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The Source Of Religion
Back to: The Two House Builders (A Study of the Kingdom of God)
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What Is Religion?
Religion Definition: A pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.
Religion is the most powerful force on earth. Despite the claims of many to the contrary, everyone on earth is religious. Religion is defined as the adherence to a set of beliefs that regulate the moral, social, and ritualistic behaviour of the individual. Every major problem in history and in our world can be traced to some religious foundation. Religion has motivated the massacre of millions. Slavery, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, segregation, racial discrimination and other oppressive practices all have been justified by some religious code or system. Primitive and modern human societies alike manifest religious rituals that define their culture and communal life. This raises the natural question: What is the source of religion, and why is it such a natural, inherent characteristic of the human spirit?
Religion In History
The Holocaust
Hitler had a racist world view. He believed that people could be separated into a hierarchy of different races, where some races were superior and others were inferior. Hitler believed the German race to be the superior race, and called the German race ‘Aryan’.
Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race of people, who set out to weaken other races and take over the world.
Rwanda Genocide
During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, also known as 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, members of the Hutu ethnic murdered as many as 800,000 people, Tutsi minority.
The split between Hutus and Tutsis arose as a result of class divisions. These class divisions became seen as ethnic designations. This “divide and conquer” strategy meant supporting the Tutsi monarchy and requiring that all local chiefs be Tutsis, turning the Tutsis into symbols of colonial rule for the Hutu majority.
Apartheid
The nationalist political party instituted policies of white supremacy, which empowered white South Africans who descended from both Dutch and British settlers in South Africa while further disadvantaging Black Africans.
Apartheid laws focused on keeping Black people in their own designated “homelands and restricted almost every facet of Black life in South Africa. Apartheid called for the separate development of the different racial groups in South Africa.
