Chapters 7-9

I found it interesting to read about the fluid nature of religion as civilization continued to develop during the time period outlined in the reading this week. From what I understand based on what I have read and previous classes, the main purpose of religion is to address complicated questions to which we have no answer. I am referring to questions like, "What happens when we die?" and similar things. For the people then, it could also refer to things like ,"Why did a tornado just drop and decimate our entire village?" Religion sought to answer the tough questions. I like this aspect of religion and through that lens I believe it to be very beneficial to society. Unfortunately, religion was appropriated throughout history by powerful people and rulers to justify their actions and policies. When you speak to a follower of one of these religions, they are very passionate about the sacred writings of their religion, but somewhat ignorant about the general history of religion in general.

From the reading, we find that Buddhism began in India. They have a fascinating view of the divine, but because the followers of Hinduism (the ones in power) didn't think they meshed well and thus Buddhism declined in India. The buddhists were pushed out of India and started spreading their message in other parts of Asia. In China people didn't really like Buddhism because it didn't mesh well with their familiar confucian values. So, Buddhists literally just changed their messages to be more favorable to the Chinese (For example, changing gender-equal messages in favor of the patriarchy.) Humans are apparently totally fine changing their divine writings in favor of power. The Buddhists weren't really conquerors, but other religions are a different story.

Islam apparently arose because a charismatic man wanted to unite the Arab people and solve a bunch of cultural and societal problems. He didn't like the Jews because they were exclusionary and apparently the Christians were wrong to consider Christ a god, so he made a new religion in his own image (one that addressed the issues facing his community.) Looking broadly over the centuries, it seems that these religions kind of just pop up when theres something bad going on. The caste system brought lots of order to India for a long time, but eventually Buddhism was birthed from it. Rulers claimed divine status as a way to control the people they extorted from.

As I bring this rant to a close, I'd like to finish with addressing a big concern I have with all this. Whether or not a divine presence channeled knowledge into these ancient prophetic people we will never know, but it was all written down way later by someone else. These sacred writings are used to justify some pretty horrific stuff. They aren't scientific in any way and give no evidence to support anything they claim yet, people kill and subjugate in their name. In the reading it says that the Quran says women are equal to men yet in Islamic countries women are totally---
So yeah, I think religion should stick to philosophy and stay away from the people who have power to control others.