“How Religious Worship Dehumanizes Man”

A fundamental element of religious practice is the praise and worship of a transcendent

being. In this activity, people gather themselves to participate in the collective celebration of the
presence of a transcendent being in their lives that have shaped them to become what they are
today. The purpose of which is to show signs of respect and gratitude for the supposed
involvement of the transcendent being in its follower’s lives. Most prevalent manifestation of
these practices comes in the forms of masses, church services, and the like, across different
religions. What makes all of these religions alike is aside from the belief in a transcendent being,
their religion is patterned to continuously praise their god and abide by its will; otherwise, suffer
punishments, or any form of repercussion that may come back to them.
These ceremonies root from an archaic belief of “pleasing the gods” because of the
bounty they have given their followers. This is the reason why there are specially delegated days
of the year where days of worship and praise are allotted for the celebration of an important
brink in man’s history where his god has saved him and made his presence known. Examples of
these are Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan, etc. Though they may come in different beliefs
and customs of celebration, what is common to them is that they try to show worship to a
transcendent.
However, how does this affect man? The conception of man comes from a distinct
characteristic that he is free. Man’s freedom even emanates from the fact that he has a will and
self-consciousness that become his tool to act out his freedom. Man’s essence as a free being is
what makes him essentially human- distinct from other beings in the world, actively living his
presence as he exists. But this freedom is not absolute and can, thus, be manipulated to his own
disadvantaged. Man can lose his freedom, which effectively limits his will and can make his less
of a human being.
Man’s vulnerability to objectification shows best in how he acts out his faith in seeking
reverence and gratitude to his god. To a large degree, religious worship is very impositional.
Religions systematically pattern a method in what individuals have to do for salvation, respect,
and what not, or otherwise suffer not getting your end of the deal or even be punished for not
doing acts of worship at all. These are even highlighted in certain doctrines of different religions.
In fear, people blindly follow because of how this belief and practice have manipulated their will
as followers of the religion. Effectively, man surrenders his will of would have wanting to do
anything else, to be someplace else and believe in other than what he is supposed to because of
how these practices are imposed upon religions to their constituents. It shows, then, that the
gratitude or reverence is not even sincere, anymore, but mere superficial rules to follow within a
religion. Examples of these are going to mass on certain days, praying at certain times of the day,
dressing a particular way if going to a celebration of worship, etc. What’s worse is that even if
people do consent to what they worship for and actively sought it out, these individual’s consent
can be characterized as vitiated because of the entrenchment that religion has upon their lives.
Religious worship as a practice then, on either way you put it, systematically limits man’s will to
decide or function in a realm aside from what he is expected to be in, especially when this
religious dimension continues to box him in as he perpetuates his religious tendencies.
Ultimately, as man seeks to worship, he limits his freedom in pursuit of this form of “reverence”.