What are the functions of religion in the individual and in the society.?

Question

-what is the relationship of religion and theology?

Answer 1

in certain ways religion tame the savage beast within us.  it gives us that spiritual oomph that gives soc its rationality and sanity.  but when relig tries to control everything and comes out with dogmas  after dogmas stifling our lives - it loses its main purpose of spiritualizing and uniting societies.  

look at the pope - how his vast empire of controlling all of europe dwindled to 0.44sq km - the vatican city.  those early popes meddled into things that they shouldnt.  

religion comes fr the latin word relegare - to bind to unite.  

so we can see how it has lost its purpose.  our christian religion is now divided into more than 6000 sects. why? we ask ourselves - its all a matter of one upmanship.  ego after ego.  i'm better than you.  mine is better than yours.

theology is the study of relig and the supernatural being we call God.  but it has been hijacked by the clergy and its all bias for that one particular religion.

there is no diff with the other religions.  islam has around a thousand sects.  hinduism, buddhism , judaism too

i suppose thats the reason why God keep on sending messiahs / messengers / manifestations to remind we stupid  human that the spiritual message is eternal and one and the same.  time changes and therefore we hv to adapt relig to our times / environment.   so far, the most reasonable religion that i hv discovered is the bahai faith where it doesnt run down any other religion.  it tries to develop and foster unity among the pple of all religion. it has no clergy and no rituals hence incumbent upon everyone to investigate what is religion, what shld religion be and how relig can unite the communities / society / nations.  in this case, this relig says - elevation of happiness, overcoming extremes of wealth & poverty, gender equality, new rationalized scio-econ-politico system.  non-reliance on miracles and and service to humanity is the highest form of worship.

this is worthy of some investigation.  it gives a new meaning to the word religion.

Answer 2

Since the dawn of time, humans have always had both curiosity and fear about phenomena they can't explain. So to provide some stability to explain away phenomena, they create a "god" or "being" that is responsible for it all.  This gives people a sense of belonging to something, even though it is invisible and all powerful.  The down side is when that "belief system" becomes institutionalized, with an heirachy that becomes all powerful by pretending to act as the mediator between the people and the "god."

To-day, whole nations are in conflict with each other over who has the right and only god, which is ludicrous.  This all stems from the original intent - to explain phenomena by creating an all powerful "being." Also to-day, we have believers, non-believers, atheists, pagans, etc. which is simply labelling and putting people in boxes..  A total waste of time, because ALL humans have a sense of spirituality within them.  This whole atmosphere of "I'm better than you," or "my god is the true god" is both silly and dangerous.