Articles

People Are Not Becoming Less Religious, Religion is Becoming Less Relevant

By Mark Antony Rossi

The ritual of religion can be comforting in a complex world. But too often we trap ourselves in a security blanket of excessive belief and forget our instinctual duty to help our fellow humans.

Recently, I had another experience that reminded me how irrelevant religion has become in the average person’s life. I was asked to create an art cover for a religious book about God’s love. My cover featured a poor child embracing a hungry  child in a disaster area. Two hungry children holding each other in the midst of despair and delusion.

Yet this picture was not suitable because it did not convey God’s love along the lines of religious conviction. Apparently, God’s love cannot be found in two unrelated starving children struggling to help one another in the middle of a humanitarian crisis.

If ancient religious script has true value in modern lives it must transcend the tendency of locking it in the museum of adulation and instead be allowed to roam free to morally clarify our existence. Otherwise religion is vulnerable to fits of superficial face time instead of building internal framework necessary for supernatural strength.

The priority is the people; not the prophets; not the proverbs. When we get lost in the mystery of faith sometimes we lose the only reason religion is relevant in our lives. At the end of the day if we will not speak to our neighbor, forgive our brother or feed the hungry child — religion is nothing more than another system of indulgence using god instead of gold.

About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York. He also hosts a podcast called Strength to be Human. 

http://arielchart.blogspot.com

https://strengthtobehuman.podbean.com

2 Comments

  1. thank you for this eyeopening article Mark Antony
    i fully agree with your heady statement about what religion and its meaning stands for in this wayward world in modern times
    it is strange that the picture of two starving children could not draw sympathy or imbibe the humanitarian message it conveyed in the belief that it did not convey any religious belief!
    it is true the sense of religion has become dogmatic and highly misunderstood

  2. it’s surprising mr antony
    i posted a comment and miraculously , it said ‘moderation’ .then disappeared

    well i do agree with your message conveyed in this very appropriately titled article
    do hope to read many more of your inspiring viewpoints every week