God, a means to control the masses?

Question

I don't believe in god but i'm open to the idea that there might be one. However, we know that the ancient Greeks created the gods to control the population. The people believed there were angry and petty gods who would kill them if they broke any laws. So my question is this, knowing that is true about the gods of the ancient greeks how can we believe that 'god' is not the same thing?

Answer 1

Is God or are gods used as a means of social control. Yes, surely much of the time this is so. But, you will find both atheists and liberationist Christians who believe that Jesus was an anti-system liberator. This is certainly the Jesus I was raised with - the Jesus who overthrew the money changers tables in the temple. The Jesus of social justice.

I spent much time in life as an atheist. Why? Because I didn't want a "spy in the sky god" (see NT Wright) watching me; I tired of religious hypocrisy and George Bush style Christians. Plus, as a student of biological sciences I learned that there was no place in the universe for a Santa Claus-like God to sit up in the clouds watching our every move.

But, I was always interested by Jesus as a liberator and lover of social justice. And, a lover of Martin Luther King. Quiet a few atheists have been. I think of a book I own called "A Marxist Looks at Jesus".

And, I think the idea of Christianity is that Jesus was supposed to be the ultimate sacrifice so you don't have to "feed" a bunch of petty spirits and gods to keep them pacified (as in vaudou for instance) and you don't have to sacrifice lambs anymore to the angry God of the Old Testament. Some Haitians become protestants these days because they can't afford to feed themselves, so they certainly can't afford to feed the spirits to appease them. Of course, liberationists like former priest and president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide manage to have a liberationist approach to Catholicism and vaudou.

Is Christianity used as a means of social control. You bet! Just look at the US of today. Is it petty? You bet.

But, it's not supposed to be that way. It's supposed to lift us up to a higher relationship with God and Jesus is supposed to be an example with his love of justice and the poor.

You might want to check out some books on Liberation(ist) Theology (Gutierrez coined this term though didn't invent it as it is an older idea).

Or, read some of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's works (and about him), a young Lutheran theologian/pastor who was hung by the Nazis for being involved in a plot to kill Hitler. He is a father of liberatonist theology. There were (at least) two Nazi Germany Christian Churches - one pro-Hitler and the other fighting him (some like chickens, others whole-heartedly in the Resistance like Bonhoeffer who might have found safety in the US or England).

Or, read some Martin Luther King and about him. He came from a wealthy preacher's family (yes, that's right) who sent him off in style to become a preacher. But, he chose the side of the poor and disenfranchised. He was killed because he was organizing a "poor people's" march. He wanted black and white poor folks ot work together. He did incidentally attend a Methodist seminary - Boston University- which was very progressive at that time so perhaps someone influenced by true Wesleyan thought (see below) though certainly this is but one of many influences.

You might enjoy Theodore Jennings' book on John Wesley called "Good News to the Poor: John Wesley's Evangelical Economics". Wesley loved the poor and went to extremes to help them. He wasn't a hypocrite, that's for sure. Jennings argues that if Wesley had been successful in the 1700s there would have been no need of Marx in the 1800s. You wouldn't know, most of the time, that Wesley is the founder of Methodism. No sign of Wesleyan thought in much of Methodism or in George Bush who claims to be a Methodist. But, George Bush's corruption of Wesleyan and Jesus' beliefs is not the fault of Wesley or Jesus any more than Stalin is the fault of Marx.

I do agree with much of what Marx says in his Thesis on Feuerbach and I agree that the Institutional Church is usually the reflection of the economic conditions of a society. However, if you really know Marx you know that this perspective is dialectical. While the economy acts upon existing Institutions and ideas, ideas can also independently act back upon the economic substructure and create social change. Ideas do matter.

In fact, in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Marx documents the positive historic role which religion played in social change (e.g. English revolution which weakened the king and created/strengthened parliament and democracy in the long term). Marx just believed that in the end for the ultimate socialist revolution that religion would no longer be necessary.

The potential for religion to effect good, positive social change is still there. However, it is a double-edged sword. It can be used for good or bad, depending upon interpretation. For Christianity it doesn't help either that there are no good translations of the Bible in English which take into account the subtleties of the Greek language or historical context. And, of course, there's the problem of who wrote the Bible, when, did scribes change it, etc.,etc. ad nauseum.

The biggest religious opiates are the New Age and Pentecostal "feel good" and "get rich" or "power obsessed" varieties which cut you lose from social justice and love of fellow man. If you look, Hitler was more of a believer in these religions than in Christianity.

Contrary to the "opium of the people" quote, Marx really felt for and understood why people turned to religion. In those days opium was as common as aspirin so many have said it should be the "aspirin of the people".

The actual quote is:
"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Outside of the social control angles, most of the history of religion is an attempt to explain the world around us. All religions see God as the spirit which moves through the center of the universe with which we must align ourselves. Reading all of this made me start believing in this spirit which moves through all of nature and the universe. And, I've ended up Christian again because I love the Jesus of social justice and because it gives me some peace. An opiate? Maybe, but who cares. And, it doesn't make you constipated like aspirin and codeine (an opiate). It doesn't cause liver damage or hangovers and is a better "high" than alcohol which is a downer anyway.

While I read a convincing argument about heaven recently, I'm not too much convinced about a heaven after death and hell is mostly right here. Plus, I've seen that most bad people "get theirs" eventually in this world. It may take 5 years or 20 years and not be in your lifetime but they "get their just deserts" eventually and are punished. Vengenance is mine, says the Lord (and this means you don't do any vengeance, you just have patience and wait).

If I go to heaven, cease to exist, am re-incarnated to help others (God through Jesus forgives all your bad karma from all lifetimes if you are truly sorry and try to do better, as does Amida Buddha) it really doesn't matter too much to me. God keeps me going while I'm here. If I cease to exist I won't know anyway. So, it really doesn't bother me too much. What bothers me is how to be happy and do whatever I came into this world to do and to try to use my education to help others.

Answer 2

One of the reasons - if not the main reason - for Constantine to adopt Christianity as the Religion of the Roman Empire was that it preached obedience to the rulers... it was a method of controlling people. Before the enlightenment most people had no doubt that there was a God, that he was judgmental and vindictive. It provided Monarchies with their prime method of manipulation. Then people started to wake up and thank God for Nietzsche when he proclaimed that we were free and didn't have to live in fear of God - because God was dead, we having killed him a long time ago...

Answer 3

It interesting that no government has been able to control the Bible. The world over, Bible scholars have stated that our Bible is accurate to the original texts including the KJV.

Allegiance to Jesus - the Prince of Peace - cannot be controlled by any government of this world.

"And I have the keys of hell and death, signifies that He alone can save. By "keys" is signified the power of opening and shutting; here the power of opening hell, that man may be brought forth, and of shutting, lest, when he is brought forth, he should enter again. For man is born in evils of all kinds, thus in hell, for evils are hell; he is brought out of it by the Lord, to whom belongs the power of opening it. That by "having the keys of hell and death," is not meant the power of casting into hell, but the power of saving, is because it immediately follows after these words:

Behold, I am alive for ages of ages;

by which is signified that He alone is eternal life (n. 60); and the Lord never casts anyone into hell, but man casts himself. By "keys" is signified the power of opening and shutting, in Revelation also (3:7; 9:1; 20:1; also in Isa. 22:21, 22; in Matt. 16:19; and in Luke 11:52). The power of the Lord is not only over heaven, but also over hell; for hell is kept in order and connection by oppositions against heaven; for which reason, He who rules the one must necessarily rule the other; otherwise man could not be saved; to be saved is to be brought out of hell" (Apocalypse Revealed n. 62).

Answer 4

Religion = opiate of the masses.

Answer 5

I guess it's all in how you look at it.
There are people who believe and people who don't.