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religion |
Religion |
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2021-05-27T08:46 |
According to the book Sapiens1, religion is one of the great unifiers of the humankind along with empires and money. Religion unified strangers of similar beliefs which makes it easier for people to cooperate and to work towards a goal bearing an assurance that the person next to another would not stab him in the back.
Although religion played a big role in our history for the common good, it also became the reason that created chasms that brings upon hatred and distrust between groups of people. Believers are divided into two groups: polytheistic and monotheistic. The former believes in the existence of multiple Gods and/or Goddesses, whereas the latter believes in one omnipotent and omniscient being. Others went into pilgrimages seeking to obtain enlightenment, to be free of worldly suffering or to suppress human cravings, and some worship and devout themselves to those who are enlightened as if they were a deity. Extreme devotion or fanaticism often times blinds our consciousness from outside the scope of our beliefs, which can ultimately lead to hatred and discrimination. Jews against Anti-semistic groups, Catholicism against Christianity, Buddhism against Hinduism, and more.
We humans, as history suggests, tend to cling on to an ideology collectively. It is easy to believe that something exist with or without factual proof so long as everyone holds the same belief.
Footnotes
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari - Chapter 12: The Law of Religion ↩