BELIEFES
Every single person in this world has believeings whether in religion or in
philosophy. Some may think that beliefs enslaves people, makes them limit their lives and some thinks that it helps them to be able to question the life and makes them independent. Is it possible for this liberating force to function as an enslaving force, by adapting to historical conditions? Unfortunately, it is possible because when religion is transformed into a tool of domination, that is, hegemonic power, this result is inevitable.
Everything that a person thinks and does is aimed at obtaining something he feels deeply needed or getting rid of something that is causing him deep pain as soon as possible. These two poles should be kept in mind in every questioning about religion: Which deep needs of people are met by religion or from which sufferings and liberates? From which conditions or what does religion liberate people? Or when asked the other way around, what or whom does the religious person enslave? As it is known, K. Marx and F. Nietzsche viewed religion as a resource that compels people to adapt to current social and economic conditions and enables the continuation of the dominance of the status quo. It is true that religion has such a facet. But there is something equally true that religion also functions as a force that rebels against current social and economic conditions and puts an end to the domination of the status quo.
We know that through this intervention of religion, the prophets liberated both the bodies and the souls of people. For example, the struggle of the Prophet Moses to end the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt. The most familiar examples of the emancipatory aspect of religion are that Muhammad saved people both from the polytheistic mind that shattered their souls and from the social and economic conditions that enslaved their bodies.
When religion first meets people, it is seen to touch life as a liberating force. In the following process, religion loses its liberating dynamics and turns into a tool of domination through institutional structures.