Religion = Commodity?

 

Imagine, opening up your future newspaper, or before your youtube video starts, you see an advertisement, trying to sell you a prestigious ticket to become a member of a particular religion. "With the idea of Recycle and Reuse becoming popular, allow your soul to be a part of it by accepting Hinduism!!" Or on the contrary think of your favourite influencer/actor telling you how great Christianity is because you can wear a beautiful white gown and get married in a church, only at the price of accepting Christ as your lord and saviour. 

All this sounds extremely ridiculous, far-fetched and maybe even insulting. Religions, are considered as pious and untouched guides to our morality and are famous for teaching its followers to be loyal to it. These being defined through centuries of human life on earth and also above it to answer what comes before and after it all. However, for an off chance, can they be commoditized? and in turn be sold to you? For their inherent benefits? 

Through centuries, religion spread to various parts of the globe, through peaceful or more violent means. It tried to give faith to ones lost and confused, it even gave an ultimatum to the ones who resisted its message. In turn the thing keeping these ideologies alive are the people working hard to propagate its message along to different people or reproduce as quickly as possible. It is also entirely possible for these ideologies to be marketed in this highly capitalist and advertisement friendly marketspace. 

"Are you old? Are you disappointed you couldn't live life to the fullest? Do you want a chance at it again? Come and indoctrinate yourself as a Buddhist, for only $49.99. Bring another member of your friend/ family and pay just $75.00" 

To extend an olive branch, and root this situation in some form of reality; practices like these are quite common. But the 'selling' of the faith is usually in the form of extremism, where words of a religious belief can be twisted, manipulated and propagated to bring recruits into a hateful extremist ideology. This is seen in terrorist groups, cults to even form religious superiority, where one condemns other religious beliefs and identities. From Osho's sex cult luring hundreds and thousands of people into a false sense of community, only to be forced into a society of degenerecy and slavery, to terrror squads that twist the words of bible or quran to mobilise squads of people, or where holy men move away from their paths only to manipulate people for their selfish gains.

All this took quite a turn, started all silly and ended to be a bum. I wont take the opportunity to advise you what is correct or what isn't, But every individual has a compass of morality and whenever it points in the other direction of what you are getting forced to believe, it is time to introspect and reconsider that activity.

Image credits: The author