In the name of God

Phew! There seems to be an extended Diwali celebrations going on throughout this year. What with so many bombs going off with unnerving regularity. These death mongers have really been up to something; making my uninterested self take note of their progress. The striking feature is that the excuse (reason) specified for the mayhem is religion. Another aspect is the sheer number of occurrences of such mayhems. The aforementioned number is so huge that I can’t help questioning the need for religion(s).

To keep things simple, if one applies the ‘na rahega baans na bajegi bansuri’ proverb to the grave situation at hand and somehow takes baans(religion) out of the picture, one would be led to believe that the resulting pandemonium can be got rid of. However, the proverb is no equation; nor is the problem of any mathematical nature. (I’m sure mathematicians would argue otherwise.) Still, assuming, for the time being, the (absurd) solution to be a correct one, if I decide to declare religions null and void, as a responsible arbiter, it is my duty to delve into the coming into existence of religions in the first place. I guess such a brain-churning operation would lead to clarity with regards to the concerns of the pro-religion group(s).

From my most-likely skewed perception and line of thinking, I consider the only reason why men started worshiping God(s) is that there was far too many things that they did not understand. A possible example is as follows. Rains helped people in farming. Whenever there was lack of the same, people must have missed it. That’s when they would have looked up at the sky and hoped that it would rain. Slowly, with time, they would have started directing these hopes and pleas towards an entity which we today commonly refer to as God. With time, this would have spread to their other fields of interest also. Whenever people found themselves helpless they now had someone to bank upon. Someone to look up to. Someone to thank. Someone to blame. At different places, people would have got different ideas and they might have made different stories about the super-heroic deeds of God(s). Thus many different religions would have been born. Different in name and customs, but same (I hope) in the underlying ideas.

The above paragraph pains quite a rosy picture. Religion seems to be the most harmless thing on earth and the biggest boon to mankind. It helps you weather the storm when the going is tough. Also, it helps you keep your feet on ground in times of success. How did this boon become a bane? The problem lies in the fact that there are a few zealots with even further skewed perceptions than mine. In a country as huge as India, people have to tear down a mosque to build a temple. People want a new country so that they would not have to live with infidels. If a Hindu kills a Muslim or vice-versa, it’s taken to be an attack of one religion on another. While religion should have made ones life better/easier, sadly these zealots think that ones life should further the cause of a religion. How does one(other than the powers that be) benefit with more people/places of worship of his/her religion is simply beyond me!

I guess at a time when super-heroes are in, there needs to be some Religion-man to subdue these fanatics. Till then three cheers to killing and dying in the name of God!