Opiate of the Masses

Opiate of the Masses

Karl Marx once said that religion is the opiate of the masses and he could not have been more correct. Today’s religions teach people bad morals and stop them from thinking for themselves. There is no way to prove that any god exists, yet people will still follow their god without thinking twice. Religion causes most of the problems in the world today and has ever since the beginning of time. Religion does more harm to our society than good and the world would be better off without it.

An example that shows how today’s religions aren’t good for society is that religion separates millions of people. Since religion has come about in our world people have hated one another simply over the belief that they believed in the right god and everybody else was wrong. Large groups of people with a certain belief that they are right and anybody else is wrong can have disastrous effects on society. With these kinds of problems, many people do not get to experience all of the things that everybody else does. (Morris)

An example of this is the all of Hasidic Jews in Postville, Iowa. The Jews in this town keep to themselves and pretty much have nothing to do with the rest of the town. Many of the Jewish children don’t have all of the same opportunities as the other children do. That can even go the other way, too. Even though the Jews choose to keep to themselves, the separation still raises problems. The Jews disconnecting themselves from the rest of town can raise questions in people’s heads.

Many people don’t understand why people from different religions separate themselves from others, and when people don’t understand something, that can cause them to fear it. Once this fear is established, all that is left to do is act on it. These actions can vary from very serious and harmful to being not a big deal, but it is still a problem. A very common way of lashing out against someone who is from a different religion is by teasing or bullying them. This can cause serious problems in a child’s or even adult’s life, but that is not the only side to it. The person that is being teased often builds an even stronger hatred for the other person and their religion. The disgust between the religions can just keep building and keep getting stronger that it can push people to do bad things. This can include lashing out against the other religion with acts of violence. (Beyer)

Religion is a major factor in what causes violence in most cases even if people don’t want to admit it. This violence can range from being on an individual level to problems between countries. These kinds of problems can lead to even bigger problems such as war. Countless amounts of people have been killed simply over the belief in a different god. (Palaver)

An obvious example of this is the Holocaust. Hitler persecuted millions of Jews simply for being Jewish. He forced them to live in ghettos and just killed them. All of those Jewish people were killed for no reason whatsoever. Hitler’s actions caused other countries to get involved which then resulted in World War II. Religion was the basis for much of this and so many people’s lives would have been spared if we didn’t have to deal with religion.

Religion doesn’t just cause violence, it actually justifies it. People have used their religions to justify all kinds of bad behaviors since the beginning of time. In ancient times people would sacrifice animals or even people simply to appease their gods. That is just one of a long list of bad behaviors justified by religion. One of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shall not kill” but just believing in another god is enough of a reason to throw that rule out. Even today, priests rape young boys and feel that there is nothing wrong with it. (Barker)

The Crusades were very bloody and very horrible battles but the people participating in them felt that they were doing the right thing. The crusades were even sanctioned by the Pope. The people fighting in the Crusades believed they were fighting in god’s will and that their acts would benefit them. During the crusades the soldiers were told to kill everybody and that “god would know his own.” This meant that they would kill everybody and people of their own religion would go to heaven and everybody else would just be dead. (Morris)

Religion is one of the worst things to happen to the world simply because people won’t think of reasons why things happen, but simply say, “God wants it that way.”