What is the Purpose of Religion?

I heard a question not too long ago that made me think deeply to find an answer to it. Unfortunately, I still can not find an answer to it. The question is simple: Does the light of God guide us or blind us? Now first one would ask what is the light of God. The question was asked in the context of religion. Thus, the light of God is religion. So the question then can be reformatted to: Does Religion guide us or blind us?

There are many religious people who will state without thinking for a second that religion does guide us. People who are less religious might take a minute or two to give an answer but will most likely agree with the religious people. Finally, atheists, agnostics or anyone like me will ponder this question. If we take a look at history we will notice that all religions had their share of blundering and some continue to this day. But is it the fault of the people or the mistake of the religion itself? Some will argue that it is the mistake of the people who do not follow the guidelines of the religion. But we must ask here, isn't religion made by the people anyways? While the word of God may be one, however the interpretation is certainly made by humans. It was humans who wrote the bible and decide what to include and not include in it. Same goes for the Torah and the Quran. But let us not get lost in all the religions. Let us focus on Christianity since that is what I am familiar most with.

If we look at Christianity we will see that it is founded on the Bible which comes in different versions and is even written by different people and we are not exactly sure what was excluded out of it and why. According to Wikipedia.org: "By the authority of a list written by Irenaeus in the first part of the second century, the Church, under the East Roman Empire, selected four gospels deemed to have preserved the authentic tradition. (Irenaeus writes four is a magical and complete number, etc.) The many other gospels that then existed were deemed non-canonical and suppressed ." Thus, thanks to Irenaeus, who was a Bishop and is held as a saint in the Catholic church, we have this Bible that we read today and we form our beliefs on. This means that if someone else came up with another list we would have a different Bible with different gospels and maybe even a different numbers of gospels. Furthermore, if we really take a deep look at the Bible, we will find out many things that make the Bible less believable. For instance, up until 325 A.D. the Christian church did not have a uniform doctrine. Some, the Arians, even believed that Jesus was not the son of God and that he was just God's creation. Thus, in the Council of Nicaea, the Church denounced the Arian view of Christianity and even exiled all of those who held these beliefs and their books were burned. These beliefs however continued for many centuries after.

Assuming that the church in the past made mistakes, as the Catholic church claims, and that they are correcting the mistakes of yesterday. How do they explain the sexual molestation by Catholic priests which only couple of days the the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a settlement agreement Saturday with more than 500 people who allege they were sexually abused by clergy for a record $660 million. But that is not the only settled case, according to CNN.com, "among the largest total payouts was $100 million in 2004 by the Diocese of Orange, California, to settle 90 claims. The Diocese of Boston agreed in 2003 to pay $84 million for 552 cases, the same figure the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, agreed last year to pay to settle about 360 claims." But that is not it. CNN reports that "facing a flood of abuse claims, five dioceses -- Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego, California -- sought bankruptcy protection." The numbers are drastic and appalling and these are not the only ones. How can the church explain that? How can the church explains the disgusting behavior of men who are supposed to be representatives of God in the house of God? Because as far as I know, it does not say anywhere in the Bible that thou shall molest.

Now let us give the church the benefit of the doubt and say that these were men who lost their way and lost their "holiness". Can someone explain to me the weird behavior of the pope? The pope just released a document that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. Not only that but Orthodox churches are "defected" because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope. Thus, the Catholic church is coming out with a doctrine that basically said all other Christians do not follow the "true" church and thus they will not be saved of course. Now I am pretty sure that Jesus Christ, the source of all Christianity, was very adamant about the fact that we must love everyone, not judge others and be accepting of others. This new Catholic doctrine takes the word of Jesus, or God, and just completely ignores it and even throws it in the trash. This doctrine can not be the word of God.

There are many other problems that can be attributed to Christianity. For instance, Why are women so ignored? Why is the role of Mary Magdalene denied? Why is the church so patriarchal? How is it that Mormonism is part of Christianity and it claims that Jesus was in the US and some sects of it practice polygamy? Just recently a leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was indicted on sexual conduct with minor including rape and incest charges. How can the church let organizations such as the Promise Keepers or even the Navigators who use religion to invoke the right of men over women in life exist without any rules or limits ?

There is no doubt that religion brings peace to people. I am not here to say or claim that religion is bad. I am simply stating that we must be very careful of what we believe in and what we dismiss. To some religion is guidance, to others it is blindness. The question is can we save the people who are blinded or is it too late? Can we correct our mistakes? Can we use religion in the proper way not for any other reasons? Only time will tell.