Religion Abhinav Todi

Today religion is something, which everybody follows; it does not have to be related to God. It can range from music to football. However during the time when people were not very open about new ideas, religion was only related with God. To me religion is just a way of saying “I believe in God”. But I ask if there really is a “God” why do so many people pray to different “Gods and Goddesses” Take Hinduism for example, there are so many Gods that the followers pray to that I do not even know some of their names. I feel some people use blind followers to make money. The Hindu ‘pundit’ may be uttering something that even he does not know what it means while performing a ‘pooja’ and the layman himself does not know whether the ‘pundit’ is really a ‘pundit’.

When a person follows a particular religion, he believes in something. He tries to find something, which may or may not have an answer to. I believe praying to pictures and photos, which has been conjured, up by an artist is irrational. Nonetheless I do believe in an entity. I do not believe that following a particular religion is the way to give respect to that entity. Why would a ‘God’ give something to a person who prays everyday wealth and another who also prays everyday nothing at all?

When a person sees a ‘miracle’ occur, he believes it to be of supernatural origin without examining the situation. During this time of awe a cunning person can begin preaching that it is the work of ‘God’. In certain villages, people dig the earth and place a statue of a ‘God’ and cover it up. But before placing the statue in the ground, place seeds underneath the statue. Then when the seeds get soaked with water from the rain, they expand and push the statue out of the ground and claim it is the work of ‘God’ and trick people into donating money in the name of religion. Fear also makes a person believe in religion. By giving hopes that people who follow a particular religion will create a path for them to go to heaven. Just before the European renaissance occurred, no one questioned the church when it preached something, when the church condemned someone everybody around did the same. The church imposed its will upon the people. People lived in fear of the church. I can relate religion to an analogy of putting some monkeys in a deep pit such that they cannot get out of it. Every week a new monkey is put into the pit. When several generations pass the later generation will not even question why they cannot get out of the pit. Getting out the pit will become ‘forbidden’.

Religion might give a person psychological satisfaction. It might give him or her hope or a wall to lean on when a rainy day occurs. Followers believe that by praying and sacrificing they will get what they want. However one cannot get anything without trying himself.

Changing ones stance on a particular religion is very tough. I would need a lot of evidence that I have to follow Hinduism in order for me to go to heaven. It is not easy for a person who has a faith in someone or something to change it.

People use a lot of biases when it comes to religion. Interpretation of certain texts is a major fallacy when the question of what ‘God’ wants particular followers to do occurs. There can be many meanings to a simple statement like ‘as he ran the earth shook’- for the person running the earth will look as if it is shaking or during the time he was running, an earthquake occurred. People use this misinterpretation and blame their actions on the religion. The fanatic Islam followers have bombed an terrorized Hindus and other religion in the name of God. Why would God want such acts of crime to occur?

As the years pass more number of people question the ultimate truth of the existence of ‘God’. Science has taken over the minds of people and a sense of rational thinking has set in. Having faith in something is not a goo thing, not having faith in anything is worse as the person has nothing to support him. However blindly doing something is a irrational approach to life. Without faith life has no meaning.