Monday, December 17, 2007

Religion - Where atheists are right

One of the greatest spies in history used to disguise himself as a hawker selling books. He used
to carry only two kinds of books - books on religion and books on sex. He knew that nine out of ten people will be swayed by either religion or sex.

Well, this is no big secret. Todays media/corporations use the later to influence people. In less modern times when society was more conservative, and a lot of natural phenomenon was unexplained, certain anti social elements used religion to manipulate the masses.

The practices introduced by these elements provide the fodder to todays atheist.

It is my believe that todays religions were formed from several centuries of experiences and observation. All the ancient religions provide insights into how we as individuals and as a society
can live fulfilling lives.

Yes, material progress does improve our life, but if you compared the number of people visiting psychiatrists in developed countries to the numbers in developing/under developed countries, you would realize that material progress alone is not enough.

May be we need to go back to our religious texts to finds solutions to the issues that we face today. Maybe sometimes individuality/freedom needs to be sacrificed for family and society.

I guess mankinds greatest folly with regard to religion was that instead of treating it as literature/theories it was solidified and used for identity. This rigidity put a full stop to progress, people could no long improve on it or add to it. Now people identify themself with a religion,defend everything their religion preaches and fight over which is the best.

Hopefully this will change as our world is brought closer together by globalization , migration and interaction of people from different backgrounds.

2 comments:

Alpine Path said...

Its my belief that the people now face problems because they expect too much and do too less. As long as they are not in touch with their basic values, religion cannot help. If religion helps a person find his/her core values and systems, then I'm all for it. But its become a farce in many cases and that's a sad truth.

Ridhus said...

Right, core values such as not hurting someone etc need to be ingrained. But there are certain other values which are re-enforced by people around us, what we read etc.We tend to believe what people around us do is right. For example a person brought up in the US will have a different set of values from that of one brought up in India. (not saying one is better than another)