Religion: Misguidance, Means of Control and the Real Purpose

Over the years, men have tried to find an explanation to the different eventualities of life, from its creation to acts of nature, and life events such as birth, development, reproduction and death; especially to those events that cause fear and confusion, or that simply can not be explained objectively or without arguments based on faith or belief in forces beyond our reach. The source and control of those forces were gradually being attributed to entities of higher power, divine of nature, and as a way of venerating those entities men created religion. Religion is merely a creation of men to fulfill the need to worship those divine entities believed to have created life and all of its contents, it is a way to regulate faith and a mean of control over the masses and sadly, it has been deviated from his real essence over the years.

Since early ages, the need to explain most natural and supernatural events has brought humanity to assume the existence of a source of life that is also responsible for the creation of basically everything that we know and the world we live in. In order for people to be able to assimilate the existence of that source of life, it was necessary to create a set of rules and a protocol to formalize and to accept that force and make it part of our daily life, men needed to acknowledge that force, submit to it and create a cult towards it to eventually turn it into an institution, the church. At that point man had found God and man had created religion.

The role of religion was at first to serve as common ground for people to unite and exercise their faith, gradually a simple gathering of people to say a prayer evolved into a more elaborated meeting were things irrelevant to the very nature of faith became important, such as the building were those meetings were held, the status or rank of the people who assisted and the influence these associations of people will have on politics and other aspects of human society. These religious associations diversified as the canons of one particular group stopped appealing to one of its members and he decides at some point to detach from his group and initiate one of his own (the Lutheran church is an example of this). This way, that primal need of man to believe in deities and worship them subjectively developed into all the different religions we know today. All major religions in the world vary in shapes and forms but they are all the same when it comes pursuing the ultimate goal: The search of God.

Religion has been present in every major event in human history; as a matter of fact religion is present in almost every event, regardless of nature or magnitude. Religion has been of vast influence to world leaders and it has been used to control and manipulate entire countries, especially those in ways of development, it has been used to prosecute enemies and people affecting the interest of powerful religious institutions.

The crusades, the evangelization of the new-discovered America, the missions to virgin and uncorrupted parts of the world and some other actions have been perpetuated using religion as an excuse to hide the real agendas of imperialism and economic interests. Religion has evolved into an elaborated set of rules and regulations similar to the constitution of a country. The church has served as the facilitator and enforcer of all those rules, religion has lost its fundamental purpose, it should be no more and no less than a way for men to exercise his faith, to communicate with God and a complement of life itself.

Religion should be a way of life, an attitude and a simple predisposition to follow the teachings of faith in God and Love. What is written in the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and all the sacred books of all the religions in the world can be translated to one word and that word is Love, and the best religion of all should be to live and practice Love. Without the need of a complicated set of rules -written by men, by the way, - an elegant baroque building, and a high ranked religious leader -once again, chosen by men. - The real religion and the real faith should exist within us.

Life on earth is brief and it is also a chance to learn something, to be someone, to build patrimony and to leave a legacy. Life is a constant opportunity to improve. The theory of reincarnation says that the soul of one person will reborn in a new body after the current one dies and it also specify that if in its current life, that person was not able to improve, then his soul will have to come back to life in a situation very similar to the failed one, with the same hardships and tribulations and will have another chance to live through the same things once again until that person does something to improve and therefore, gain the opportunity to a better life (Michael Newton, The Journey of Souls, 2006).

Religion is based on earthly rules, not dictated by any supreme being; most religious doctrines are intended to inflict the fear of God in their followers in attempts to control them through that fear. What people do not realize is that God is not to be feared and there is no such thing as the wrath of God. People are warned since childhood about the eternal suffering of hell and now thanks to Dante, we have a fairly detailed picture of what that hell looks like. But who in his right mind would in fact believe that perfection and eternal life in heaven can be achieved in one lifetime? Or, that someone who makes mistakes throughout his whole life is deserving of eternal punishments in hell?

The concept of religion is good in essence, religion begins within each one of us, and it is not to be practiced on Sunday and to be forgotten the rest of the week, but rather to be adopted on our everyday life. All those books and all those rules should be left for politicians and lawmakers, all the wealth gathered by the church should be distributed among people in need and all those frustrated ministers of faith should be released from their man-imposed duties so they can have a family and enjoy life, just like any other human being. Religion as we know it, has served many purposes throughout the ages, the church as an institution has been present in almost every aspect of history, but the way we know religion, nowadays, is merely a creation of men, and it has been deviated from his essence.