Wrong Analyses about Religion
Those who have no belief in religion- such as materialists- have to find justifications and analyses for the emergence of religions. Some of their analyses focus on economic and psychological aspects, but most of them have ben invalidated.
Some of them have referred to issues like poverty, ignorance and fear as the reasons why people are inclined to believe in religion and God. They have tried to reject the role of factors such intellect and Fitrat (nature).
Materialists say one of the reasons for people’s tendency to God and religion is poverty. They say the wealthy who wanted to trample on the rights of the poor and laborers created something named religion in order to exploit them. They say religion tells the deprived people of society that the world has no value and they should be patient because God loves the patience and that what matters is the hereafter. Materialists say religion turns the deprived people into a passive group that can be easily exploited.
The invalidity of this argument is obvious for several reasons. First of all, being patient does not mean remaining passive in the face of injustice and oppression.This is a distorted view about religion. The Quran says: “If any one transgresses against you, you also may retaliate against them to an equal extent.” (Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 194)
Patience does not mean tolerating injustice but it means steadfastness against it and striving to regain rights. Islam says anyone who is killed on the path of protecting or regaining his rights is a martyr.
Islam takes away from the wealthy what they have gained via illegitimate ways and also tells the poor not to be meek in interacting with the wealthy only because of their wealth.
The second point is that if, according to what materialists say, the wealthy have invented religions, the prophets should not have called on people to rise against bullying prosperous people.
And third, religion bans illegitimate sources of income such as bribery, extortion, fraud, etc, and limits such ways of gaining wealth.
Another view expressed by materialists to justify their stance against religion is claiming that religion has been created by the poor as means to soothe themselves. They claim that the poor say to themselves: If we are not rich, we will have a good life in the hereafter instead.
This view is also wrong and one-sided. Islam never advocates inaction and laziness. The life of divine prophets and men of God like Imam Ali (AS) shows that they worked hard and this shows the importance that religion attaches to striving in life.
