POSITIVE

AND
NEGATIVE
EFFECTS OF
RELIGION
Imagine there’s no countries. It
isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion too.
Imagine all the people living life
in peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer.
But I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us,
And the world will be as one.
  Religion
POSITIVE EFFECTS
 Promotes Social Solidarity
 Provides Moral Values
 Explains the unknown
 Gives Positive Goal in Life
 Gives people a Sense of Belonging
 Provides Social Change
NEGATIVE EFFECTS
 Affirms Social Hierarchy
 Triggers Conflicts and fights
 Causes Discrimination
 Impedes Scientific Success and Development
 Obstructs the Use of Reason
 Serves as an Economic Tool for Controlling the Masses
RELIGION PROMOTES SOCIAL
HARMONY
- Religion believes in supernatural powers
and beings. It practices a set of rituals and
ceremonious rites of passage and rites
intensification. It also holds religious
specialists such as, priests, priestesses, and
shamans in high esteem. This characteristics
have advance social harmony by assimilating
and stabilizing cultures and nations. Religion
provides divine authority to ethical and moral
principles which also help promote unity
among people.
- Belief in supernatural beings and a supposed divine
powers they can wield to reward and punish people
have been a major concept in religion since ancient
times. It helps lessen the feeling of helplessness
among people who believe that they are not alone in
this world, that they need not to rely on their
capabilities alone, and that everybody else is on the
same boat, so to speak. When every people are
afflicted with crisis, they tend to think that a greater
force or high being is there to help them, a belief
people tend to share with others.
- In ancient Philippine society, for example, spiritiual
leaders were called babaylans or catalones, whose
functions were to intercede between the deities and
people, to preceed the rituals, to play as killers, and to
act as cultural leaders of the community. Most of the
spiritual leaders were women; and if men wanted to
become one, they had to give up their sexuality to
perform the prestigious role of being a babaylan.
 People from ancient societies (to date) have a common
belief on the need to form intermediaries to communicate
with the deities and supernatural.
 Another important characteristic of religion is the
performance of common rituals and practices on regular
basis. Such religious activities can be considered as one
component which helps bind people together and reinforce
their identification with a particular group. Ritual
participation often creates an atmosphere stimulated with
emotions. Take the case of the Sufi Dervishes practice of
whirling or spinning, where in the aim is to reach the
source of all perfection by abandoning one’s ego or
personal desires through listening to the music, focusing
on God, and spinning one’s body in repetitive circles. This
kind of ritual provides people of a particular religion with
a positive feeling by doing something together for a
common purpose that is the glorification of God.
 Furthermore, even attendance to masses provides people
with a common ground who, despite difference in social
statuses and political ideologies, visit a common place to
worship the same god.
 Xiao, or filial piety, on the other hand, in the significant
aspect of Confucianism which promotes social harmony.
Filial piety refers to the attitude of obedience, devotion,
and care of one’s parents and elder family member. It
serves as a basis for a moral conduct which are in effect,
leads to social harmony.
 Jainism also has a key concept which helps promotes
social solidarity, which is called ahimsa or the concept of
non-violence. For the followers of Jainism, ahimsa is not
only a worldview but a way of life. The killing and
consumption of animals are strictly prohibited, for it is
central to the idea of ahimsa that they must minimize
their violent impact on the environment.
 Treating other people with respect is also a way of practicing
ahimsa. Followers of Jainism have a particular stand on
issues, such as international conflict, economic equality,
abortion, even civil rights. They make sure that they live their
lives without doing some form of violence to other life forms
especially the humans.
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 universe , which in effect
determines organized human behavior. By providing
moral values, one is able to distinguish right from
wrong, good from evil. Therefore, it provides a system
of reward and punishment that administer and
standardize people’s behavior in society. Some people
believe that it is sometimes more effective than the
laws implemented by the state, since most people give
more importance to the reward and punishment in the
after life.
RELIGION REDUCES FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
 Some say that religion 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 when they die. Religion
provides answers to the phenomena and question that
science and reason cannot explain.
 The belief in the after life has become very important in most
religions because it has become the basis for their daily
conduct or how they live their lives. For the Hindus, for
examples, how they follow their dharma (moral and social
obligation)determines what will happen to them in the
afterlife; as long as they follow their dharma, they will reap
good karma (karma refers to moral consequences of one’s act)
which will eventually liberate their souls from bad karma ,
leading them to attain moshka or the reunion of Brahman or
universal soul & atman or individal soul.
 Among the Christians, obeying the Ten Commandments and
being good to others will earn a reward of eternal life in
heaven; doing the opposite will lead to eternal damnation in
hell.
 Among the Muslims, there are certain circumstances which
will guarantee them a place in heaven, like dying jihad ( a
struggle against unbelievers) or while performing the hajj
(muslim pilgrimage to Mecca). On the other hand early
Filipino animists believed that the afterlife is but a
continuation of life on earth; in some parts of the Philippines
there were proofs that when a Datu or chieftain dies, he was
buried in a ship called balanghay, together with his slaves
and most precious belongings which he would still need in
the afterlife.
RELIGIONS GIVES POSITIVE GOALS IN LIFE
People were inspired by the stories of different prophets from
their own religious affiliations, like that of Moses, Sidharta
Gautama &Muhammad. These people showed how ordinary
people like them were given important missions in life and
how they struggled to carry out their respective missions.
Moses was ordered to liberate the Hebrews from slavery in
Egypt and lead them back to the Promised Land; Mohammed
was chosen to challenge the supremacy of ruling class in the
desert by preaching equality and founding the Islamic
religion; while Siddharta Gautama gave up his wealth and
power to find the solution for sickness, poverty, old age &death
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 identity as part of a group with similar
worldviews, beliefs, values , practices & lifestyles.
 A good example of religion giving people a sense of belonging
is the Sikh principle of Seva, also known as Sewa, from the
word Karseva which means “ selfless service”. Sikhs are
expected to perform work or service without expecting
something in return.
RELIGION PROVIDES SOCIAL CHANGE
 Since religion is a source of moral values, it can be very
effective in lobbying and campaigning for certain social using
its own moral teachings as the basis of argument.