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RELIGION

Religion is one of the strongest and longest-lasting belief systems that shapes human behavior and societies. Religions provide codes of conduct that allow believers to function in an organized way. Religious beliefs influence how people think and form their identities both individually and as communities, which then shapes cultural norms and behaviors. While religions generally promote moral behaviors like honesty, altruism, and peace, they have also historically been used to justify violence and hatred between groups holding different beliefs.

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Russel Liwag
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84 views3 pages

RELIGION

Religion is one of the strongest and longest-lasting belief systems that shapes human behavior and societies. Religions provide codes of conduct that allow believers to function in an organized way. Religious beliefs influence how people think and form their identities both individually and as communities, which then shapes cultural norms and behaviors. While religions generally promote moral behaviors like honesty, altruism, and peace, they have also historically been used to justify violence and hatred between groups holding different beliefs.

Uploaded by

Russel Liwag
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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RELIGION

Our experiences, environment and even genetics form our beliefs and


attitudes. In turn, these beliefs influence our behaviour, and determine
our actions. Beliefs that are widely accepted become part of our
culture and, in many ways, shape the society we live in.

Religion is probably the strongest belief system that has existed for
thousands of years. In many ways, it is a code of conduct, a rule book
that allows believers to function in a non-primitive or cultured manner.
The earliest forms of religion were established to facilitatesocial
bonding. In fact, it is also believed that religious practices are adaptive
and have emerged to sustain survival and reproductive
advantages through gene selection or gene-culture coevolution
dynamics.

It is no surprise then, that this system is crucial to thinking patterns


and plays a vital role in formation of self-identity and a collective
identity of a community, which then shapes attitudes, cultural norms
and influences individual and group behaviour. Children are
particularly perceptive to religious beliefs and the concepts of Gods
and other supernatural agents, which leads to a teleological bias of
accepting explanations of phenomenon, based on the purpose they
serve rather than their postulated causes, which persist into adulthood
(Kelemen, 2004). These attitudes are contingent upon factors such as
beliefs about God's existence, immortality and omnipresence;
attributions about psychological characteristics such as fairness,
compassion and harshness; and attributions about God's causal
involvement and motives in one's life events.   

Most, if not all religions, have some thematic principles that make
them similar to one another, namely concepts of god and love,
honesty, altruism, miracle workings and peacekeeping. However, every
religion has elements and ideologies that set them apart from the
other. These ideological differences may not be overt and easy to
discern, but they are present and account for a lot of disharmony and
discord at times. This is mainly due to irrational and distorted
deductions of religious scriptures by some followers which go against
the fundamental principles. Moreover, coexistence of diverse religions
in a single community or nation is a comparatively recent trend.
Sacrifices and wars in the name of religion are not unheard of, with
some of the significant examples being The Crusades, Sati System,
Buddhist Burma, Jihadists and the Witch Hunt, which ended thousands
of lives. What is even more mind-boggling is the dichotomous function
that religion seems to serve, where it imbibes compassion and
kindness towards all, but also instigates religious hatred, violence and
religious martyrdoms, especially in radical believers.

Most religions enforce moral behaviour through positive and negative


reinforcement by infusing ‘god-fearing’ elements in scriptures, such
as the concept of karma and reincarnation in Hinduism, heaven-hell
and salvation in Christianity, paradise and hell in Islamism, peaceful
afterlife and reincarnation in indigenous Chinese folk religions, and
release from the cycle of reincarnations and reaching enlightenment in
Buddhism. This was further reiterated throughShariff and Norenzayan’s
(2011) study where they found that individuals are more likely to
behave in a moral or honest manner when they believe in fearsome
and punishing supernatural agents. In their subsequent studies, they
concluded that the concept of hell exists to make people act in a moral
and ethical manner, whereas the concept of heaven (or its equivalent
in other religions) exists to make people feel good, and has a direct
and positive relation with happiness. However, another possible
explanation for this suggests that it may have nothing to do with
religious beliefs. Rather, the religious scriptures or rituals act as a
moral reminder, through priming, and impel us to act in
a moral and honest manner.

It is important to note here that although, religious beliefs may play a


causal role in some of the actions, it is not the only factor that
influences behaviour. Rather, it's an important factor in a pool of other
factors like genetics, environment, parenting, drives, and needs that
determine our behaviour.

Research supports that there is a correlation between religious beliefs


and behaviour, but does this necessarily mean that there is a
causality? It doesn’t really matter whether one believes that people
form these belief systems in order to adapt and function, or if existing
beliefs influence religious attitudes. What is important is how we use
(or misuse) such a powerful instrument, and to what extent we let it
influence our behaviour.

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