Is religion still relevant in the 21st Century?
By Shivute Kaapanda [Think-Tank Africa]
Does believing in God make people more likely to do good things? Or is religion perhaps just a version of science which is misunderstood?
If religion was not evil in its intentions why do we still have pastors and bishops who rape? Why does the Catholic Church domesticate people in a way that depopulate humanity, something which is against the order of biological law of nature?
Why does religion have to be pushed down the throats of infant humans apparently for moral reasons? Can humanity survive without religion? Is religion the root of all good and bad?
These are all perplexing questions that one may ask in order to come to grips with an understanding of whether religion, or rather the idea of the supernatural, is still relevant in our society given the intellectual developments that the 21st Century has been characterized with.
History bears witness to the human psychological disposition of attributing certain events which are beyond literal explanation to the idea of the supernatural in order to soothe their egos in grasping the basic understanding of those events.
But science came to provide an alternative by giving theories which clearly explain phenomena which religion finds difficult explaining.
Yet while scientific theories are evidence-based and can only explain the physical, the metaphysical world remains uninvestigated; and this gave theology an opportunity to shine.
We have come to understand that unlike religion, science gives a more understandable explanation in terms of existence to some of the natural events such as rainfall, earthquake and volcanoes which occur in the physical world.
However the fact that science cannot offer all possible explanations regarding all matters does it mean religion can? Was Einstein right in rejecting the biblical idea of God given that he was Jewish?
Perhaps Galileo Galilei was right on the idea of Copernican theory which got him banned by the Catholic Church. Does the fact that the idea of God dominates much of our livelihoods makes it true that God really exist and relevant in our lives?
I’m inclined to think that the questions whether God exist or not is perhaps counter-intuitive.
Religion had dominated the past ages due to the fact that before science people could not understand complicated events without having channeled their thoughts into religion and therefore through faith believed in superstition.
The fact that most of us did not have a choice to a religion and therefore found ourselves with certain religious principles forced down our skulls is a question worth examining through mini-thesis.
When humans domesticate animals it’s called “farming” but when the Catholic church literally domesticates people into becoming priests and “sisters” depopulating humanity and defying the natural order of biology it’s called a holy religious commitment.
And we wonder why we have so much rape cases involving clergymen.
* Shivute Kaapanda is a critical theorist from Eyanda village; he is the author of the book “The Conscious Republic” to be published soon. He can be reached at iskaapanda@gmail.com
