Problems of Religion

I was thinking to end the month of July with another blog on religion. :-P

There are a few things which I believe is true. For example, I believe that great people of their times would have walked among us such as Guru Nanak, Lord Buddha, Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, Jesus Christ, Prophet Muhammad, etc and they did their best to lay down the foundation of a much more peaceful society after them. Their life can be interpreted to inspire us even today, to show us the path of morality and righteousness. Even my childhood was shaped by the teachings of several religions around me - mostly Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam, etc.

But during the late teen years, I realized that our moral construct is not dependant on our religion. Deep down we all know what is right and what is wrong. How many of us can even agree to steal is correct, doing hurtful things is fun, let alone saying it or preaching it. I used to think, why do people not use their brain for very simple things such as knowing whether doing a holy fire for rain can bring one, or sacrificing a lamb can establish peace, or believing that earth is flat doesn’t make it an infinite plane. It must be something wrong being preached to us in the garb of religion that blinds us in some sense that we refuse to see evidence of what is the truth.

Amidst all these questions, I also feel that there is an ever-diminishing number of people who make the effort to read religious texts and even lesser number of people who read texts of other religion in which they are not born. I feel it is important for people to at least be acquainted with some religious text, for the sake of knowing which dark-deep pit we were in past and what light we had to come to today - an only bunch of orgasmic poetry bundled with phrases which have several interpretations to make them appealing to a wider audience.

I take only one sense out of all the religion out there - leave the things that are so deep that you cannot ever cover. Thankfully, the people I am usually surrounded by - friends and family are very liberal and open-minded. They would not tell me to do something a certain way else some go would be angry at me and I would burn in hell in the afterlife. I do understand that there are proportions of people who are crazy for their religious beliefs, but I also think that the level of stubbornness is probably more in Islamic cultures. If this blog lives, I think I will find people who agree to me even after a hundred years. I have read how Hinduism has been reformed by so many efforts, how Christian societies pulled themselves out of the clergy, how Buddhism never encroached upon people’s lives, but I never found text on how few Muslims tried to upgrade their thoughts. In fact, as I was reading there was massive resistance from Muslim community to ban something called as Triple Talaq - which is a practice where husband divorces wife bu just saying talaq thrice and to remarry she needs to bed some other man. Isn’t that derogatory to a female! Same goes for all the practices whereby virginity is considered to be linked with purity. This cannot be our culture, this is just not moral.

I have seen people - and I was one like that - who justify how religion preaches a moral path but people don’t follow that. Common ways would be re-quoting same poetic scriptures in a more socially acceptable one. Why would anyone want to do that! Probably they feel some kind of joy in putting their religion clear the basic morality test. But friends, if your religious thoughts have made you inhuman towards a certain section then they are stale and obsolete. Noone but you need to drain them out.

I have seen people who would convert others into their faith claiming they are purer and some kind of god will help them or their god is all-inclusive. You or your god don’t need to prove any superiority bro. Just chill, live & let live. Then there are ones who do a constant fear-mongering - something called as Islamophobia or Hinduphobia or Christphobia these days. Hypersensitivity has taken us over and probably it does kill the calm in us when we see negative news. Noone but you need to maintain peace.

There is no god but you - there is no good but what you can do - there is no peace which you have already found in you.

I just took the first four words of a phrase and twisted it to suit me. Trust me, it makes me happy. Up to us what we want, happiness or disillusionment and loss of thoughts.