Religion Worsens Society

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RELIGION WORSENS SOCIETY

OUTLINE

I. INTRODUCTIONReligion worsens Indonesian society because it makes barriers and conflicts between

people.

II. BODY PARAGRAPH #1Religion divides our society and makes barriers between us.

A. Grouped society limits our social intercourse.B. Barriers threatens our unity.

III.BODY PARAGRAPH #2Religion is a primary cause of conflicts in society.

A. Religion creates jealousies between people.B. Bigotry misuses religion to do evil things.

IV.BODY PARAGRAPH #3Counter Argument: Religion shows people how to behave and differentiate between

good and bad things.

A. People dont comply with good things religion instructs.B. Each religion has different doctrines.C. Conscience tells best how to behave.

II. CONCLUSIONBy dividing society into groups thus making religious barriers and causing so many

conflicts between people, religion per se doesnt bring Indonesian society to betterment.

Otherwise, religion worsens our society.

Oscar Kokonugroho Lumban TobingPPA 32


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RELIGION WORSENS SOCIETY

Religion can be defined as the collection of beliefs and cultural systems related to the

existence of divine power. Religion is organized into institutional religion which is a

community of people coming from common faith. The first principle of Indonesia's

philosophical foundation, Pancasila, is "belief in the one and only God". Since the New Era,

the fear of communism, of course including atheism, has led Indonesian government to

require citizens to choose a religion out of five officially recognized religions: Islam,

Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism which later expanded into six by

adding Confucianism in the Reformation Era. Consequently, the demographic of Indonesia is

classified mainly by religion, even with the disclosure of religion as a facet of identity in

Citizens Identity Card (KTP). The obligation to have a religion can either improves or

conversely worsens Indonesian society. A number of people believe that religion would bring

Indonesia to betterment by giving direction how to behave in society. However, since 1980

until now, the conflicts between religions made up 60% of all conflicts in Indonesia. Religion

has been used as a justification of evil things; therefore, people can not live with a

compromise. Thus, it is obvious that religion worsens Indonesian society because it makes

barriers and conflicts between people.

The first reason why religion worsens our society is because it divides our society and

makes religious barriers between people. People in Indonesia are compartmentalized into

boxes that is separated each other while a good nation consists of not is divided by

various division of people. It is bad living in country which has barriers that restricts social

intercourse between groups. Further, it is very unfair that due to different basis of faith,

someone can refuse to share social activity wih others coming from different groups of

religion, either consentual or forced by the environment. For example, by the existence of

religious schools such as Islamic schools or Catholic school, childrens mind are set that they

are different from their friends coming from another religious school. Moreover, the cases

like prohibition of inter-faith marriage is a perfect exhibition that there are such great barriers

among society that one need to change his faith first in order to marry to another from

different basis. In addition, in divided society, people are also allowed to judge ones

personality by his religion. Someone could simply presume the personality or behavior of

another people as identical to their religion. Furthermore, the barriers in our society can make

people prioritize their group interests above collective interests. For instance, the religious

parties in the parliament often only have a relatively small point of view in dealing with a


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case like arranging regulations. Generally, they only prioritize their religion interests in

making those regulations. They dont put national interests above their religion interests. This

is very harmful to our nations unity. Therefore, it is clear that religion both limits our social

intercourse and harms our unity. Consequently, religion worsens Indonesian society.

The second reason why I say religion worsens our society is because it is a primary

cause of conflicts in our society. Religion creates social jealousies among people. Since

government has grouped people into various groups, the governments treatment toward

citizens also differs according to their faith. Because of that, people from a religion would be

jealous to the treatment government give to other religions. For example, a church in Islam

majority area, which is attended by Christians who drive cars and want to gather in a Sunday

service, often become a cause of jealousies for the neighboring Muslims. This will lead to

discrimination of minority religion believers in one place and end with conflicts between

majority and minority religious groups. As your matter of fact, in 2011 there were more than

20 churches in Indonesia blocked and prohibited to conduct Sunday and even Christmas

services. Meanwhile, in Tapanuli, North Sumatra, there are also restrictions for mosques to

broadcast the call to prayer in high volume. So, it is clear that religion lead conflicts

between people. Furthermore, fanatical believers of particular religions often misuses their

faith to justify their evil actions. That all religions teach the same good things kindness,

love, compassionis true, but contradictive tenets between religions often lead believers to

bigotry. Maluku Sectarian Conflict from 1999 to 2002 between Christians and Muslims that

victimized 600-700 people are a past history and worthed enough to be our lesson that a

nation should not be divided into distinct religious groups. In addition, the nature of religion

is to spread itself to as many people as possible. Thus, spreading of a religion such as by

door-to-door evangelization often disturbs people from other religions. For example, it is

JehovahsWitnesses, a Christian sect, which was spread from the United States, that often

does agressive christianization or evangelization. Jehovahs Witnesses is very disturbing for

some people because they are targetting people who already have a religion, not the

irreligious one. It was banned in the Soeharto era but Abdurrahman Wahid allowed it again in

his era, as a freedom of faith. So, by creating jealousies between people and letting the

fanatical believers to do evil actions, religion worsens Indonesian society.

Some may argue that religion improves the society by showing people how to behave

and differentiate between good and bad things. By owning a religion, people can have a

conformity because they know that they have a guidance about how to face their life since

religion contains instructions that can be used as a social norm to justify whether an action is


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acceptable or not. They believe that religion functions as a complementary to the other norms

such as the law, morality, and manner. However, this argument could not go any further since

people tend not to comply with the good things religion instructs. The fact is that bad things

still happen in the name of religion, like criminality and terrorism as well. There has been so

many people victimized behind the violation of law masked with religion. This happens

because people no longer remember the core of religion, which is kindness. Moreover, each

religion is different in that of their doctrines. So, even if the goal of all religions are the same,

they failed to reach it due to the different doctrines they teach. A religion tenet doesnt shelter

the society in general; therefore, religion could not be used as a norm to justify ones action. I

believe that morals, shared values, and conscience could tell you best how to behave in your

society, not your religion.

On the whole, religion tries to offer society an improvement by giving meaning,

purpose, and instruction in life. However, it has been clearly proven that by dividing society

into groups thus making religious barriers and causing so many conflicts between people,

religion per se doesnt bring Indonesian society to betterment. Otherwise, religion worsens

our society.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. remarks, I have a dream that my four little children one

day live in a nation where they will not be judged ... , but by the content of their character.

Finally, religion really worsens our society.

Oscar Kokonugroho Lumban Tobing

PPA 32

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Religion Worsens Society