass of people.

Some religions, as a by-product, but not by design, control a large mass of people.

For example, the goal of Christianity is for you to be God's friend.  In itself, that does not control a large mass of people.  It is only a relationship between you and God.    But while in pursuit of that purpose, you aim to please God.   And so you aim to carry out the main moral tenant of Christianity: "love one another."    If all people practiced that tenant, that would control a large mass of people.

Answer 9

Agree! Do what the church says/preaches or you will be senteced to burn for eternity in h**l, and if you abide by our rules you will go to heaven forever. They use fear to obtain rule over people.

Answer 10

Karl Marx believed that this was true.

I believe that religion can only control people if they follow everything a religious leader says like sheep and never bother to think for themselves.

I believe that every religion can be used as a reason to do good, or as an excuse to do evil.

I believe that it is up to every last one of us to decide when our pastors, coven leaders, imams, etc. are being bigots, and to refuse to give in to bigotry.

I believe that religion should work for the people, and not the other way around.

Answer 11

When it comes to Islam I believe it. Because Quran was written by one man and his motives could very well be questionable.

Not so with Bible. It was written by 40 people over a period of 1500 years. It would be foolish to ascribe motives to unrelated people.

Answer 12

You say it like it's a bad thing.

Answer 13

yes.

Plain and simple.

Many historians realize the religion is used more as a weapon.

The elites use religion as a way to control ppl, and get away with breaking laws.

Examples today:

Bush was able to win both presidencies because he catered to the religious right in a time when the US public was scared. It was not so much about terrorism, it was also the fear of Islam.

Islamists use the same tactics to scare ppl into thinking the west is against the Middle East and Islam. If the middle east had no oil, the west would not give one iota about it.