ANSWERS: 37
  • It can be. A classic example is the medieval church and Christendom. The medieval Catholic church is recorded as using its position and its religion to exert authority on the governments/monarchies of the day. Another contemporary example can be seen in extremist Muslims (the kind the western world call terrorists). If you think about it, the Crusaders of the middle east were almost Christian terrorists, trying to take over land that wasn't theirs. Some Islamic extremists of today are no different. It always comes down to the people in authority. It's never religion itself that tries to control people, but rather people trying to control people by using religion. In my opinion, at their fundamental, basic level, most religions are about freedom, not control. Even though Christianity is about submitting yourself to a higher being, there is a freedom that is released to the disciple from that. It doesn't quite equate to being able to do what you want, but more in a spiritual and wellbeing sense. There is freedom in the precepts taught. In Christianity, living by the laws of love, mercy and forgiveness are ultimately releasing for a person. Even in times of carnal (fleshly) oppression, nothing can stop a person from being spiritually free.
  • It not only controls people it puts their brain in a prison and keeps it there. Thats what dogma is all about. Did you ever hear of the fear of god. People are always killing each other becaued of how religion makes them believe that there ,club with there secret hand shake is better then the other clubs secret this or that. Religion is nothing better then a club with history and a huge shot of DOGMA. Control is much to soft a word. There ought to be a better word that means ball and chain of the mind , body and spirit and makes people kill. Lets not forget that if you do not follow the rules you will be condemed to a make believe hell. I'll bey my ball and chain is lighter then yours!
  • Absolutly. Religion for many centuries was the root of almost all power, it is only recently that the grip on society has started to slip. However, much control still exists, for example adultery is considered to be unethical in many cultures (even in some species of primates!), but is not illegal in secular societies. But in Christianity adultery is considered an evil, and many children are told form a young age that such an act can cause them to go to hell. This is a clear method of control. The issue is more serious in many cases as it has a direct impact on sombody's life.. In the UK a court recently heard how an athesit teacher was not promoted by the senior staff simply because he worked in a Catholic school. Here the message is clear- "if you want a promotion you must conform to our views". I have heard of many cases in America where people were told by religious leaders to vote for G W Bush becuase of the "abortion issue", this a worrying example of how individuals brainwashed by religious dogma can be used by faith groups to control the composition of the government of a country.
  • Yes, religion is the tool that's used to control the masses. Religion is the opiate of the masses and has little to do with God. This packaged system of beliefs has been well marketed and has controlled people for centuries because the very nature of it feeds on control. The faithful will say differently but yet they know that follow the leader games are fear based. Fear of death and fear of God. They teach their children the same thing so the cycle continues and so does the fear, guilt and shame. Imagine the young child who’s told – do this and believe this way or you’ll end up in a pit of eternal fire. How can people do this to children? The brainwashed are good at brainwashing. Terrorising a child is terrorism. As for religious extremists they cover all sides and do the dirty work. Islamic and Christian wars are extremist driven. Driven by pure hatred and greed. The three major religions are guilty of this horror. Christian, Muslim and Jew all play a part in terrorism. All three use God to justify murder. Most are never accused of war crimes. They forget that one great teacher Jesus preached about love not hate. He preached about forgiveness not condemnation. He certainly didn’t preach that it was a great thing to go out and bomb the hell out of other countries and use God as a way to justify war. People have become so self-centred and greedy that they’d likely crucify Jesus again if he reappeared. Church leaders have a god complex and the willing followers go along with whatever they are told. There comes a point when the masses are no longer able to think for themselves and believe the rants of anyone who’s in a position of authority. Religion is political but believers in God are spiritual. There’s a huge difference between the two. When religious people are motivated to kill others in war they are moving away from God not closer to Him. When authority figures justify this act of murder it shows they are not interested in loving God. They want control of the masses and will do anything to get it.
  • Yes, a perfect example is when the roman catholics implemented the idea of hell in order to recieve a better attendence at church in order to recieve more offerings. Millions have lived and died for a cause which was only devised to control.
  • Well, pardon me for saying, it's been used to kill people, why not control them too....
  • To answer this question, all you have to do is watch "The 700 Club." Pat Robertson regularly warns people of the consequences of not voting for the people he thinks they should, among other things. "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city- And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," Nov. 9, 2005 "Lord, give us righteous judges who will not try to legislate and dominate this society. Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," August 2, 2005 "(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Pat Robertson, 1992 Fund Raising Letter He's not the only one: "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" -- America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom. 1994-1995: Falwell is criticized for using his "Old Time Gospel Hour" to hawk a scurrilous video called "The Clinton Chronicles" that makes a number of unsubstantiated charges against President Bill Clinton--among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG's Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) "That was Jerry's idea to do that," Matrisciana recalled. "He thought that would be dramatic." God has called us to be His representatives in our nation and in our world. Select candidates who represent your views and work for their election. James Dobson It goes on and on throughout history and across religions.
  • Religion is whatever you believe it to be! Believing that religion is a controle meganisime, makes your religion that of fear. Fear of dieing, and going to hell. So insted of believing in religion or God or Jesus Christ, you tell yourself that there is no such thing, so that you may do as you please when you please where ever you please. I am a Christian and my religion doesn't controle me, it sets me free! It allows me to live everday to the maximum. You know why that is. Coz every man, woman and child is a sinner. Sin is apart of us like we are a part of this world. We can't help it. Being a Christian means exepting Jesus Christ as your only salvation. Having faith in that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for SIN. And for anyone who commits sin. Being a Christian means, knowing that my Father in heaven will not let me go to hell even if I do sin. I don't live my live fearing that I will go to hell, becauze I wouldn't! I can sin... everybody makes mistakes. The real test is weather you are doing it on purpuse of if you are doing it while you are trieing to live your live to the full. God send his only Son Jesus Christ to earth to pay for sin, so that we my have live abundently, have it eternaly. All you have to do is believe that Jesus, did it for us! When someone gives you a gift you don't, rape, stabe, steel, sleep with his/her wife/husband or kill them, you show your appresiation. Living a Christian live is not living in fear or under someones controle, it is mearly saying "thank you Jesus for what you have done for me." Anyone out there believe that the earth will last forever???? We know it will not, it has been proven by science over and over. So where do you all think we are going, seeing as energy cant be lost? Makes you wonder hey?!
  • Maby you can tell me about your religion. I was raised as a Christian, so I don't know anything ells.
  • it seems to me like it's an ancient form of government.
  • Some feel that way. It certainly has become a tool of control. Originally, I think it was an attempt to make sense out of a world we did not understand. Humans quickly turned it to it's darker side though.
  • I don't think so. I think that for some it may have become that, but not for all. And you can only really be controlled if you leave yourself open to it.
  • Some people/religons do act that way; but God is real. So keep the faith and use your own good judgement!!! God Bless!!!!!!!!!!!
  • No, not really. They'd have grown up around ancient beliefs that grew up from stories, myths and fables that attempted to explain the world around us. They became a tool for instructing people in How to be Human and How to be a Member of This Tribe. They have been used to control, used to incite all sorts of negative behaviours - but also to encourage some very positive ones. They're all man-made though - or that is what I strongly suspect anyway.
  • 1) "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)" Source and further information: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marx Further information: "How to use religion as an opiate" and "How to be really free" http://www.ancientdays.net/opiate.htm 2) "No, God does not exist as a "higher power"/person. People cannot comprehend everything around them so they need to invent stories. In fact, Religion was created to control humanity, to have some "rules". The sad truth is that Religion causes a lot of problems and hassle all around the world -- Just look at terrorists, people that kill others cause "God told them to do so". Religion caused so many terrorist attacks, even wars... Would God, if he really existed, just sit back, watch, eat some popcorn and let this happen? Come on.. People need to get some grip. You need to believe in science and not some fictional stories about paradise, hell, dead people going to heaven. Cause that's all just wishful thinking. Have a look at the reality." Source and further information: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_God_really_exist Further information: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071120195630AA7xpBY&show=7 3) "The Canadian scholar of comparative religion, Wilfred Cantwell Smith argued that religion, rather than being a universally valid category as is generally supposed, is a peculiarly European concept of comparatively recent origin. Most Western criticism of religious constructs and their social consequences has come, however, from atheists and agnostics. The prosecution case first gathered force during the 18th century European Enlightenment, though pioneering critics such as Voltaire and his fellow Encyclopedists were for the most part deists. The French Revolution then baptized in blood what later became known as secularism, a set of priorities itself accorded hallowed status in the constitutions of the new French and the U.S. republics - as well as in a swelling stream of nation states, revolutionary or post-colonial, which sought to emulate them. Marx famously declared religion to be the "opium of the people," a statement the implications of which were applied with an iron fist in social systems inspired by his writings, most notably in the Soviet Union and China and, most notoriously, in Cambodia. The possible implications of the rest of Marx's celebrated sentence - that religion is "the heart of a heartless world" - were left stubbornly unconsidered. Systematic criticism of the philosophical underpinnings of religion had paralleled the upsurge of scientific discourse within industrial society: T.H. Huxley had in 1869 coined the term "agnostic," a baton taken up with alacrity by such figures as Robert Ingersoll and, later, Bertrand Russell, who told the world Why I am not a Christian. Many contemporary critics consider religion irrational by definition. Some assert that dogmatic religions are in effect morally deficient, elevating to moral status ancient, arbitrary, and ill-informed rules - taboos on eating pork, for example, as well as dress codes and sexual practices - possibly designed for reasons of hygiene or even mere politics in a bygone era. Some consider religion, as such, as little more than a noble lie. In North America and Western Europe the social fallout of the 9/11 attacks has fertilized a flurry of secularist tracts with titles such as The God Delusion, The End of Faith and God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. This criticism is mostly focused on the monotheistic Abrahamic traditions." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Criticism 4) I think that religion bases on the natural belief of the existence of the supernatural and on the need for explanations. Inspired people, who have more understanding or developped a relation to their spirituality, started to write descriptions of the universe, reports about various spiritual experiences and some sets of rules to follow for a better life. As long as people can reproduce those experiences, and can accept and understand those rules, there is no problem. But the rules often are no more understood and stay there like: "just do what I say, it is for your best, just trust me about this". So some of those rules have been made for the best of the people, but who has really the right and the authority to decide and understand what is the best and what is true? This could also change with time, place and the structure of society. Because of their alleged God-given authority, those rules are better accepted. But it does not make them better if they become bad or just absurd, it does only make them more difficult to question.
  • MY ANSWER IS THIS .....JUST TAKE A LOOK TO IRAN
  • By some, yes, just as are economics, politics, psychology, science, philosophy, etc.
  • It is a misconception that Jesus died for our sins. The man died for going against the more accpected religious belief system that was already in place. The current Christian followers of the time made the story up that he died for everyones sins. If everyone could be forgiven for the sins that make, then God never would of cast down his angels that questioned him. God in the Christian/Catholic sense is nothing more then a tryannical God. He will accept you as you are only if you admit you have done things wrongly in his eyes. If you do not repent, or ask for forgiveness of your sins you are punished by not being accpected into Heaven.
  • it ALWAYS has been
  • Very much so.IMHO, that is the primary function of religion; to moderate the behavior of the powerful and force the peasants to stay in an otherwise hopeless situation. +4
  • Of course. What isn't?
  • Religion has been used to kill people. I'd definitely say that is control.
  • One of the most chilling examples is the way in which Moses (Torah, Old Testament & Quran) exerted absolute control over the tribes of Israel by convincing them that there was only one God, and that the only person this Deity spoke to was Moses. Anyone who disagreed with this was to be put to death. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Indeed killing miscreants was standard practice: e.g. Exodus 31:14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Exodus 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - etc., etc.,
  • YES!. False religion does control people...with fear. Liker...if you do not obey all the traditions, your 'soul' will burn in hell... A totally false teaching with no basis in the Bible. Also, the false muslim teaching that if you kill opponents of Islam, you will be in heaven with 70 virgins at your disposal...good for the men but what about the women? A recent film clip showed an adult Mullah having an innocent child spout hatred against the Jews, and finishing off with the statement that one day the child will "understand" what he has just said... What a cruel set of standards to instil in a child...And the child does this in complete obedience to the adult...so cannot really be blamed... ref. " A Muslem child.wmv "
  • Yes I think so. I also think that science is being used in the same way now a days. Scienc is the new religion of many.
  • i will put this in simple terms: "For ALLAH!!!" KABOOM! :/ that's why i'm not religious. they always use it to control every aspect of life. also, in just about EVERY famous speech, there are always allusions to the bible.
  • For the good..:)
  • yeah, its society's way of discreetly persuading people to do the right thing based on lies and the victims gullibility. Also, people for centuries hve been telling people that god(s) sent them to do certain things and in fear those people let that person do what they wanted even though they were lying or if they're just a nutcase. the bible is nothing but a scam to make a huge profit on nothing. that's literally the staple to chrisitanity, the bible. take away the bib le and christianity will crumble... why? because there will be no more stories for churchs to read, no one would kno "the rules", less people would believe it, no scripture for the uptight christians to use as "evidence" in allegations against it. churches are also a scam because that collection money goes to the church and the preists pocket, see he can reead you stories and read the bible, something you could do at your house for free.
  • It seems that way to me.
  • Anything that people are co-erced to accept blindly can be used to control people. I'm thinking of things like blind patriotism that doesn't allow any other viewpoint other than 'My country, right or wrong and if you don't agree, you are a traitor who doesn't deserve the freedoms that this country offers!'
  • Definitely, but not all religion. What I have noticed is that the majority of believers just want to do good to others, and have a nice trusting social network. I am not a believer and find that you can have that without religion but a lot of people grow up in that culture. Children are very impressionable. And some wacked out people take advantage of that.
  • Sure! People need some sort of controlling influence; and as long as you're choosing to be "religionized", then there's nothing wrong with that. Governments control people too. Funny thing is-it's much less common to hear someone complain about being "controlled" by a force that they do not choose and cannot ignore. But if a preacher says something you don't like? He's a controlling cultist...
  • Yes, it is used especially for men to get a handle on women.
  • obviously yes muslims kill others and subtly terrorize and misinform people of their intention. their inspiration is their crooked religion http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Games-Muslims-Play.htm
  • Yes, indeed.
  • Yes, and the same can be said for a monetary based economy. We're all slaves! Wake up!!!!!!!!!

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