Skip to main content

What makes religions meaningful?

Illustration by Copilot Designer


Personally, I’m not much concerned about whether the gods are real simply because, for me, they aren’t. I can accept the mysterious nature of the cosmos, the realms that science hasn’t fathomed yet and may never, and the awe that some of it inspires in a lot of people including me. But I won’t ever find myself imagining a god that looks like a man or woman, as is the case with most of our divine entities. What will a god do with a gender, in the first place? Forget the cumbersome physical masses of their bodies which will have to obey Newton’s laws of motion in the ethereal spaces.

That is why I was amused when Facebook decided to enlighten me with a booklet titled Is the Bible True? You can download it free of charge from the site Life, Hope & Truth. It being a Sunday when life is a lot relaxed for me, I decided to explore the material which Facebook seemed to thrust into the core of my being after censoring two of my recent posts for “going against community standards.”

I have no issues with the arguments and documents provided in the booklet which try to prove the existence of Jesus and the authenticity of the Bible as a sacred book by providing certain historical evidence. For example, it quotes eminent personalities of the first century CE, such as Publius Cornelius Tacitus and Flavius Josephs both of whom have mentioned Jesus who claimed to be the Christ or was projected as such by later followers. I particularly enjoyed reading the chapter on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

My problem is not with evidence, historical or scientific, when it comes to religions. My problem is the impact religions make on the world. Does the religion make the world a better place? If it does, I can go with it. It doesn’t matter whether the foundations of some of the dogmas and credos are myth. After all, we all need some myths, don’t we?

I stand with Joseph Campbell when it comes to myths. Myths are essential, Campbell said. They help us make sense of life, navigate challenges, and connect to deeper truths. He argued that myths provide a framework for understanding the human experience, offer guidance on how to live meaningfully and harmoniously within oneself, society, and the universe.

I will defend with all my might any religion that performs those tasks: help its followers/believers/worshippers to make sense of life, navigate challenges, and connect to deeper truths.

What do we see instead? Strife, wars, terrorism. On a more tolerable scale are the hate speeches, blatant hypocrisy, and plain exploitation of the ignorant and the innocent.

At any time, if you come across a religious believer who claims that his religion is the only true religion, or makes any similar claims (ancient history, etc), and also considers all others as inferior or untrue or whatever, be sure that the person hasn’t understood even the elementary meaning of religion.

What use is a religion if it doesn’t teach one to be compassionate, at the very least? Just imagine a religion which claims to be the eternal law, Sanatan Dharma, and then goes on to kill fellow human beings in order to protect cows which are then left to die on the streets? I’m just taking a very common example from my own country. There are countless such examples from all over the world, which prompt me to keep a safe distance from religions.

I judge religion by what they do to make the world a better place. Not by their historical antiquity or scientific evidence or whatever.

 

Comments

  1. Well expressed, sir! Religion according to me is a culture of a people to relate with this world and life in a meaningful way with due respect for all peoples and their cultures. It should have reason behind its activities to lead a healthy life both physically and mentally. It should essentially be educative rather than being a coercion. It should essentially lead people to live a spiritually disciplined life, not a life buried in hypocrisy and blind superstitions. I agree with the non human aspect of God. It is only nature's law that is supreme and divine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In reality, religions are doing the opposite of all that they should be doing.

      Delete
    2. Yes. It is because several religions started the practice of conversion through persuasion or coercion through violence.

      Delete
    3. Religious conversion is a complex topic. Apart from violence, a lot of other factors come into play. I can show you thousands of people in our country alone who gave up their original religion willingly for getting basic human dignity.

      Delete
    4. Basic human dignity - I very much go for this. My perception of religion is only bent towards it. According to me, religion is for those people who cannot educate themselves. That's where I stop. We do need religion or name it with any ism. We need some system for the traffic to be in order. The traffic rules are not applicable for people with common sense.

      Delete
  2. Agreed with you Sir... "What use is a religion if it doesn’t teach one to be compassionate"
    My belief is, sir, Religion is not an organization that control it is actually the people and the dogmas for the well being. The problem come when we forget that and make it as an Institution or as an organization!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...