While I yesterday wrote that religion supports criminal activity, especially with its easy way of easing one’s conscience, religion actually keeps people under control by creating this feeling of guilt and having sinned. They tell you that you are a sinner and give you a solution for it right away, too. In order for their concept of control and manipulation to work however you need to believe them that you are full of sin and sinful behavior. That is why they always promote that you cannot be 100% happy with yourself and your life.
I have heard that in Christianity – or at least Catholicism – there is the concept of an original sin. You are born with sin, something having to do with the way how God threw out Adam and Eve from paradise. So women especially but also men are basically not able to be completely without sin, not even a birth.
In Hinduism, too, you are not free of sin at birth. The mere fact that you were born shows that you still have Karma that you have to work on. If you were free of sin, if you did not have any Karma left, you would not have to live another life on earth. You would be liberated and would reach Nirvana.
So religion practically teaches you to feel guilty for something that you have not done and which you really cannot influence in any way. In a next step, they give you instructions on how to get rid of that sin: you punish yourself for having it. You have to do penance. Only that makes you a truly religious person – if you hurt yourself, restrict yourself, if you feel pain, if you suffer, if you feel guilty, if you feel bad.
You get a lot of options for doing this and proving how religious you are. And the more you do it, the more you suffer, the greater you are. There is hardly a limit to what people do to themselves to show how religious they are.
Probably the most popular way of penance is fasting and I believe it exists in all religions. You fast and you should be hungry or you abstain from something you really like because you repent your sins. In Hinduism there are every month two fasting days called Ekadashi, on the eleventh day of the moon in Hindu calendar. There are several of these days which are even more special and tomorrow is one of them, Nirjala Ekadashi. On this day, religious believers are especially asked to fast without water. No water for 24 hours when temperatures here reach 50 degrees centigrade! Religion says it will purify you from all your sins. I say it might as well kill you.
There are other ways of self-punishment and signs of guilt which you see often if you just visit a temple. You can watch how Hindu believers grab their ears in a gesture that shows they are sorry and they slap themselves on their cheeks – mostly symbolically and not very hard but showing and displaying their penance.
I have seen Muslims do the same thing, but quite a bit harder, beating themselves on their chest and I heard that they even hit themselves with knives, causing cuts. There were Christians in older times slashing their backs bloody for penance. In my grandmother’s village I have seen how in Navaratri time Hindus pierced both of their cheeks and stuck iron rods through those holes! We took the picture above on the Kumbh Mela, the biggest religious Hindu drama, in Vrindavan 2010. You see those boys, hardly men, having pierced themselves in so many places of their body, putting knives through arms and legs, bleeding and walking in a procession, showing it off.
These all actions are seen as something very devotional and if you can bear this much pain while regretting your sins, they must be forgiven. The normal believer nearly worships people who can endure such penance! In summer they sit in a circle of fire and in winter they take off their clothes. The more you can do to make yourself suffer, the higher you are valued because you must be closer to God!
Some people thought that I went into the cave for penance, too. It is a tradition here that religious people – as I was in that time – do such extreme actions for self-punishment and I explained very often that this was not my reason for going into the cave. Nevertheless people who heard about my stay in the cave may have just assumed this.
So you see how normal it is for religion to ask believers for such sacrifices. Why? Because religion wants you to be and remain a victim. All kinds of suppression and exploitation works best when there is fear of some kind. Religion comes from fear and wants to keep you in fear. Hell, purgatory, never-ending rebirths, rebirth as a lower creature, never reaching heaven and burning forever. Threats that create fear. And all those threats are just an illusion. None of those things are real – but they create fear.
Religion teaches that you should not be completely happy. You have no right to be. If you are too happy and enjoying life very much, you will cry one day. Too much happiness will create misery. I believe that people are harder to control when they are happy and when they are not afraid. Another reason not to follow any religion – because you want to be happy, not afraid.
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The corrupt System of Religion – when Money can get you closer to God! – 10 Sep 16
Ganesha on Cigarettes is fine but on Shoes? Oh no! – 8 Sep 16
Religions praise Suffering for suppressing and exploiting People further – 5 Sep 16
Why it is so funny that Mother Teresa becomes a Saint today – 4 Sep 16
Choosing in between feeding hungry Children and Monkeys – 23 Aug 16
You cannot exclude Religion when speaking about Terrorism – 26 Jul 16
Your Life, your Decisions – don’t let Religion tell you what to do! – 17 Sep 15
I too have beleived in no religion for some time now, these things I find really difficult to explain. there is nothing like experiencing them. My opinion about “religion,pain and fear” is that – people who are religious, should automatically abstain from the most obvious things which give pain to others and which religion without doubt calls “Sin”. I do not believe in the traditional ways of what they call “Penance” as you have described above because – 1. People dont onow what they have done wrong 2. this way of penance is going to help them or anyone else in the society. However, I do believe in going the “right” (Karma and Rebirth.) I never fast or do allthose sorts of things that these people do tohurt themselves. I do take care that I do not consciously hurt someone in the first place. As a child I do recall some of my actions, which hurt someone very badly, and of which I was not aware at that time. About this I still feel sobad of having hurt an innocent that, I often try to do other things because I cannot undo it now in any way. I feel, more than penance the concentration must be on “not doing the wrong”. What is wrong and what is right is more simple than some people thunk it is.But, A (complex) soul searching can give these answers to people, but not may decide to search for them.
Penance I feel is something I most definitely don’t agree with. I grew up in a Christian background, with Christian parents and family and still have no idea what’s it is about penance that is necessary in every type of religion. Here it is though, that if faith and belief were about love and happiness, why does penance need to exist at all hmmm?