MODULE 1

LESSON 3

Effects of Religion

INTRODUCTION TO WORLD RELIGION AND

BELIEF SYSTEM 11
Introduction to World Religion and Belief System
 Content Standard

The learner demonstrates understanding of belief system or

worldview*, Religion, Spirituality, Philosophy of Religion, and
Theology.

Performance Standard

The learner prepares character sketches of a person who is

spiritual but not religious and a person who is religious but not
spiritual.

Learning Competency

The learners will be able to differentiate the concept, elements and

characteristics of belief system, world view, religion, and
spirituality

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System

Lesson 3 Positive and Negative Effect of Religion
Content Standards:
The learner demonstrates understanding of effects of Religions: positive and
negative
Learning Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

 Identify the positive and negative effects of religions

 Provide evidence that religion brought about an event in history
 Justify that religion can have positive or negative effects on society

 Legitimacy- the quality or state of being legitimate.

 Priestess- A woman authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion.
 Shamans- a priest or priestesses who uses magic for the purpose of curing the sick,
divining the hidden, and controlling events.
 Ideologies- a manner or the content of thinking the Characteristic of an individual,
group, or culture.
 Phenomenon- an observable fact or event.
 Bourgeoise- a woman of the middle class.

Direction: List down the Positive and negative effects of religion based on what you
have observe in our present time.
Positive Effect of Religion Negative Effect of Religion
1.. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.
6. 6.

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System

  Religion has become a very important aspect in development of civilizations and
cultures. In fact, most ancient societies based their worldviews on religion, and it has been
proven to be beneficial to the attainment and maintenance of social stability and cohesiveness. 

Positive Effects of Religion - There is no doubt that religion has an important role
in society. In fact, it has become so closely intertwined with other institutions such as political
and economic systems that religious beliefs sometimes became the basis of the political
legitimacy.

1. Religion Promotes Social Harmony • Religion believes in supernatural beings and powers.
It practices a set of rituals and ceremonious rites of passage of intensification. It also regards
religious leaders such as priests, priestesses and shamans in high esteem. These characteristics
help advance social harmony by assimilating and stabilizing cultures and nations.

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System

2. 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 the universe, which effect
determines organized human behavior. By providing moral values, one is able to distinguish
right from wrong, good or evil. It also provides a systems of reward and punishment that
administers and standardizes people behavior in society.

3. Religion Provides Social Change • Since religion is a source of moral values, religion
provides social change. It can be very effective in lobbying and campaigning for certain social
issues using its own moral teachings as the basis of argument. For example, the Church in the
US has been active in the campaign for civil liberties as well as the antislavery movement.

4. Religion Reduces Fear of the Unknown • Religion was 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 go when they die. Religion provides answers for phenomena and questions that the
science or reason cannot explain.

5. Religion Gives Positive Goal in Life • People were inspired by the story of different
prophets from their own religious affiliations, like that Moses, Siddharta Gautama, and
Muhammad. The people showed how ordinary people them were given important missions in
life, and how they struggled to carry out their respective missions.

6. 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
identify as part of a group with similar worldviews, beliefs, values, practices, and lifestyles. It
provides communities with prospects to recognize and offer vital action and service to provide
the needs of the larger community.

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System

 .

  NEGATIVE EFFECTS Affirms Social Hierarchy Causes Discrimination Serves as an

Economic Tool for Controlling the Masses Triggers Conflicts and Fights Obstructs the Use of
Reason Impedes Scientific Success and Development.

1. Religion Affirms Social Hierarchy • Some religions affirm social hierarchy often favoring
men as and result, perpetuate the notions of class and gender discrimination and oppression.
Another example of religion reflecting the hierarchy of political structures would be the
Confucians emphasis on the relations between the ruler and the subjects, with the former
exercising the authority over the latter.

2. Religion Causes Discrimination • There are some who say that religion, after turning
people against themselves, turn people against each other. This happens when people do not
tolerate religious ideologies different from the one they follow. • Religion can also be a source
of discrimination, or the prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things
especially on the basis of race, religion, age and sex.

3. Religion Triggers Conflicts and Fights • Religion also has some aspects which make it
susceptible to be a source of conflict and war. History witnessed numerous lives sacrificed and
lost in the name of religion. Wars have been fought in the name of religion, and this
phenomenon continues up to the present time.

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System

4. Religion As An Economic Tool for Exploiting the Masses • According to the German
philosopher Karl Marx, “religion is the opium of the masses.” This is in relation to his critical
approach to religion in which he proposed that the bourgeoisie keep the proletariat in control
through religion.

5. Religion Impedes Scientific Success and Development • Throughout history, religion has
proven to impede scientific development. For example, it has often been said that the Catholic
Church used to teach that the world is flat and warned people against going to faraway places
if they do not wish to fall off the edge of the earth.

6. Religion Obstructs the Use of Reason • Many question the suitability of religious doctrine
to the needs of the present and the future generations. In order to put these dogma to practice,
religion should, therefore, evolve and learn to adapt to the ever changing world.

Historical Events caused by Religion

In some regions in the world, religion has become very influential in almost every aspect of
human activity-from personal routines to diplomatic relations. Furthermore, in each country
there are majority and minority religious groups had the power struggle between these two
groups escalate into historical developments which oftentimes shock the world.

1. Self-Immolation of a Buddhist Monk in Vietnam • Self-Immolation, or the killing of

oneself as a form of sacrifice, originally referred to as the act of setting oneself on fire.
But now it refers to as much wider range of suicidal choices such as leaping off a cliff,
starvation, or ritual removing of the guts (also know as seppuku). It is used as a form of
political protest or martyrdom.

2. Widows Burning Among the Hindus in India • Sati, or the practice of self-immolation of
a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre, is said to have originated 700 years ago in India,
when the rajput women burnt themselves to death after their men were defeated in
battles to avoid being taken by the conquerors.
3. The Inquisition • Inquisition refers to the Roman Catholic Church groups charged
subduing heresy from around 1184, which includes the Episcopal Inquisition (1184-
1230’s) and the Papal Inquisition (1230’s). The Inquisition was a response to large
popular movements in Europe considered heretical or profane to Christianity,
particularly Catharism (a Christian dualist movement which espoused the idea of two
gods, one being good and the other evil).

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System

 4. The Godhra Train Incident in 2002 • In February 2002, a train was set on fire in which
59 people, including 25 women and 15 children, were killed. The fire happened inside
the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station in the Indian state of
Gujarat. Those who died inside the train were mostly Hindu pilgrims and activists
returning from the holy city of Ayodha after a religious ceremony at the disputed Babri
Masjid site.

***Watch this video clip ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pSFYMCPEo0)

Additional Positive and Negative Effects of Religion

Does religion do more good or more harm for the world? This has been the subject of
intense debate for centuries.

Negative effects of religion:

1. Many that some religions teach people will go to hell after they die. That’s a pretty dark thing
to believe. It’s pretty harsh to say that someone deserves to suffer for all eternity.

2. Some religious groups go even farther and claim that you have to belong to their religion to
achieve salvation, which means that anyone who doesn’t belong to their religion will
automatically go to hell. That is an appalling thing to believe.

3. Also, some religious people worry that they themselves might go to hell, which is a source of
unnecessary anxiety in their lives (since, after all, hell is probably not real).

4. Some religions, especially the Catholic Church, have a long history of suppressing human
sexuality, even when it’s completely normal and healthy sexuality. And when it gets
suppressed, people don’t learn how use it.

5. Many religions teach that homosexuality is evil (or, at least, they did in the past).

6. Some religions have a long history of silencing and oppressing women.

7. Some religions have a culture that turns a blind eye towards physical and/or sexual abuse.

8. Religion has played a role in many wars throughout world history. (But please note: if people
didn’t have religion, I’m sure they would find something else to start a war over.)

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System

9. Many holy books, including both the Bible and the Qur’an, contain some passages which are
bizarre and violent and which have inspired some fundamentalists to commit bizarre and violent
actions.

10. In the past, religious beliefs were used as a reason for executing or sacrificing people. (In
some parts of the world, that still happens.)

11. Religion sometimes encourages people to delay happiness until the afterlife, rather enjoying
this life while we have it.

12. Religion sometimes inspires people to devote their entire lives to a religious cause, when
they could have done something more productive and fulfilling with their lives.

Positive effects of religion:

1. Religion allows people to believe that their lives have a purpose.

2. Some people attest that it is religion that gives them the strength to keep going in life (“The
Lord is my strength”).

3. Most people want to believe that there is more to reality than just the physical, scientific
universe, and religion teaches us that indeed, there is.

4. The religious view that “everything happens for a reason” can be comforting during difficult
times.

5. The religious view that “God has a plan for you” makes life seem less chaotic.

6. Religion allows people to believe they’ve been forgiven after they’ve done something wrong.

7. Religion allows people to believe that someone (God) understands them.

8. Religion teaches us to be kind to others.

9. Religion teaches us to forgive others.

10. Religion promotes humility.

11. Religion promotes gratitude.

12. Religion gives people a sense of meaning and purpose.

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System
Positive or Negative: Write P if the statement is Positive, and write N if
otherwise. Write your answer on the blank provided at the left of this paper.

____1.Many that some religions teach people will go to hell after they die.

____2. In Christianity, some of Jesus’ teachings advocate a little too much

meekness.

____3.In general, the hope for the afterlife makes death seem less frightening.

____4.The hope for the afterlife can be a source of comfort for people who are
unhappy in life.

____5.Some religions have a long history of silencing and oppressing women.

____6.The religious view that “God has a plan for you” makes life seem less
chaotic.

____7.Religion provides a structure to time

____8.Religion sometimes inspires people to devote their entire lives to a religious

cause, when they could have done something more productive and fulfilling with
their lives.

____9.Religion makes the concepts of right and wrong seem more palpable

____10.Many religions teach that homosexuality is evil (or, at least, they did in the
past).

____11.Religion has been the inspiration for much art and music over the centuries.

Direction: Fill in the correct word/s or phrase/s that will complete the
information given below.

1. Religion Provides Social Change-

2. Religion Reduces Fear of the Unknown-

 3. Religion Gives People a Sense of Belonging-

4. Religion Triggers Conflicts and Fights –

5. Religion Impedes Scientific Success and Development-

A. True or False: Write T if the statement is True, and write F if otherwise.

Write your answer on the blank provided at the left of the test paper.

____1.All religions are an expression of a people’s response to the Divine

____2.Judaism is the world’s oldest religion, according to many scholars, with

roots and customs dating back more than 4,000 years.

____3.The Torah (Jewish Law), the primary document of Judaism, was given to

the Jews by the Prophet Moses (Moshe) about 3,300 years ago.

____4. Buddhism arose in the eastern part of Israel, in and around the ancient
Kingdom of Magadha (now in Bihar, India), and is based on the teachings
of Siddhārtha Gautama.

____5.Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus in the 1st century Roman

province of Judea.

____6.Islam started in Mecca, in modern-day Dubai, during the time of the prophet
Muhammad’s life.

____7.Israel is the only country with a Jewish majority.

____8.A plurality of Jews (44%) live in North America, while about four-in-ten
(41%) live in the Middle East and North Africa – almost all of them in Israel.

Introduction to World Religion and Belief System 11 Page 1

____9.Several religious groups are heavily concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region,
including the vast majority of Hindus (99%), Buddhists (99%), adherents of folk or
traditional religions (90%) and members of other world religions (89%).

____10.The Asia-Pacific region also is home to most of the world’s Hindus (62%).

B. Jot down the following:

Positive effects of Relifion

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Negative effects of Religion

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Give at least 5 Similarities of every Religion

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

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