Rejecting (True) Religion: Abandoning the Unnecessary

People tend to assume that when Chinese people are atheist, they are
not really anti-religion, they are just brainwashed by the government
to do. And when they immigrate to the West and become devotedly
religious, it is because they are enjoying the freedom that they did
not have back at home.

Now, at the risk of sounding purely anti-Chinese (and making this blog
way too China-focused after the last post), I would have to say that
Chinese people (in China) are not religious because they have no idea
what religion entail and simply thinks religion is some foreign idea
that is incompatible with Chinese thought.

In some ways, this belief is true. When Westerners label Confucianism
and Daoism to be "religion," they seemed to have completely ignored
their roles within Chinese (and East Asian) society and history. They
have been unifying philosophical ideas that allowed for social
integrity and political stability.

On the other hand, true religions (such as Christianity, Islam, etc.)
have always focused on allowing suffering people to find solace in the
words of the God. However, at times, it has also shown itself to be
the most violent and destructive force on Earth, sending millions to
graves amid wars over difference in beliefs. Being a double-edged
sword, it inspires philanthropy and discrimination, tolerance and
terrorism, kind hearts and vocal protests.

All the admiration these real religions tend to receives for creating
unity and peace can only be overshadowed by its tendency to divide
peoples and split countries. Through philosophical analysis of the
human nature, it can be seen that it is utterly unnecessary for humans
to survive and prosper without the influences of religion, which can
only be seen as "necessary evil" by its dominance on the human
mentality and psyche.

Now, according to the CCP (following the classic words of Karl Marx),
religion is "the opiate of the masses," a valuable tool of the
bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat content with their gloomy
situation despite unending exploitation. By praying to God, the
workers at the bottom of the society can find comfort and alleviate
the pain and suffering they endure from the ruthlessness of those
controlling the means of production. Religion should take away the
fear and the anxiety people feel at times of stress and ambiguity,
providing the soothing solace of hope and certainty.

However, as Marxists and other philosophers note, religion only
changes the outer appearance and perceptions without altering their
actually nature. Simply praising God cannot stop the proletariat from
being exploited, nor can it change failure into success. It is
aversion of horrible reality and unproductive avoidance of stress much
in the same way as students taking alcohol and drugs before a major
exam. Practitioners of various religion attempts to vigorously hide
such fact by repeatedly emphasizing the omnipotence of God and the
sacredness of the religion's texts and places.

In fact, religion, through its essentially deceptive nature, has acted
as a counterproductive force to human development for centuries.
Being a conservative force, it always prevented the utilization of new
scientific knowledge and technological progress for decades and
thereby hampered the rise in the standard of living. Especially in
the field of medicine, where religion continue to stress the healing
power of praying to God, modern medical procedures are often
questioned and criticized for "tampering with God's creation," causing
many believers to suffering in pain and eventually die from denying
needed treatments.

Some religions argued for a minimalist world where human material
possessions are limited to a minimum, essentially opposing the very
force of materialistic desire that drives the modern market economy
forward. Without the framework of the market economy, there can be
little spontaneous innovation and competition, preventing the coming
of the inventions that allow the human civilization to move into new
eras.

At the same time, religion has become a force of violence throughout
the human history, leading to death of millions over trivial
differences in interpretations of holy texts and words of prophets.
The willingness of human beings to launch "holy wars" again one
another clearly violated the call for peace and unity that are
inherent in all religions. The prime example of such is the war
fought by Catholic France and Anglican England, between the Catholic
and Lutheran German kingdoms, between Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan,
and most famous of all, Christian Europe and Muslim Middle East.

Every single one of such wars involved massive killing without any
resolution of religious differences in the end. The militant
fundamentalist movement that is the justification of terrorism is the
modern-day equivalent of such wars. People simply cannot give in to
the fact that violence cannot make others abandon their religious
beliefs and submit to the will of other Gods that they think is
heretic or pagan. People do not abandon their religions at the threat
of death.

So then, what exactly is religion? It is more than just comforting
thoughts for the present but also a promising prospectus of the
future. The unchanging nature of religion over generations allows it
to define cultures and customs that last for centuries. It is the
cultural perception of the world, its future, and all the processes
make up our living space.

But, simultaneously, it also reflects a personal connection with the
world. One's religious beliefs must be coherent with one's experience
with and understanding of the world around them. Missionary
activities that attempt to "sell" a religion to nonbelievers are
ineffective in that it cannot change overnight the people's view on
the world built up from their and their ancestors' past experiences.

Those converted from missionary activities can only be truly faithful
in that religion if they interpret the religion according their own
cultural practices. The cultural deviations among the believers lead
to starkly different sects among each of the world's major religions,
resulting in intra-religion clashes such as Catholics vs. Protestants
and Sunnis vs. Shiites.

Considering all this, is religion really necessary? The simple answer
is no. The prime effect of religion, its provision of comfortable
certainty, can be achieved in many other ways or not even necessary in
many situations. Often, it is necessary for people to give up an
idealistically optimistic view of their surroundings perpetuated by
their religious views. The understanding of rationality and knowledge
should be the guiding light of people rather than the "voice of God."

The choices one should make in life should follow reason rather than
any religious texts. Only by then can human beings take definite
steps toward understanding the physical world that they inhabit.
While most people turn to God at times of enormous stress and
desperation, the feeling of urgent anxiety can also be alleviated
through productive work to overcome the disadvantageous situations.
Over-reliance on prayers and religious texts delays or prevents the
actual resolution of problems causing stress and anxiety.

Many believers have argued the importance of religion in defining the
morality of the human beings. Morality is essentially people's own
opinion of the right and wrong. While it is true that religious texts
do tell their believers the limits of proper conducts, there are
definitely other ways to define moral behavior and restrain
wrongdoings.

Ultimately, in the modern world where legality is necessary for any
proceedings, the secular law should and can completely replace
religious texts in the source of morality. If a legal code defines an
act as criminal, it must be immoral at the same time. Of course, it
is true that many laws of today are difficult and sometimes impossible
to enforce, such as anti-smuggling and anti-illegal immigrations laws.

However, such laws still exist because they define the boundaries of
moral behavior in the country. Also, morality does not need religious
or legal documents to be upheld; some moral behaviors, such as no
stealing, are foundation of a stable society, without them, the
society will simply descend into anarchy and the human civilization
will quickly collapse from lack of order and security.

So, looking at the above aspects of religion, it can be said that if
religion was to disappear today, there should not be much change in
the everyday lives of human beings. The modern-day economy, with its
competitiveness and materialism, is in direct opposition to basic
framework of many major religions in the world. And the modern-day
society, especially the youth, have leaped over the moral boundaries
set by religious texts with promiscuity and other "overly social"
behaviors.

Furthermore, in today's world, less and less people are willing enough
to continue following the complicated religious practices and
procedures of their ancestors, instead, especially in cases of
Christmas and Thanksgiving, simply assigns commercial values to
formerly religious events, diluting their original meaning set forth
by religious texts. All in all, religion, having served as mental
support for generations, is no longer necessary in the lives of
modern-day human beings and should become a part of the historical
past.