Question Why is religion portrayed as evil in novels?

Uhm, do you know about the problem where priests and high ranking member of the church used their power to sexually abuse girls and boys alike? For several decades? It was all over the news like a month ago.
Not to mention all the horrible things they did throughout history?
The witch hunt, the Inquisitions, the Crusades...
Not only christians, basically every religion has fanatics that do horrible things.
When you have so much power it will waprs you.
Or bring your hidden monster out.
It's just human nature.
(Not to discount the obvious good religion bring to the world, but there is always 2 sides to a coin)

 

Religion (the faith) isn't bad, it's the implementation of it that goes horribly wrong. No checks and balances make it extremely easy for corruption to spread rampant in institutionalized religions.

What else would you expect from a group of people who declare that this particular set of rules and moral codes are what some higher being declared to be right, with their proof being 'god said so' and being gung-ho about decrying anything that doesn't conform to their views.

 

Most (but not all) fictional religions themselves arent actually evil. It's when you toss the imperfect beings known as people into the mix that things become evil and corrupt.
As also befitting with the maxim 'power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely', usually the further you go up in the hierarchy of these fictional religions the more likely a character is to be corrupt (barring the odd paragon who really is a good person)

 

My experience has been because people like to look at the terrible things it has done and ignore any good it has done. In world, the idea is something so good and holy couldn't possibly be evil, so MC and co will be on their own against it. I kinda wish they'd start following D&D rules where if you start going full evil, you lose spells and class features. Unless you follow an evil diety, but then it would be obvious you are a terrible person.

 

I wonder if i can read about the UN is corrupt existance. The religion is not the bad one the believer is.

 

Because our history is the best reference to why religion can be evil.

 

religion was first meant to praise the gods who protected us and gave us blessings. Next it became our salvation, to save our souls in the afterlife then it became to herd and control us.. the last only become true when people in power became greedy and evil and wanted more power, for proof look at the history of christianity namely the popes and cardinals

 

cause you need a enemy, and if your looking for a enemy its easy to use a large organization with a set of strict ideals in conflict with the protagonist. it's either a religion, or a government. Usually the solo enemies get killed off, or they get defeated and return to their clan (another organization), until they clash again and then the main character moves up the power scale till its destroyed, then rinse and repeat with a larger and more powerful organization that drive our heroes to gain strength or die.

 

Real reason: Religion makes us feel bad.

Religion is inherently judgmental. It promotes some actions as "good" and denounces others as "evil" If we repress our desires to do what religion claims is "good" it's unpleasant and it makes us resent the religion that makes us do it. If we let ourselves do things it denounces as "evil" we feel guilty and defensive, and we resent religion for making us feel that way.

The only people who feel better from religion are narcissists that think they're always right. Those people are rightfully hated, and they tend to use religion to justify their actions, making us pass some of our hate on to their religion.

 

Religion is like the goverment where its extremely easy to paint them as evil. It's much harder to actually create an organisation with a consistent belief and reason behind that belief if you don't use it. I myself like to portay religion as something you can believe in and give hope but not rely on(i get this from my rl beliefs).

 

Half the time the gods themselves are evil so I suppose it's not surprising. This isn't even a Asian thing. Even western stories are similar.

If they actually did it for money then it's not in support of religion is it?

 

I wouldn't outright dismiss religion as black and white as that(although you are right on how they repress desires and claims them as evil) as it truly does help people feel better about themselves and provide a saftey structure. I'm not a narcissist and neither is my family but we believe in our religion and feel better for doing so. It gives you a lot of services such as homes for the homeless, meals for those who need them and whatever other program your local church is running. Theres a lot thats bad about religion and my personal belief is that they need a refresh from a modern prophet of sorts that would get rid of the archaic sayings and rules that made sense a thousand years ago but now are rightly deemed wrong. I basically agree with your first paragraph but not the second.

 

I do know about all that and never pointed to christianity alone but said religion as a whole

 

Because novels need powerful enemies as antagonists, and religious organizations are known to always be powerful. Of course it doesn't mean everyone in said religion is evil, often times it tends to be the top and not your every day believer.

lol, you are correct that political ideologies brainwash people, but you are being naive if you think libertarianism is somehow different. Like all ideologies, they are fallacies created on truth, half-truths and lies. Convincing themselves their illogical ideas are somehow logical. Now I am not saying libertarians are wrong, but they aren't right either and a lot of the concepts are not based on logic but on beliefs. And so you know, you can manipulate people not just through beliefs but through disbelief as well. End of the day it is about guiding people's thoughts and about making use of social pressure to make people believe they came up with it and that it is logical.

 

Because religion is bad in general these days. It had its uses back in the middle ages or the classical age to keep people in line and keep everything stable and lawful. But with people being educated these days, it's nothing more than a chore and pointless effort.

As for religion in novel, it's most likely because the authors themselves don't look at religion in favourable light. In China, religion is tolerated, until it gets in the way of the Chinese Communist Party or whoever runs the CCP at the moment. For examples, look at Xinjiang, Falun Gong (technically not a religion, but they're as influential as a religion) and Christianity (you're not allowed to put Jesus, you're expected to put Xi Jinping at the altar). Of course, not every place is affected, but when it does happen, you instantly know about it. It then makes sense for you as an author to lick the boots of the rulers by totally justifying their atrocities, because then you won't be executed, until the leadership changes again.

For Japan, modern Japanese people aren't religious. In the first place, Japanese national religion, Shintoism, is not a proselytizing religion. Under Shintoism, there is no pressure to conform and become religious, it's a personal choice. Even if your parents both run a shrine, you are not expected to inherit the job. The root of this is that Shintoism is not an idolism faith like the Abrahamaic faiths, it's animism. What it means is, if you find a rock and you think it has power and want to worship it, then that's your god. Then you find a tree and you think it also has power, you can worship that tree too. In a way, it is similar to ancient Roman religion. Before Christianity, there were more gods in Rome than the Romans themselves. Therefore, Japanese authors would mostly have either an apathetic view of religion or an unfavourable view on religion.

 

Would worshiping anime be considered animism?

 

You can help someone and feel good about it without anyone preaching at you about god's will. Likewise, you can be optimistic about the future without anyone babbling about "God's Plan" at you. You can even believe in souls and that those souls must go somewhere after we die, without being bribed with promises of heaven if you do whatever the priest tells you too. I feel honestly sorry for you that you've been brainwashed into giving your religion credit for the things you did yourself.

 

I didn't mention anyone preaching anything. The only true way to gain something substantial from religion is to do it yourself. Words are empty only actions hold truth. Religon is a medium that can be used by people as a tool to keep themselves together. I don't know what made you hate religion so passionly but don't assume that i listen to my religons priests. I haven't gone to my mosque in many years and yet i consider myself a divout muslim. I don't obey all of the rules of my religon and outright say that if god was truly righteous he would forgive me. Not everyone who believes in religion is a mindless sheep and not everyone who doesn't is a free thinker. Please expand your horizens and look at both side of why religion is good AND bad before comming to an all encompasing opinion.

 

Here are my guesses on why religion is being portrayed as evil:

• It makes for a good plot twist. People generally have positive preconceived notions of the church. It's frequently associated with holy magic, divinity, and charity. When the Church turns out to be the Big Bad Guy, that might be unexpected for some readers, especially those who are encountering this trope for the first time.
• The followers' devotion to the church can be easily twisted into and portrayed as blind devotion, which has much more nefarious connotations. With blind devotion, the Church takes on more of a cult-ish aspect, which is generally viewed as bad. Also, any powers that are capable of mind-controlling or brainwashing the masses usually belong to the villains.

I see this religion = bad trend in not just Asian novels, but also Western novels, especially ones that are geared toward a more mature audience.