NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF RELIGION

Religion Affirms Social Hierarchy

-Religion has been used to support the “divine right” of oppressive monarchs and to justify unequal
social structures, like India's caste system. It promotes the idea that believers should be satisfied with
existing circumstances because they are divinely ordained. Those in power in a religion are often able to
dictate practices, rituals, and beliefs through their interpretation of religious texts or via proclaimed
direct communication from the divine.

Religion Causes Discrimination

-In Massachusetts, only Christians were allowed to hold public office, and Catholics were allowed to
do so only after renouncing papal authority. In 1777, New York State’s constitution banned Catholics
from public office (and would do so until 1806). In Maryland, Catholics had full civil rights, but Jews
did not.

Religion Triggers and Conflicts

-The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to
secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions
varying in size, strength and degree of success occurred between 1096 and 1291. The costly, violent
and often ruthless conflicts enhanced the status of European Christians, making them major players in
the fight for land in the Middle East.

Religion As An Economic Tool for Exploiting the Masses

-In most religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, oppression was accepted as a normal part of
life on earth and considered as a means to get an everlasting reward in the afterlife. Thus, this becomes
the basis to reap more resources and power in society by the middle-class to maintain the unequal status
quo.

Religion Impedes Scientific Success and Development

-For example, it has often been said that the Catholic
Church used to teach that the world is flat and warned people
against going to faraway places if they do not wish to fall off the
edge of the earth.

Religion Obstructs the Use of Reason

-Take the case of the trepanning, or the ancient practice of boring holes in the human skull, a surgical
procedure performed on epileptics and the mentally ill, with the belief that through the hole the evil
spirit will leave the person. During those days they regard it as an attempt at exorcism, but at present
the procedure is just unthinkable.