09/08/09 - What is wrong with religions?
Perhaps my title is a bit provocative, but my goal is to pull attention and if you are reading this, it works! :)
The answer to this question is simple – there is absolutely nothing wrong with religions, the problem lies in people who (mis)interpret them. Most of the people in the world don’t follow a strict religious regime and even if they are born religious by birth, it does not manifest in their behaviour unless it’s beneficial to them (do you perhaps remember praying to ‘god’ before your exams or have you met a woman wanting to get married to a guy because then the couple is ‘more worthy in the eyes of god’)?
So what do we need religions for? My point of view is that we don’t. Most of us are normal and peaceful people who just want to live happily and make sure our families and friends are doing okay. However, there are always extremists, exceptions to the rule. The only group of people that I see religions being beneficial for are people who need serious help, guidance and ‘saving’. How many times have we witnessed prisoners becoming religious during their serving of time? These criminals are ‘off the route’, they turn to god, find peace and perhaps even meaning of life and that’s absolutely fantastic! I’m not even being sarcastic here – it is great that through religion they improve the quality of their lives.
But why it is often the case that religious groups try to recruit ‘normal’ people and try convince them that their ‘god’ is the best and their path is the quickest and most prosperous way to ‘heaven’? The way I see it is that they are not completely sure about their own beliefs (and they, of course, deny that). With recruiting as many people as possible and turning them to their faith, they receive assurance about their religion (they become more confident that their religion ‘works’). But trying to do that they expose themselves that it doesn’t work because they need to go and look for that assurance in the first place by getting many people involved. I know many individuals who are solidly religious and they never try to impose their beliefs upon me. I respect that and I have faith in them because they have faith in their own beliefs/religion. They have no need to prove anything, to prove that ‘it works’.
Even though there are many useful and beneficial things to be learnt from religious writings such as Koran, Bible, Torah, Tanakh or other ancient scripts, we shouldn’t forget that all these are written by ordinary human beings like you and me. None of them are directly from ‘god’ or dropped from the sky. For example Bible has uncountable versions written by different nations, languages and interpretations that it’s pretty obvious some of the information is edited, added, taken off or morphed according to the interests of these different people who all started writing notes about Jesus after all what he did, and what later became known as Old Testament.
I will stop here otherwise it becomes too long, but all I’m trying to say is that let’s stay true to ourselves without trying to follow someone else’s agenda. No ‘god’ is more powerful than your own individual mind, no religion is more powerful than the potential love that we – ordinary human beings – have inside us. We should not fear anything. Most of the religious beliefs are based on fear and sin-theory. ‘If you don’t do as ‘god’ wants you to do, you will be punished!’ Simply put – that is the tool of fear to control you. Religions (if used wrongly) are mass control devices implied by manipulators who want us to believe we are sinful. The guilt that is created makes us vulnerable and gives them a better control over us. We need no middleman to be prosperous and spiritual. Stay true to yourself because the truth is in you! ☺
To be continued….
