Religion and The World

Cale Wood
Ms. Jeon
ENG3U1
November 20th 2014

"I have not come to know Atheism as a result of logical reasoning and still
less as an event in my life: in me it is a matter of instinct. I am too inquisitive, too
questioning, too high spirited to be satisfied with such clumsy answers. God is a too
palpably clumsy answer; an answer which shows a lack of delicacy towards us
thinkers - fundamentally, even a crude prohibition to us: you shall not think!" Frederick Nietzsche (dailyathiest). Religion is believed to cause good in the world
and promote kindness but really religion causes division. Religious texts can cause
discrimination, violence, it can give excuses for radical behaviour and is sometimes
forced upon people who may be frightened by it. Misinterpretation of religious texts
can have a negative effect on the world. To sum up, religion has an all around
negative effect on the world.

Many people may argue "religion brings people together" but in reality this is
not the case. Religion does not bring people together and actually divides the
world. Firstly, in my experience religion has a negative effect on family life. Church
always seemed like a chore to my family, no one really wanted to go. People would
begin to argue and our family became divided all because we felt like church was
necessary. My family soon realized that it was this continuous event every Sunday
that was making us agitated. As soon as we cut church out of our lives everyone
felt liberated and was friendlier to one another.

Most arguments that arise about religion are normally whether or not the
scenario makes any sense at all. Richard Dawkins briefly speaks about religion in
one of his quotes; "It's a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom, knowledge

and power, couldn't think of a better way to forgive us our sins then to come down
to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and
executed so that he can forgive himself."(Brain Quotes) This quote shows that
religion doesn't always make sense, and when someone voices their opinion saying
this it starts an all out argument about whether or not it makes sense to each other.
As a final point, religion has a negative effect in our daily lives because it divides us
and causes arguments between one another.

Religious disagreements cause acts of violence and contribute to wars in

various countries around the world. To start, one of the most popular and
controversial topics are the religion based war in Iraq and Iran. Both countries are
very similar but they do not share the same religious faith. Iraq is heavily Muslim
oriented while Iran is more Arabian oriented, these small differences in beliefs cause
mass wars among this once solid nation. Many border disputes arose from this
slight difference and many people died as a result of these two countries wars(IranIraq War). Furthermore, different religions have the potential to coexist together
peacefully without any problems. Unfortunately, people who follow these religions
are not as willing to do so. For example, the German population in the 1940's
believed that people of Jewish of decent were less human than other Christian
people. Nazi's ended up slaughtering many people in order to allow their religion to
be the most dominant(Adolf Hitler). To conclude, there are differences in everyone's
religious beliefs but that does not mean that people need to get into wars and
potentially wiping out another religious group.

In many cases religion can be forced on people, especially those who would
rather not want to believe in certain aspects of these religions because they don't
agree with then, but they fear prosecution. To begin, many people can be forced
into religious practices by their families and not realize the harm they are causing at
the time. Many families have an annual practice of going to church every weekend
or even in extreme cases every other day. Forcing your children to go to church is
not seen as terrible but it limits their ability to think for themselves. Going to
church can close many people's eyes to what is really happening in the world,
religion should not be forced on people and should not limit your views.
Subsequently, religion is used to frighten and suppress people in Sharia Law. In this
law it states that women are inferior to men this is obviously not true based on
today's standards of equility. In this law it states that a that a man's voice is worth
two of a woman's voice (Sharia Law). The women who realize that this is not true
are afraid of the consequences they may face if they are to say these things. That
is why religion is negatively used to force people into these faiths and some are
fearful of the consequences if they were to attempt to leave.

Many religious texts can be misinterpreted by their followers and can lead to
radical behaviour with the excuse of being for a just cause. First of all, ISIS is a
group who use radical behaviour to eliminate their opposition in the name of their
god or ancient scripture. One Third of Canadians support ISIS because these
Canadians have the same religious faith and believe ISIS is right. However, these
Canadians do not seem to realize that beheading someone is not a way to promote
your religious faith, it is a way to create fear in people who do not follow this same
religion. Furthermore, religious group who believed their extreme actions were

justified were the Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda believed people who didn't believe the same
as they did should not be allowed to believe anything other than the Taliban's
radical views and that people who did not follow their religious faith deserved
death. The Al-Qaeda acted on this issue by bombing and hurting people who did
not agree with them. In conclusion, followers of religious groups have a bad habit of
twisting the meanings of religious text and misinterpreting them.

Finally, misinterpreting religious texts have a negative effect on the world and
religion all together should be abolished. Religion has a negative effect on the
world because it causes negative behaviour toward one another. These negative
behaviours include discrimination, violence and wars, forcing faith on other people
and can cause radical behaviour that religious groups may deem justified. All in all,
religion overall has a negative effect on the world.

Works Cited

"Adolf Hitlers View on Christ." Birmingham mail. 09 Aug. 2014:21. eLibrary. Web. 20
Nov. 2014.
Bard, Mitchell Geoffrey. The complete Idiots Guide to Middle East Conflict.
Indianapolis, IN: Alpha, 1999.

Print.

"Iran-Iraq War." Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Jewish Virtual Library. n.d. Web. Nov 20th
2014
Logan, Nick. "ISIS." globalnews.ca. Nick Logan. Oct 2nd 2014
"Sharia Law," Wikipedia. n.p. Nov. 19th 2014. Web. Nov 20th 2014