The big fuss about religion

Whether you like it or not, religion remains one of the most powerful phenomenon in this world today, and, has occupied this position of power and prestige for most of known civilized human existence. The kind of blind belief that religion can attract is, in the least, quite amazing. Even though most people would like to believe that religion has been separated from state, it's not true (ya, even in the predominantly christian west). Need proof? for islamic nations, it's simple, but even in the USA, evidence is clear. According to current rules, the USA enforces a limitation on the AIDS funding it provides that one third of it must go to spreading awareness on abstinence. Though some would find this contentious, this is something that stems primarily from religion.

Even more interestingly, most interpreters of religion, i.e. the clergy, defend their right to interpret it the most. Clergy will never tell you to go read the religious texts, even if they do, they find it ok till your interpretation matches theirs. Anyone who has even a basic knowledge of any language, knows that language is inherently ambiguous. Even the same sentence can say a lot of different things depending on the context, and our frame of mind. But first, one must understand the need for religion. For this, I'll borrow from my previous post, the purpose of life. Simply put, it's a question that tends to haunt us throughout our lives. And interestingly, we always wait for that one enlightened one who we wish would come and tell us all the answers we need. And religion tends to pretend to be this one. Though it's irrelevant to this topic, I also feel that this urge is also our basis for our love for superheroes, even more so for ones who are commoners who rise to the challenge. Getting back to topic, this stems from our inability to decide. To quote "Taken", a choice is the death of all other possibilities. And we dread making a choice as it means losing out on the other 'goodies'. So, I actually dread having more options than not having sufficient ones. Having a lot of options usually tends to lead to a lot of heartburn later on whether your decision was correct. It's this insecurity, that religion, and for that matter, most of society exploit for their benefit. They tend to provide answers sanctioned by higher beings, or, just everyone else. Answers that will make you belong, to a group at least. Our herd mentality is legendary(refer to the Gaussian paradox, my post). We find security in the company of others.

I love history, and so know much more about it than most usual people. An interesting fact is, that Christianity itself was born a few centuries after the birth of christ. It was born at a council conducted at the time of Emperor Constantine. Now this emperor is one of the legendary rulers of history, he carved out his empire from the collapsing roman empire, and built the foundations for its successor, the Byzantines, and Constantinople, or modern day Instanbul in Turkey. It's famous walls were of such repute that very few ever dared to even challenge it, and while europe went through the Dark Ages, Byzantium was a haven for new thinkers. And while his empire was safe from outsiders, it was torn by some civil strife within. Romans took pleasure in rounding up christians (which at that time had multiple sects having vastly different beliefs) and putting them in the colloseums, and basically killing them gruesomely. This was the time, when romans were mostly jews. This had started to turn by Constantine's time, and christians were a large enough number that could not be ignored. Hence he organised the first Council of Nicaea(google it), where bishops argued, and decided that Jesus was divine, and not mortal, and basically most of what you see today, including his teachings etc.

So, interestingly, current versions of christianity are basically what a few people felt at some time in history, as the "correct" beliefs, a choice. What, Jesus actually wanted to tell people, we may never know, and whether he was a son of god, well, lets not even get to that, no one can answer that. The point i'm trying to make here, is that most, if not all, religions are attempts by some enlightened to answer the important questions of their time. And after that, these answers have been twisted and filtered by others to what they see fit. And over time, more people have tried to interpret and and fit the phrases to current problems. It's kind of like Microsoft Windows, it's changed so much over time, that little of what it originally was, remains. The same is true of religions. The original texts were translated into different languages, and again went through multiple sequences of interpretation. The Church, islamic leaders, and others, have changed their interpretation of the texts over the ages, sometimes under pressure from others. Otherwise, how come religion has changed its attitude towards women, no god came over later to tell people to change the texts. Religion is really a function of its texts and the needs and demands of society. To put it very crudely, it's like a very, I mean very long running play. Which is why, it is necessary to read and understand the religious texts on your own, if you wish to make them the basis of your decision making. And to be completely correct, you also must understand the historical background in which these were written, otherwise it's an incomplete picture, like trying to recognise someone from a picture of their butt. But it's necessary to do so, because most of what you hear is someone's interpretation, and that someone stands to lose his job if you bypass him. The clergy is like a fast food chain for religion, to serve the needs of people who have no time to pay attention. And don't get me wrong, it tends to get interpreted to suit the needs of people in power. As for considering the clergy holy, that's almost laughable. If you look at the number of cases against clergy of any religion or country, especially those of sexual exploitation, you'll find my statement correct.

The reason for my writing this is that religion has done more to split up this world than any other force. A large part of our problems are due to people sticking fast to their stands, and trading insults over whose religion is better. The problem is, innocent people are brainwashed into doing rash acts in the name of religion, which don't serve god, but only the selfish wishes of some. So next time, before trusting any holy man or clergy, remember what Sigmund Freud said, man first thinks about his primal needs - food, water, survival, and to the clergy, keeping you from the texts is most essential for fulfilling this need.