In the USSR there was a phrase: “Religion is the opium of the people.” Karl Marx, thanks to whom this phrase became so popular, saw religion as an institution of social slavery. But this is his vision.
Indeed, in a sense it is opium. After all, why do we need religion? It helps relieve the pain faced by man as an individual and humanity as a whole. She helps to live.
Let's talk in detail about why a person needs religion.
What is the goal?
Perhaps let's talk about the Christian religion. Most of the population in Russia are Christians. And many would be interested in figuring out why and what they believe?
Why do people need religion? To answer this question, we must ask another: why do I believe? What is my goal?
The most savvy will answer: in order to be saved and end up in Paradise. Let's assume we were saved. What's next?
We want to be with God in eternal life. We stood next to Him, and then? Why do we want to be saved and go to heaven?
“To glorify God,” will be the answer. Does He need our glorification? God is just waiting for us to come to Paradise and begin to sing psalms to him. And is it normal to spend an eternity singing psalms? Won’t God get tired of listening to them endlessly, and the saved one will get tired of singing?
Then why do we long to be saved? Let's think: what can you do endlessly?
While we're thinking about this question, let's talk about some possible answers.
Spirituality for Dummies
If your intellectual development is at a snail's level, you are overwhelmed with guilt and shame (perhaps due to drug use or suicidal thoughts), and then you switch to religion, then perhaps this turn will help you rise to a higher level of consciousness. However, your thinking is still flawed; you have only exchanged one set of erroneous views for another.
For most intelligent people who do not suffer from low self-esteem to begin with, religion sharply lowers the level of awareness. While some religious beliefs give the illusion of empowerment, in general religion saddles you with a huge set of false beliefs about reality.
When you become immersed in religion, you replace your own independent thoughts with a nebulous group mind. Instead of learning to discern truth on your own, you are simply told what to believe. This does not accelerate your spiritual growth, but on the contrary, it slows down its development. The task of religion is to turn off the human mind.
Leave mythology aside and learn to think for yourself. Your mind is a better tool for spiritual growth than any religious teachings.
For love?
Why is religion needed in the modern world? What do we find in the Christian faith? Love is one of the answers. And love. But is it only her? Is it possible to love endlessly? It is possible, but in eternal life there is no love as we understand it. We don't like our parents, children and spouses there. Moreover, we forget about them in eternal life.
Then it turns out that love is needed only here on earth? There is only God's love for us.
Science has definitely proven that there is no God. Why are there still so many believers in the modern world?
Science has never set itself such a task, since it is engaged in the study of facts and phenomena observed in this world. Everything transcendental (i.e., going beyond its limits) is not an object of scientific research. Therefore, the basic religious truth - the existence of God - in principle cannot be the subject of scientific refutation.
Continuing the topic, read Sergei Khudiev’s material “Hasn’t science proven that there is no God?” from our project “Dialogue with Atheists: Orthodox Arguments.”
Religion out of fear?
Why does a person need religion? Some believe out of fear. It would seem that it even sounds strange, to say the least. How is this possible?
For example, a person is afraid to die. It's normal, death is scary. Dying is not scary, the unknown is scary: what will death be like? And what awaits us after it?
A person begins to seek protection from his fears. But who can protect against the fear of death? Only the Lord. Thanks to him, there is hope for salvation, because the Lord does not lie. And if he said that there is heaven and hell, that everyone can be saved, then that means it is so.
If a person lives righteously, but is an unbeliever, is he by definition worse than any believer for God?
God is Love, therefore He loves all people absolutely equally, without giving preference to believers. But only those who believe in God are able to accept this divine love and respond to it. For non-believers, all the actions of God’s love seem to be just a coincidence of circumstances and a blind play of chance.
Similar questions regularly come to our “Question to a Priest” :
• Will non-Christians be saved? • Will only the Orthodox be saved? • Will the natives be saved?
Faith from sinful pain
Why is religion needed in modern society? Because it hurts. It hurts because of your sins. And you can only get healing through religion.
The goal of religion is the salvation of the human soul. The first people, Adam and Eve, were sinless. Until they violated the commandment given to them by the Creator. They, as we remember, according to the teaching of the serpent, ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. And when the Lord denounced the forefather and mother of mankind, they did not repent of what they had done. On the contrary, they began to make excuses and blame each other (and the snake).
This is how the fall of Adam and Eve happened. Their sin fell on the entire human race. And people, due to their coarsened state, are simply not able to save themselves. How to save fallen humanity? This is why Jesus Christ came into the world, incarnate from the Blessed Virgin Mary and God. The Son of God became the very sacrifice necessary to restore the broken harmony between God and man. Jesus Christ accepted death on the cross, which was shameful and painful in those days. Humanity now has a chance for salvation.
But that was more than 2000 years ago. What now? Have people stopped sinning? Hardly. Modern society is mired in such sins that our ancestors never dreamed of. But sooner or later a moment arises when an individual understands: it is impossible to live like this any longer. He is fed up with sin, although he himself does not yet understand it. It’s just that “my soul somehow feels lousy.” And where to go with a heavy, tormented soul? Only to the temple, where it can be cleansed. So a person comes to religion through sinful pain.
State: why does he need it?
Why does the state need religion? Many people believe that it can be used to control a stupid herd of people. But do people really believe in the state? People believe in God, and many modern Christians are quite educated. Just like the priests are already a little different. Previously, it was enough for the priest to say that it looks like this and that. This will not work with modern people. They will start asking: what, how and why? You have to explain, and if the priest cannot explain what he himself said, it is unlikely that the flock will be imbued with such trust.
Decoding
It would seem that sociology cannot say anything about the origin of our knowledge. Sociology can explain where our opinions, our ideas come from, why people believe certain things and not others - but can sociology say anything about what we know reliably? We learn about the world around us experimentally, carry out some experiments on it, and further improve our understanding of how the world around us works. It seems that sociology has no place here.
Let's think about how this model of knowledge works. Firstly, it is cumulative, that is, knowledge accumulates little by little. Once upon a time, humanity knew very little, and then, as methodological tools, our arsenal, with the help of which we understand the world, are improved, people begin to know more and more. We are correcting those shortcomings and filling in the gaps that we had before. Secondly, this knowledge has its own laws of development, it evolves according to its own principles of evolution. We once knew much less, then we know more and more and we understand that in the future we will know even more.
Religion and modernity
Why do we need religion in the 21st century? The age of new technologies, the standard of living is completely different. And suddenly - some kind of wildness in the form of religion.
Wildness? Hardly. Just in our crazy age, when the world is ruled by technology, religion is needed. Concepts are distorted and replaced, values are destroyed. What used to be shameful is now considered the norm. And what was in the order of things is ridiculous for modern society.
What is held in high esteem now? Power and wealth. Everyone wants to live well: well-fed and rich. Most of us strive for power. albeit not in the global sense of the word, because it is clear that you can’t get to the “cream”, the places there have long been firmly occupied. But you are welcome to take the leadership chair. It is no longer held in high esteem to be an ordinary hard worker; those who have not become rich and have not sat in the soft chair of a leader are treated with disdain.
And where can one find refuge in this crazy world with distorted values? Where else is there anything real? In religion. God does not change his commandments; they are relevant at all times. His teaching does not change either. Is God waiting for lost children to turn to Him?
He has been waiting for two thousand years,
And with him are the apostles, the Forerunner.
And the Ever-Virgin is God's light.
When is it the moment of a cherished meeting?
The lines from the poem by nun Maria (Mernova) perfectly reflect the true values of Christ. It doesn’t matter to him how much money this or that person earned, and what position he held during his lifetime. For God, the main thing is the human soul. In pursuit of imaginary values, people forget about their most important treasure. And religion is needed in order to find time for one’s own soul in the bustle of rapidly passing days.
Toilet time management
If you devote a lot of time to religious rituals, it's safe to say that you are practicing toilet time management, flushing most of your precious life straight down the toilet without the slightest benefit to yourself.
Firstly, you spend a lot of time filling your head with useless nonsense. This includes reading the worst fiction ever written. This also includes numerous rules, laws and practices.
Seriously, if you have insomnia, try reading religious texts before bed. You'll fall asleep faster than you finish reading the page. Why do you think hotels put Bibles next to their beds? This is the best sedative known to mankind. Scientologists even went a little overboard by including ]]>space aliens]]> in their stories. It's a shame that Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek) didn't formally declare his religion; Stovokor (the band that recorded the Star Trek soundtrack) sounds great.
Once you realize how much crap is filling your head, you need to get rid of all that crap to allow your brain to function normally again. This may take much longer than you think, or it may not happen at all. The process is similar to trying to remove AOL from your hard drive.
Secondly, you spend a lot of time on all sorts of rituals and ceremonies, such as participating in meetings of your religious community, studying prayers, psalms and other mantras.
If you add up all the time I spent going to church, Sunday school, studying religion in college and cramming various prayers, you can count several thousand hours of wasted time. Although, I still learned some lessons from this. They, in fact, formed the basis of this article.
I remember well the many hours of sermons that the priests read to us, most of whom were completely mediocre speakers. Perhaps they had problems with diction because they drink alcohol while on duty.
I don’t know what makes people deliberately throw away several years of their lives in order to study the dead language of religious scriptures.
The more time you spend on religious practices, the more time you devote to meaningless, unnecessary activities... and the harder you will try to convince yourself to believe the false phrase “Yes, yes, this is what I wanted to do all along.”
Everyone has his own path
Why do people need religion? How do they even come to her? As mentioned above, everyone's path is different. Someone begins to believe out of fear, someone is tormented by their conscience and seeks consolation in church, while others simply love God. And this is quite possible; no one has ever canceled love for the Lord. It’s another matter that such love is instilled from childhood. If the parents did not question why religion was needed, they did not think about it and with their lives showed the child what faith is, then the child will follow in their footsteps.
Finding love for God as an adult is much more difficult. But this is possible with great desire and striving for Him.
Is it true that an abundance of knowledge interferes with pure faith?
Gnoseomachy (denial of human cognitive efforts) in the Church is considered a false teaching, a heresy: “They reject the necessity for Christianity of all knowledge. They say that those who seek any knowledge in the Divine Scriptures do it in vain, for God does not require anything else from a Christian except good deeds. So, it is better to live rather more simply and not be curious about any dogma related to knowledge,” this is how St. John of Damascus conveys the teaching of the heresy of the Gnoseomachus.
Priest Roman Posypkin talks in more detail about gnoseomachy, as well as about the difference between simplicity and ignorance:
• What is Gnoseomachy?
The right to choose
Why do we need religion if God doesn't care about people? This question creates a stupor. You begin to carefully ask: what does it mean? And you get a heated monologue on the topic that God allows tragedies, deaths, wars and the like.
Sorry, but God is not a puppet master. And we are not puppets to be controlled by pulling strings. God gave us freedom of action and the right to choose. This does not mean that He abandoned us on the principle of “do what you want.” Not at all. God controls people through events in their lives, speaks to us like this. But if we are blind and continue to stick to our line, what does God have to do with it? If we don't want to stop and think, turn and ask Him, whose fault is it? Obviously not God, but man.
“Knock and it will be opened to you, ask and it will be given to you,” said the Lord. He did not say that as soon as you ask and you will immediately receive. He says ask and knock. Annoy with requests, show that you really need it. That your desire to receive something is ardent. And when you asked once and that’s all, is what you asked really necessary? If a child wants something, he will constantly pester the parent with a request. We must do the same.
Loss of deep spiritual perception
One of the worst mistakes you can make in life is to attach your identity to one particular religion or philosophy. Start saying “I am a Christian” or “I am a Buddhist.” This imposes on your mind the obligation to adhere to a certain point of view, abandoning the entire depth of perception of the surrounding reality. You can no longer perceive reality as it really is. If this prospect seems normal to you, what do you think about the proposal to knock out one of your eyes? Would you benefit from a single, fixed point of view, rather than a complex brain analysis of two streams of images coming from each eye separately? Or do you still like stereo effects?
At their core, religious “truths” are fixations of your point of view, while real truth is independent of point of view. When you replace truth with religious beliefs, you confuse shadows with sources of light. Consequently, you condemn yourself to clumsily wandering in the twilight. Clarity becomes inaccessible to you, and the best explanation for what is happening for you will be the statement that life is a big mystery. Religious mysteries, however, do not arise around truly unknowable things; they arise from the impossibility of understanding reality in a fixed frame of reference.
A more sensible approach is to look at reality from different perspectives, without trying to filter your perceptions through the lens of a religious structure.
If it's not given?
And when you ask and ask, but nothing is given? The question arises: then why do we need religion?
It's simple: if children ask us for something that, from their point of view, is very necessary, and we have prepared the best gift for them, will they get what they ask for? As a last resort, if it is useful. We will try to persuade the baby to be patient.
What if a son or daughter asks for something that won’t benefit them at all? Will we fulfill such a request, knowing in advance that we will harm our little blood?
Likewise, God, will He fulfill our requests, knowing that this is harmful? He is Our Father, and not one loving father would want to harm his child.
Material support for parasites
In addition to a huge waste of time, passion for religion is associated with serious financial expenses.
At the very beginning, you are limited to small donations that go towards attracting other newcomers. Perhaps this is not exactly the way you wanted to use your money? If you are tempted to donate money, find another, more noble reason. Go out and do something that really helps people. If you have absolutely no ideas about this, take a can of paint and paint over obscene inscriptions on the nearest fence.
Most religious tax collectors do not use your donations to benefit the community. I am sure there are priests whose work inspires respect and brings real benefit to society, but in most cases this is not within their competence. In addition, fees from religious organizations are generally not taxed, so the church is essentially a parasite on ordinary taxpayers. Despite the small amounts of donations, if you consider their number, you can understand how much money is circulating there.
To generate additional income, all religions offer believers a number of similar services. Under a continuous stream of incomprehensible gibberish, you will be treated to a cracker and a glass of Cahors, and then they will announce that now you and your loved one have somehow become closer to each other. In some religious movements, it is customary to wave a smoking, pungently smelling vessel, in others, excess skin is cut off from a person, in others, they pour water on you and cut off a tuft of hair, in fourths, they take upon themselves the responsibility to forgive you for your mistakes and even crimes. But it always ends the same. They present you with an invoice, the only difference from other invoices is that instead of “paid .
When you donate money to religious organizations, you are doing much worse than just throwing money away. You are funding evil. Or do you think that spending a billion dollars to protect pedophiles and molesters is a good use of funds collected from donors? It is difficult to imagine a more blasphemous use of human donations. Even Wall Street hucksters do better, at least they are honest about their greed and lust.
One of my spiritual mentors in Catholic school turned out to be a child molester. I accidentally came across an article about this in the local newspaper. In my youth, I did not notice anything suspicious in the behavior of our teacher, and, to be honest, I even loved him. Therefore, I was simply shocked when the truth about his extracurricular activities was revealed. True, he did not teach with us for long. His superiors, who obviously knew about his liking for young flesh, constantly transferred him from place to place. I'm glad I managed to escape his attention, but sad for those who weren't so lucky. I think God needs to raise the standards for his earthly servants a little.
Why are Catholic priests prohibited from marrying? This has nothing to do with what is written in the Bible and does not provide any benefits. This rule was invented by the church so that clergy would not have heirs. All the property of the priests, after their death, always goes to the church, increasing its wealth. Apparently God needs even more money. This extremely effective system has led to the fact that the church is now one of the richest and most influential organizations in the world. And this is not surprising, given the financial system described above.
Ordinary believers (not the clergy), on the contrary, are encouraged to have large families, thereby supplying the church with more new followers. Condoms are prohibited in all religions. Get married, have more children, bring them to church, and we take on further brainwashing - this is roughly the general meaning of all the instructions that priests give to their parishioners.
Are you still convinced that donating your money to such a structure is truly a “good deed”?
To become, perhaps, one of them?..
And yet - why?
Remember what we talked about at the very beginning? What is the purpose of our faith? Why does modern man need religion? Answers to the question may vary. We've already covered them. Basically, the most savvy answer that the goal is to save their soul.
Why should we save ourselves? Well, we were saved and went to heaven, what next? Glorify God's eternity? This will bother both Him and the saved one.
Why then save yourself? And why is religion needed? What is its meaning? In knowledge. We know God through the world He created.
If you tell a resident of Africa that there is winter in Russia, he will believe it. But if you tell us that in the summer it’s hot and green, in the fall the trees begin to lose their leaves, and in the winter the temperature drops well below zero, the trees are bare, and the ground is covered with solid snow, this will cause bewilderment. Is it possible? Everything is green, and then it’s cold and there are no leaves on the trees, the grass doesn’t grow? The African will not believe the stories. Especially if you add that in the spring the snow melts, the earth and the first grass appear, the leaves on the trees emerge.
But if he sees the seasons with his own eyes, gets to know them, he will believe. We are the same, like that African: we do not believe until we are convinced, we do not know. True, knowledge is sometimes given too hard and through the sorrows of life. But this is a separate topic.
So what is the purpose of salvation? What can you do forever? Self-improvement and knowledge, these things can be done forever. In this life we learn to know God, we are just beginning to do so. And in that life we will have eternity to know Him.
Let's summarize
The purpose of the review was to tell the reader why religion is needed in civilization, in society and for an individual. Key aspects:
- The meaning of faith and religion is the salvation of the human soul.
- Faith helps you heal spiritually.
- In the current world with its upside-down values, religion is the only stronghold where truth is still preserved.
- God gave people the right to choose. He is not a puppeteer, and we are not puppets in His hands.
- If something doesn’t work out, maybe it’s time to stop acting on the usual strategies and turn to God?
- When we are not given what we ask for, it is worth thinking: is fulfilling this request useful for us?
- Before blaming God for everything, it’s worth remembering the “right to choose” point.
Why is there no single position in the Church on each of the socially important issues?
Important issues in society arise constantly, replace each other, lose their importance or acquire new meanings in accordance with the life and needs of this society. But most of them relate entirely to this earthly life. Christ clearly said - My kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). And the task of the Church is to prepare a person to enter this Kingdom. Therefore, the Church voices its position only on those socially important issues of our time that can affect the fate of man in Eternity.
Read our materials from the “ Church and Society ” section:
• Does the Church participate in public life? • Is the church behind the times? — Vladimir Legoida responds to Tina Kandelaki and Ekaterina Vinokurova • The church and each specific parish should be open to people of various political views, - Archpriest Maxim Kozlov
