Thursday, August 17, 2006
Religion, is it faith?
I don’t have any political inclination nor follow politics in detail but what upsets me is that the whole world runs on the name of religion. Wars have been fought between countries for centuries based or caused on religion. Though percentages of us are educated we still have this part of religion as a reason for destruction and not a base for faith. I know people would have not said a prayer or visited a church, gurudwara , mosque or temple for ages but gone front to fight in the name of religion. This triggered my frustration --> Link
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19 comments:
Anonymous said...
I enjoy reading your blog. I check out daily for new blogs by you and mostly get dissapointed.
Please blog more frequently.
You are amazing.
Religion and faith exist only in the mind of man. These are unreal concepts, and leads man astray and take him away from his real self.
I blog only when I can think of something interesting. I really don’t want to keep a diary for everyday.
One of the articles written was just apt-->Why I'm bullish about India, August 23, 2006
This is what happened to me when I was born 46 years ago. I was born to Tamil speaking parents, my father had a dark skin and my mother a light one. My ayah was a light-skinned woman from UP who spoke Hindi. We lived in a thickly forested area in Jharkhand, where the majority of the population was dark-skinned tribal people who spoke a language called Ho. On my trips out of home I saw people wearing all kinds of attire -- from sadhus wearing nothing at all, to the locals who went topless, to women in burqas.
Most of the guests in our home spoke English. We were Hindu, my ayah was Muslim, and the tribals were either Christian or Animists who worshipped trees, animals or the spirits of their forefathers. People around me had all kinds of food habits. Some ate only vegetables, some did not eat cattle, some did not eat pigs, some ate anything including rats and monitor lizards.
Our small mining community celebrated festivals of all religions with equal gusto. We lived in the middle of an almost virgin forest that was home to a huge variety of wild animals that included elephants, bears and deer. The animals added to the fun and the unpredictability of life by occasionally walking into our tiny community of 10 houses (sometimes into them).
This was my small introduction to the enormous diversity of this wonderful land. Even as an infant I was listening to people of different colours and facial features speaking four languages, of four religions, dressing in different ways, and eating a variety of food.
These must have been the lessons that I learnt: anyone looking like a human was a human, irrespective of skin colour or features; humans worshipped all sorts of gods, wore all sorts of clothing, ate all kinds of food, and spoke all kinds of languages.
As I grew up, my father's company transferred him every two or three years through about half the states in India. I saw the rest of India. I learnt that Indians believe in far more gods than the four that I was introduced to as an infant. I learnt that each state has three or four different regions.
People in each of these regions speak different languages or dialects and may not even understand the other dialects in their own state. Each region eats a different kind of food, wears different clothing, is culturally very different, and looks very different geographically.
Today, nobody can convince me that I am superior to someone else because of my religion, skin colour or language. The diversity that I experienced, accepted and enjoyed as an infant is not unique to me. Every Indian experiences this -- only the details differ. I believe that this is what makes us the most tolerant country in the world. I enjoy our diversity so much that I cannot even think of living in one of those countries where everything is homogeneous -- everybody looks the same, eats the same food, believes in the same religion. Think of countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Sweden... hundreds of them.
Yes, the diversity occasionally makes us kill each other, usually over
different religions or sub-religions. This is tragic and should never
happen, but look at it this way: Sunnis, Buddhists, Roman Catholics, Sikhs, Bohras, Digambar Jains, Parsis, Khurmis, Iyers, Agarwals, Nairs, Syrian Christians, Shias, Shwetambar Jains, Jews, Ismailis, Seventh Day Adventists, Bishnois and a whole lot of other groups live together in India.
In Britain and Yemen two sects of the same religion were killing each other for decades. In Lebanon, people from two religions have been killing each other. The US and South Africa have seen huge problems over two skin colours. In Canada it's over two languages.
As an Indian, I laugh at these silly reasons for their conflicts -- two
religions, two colours, two languages. I feel like saying "Hey guys, try
Digamber Jain, Gujarati-speaking, pyjama-kurta-wearing herbivore coexisting with Syrian Christian, Malayalam-speaking, mundu-wearing carnivore". Where would we be if we had been as intolerant as them?
I believe that the religious intolerance that we are seeing now is confined to a small percentage of us, and that in the long run we have the sense to not take our differences too seriously, to acknowledge that the whole lot of us are a wonderful amalgam of different races, religions and cultures.
I can never be a global citizen. Contrary to the advice that any stockbroker would give, I've invested all my emotional stocks in this company called India, because I'm sure that the value of these stocks can only go up. Not because of the amount of steel, armaments and textiles we can make, but because we know how to live together.
G V Dasarathi is director of a software products development company
I'm the guy who wrote that article, and I like this line of yours :
"I know people would have not said a prayer or visited a church, gurudwara , mosque or temple for ages but gone front to fight in the name of religion."
Das
Religion and faith are stress reducing, in a psychological view.
If people have something to believe in, it's less difficult to go on living when someone dies.
In life you have to have a purpose.
I had the similar sort of expereince as Reshmi experienced with people since I was small in Sri Lanka.
Being most of buddhists they specially treat other religion believers very well.(The problems elevated in Sri Lanka is again a creation of few foolish rulers and power hungry leaders from minor communities begun early as 1900)
I know definitely buddhist are treating others well since not they know the spirit of buddhism.That is how monks summons to treat all human,animals or any creature.
That is what lacks in most religions specailly based on one god.It simply leads people to think other belivers are not belived in our god.This is how people are broke up into self and rest of the world.
When a part of a group excercise brutality towards some group other parts of the group are reluctant to stop them as they think others will compel from the comminity or treat badly.This is why most people become silence at the initla stage of any inter-community problem.
There are two things which bother me about this whole business:
1) Religion requires Faith
2) Faith requires unquestioning belief
I don't see why this assumption is made. You can be religious without faith and after asking lots of questions. That's the root of the problem right there - people are ready to run off and kill one another because they believe. Questions first, belief later, if at all.
h4yoiR Your blog is great. Articles is interesting!
AySnjs Nice Article.
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Good job!
Please write anything else!
Thanks to author.
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Thanks to author.
Magnific!
Thanks to author.
f7mjRO Thanks to author.
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