The Rise of Religion: Part 2
The resurgence of religion is an underlying response to the backwardness of liberal ideals in regard to morality. What was and is labelled as liberalism is just another system for exploitation, hurt, pain, and strife. Human rights have been taken out of context as a right. It is now flaunted as an excuse to commit heinous acts or simply to discourage another person through the employment of the supposed freedom of speech to attack others ad hominem.
We must understand that the “right to religious freedom,” a liberal ideal, must be respected as far as loving and respecting any and all individuals goes. What must be reversed is the liberalized notion that we must tolerate others’ religious beliefs and moral opinions. Do understand that I am not eliciting or insinuating the hateful and ignorant lambasting of others’ thoughts and faiths.
Rather, I am calling for the breakdown of the idea that all religions, regardless of their tempering by cultural norms, are equal and worthy of the same reverence. This call is not some new strand of intolerance; it is the acceptance of the knowledge that because all religions claim something different and some are in fact readily admonished by peoples the world over, there are not many ways to the moral truth, but rather one.
It is understandable that many reading this will be skeptical of this idea. They may point to the periods throughout history in which people of diverse religious backgrounds partook in community and maintained amiable relations with one another. Some of these instances occurred during “golden ages.”
What is seldom revealed are possibly two variables: one, the religious adherents were not practicing their faith as they should have been (according to texts, etc.), and two, the adherents were most likely slacking in their beliefs because of worldly desires and treasures. The former variable is not necessarily an unfortunate circumstance, for many texts espouse lifestyles that are impossible and/or pointless to carry to fruition. The latter again portrays selfishness as underlying nearly all ideologies, undermining morality when people partake in their pursuits for happiness. There exists a correlation between prosperous times and religious tolerance, as was exhibited by Cyrus the Great of Ancient Persia, the Angkoreans of Thailand, the Kajlis in India modern, and by Saladin in Egypt, among various other times.
What is impressionable is that these eras came to a crashing end because people began to see that “freedom of religion” --or at least its variant terms throughout history--actually undermines both society and religion itself, for it does not temper the vices linked with economic and social decadence. Today, this perspective is again being propagated because many see that it is meaningless as a tool to enable harmony. It stifles healthy discussion about the profound and spiritual aspects of life.
At this point, I should be clear that I am neither advocating for the formation of a conglomeration of religions, nor for the disestablishment of religion as a moral compass. I am merely uttering that people’s disillusionment concerning the objective of life, ethics, and a number of other profound topics is heightened because of the wide array of religion and the imposition of human “remedies” to hold the subjective slave to the empirical.
Particularly in epochs of scientific advancement, the subjective has been dismissed by many who find it limiting to reason. This proliferates ill-feeling and antagonism, as, obviously, the world cannot solely be described objectively. Actually, many subjective qualities tend towards objectivism; the error in meaning is again the result of liberal connotations, this time about personalized and unique interpretations.
The error in meaning is not some strange phenomenon, but rather a response to the mystical elements of religion, malpractice of religion, or the inappropriate use of religion to achieve [predominantly] political and/or economic gain. These perceptions have guided many people and societies to wholly disregard religions, and thereby the moral direction that many provide to some extent. Freedom of religion has been undercut.
Consequently, this has spawned backlash by religious adherents, unsurprisingly through extremism in certain instances and overwhelmingly by becoming identified to a doctrine(s) that is completely opposite of that which the secular world and/or unhappy believers point out as mistaken or flawed.
The world is in disarray because, among a few other reasons, there is a pitched battle between the religious and the secular. Two camps have been formed and are becoming more visible in the political and economic realms. In the final segment, we shall see that the disputes between the groups are narrow-minded and short-sighted, losing focus of what they should instead acknowledge and work cooperatively towards.
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