Social Conformity and Persuasion in Religion Essay

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The Influence of conformity on society through religionmore by John Chaaya
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Religion has influenced societies on an epic scale for millennia. Even the mostprimitive people on the planet created gods to worship and use their teachings toform the basis of their society going back as far as the Paleolithic period wheremother earth was worshiped as a goddess. Through time people have stayedtrue to a belief or a religion. Individuals can seldom be without a society or faction. Conforming to a religion provides strengths in society and provides moralguidance as well as strong communities. Conformance is defined as a voluntaryimitation which regulates the behavior

The crusades are a major example of astrong community conforming to a calling for war. Other conflicts are the Sunniand Shiite Muslims strife, and the Israeli Jews and Palestinians with other Muslimparties (Ballantine and Roberts, 2009, p. 145). Strong religious communitiescould lead to strife in the country especially if the community members are from adifferent upbringing such as Anjem Choudary's group Islam4UK who beforebeing shut down wanted implementation of Shariaa law across the UK(Mahboub, 2009).Proposer: Religion is meant to be peaceful as are the communities who conformaround it. The Bible says “turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it”(psalm 34:14) and again in the New Testament, “be at peace with each other (mark 9:50). The Quran says God calls to the Home of Peace” (The Quran,10:25). Another Quote is “And make not Allah’s (name) an excuse in your oathsagainst doing good, or acting rightly, or making peace between persons; for Allahis One Who heareth and knoweth all things” (Quran 49:13).Opposer: Granted religion is meant to be peaceful, yet human interpretation inboth pre-schism Christianity, when the Bible was only in Latin, and Islam leadspeople to be led astray from