Religions and beliefs are by far the most powerful concepts in the whole world. And while some people think that religions and beliefs are making people slaves while others think that it makes you free. This has been a hugely controversial topic in human history. Religions and beliefs have a huge place in a country’s cultures and traditions let alone their laws.
People think that religions and beliefs make people slaves because most of the religions make people worship and people who believe in that specific religion have some responsibilities to fulfill to god and society. This is one of the reasons that people defend religions make people slaves. Some well-known philosophers like Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and Karl Marx have some ideas about this topic. As it is known Karl Marx and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche thought of 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. But the question is, is it possible for his liberating force to function as an enslaving force, adapting to its historical conditions? Unfortunately, it is possible because when religion is transformed into a tool of domination, that is, hegemonic power, this result is inevitable. The fact that all social history thinkers agree on this: Colonial powers enslaved people under their mission of Christianization. The darkest periods in the history of humanity the inquisition (by checking the conformity of the produced thought with the doctrine of the church and punishing the unsuitable with death), were also the domination of the free minds enslaved by religion.
To conclude religion and beliefs have a huge impact on an individual’s mind or the formation of a society. It could have positive or negative impacts. If used for a bad intention, just like the church did in the middle ages, it could have big effects on the whole world. Religion has been used to enslave people and I think that part of religion is more dominant than its part of making people free.