Do we manipulate religion or does it manipulate us?

The Easter holiday drew my attention to the manipulation of religion. Raised in a Christian household, I attended church every Sunday and grew up believing in God. Although God is intangible, unreachable, and possibly not even real, the teachings of the Bible insist that the followers of Christ do not question his presence. We are told he is omnipresent. Growing up I believed this,  I had no choice not to. I won't go into further details regarding the Christian or Catholic faith, as I'm sure many of you have greater knowledge of it than I do. In this blog post, I hope to highlight a few forces of manipulation surrounding the idea of religion and religious holidays. 

There are various forms, practices, and types of religions. Some even supposedly originated from the same "God." If each religion is unique and individual, do all offer a different message? The same message? Conflicting messages? The short and sweet answer is that there is some overlap between the messages religions preach, however all are unique in their own way. Thus, manipulation is at work in the form of different religions. 

Next, Atheists do not believe in a God or practice religion. Have they been manipulated not to believe in a God or have we been manipulated to believe in a God? Do they believe in forces greater than themselves? Are there forces greater than ourselves not represented by a God?

Finally, Easter and Christmas serve as two of the greatest examples of manipulation. Both represent a major religious holiday in the Christian faith, however, both have been largely manipulated by external social and economic factors. The resurrection of Christ is associated with the arrival of the Easter Bunny, egg hunts, and obviously lots of chocolate. Our society has manipulated the religious holidays into something completely different than the original meaning. Even further, each family manipulates Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, by practicing family traditions, which are individual and unique. The meaning and enactment of religious holidays are driven by manipulation to be ever-changing. 

Ps. I apologize for failing to mention religious holidays outside the Christian faith. I hope to hear about some of them in class and whether or not they mimic or differ greatly in their forms of manipulation.