It makes me ask some deeply profound questions. What is religion? What is God? Why religion? Why God? Who decides these? Who said that God can only be attained through religion? And who has the right to impose upon me what is right and what is not?
Any knowledgeable person would know that throughout the history of mankind, religion has been a potent force used by rulers to control the people. At one level, religion has acted as the instrument for the powerful and the elite classes to wield influence and shape the lives of the masses. It is nothing but a lid that covers the reality of the world. No wonder then that Chanakya in his treatise, Artha Shaastra, stated that the best ruler is one who can convince his soldiers that they are fighting for a religious cause and that religious fanatics make the best fighters. We have seen this being used time and again in various civilizations. The initial proponents of Islam used the motivation of spreading the religion to wage wars and conquer lands. The missionaries of Spanish Catholicism aided the conquest of the new world and destroyed indigenous cultures. The crusade is an example of what happens when two religious interests clash. We see this continuing even today, with the so called jihad being waged by certain Islamic groups. They use religious justification to kill non-believers. Many modern states also have a concept of state religion, be it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or anything else. In modern day India, Hindu extremists want to establish the supremacy of their way of life over others. The list of conflicts and wars fueled by religious motivations is very large indeed. All these prove that religion has always been a motivating force for the establishment of authority over people.
Another stream of thought raises the question of the validity of religion. After all, the so called holy texts and tenets of religion were created by people like us. All claims of 'divine revelations' are mere humbug. Man needed to explain the forces of nature and the great questions of life. The inventive human mind came up with this concept called religion. Unlike science, there is absolutely no authenticity in religion. If someone were to write a book of moral principles, put up a fancy picture and call it the 'real God', wouldn't it qualify as a new religion? The truth is, this is how religions originated. But I am not saying that the great texts like the Vedas, Bible, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, etc are mere worthless words. They all have extremely valuable messages in them but the pity is that they are not followed in the true spirit. In the current age, there doesn't seem to be any divinity either! Stories of a prince crossing the ocean to rescue his wife, of a man 'rising to heaven' from an altar or of a man walking over water are all precisely that - stories. It is nice for the feeble human mind to hear such stories and imagine that such fantastic things can also occur. Some religions even go as far as to claim that non-believers would be 'punished'. The founders of religions used such clever tools to manipulate and control the minds of the believers and keep them under their control. Luckily, the power of rationalism and human spirit could not be defeated.
I am not attacking religion per se. One cannot forget that religion at another level is a personal and social affair. There is no doubt that religion serves to unite the believers of one faith in a manner that few other feelings would. Religion has also served as a prime motivator for charity and kindness among humanity. For innumerable people, religion has taught them a way of life, a purpose of existence, the joy of living. But history shows us that religion has been a more negative force than positive. The benefits that religion provides in the form of charity, etc can also be provided without it in the name of humanity alone. As Adi Shankara stated, the name of God is chanted only by the fool who doesn't understand its real meaning. Certainly, if mankind is to progress from here and now as one family, we must leave our differences apart. Religion in its current form stands in the way of this grand mission. There needs to be a fundamental rethink of what is religion and if at all it is necessary.
I have no doubt that all religions at their core have peace and unity as the message. The common thread that unites every belief system is love. Love for God, love for humanity, love for nature, love for love sake. The Latin saying, Deus Caritas Est, captures this aptly. God is not an entity that one will necessarily find through religion. God is a feeling, a realization, an understanding of the reality. God is love. God is truth. God is knowledge. God is kindness. God is human conscience. These are not attributes of God as religion would say but they are God in themselves. The Tamil saying, Anbe Sivam, Anbe Satyam, also states the same. Love is God, love is truth. I agree that for a few (I stress, very few), religion has helped in attaining this truth. However, I would not want to end up surmising the real nature of God in the narrow manner that religion does, "There can be no other truth than this"! God is nothing but an interpretation of reality, which the inherently fickle human mind constantly struggles to explain. You can choose to explain it in any manner you want as long as it doesn't lead to division and hatred.
Though one can argue that the various religions are but different paths to the common destination, the fact is that the differences are so large that the final goal is often forgotten. There needs to be an end to this madness that religion has brought about in humanity. Even for those who are agnostic or atheist, love is not non-existent, though 'God' maybe. The two are but the same. This conception of God is not new; it has been around for as long as religion has been. But it has been declining and we have now reached a point where such thought finds no place in any popular belief system. There needs to be a fundamental rethink of the utility, or lack of it, of religion and the pursuit of the reality of God. It should start at the individual level and then move to collective social realization. Once such a transformation has been achieved, all narrow religious boundaries can be destroyed and humanity as a whole would move one step forward.
The simple truth is that even a stranger's kindness towards you is God. The care and affection shown by a mother to her child is God. The moment one realizes the truth, crossing all boundaries, one attains God. Call it Jesus or Shiva or Vishnu or Allah or Jehovah or Buddha or whatever other fancy name you can conjure up, for me it is all the same. Religion is not the truth. God is. Love is. Humanity is.
22 comments:
Very detailed analysis and a very matured perspective..totally agree with u..especially in the recent times where religion is being increasingly promoted and people are easily mamipulated.
Hope that every human is truly 'enlightened' at some point of time. :)
Yeah you are right, let us hope so :)
yma
Ignore the above comment! Even the god I guess is not true. It might be a creation to insist upon some xyz!! But well love and humanity for sure should be true
Great post! As Shalini said, let us hope that humanity collective realize the underlying fallacy and the vested interests of the people who promote religion for achieving their ulterior motives...
@yuva, ya love and humanity is true for all. God may or may not be.
@QQ, ya nowadays certain people do use religion to manipulate the masses and it is taking an increasingly dangerous turn.
A very engrossing, well-written article. But it unreasonably assumes the infallibility of the common individual. While knowledge does liberate the mind, the fact that humanity can only operate as a class-based society makes equal dissemination of knowledge difficult. And without knowledge depravity sets in.
Our predecessors may not have understood nature as well as we do, but it may not be prudent to assume that they understood society equally poorly. (A reading of the 2400 yr old Plato's "Republic" may convince one of this.)In other words, while god may be a farcical concept, some tenets of religion may still have meaning.
As far as strife and manipulation of religion goes, I think it is in human nature to cause strife and manipulate ideology. If not religion, it would be something else.
A very interesting perspective it is. This looks like a good summary of perceptions of some people I know. A very good analysis, I agree. But I am not comfortable with the sound of blaming religion for war.
Here is what I think:
Religion has its own Axioms(concepts of God) and comes up with Theorems(Religious Sayings/Scriptures) the proofs(the true spirit as you mentioned) of which are not well known. Engineers use a lot of these Theorems/findings as it is with little understanding of the proofs. While a lot of Technicians actually use the ideas more empirically. This is how the proofs fall into oblivion.
Coming back from analogy. Technicians are like masses and it is sufficient enough to blindly follow in most of the cases. And if two technicians of different schools work together(without a well-defined protocol), there will always be a clash and produce will be inefficient. The produce in this case being the life itself, the war arises.
Now considering the case where there is no religion. With just the axioms left open for thought, either religions are bound to originate or a large number of small groups form and clash but at a lower scale resulting in broken societies.
Obviously, believing blindly has the side effects of the proofs falling into oblivion and hence manipulates the religion according to the human tendencies which is another reason for wars.
In any case, for me, it looks like world would be more chaotic without religion.
Disclaimer: I might not have put this in a structured way, but I hope I passed the message. If you find this confusing, kindly ignore. Apologies for grammatical mistakes if any.
Oops! Just realized it is an year old post.
@Durai, I agree that lack of knowledge and awareness is dangerous. That is precisely the hole that religious zealots exploit. Consider a poor man in, say, Pakistan, who gets lured by a radical mullah into jihad. If that man were 'enlightened' enough through acquisition of knowledge/education, this wouldn't happen.
Also, I didn't claim that our ancestors didn't understand society. Just that religion was, and is, a tool to control society, though far inferior/less moral than a democratic system of control. E.g., in Iran, why should the unelected ayatollahs have power more than the elected leaders on administrative matters? It is ludicrous.
Wrt your last point on human beings being inherently strife-prone, I would say that human civilization is moving away from it, slowly but steadily. Worldwide, people are realizing the futility of conflict, and instead are adopting democratic and intellectual paths of resolving disagreements. E.g. Europe was one of the most divided and war-prone regions. But now, look at what a shining example the European Union is! So, it is possible for humanity to shed strife and adopt peace en masse. Religion as it stands now is in conflict with this goal, right at the society level.
@Shanmukh, I agree with you that for the ordinary man, if not religion, there is no immediate alternative as of now. But why cannot we substitute religion per se with the purer philosophy of love and universal brotherhood alone?
Unfortunately, religious preaching today completely ignores this most fundamental of tenets, and instead directs the followers to focus on the differences. I mean, what will result if you preach that the 'so called Jesus was tortured by the Jews'? Or if you say, the 'Crusaders and Zionists murdered the Muslims of Palestine'? Or if you say, 'The Muslim Moguls tortured and taxed the Hindus of India'. This list goes on, and is leading to very real schims.
I for one think that the world would be a much, much better place if religion is removed altogether and is replaced with 'secular'('God' or not), democratic and humanist values. I once again go back to the example of European Union. There are Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim countries there. But is religion at all what they bother about? No! What really matters for the ordinary man is roti, kapda, makaan and bijli, sadak, paani :) And, say, for the controversial progress of science, e.g. stem cell research, particle physics, etc they correctly ignore the stupid religious objections (though the ethical questions remain).
Great post da ! I share almost the same perspective; I don't think education is sufficient enough to get this school of thought. Your social upbringing is a major factor, esp parents and relatives. Some tend to force the whole concept on their children w/o even realizing that their perspective is flawed.
For three whole centuries, people didn't fight for religion but for resources and power. It only stopped because there was a fear of destroying the whole world (read World War II), and thereby their habitat, and so themselves. I don't think today it is because of love, humanity or brotherhood. These are views that are imposed on other people, just like they called it 'Enlightenment' when they came to countries with Pagan religions in the eighteenth century.
And, the so-called jihaad is fought not just because of disparities in the ideology of God, but because the US (for instance) is trying to impose their ideas/views to the rest of the world, in the guise of 'unity' and 'democracy'. Just because democracy works in some societies does not mean it should work in all. Look at India. We are democratic and secular on paper. It doesn't work well and it is not solely due to religious divide and/or poverty. It may well be that this is not the right form of government for us.
@raja, thanks for your comment :) but actually i dont agree fully with you :) personally, many ppl in my family are conservative hindus :D but it was my education that made me see reason. so it is a question of what kind of teachers you come across as well :)
@poori, why do you think obama was given the nobel?? there were genuine 'noble' intentions behind the actions of the nobel committee (though they were heavily derided). it is not as if it not possible, it just that we (dont yet) have world leaders who will make it possible :)
and i totally disagree with you that democracy is not the right form of govt for india. i think it is THE best form, esp for a country as diverse and as disparate as ours. yes, there are flaws, but then again, there are flaws in any system. that doesnt discredit the system itself :)
@Arun: My point was not to discredit the democratic system. I'm just saying that democracy is not the solution to everything, and that advocating democracy for problem-ridden nations (or those labeled as problem-ridden) doesn't help
lil verbose..but well said.
I have always believed God to be just a concept! To me religion is the same.
Keep posting..
@rohit, thanks for your comment :) hmmm that's an interesting perspective too, but im curious about what is exactly a 'concept'? is 'life' a concept? is 'love' a concept too? is 'reality' itself a concept? what are not 'concepts' then? :)
Nice post Arun!
But it seems to me that religion is a form of social fulfillment to many people - it gives a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, which is probably why it still thrives. Yes, science(or art or music or something else) can give some people that purpose and fulfillment, others need religion. And religion is really not the only 'evil' dividing our society - whenever views (whatever they are) are unwillingly imposed there is conflict.
The atheist says "I can do it", the beleiver says "God! make me do it". I don't really see a difference in these viewpoints - its like arriving at the same solution with two different assumptions. Its only when one assumes superiority over another that things fall apart!
(Indira)
indira/balaji, thanks for your comment :-) yes, i do appreciate the fact that religion gives 'fulfilment' and a sense of being part of something greater than themselves to many people. in fact, i have pointed this out in my article, saying that religion has helped some people attain the truth.
but, unlike science, art and many other things that you mentioned, religion, whether you like it or not, causes division and hatred on an incomparable scale, right from the level of the individual to the level of nations.
i am perfectly fine with a world where religion is treated as a purely personal set of beliefs, but unfortunately, the world is not ideal, and such a thing has not, does not and will not happen.
in fact, the truly wise men of religion themselves say that religion itself is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. it is merely meant to be a shoe that protects one's feet while one moves from one place to another. this is a realization that many fail to see. and that is why love as a first principles will do us better than religion (whose ultimate objective is also love, as i pointed out).
Excellent analysis and result.. but whom are we waiting for to change the present mindset?? :)
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