material for SHS students in the Introduction to World Religions and Belief Systems

1. Positive & Negative
Effects of Religion
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2. Positive & Negative Effects of Religion
• Religion has become a very important
aspect in development of civilizations and
cultures. In fact, most ancient societies
based their worldviews on religion, and it
has been proven to be beneficial to the
attainment and maintenance of social
stability and cohesiveness.
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3. Positive & Negative Effects of Religion
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RELIGION
NEGATIVE
EFFECTS
POSITIVE
EFFECTS

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POSITIVE
EFFECTS
Promotes Social
Harmony
Provides Moral
Values
Explain the
Unknown
Provides Social
Change
Give People a Sense
of Belonging
Gives Positive Goal
in Life

5. Positive Effects of Religion
• There is no doubt that religion has an
important role in society. In fact, it has
become so closely intertwined with other
institutions such as political and economic
systems that religious beliefs sometimes
became the basis of the political legitimacy.
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6. 1. Religion Promotes Social Harmony
• Religion believes in supernatural beings and
powers. It practices a set of rituals and
ceremonious rites of passage of intensification.
It also regards religious leaders such as priests,
priestesses and shamans in high esteem. These
characteristics help advance social harmony by
assimilating and stabilizing cultures and nations.
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7. 2. Religion Provides Moral Values
• Perhaps one of the most significant functions of
religion is that it encourages moral values. It
provides a systematic model of the universe,
which effect determines organized human
behavior. By providing moral values, one is able
to distinguish right from wrong, good or evil. It
also provides a systems of reward and
punishment that administers and standardizes
people behavior in society
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8. 3. Religion Provides Social Change
• Since religion is a source of moral values,
religion provides social change. It can be very
effective in lobbying and campaigning for
certain social issues using its own moral
teachings as the basis of argument. For example,
the Church in the US has been active in the
campaign for civil liberties as well as the
antislavery movement.
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9. 4. Religion Reduces Fear of the Unknown
• Religion was developed from man’s need to
have a sense of origin and destination; to
discover where they came from and where they
are bound to go when they die. Religion
provides answers for phenomena and questions
that the science or reason cannot explain.
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10. 5. Religion Gives Positive Goal in Life
• People were inspired by the story of different
prophets from their own religious affiliations,
like that Moses, Siddharta Gautama, and
Muhammad. The people showed how ordinary
people them were given important missions in
life, and how they struggled to carry out their
respective missions.
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11. 6. Religion Gives People a Sense of Belonging
• Just as family, ethnicity, or nationality give
people a sense of belonging, so does religion.
For some, religion provides people with
personal identify as part of a group with similar
worldviews, beliefs, values, practices, and
lifestyles. It provides communities with
prospects to recognize and offer vital action and
service to provide the needs of the larger
community.
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12. Positive & Negative Effects of Religion
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RELIGION
NEGATIVE
EFFECTS
POSITIVE
EFFECTS

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NEGATIVE
EFFECTS
Affirms Social
Hierarchy
Causes
Discrimination
Serves as an Economic Tool for
Controlling the Masses
Triggers Conflicts
and Fights
Obstructs the Use
of Reason
Impedes Scientific Success
and Development

14. Negative Effects of Religion
• Religion has often been named as the
culprit behind divisiveness and conflicts
among people. There is also beliefs that
religion can be dangerous to society when
used to advance the interests of a people at
the expense of other people especially
those with different religious beliefs.
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15. 1. Religion Affirms Social Hierarchy
• Some religions affirm social hierarchy often
favoring men as and result, perpetuate the
notions of class and gender discrimination and
oppression. Another example of religion
reflecting the hierarchy of political structures
would be the Confucians emphasis on the
relations between the ruler and the subjects,
with the former exercising the authority over
the latter.
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16. 2. Religion Causes Discrimination
• There are some who say that religion, after
turning people against themselves, turn people
against each other. This happens when people
do not tolerate religious ideologies different
from the one they follow.
• Religion can also be a source of discrimination,
or the prejudicial treatment of different
categories of people or things especially on the
basis of race, religion, age and sex.
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17. 3. Religion Triggers Conflicts and Fights
• Religion also has some aspects which make it
susceptible to be a source of conflict and war.
History witnessed numerous lives sacrificed and
lost in the name of religion. Wars have been
fought in the name of religion, and this
phenomenon continues up to the present time.
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18. 4. Religion As An Economic Tool for
Exploiting The Masses
• According to the German philosopher Karl
Marx, “religion is the opium of the masses.”
This is in relation to his critical approach to
religion in which he proposed that the
bourgeoisie keep the proletariat in control
through religion.
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19. 5. Religion Impedes Scientific Success and
Development
• Throughout history, religion has proven to
impede scientific development. For example, it
has often been said that the Catholic Church
used to teach that the world is flat and warned
people against going to faraway places if they
do not wish to fall off the edge of the earth.
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20. 6. Religion Obstructs the Use of Reason
• Many question the suitability of religious
doctrine to the needs of the present and the
future generations. In order to put these dogma
to practice, religion should, therefore, evolve
and learn to adapt to the ever changing world.
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21. Historical Events
Caused By Religion
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22. Historical Events Caused By Religion
• In some regions in the world, religion has
become very influential in almost every aspect
of human activity-from personal routines to
diplomatic relations. Furthermore, in each
country there are majority and minority
religious groups ad sometimes the power
struggle between these two groups escalate into
historical developments which oftentimes shock
the world.
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23. Historical Events Caused By Religion
• Self-Immolation of a Buddhist Monk in Vietnam
• Widows Burning Among the Hindus in India
• The Inquisition
• The Godhra Train Incident in 2002
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24. Self-Immolation of a Buddhist Monk in
Vietnam
• Self-Immolation, or the killing of oneself as a
form of sacrifice, originally referred to as the
act of setting oneself on fire. But now it
refers to as much wider range of suicidal
choices such as leaping off a cliff, starvation,
or ritual removing of the guts (also know as
seppuku). It is used as a form of political
protest or martyrdom.
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25. Widows Burning Among the Hindus in India
• Sati, or the practice of self-immolation of a
widow on her husband’s funeral pyre, is said
to have originated 700 years ago in India,
when the rajput women burnt themselves to
death after their men were defeated in
battles to avoid being taken by the
conquerors.
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26. The Inquisition
• Inquisition refers to the Roman Catholic Church
groups charged subduing heresy from around 1184,
which includes the Episcopal Inquisition (1184- 1230’s)
and the Papal Inquisition (1230’s). The Inquisition was
a response to large popular movements in Europe
considered heretical or profane to Christianity,
particularly Catharism (a Christian dualist movement
which espoused the idea of two gods, one being
good and the other evil).
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27. The Godhra Train Incident in 2002
• In February 2002, a train was set on fire in which
59 people, including 25 women and 15 children,
were killed. The fire happened inside the
Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway
station in the Indian state of Gujarat. Those who
died inside the train were mostly Hindu pilgrims
and activists returning from the holy city of
Ayodha after a religious ceremony at the
disputed Babri Masjid site.
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28. Thank You!
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