Do you think religion makes believers slave to this religion?

Question

In fact, a believer, in the same of religion, refrains from eating some dishes, some practise, etc.
So, are you "free" when you are believer or not?

Answer 1

The choice is yours. you are as free as you want to be.

Answer 2

I guess we are slaves to whatever we do or believe. Be it making money, being homeless, religion etc. From this we see that there may never be a total freedom. People over the Centuries have sought this total freedom in a place called, Utopia.

Answer 3

Believe in what you want to believe in, live how you want to live - and then you will deal with the consequences. Whether they be good or bad.
If something that you believe in happens to be in a religious book, Bible, Torah etc...Then so be it. But do that because your passionate and you believe in what your saying, not because you were born into a certain category that 'you must stick to'. Be proud of who you are and your beliefs..
To me when some people are born into a religion, they try to obide by every single rule, memorise every single belief and try and do everything the book says. That for me is not being free - its being a clone.

Answer 4

Religion in fact limits us and draws a boundary. Religion is an ideology. Any ideology holds us and draws a line. Forget about being free. There is no such as absolute freedom. Freedom can only be compared among different religions and cultures. None of it is free. It's just the matter of which is freer than the other...

Answer 5

Freedom is an illusion. What freedom we possess is conditioned by our radical finitude and the contingency of material existence. This is the truth about freedom whether you are a believer or not. Modernity's pre-occupation with freedom is simply a result of the ascription of the qualities of a voluntarist conception of God to human beings.

In terms of religion, Paul Tillich understood religion as "ultimate concern" or that which concerns us in an ultimate sense. In this respect, secularists and materialists are just as religious as anyone who believes in a system of convictions based on a supernatural revelation. In fact, they can be just as dogmatic and irrational in their claims. As Bob Dylan said "we all gotta serve someone"-- so the question really is, what kind of God or gods are you going to serve, or are you serving right now?

Answer 6

Religion is a man-made control mechanism to regulate people's faith so, yes, I would agree that religions enslave hte believer. We all have the free will to accept or deny faith in something, but religion takes away that self will through its sacramental sanctions.

Immanuel Kant said that worshippers are fooled through the false service of the priesthood, whereby priests and others in religious authority look to better their own condition before considering the spiritual welfare of those they are meant to be serving.

Faith frees us, but religion binds.

Answer 7

Religion does not free you. Religion is a means to the source from which religion derives. Jesus is the only way to salvation and being free. In old testament times people were forbidden to eat certain things. They were living under the law of the Bible. When Christ came he broke these chains of bondage and became the portal for salvation.

To have Jesus Christ as you savior is to believe by faith he can do what he says he can. It is only your job to truly believe and the rest is in his ballpark. "If" he can't rest assured you don't have to worry cause no one else can. Life without hope would present a cruel injustice to itself.

Answer 8

Part of the goal of religion is to make sure that subsequent generations feel obligated to the church, so there is some brainwashing to an extent. Not sure if "slave" is too strong, but it's in the right direction.

Answer 9

It is not a question of free or a slave. The moment one believes, one becomes a slave. There is no partial believing. That is just cheating oneself.

But 'to believe or not to believe?', is the question; a la Hamlet's dilemma.

The right to choice is one's own. So is the right to withdraw the acquiescence if it is felt that the belief is incorrect.

Answer 10

it depends upon your view of religion in society and its restraints it imposes upon it practices. Marx (a socialist with a communistic ideal) viewed religion as simply a constraint upon people keeping them from realising what was occuring; religion allows the abise of the the working classes by the fewer upper classes as it offers the hope of eternal salvation, religion in the case subdueing the individual; "religion is the opiate of the people". Marx viewed the world as rising to freedom and this communistic ideal without the need for religion "people can not be entirly free until the abolition of religion". This is clearly evident in Hindu society where people can not marry out of their social group as it is for their God's to decide upon the class divisions upon reincarnation; in my opinion YES! in other opinions (usually of the upper classes or those employed through religion) probably not!

Answer 11

Religion is the man made extras that Jesus condemned in the pharisees of his time. True freedom comes from having God's spirit in you, helping you every day, the freedom is from the sins of the world that harm us. We can choose to ignore the spirit's guidance, it's not 'forced' on anyone, just a voice of warning, done in love for cherished children.