Religious Educational Slavery
Hello everybody! I was in deep thought today about how religions make people do things. I mean, there is religions like Buddhism that tell people that they must make wise decisions to become the Buddha. Some religions tell us to sacrifice to make the gods happy. Others even make one starve to live the right way. If one follows the ways of a certain religion that tells one how to live their life, then they don't think for them self and they become slaves of the practice. How unfair? I believe that this is a form of religious educational slavery.Now think about it, back then the slaves were not allowed to think right? And today, holy scripts are dictating people's lives. So the holy book is almost like a slave owner restricting one’s dreams but telling them that good is at the end of the tunnel.
It’s basically saying that if one lives their life the exact
way, without swaying from the correct path, then they may have a great
afterlife (or something). How crazy is that? When someone tells me that I must
follow the correct path, I feel claustrophobic and (figuratively) enslaved.
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| The Bible |
Before I go on, I would like to warn all people of the
Catholic faith. I am using the faith as an example because this is the religion
I know most of other than my Buddhist faith. So, I don’t mean to offend anyone.
In the Catholic faith, people fast so they could have
self-discipline. Really? One doesn’t need to fast if they want self-discipline.
One could be slapped, grounded, scolded; the possibilities are endless. But
when one starves them because it is the way to go to heaven, which makes me
believe that they are following this because they have no other way (because
they didn’t think about it) of gaining self-discipline.
I like the points you have made about how religion is almost like a slave owner, and I agree with you. Any religion that says that there is only one way to live their life is enslaving all of its followers. But doesn't your Buddhist faith preach that you must become Buddha-like in order to obtain true peace? Do you feel enslaved by this custom, or does it allow a certain amount of latitude?
ReplyDeleteI have never looked at religion that way, but I think your perspective is brilliant. After reading your blog, I was able to look deeper into religion and its practices to realize how true this is. People can become slaves to religion. You had some good points like why must we fast? What does starving ourselves do? This blog showed me a new outlook on religion.
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