Positive and Negative Effects of Religion
Introduction
India is a secular country where people have liberty to follow any religion of their choice. It is the country where people of different religions such as Hinduism, Muslim, Sikhism, and Christianity, stay together. However, religion has positive and negative impact on the people. It brings everyone together. People with the same religion forms a community and follow sacred rituals. This provides them moral framework, and a direction to attain peace and salvation. However, due to differences in religion, various sects fight against each other. It acts as a conflict in the world. Let us see more about the positive and negative impacts of religion in detail.
Positive Impact of Religion
Religion plays a significant role in the society. Some of its positive impact are as follows:
Promotes Social Harmony
Religion trusts supernatural powers, and beings. It practices ceremonious rites, and rituals and respect religious leaders such as priestesses, priests, shamans etc. By integrating and alleviating countries, and cultures, religion contributes to overall harmony in the world.
Provides Moral Values
Another significant benefit of religion is that it encourages moral values in a person. It offers an organized model of the entire universe that regulates sophisticated human behavior. By providing moral values, religion helps people to distinguish between right and wrong, evil and good. It offers a system of punishment, and reward that supervises and normalizes humanâs behavior in this society.
Religion teaches that All Are One. People start to see themselves in others. It teaches human values to people. A person who is religious and love God, will never indulge in any anti-social or harmful activities.
Provides Social Change
By inculcating moral value to people, religion serves as a platform for social change. It is hard to be involved in public demonstration, and politicization for social issues when your moral teachings teaches you to be unargumentative. Religion teaches you to solve issues with peace and non-violence and not by agitation and violence.
Reduces Anxiety of the Unknown
Many people are afraid of their future. Some have anxiety about how will be their life after death. Religion helps them to realize their source / origin and where they are destined to go after their death. It teaches people how to live life and what will a person take away with him after death. Religion gives answers to all these questions and help a lot to relieve one from the fear and anxiety of unknown.
Gives Positive Goal in Life
Religion gives you a purpose in life. it brings ignorant people on the right path and prevent them from getting misled. Different prophets such as the Moses, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama, etc. have come to the Earth from time to time to teach people about their mission in life. It is when they forget their true purpose in life, they tend to suffer from misery. Religion saves people from drowning and encourage them to self-introspect in order to enhance their quality of life.
Gives a Sense of belongingness to people
Like family, nationality, and ethnicity, religion also inculcates a sense of belongingness and familiarity among people. Religion makes people identify as a part of one group that has similar beliefs, worldviews, practices, lifestyles, and values.
Negative Impact of Religion
Fills people with hatred
Some people preach others that by getting born under a specific religion they have committed a sin. They manipulate them and spread bad things about their religion. This fills their minds with hatred, resentment, and bitterness. So, they start to hate themselves. There are communities that shows that their religion is the best and everyone should convert into their religion. Such demands on the grounds of religion are baseless, and unethical.
Causes Discrimination Among People
Religion is one of the causes that turns people against each other. They canât tolerate religious ideologies of other people. Religion discriminates people, and puts them into categories from upper section to lower section / untouchables.
Triggers fights, and conflicts
Religion has been the major reason for several wars that have happened in the past. Some of these dreaded events such as Self-Immolation of one Buddhist Monk in Vietnam, Burning of Hindu Widows in India, The Godhra Train Episode in 2002, etc. are still remembered by people.
A thousand of people are killed in these wars. Several families are destroyed. Several women become widow and several children become orphan. There are countless injuries and deaths for the sake of religion. Such riots, and attacks are still prevalent today.
Exploit People
Religion also serve as an economic tool to exploit people and create differences among masses. According to the opinion of the Karl Marx, a renowned German philosopher, Religion works as an opium for the people.â It creates power struggle between minority and majority, that sometimes escalate into occurrence of shocking historical events in the world.