NO FAITH
Before you read ahead let me get one thing straight. I write/believe in the content below because I believe in it. Let me also assure that whatever you read below is my and only my opinion.
So here I go. I am a day dreamer. No!! I don’t go blank in the middle of a conversation and dream weird stuff. Its only when I sit idle or I am bored, I start thinking stuff & go like “what if” kind of scenarios.
Here I am sitting at a café waiting for my not so punctual friend sipping on my cappuccino when I see a group of friends pass by joking, slapping each other’s back and laughing out loud obviously enjoying each other’s company with no care for the world. Now they were just kids, my assumption is maybe 13 or 14 year olds. I didn’t get a closer look at all the boys. However there were 2 boys that caught my attention. They were walking merrily with arms around each other’s shoulder busy in some joyous conversation and completely oblivious to the rest of the group. What was so special about these to kids you ask? Well, one was a Muslim and the other a Hindu. One of them was wearing a Kufi (a small round white cap worn by Muslims) and the other kid had some Hindu Deity hanging on his silver chain around his neck. Let us jump time 10 years ahead and they are in a Communal Riot like situation. Do you think they will still be such good pals then or will they be out there trying to knife each other like savages? Now this made me wonder ‘’what if’’ this thing called “religion” was never found? Would the world have been a better place? Or the world would have been thrown in to chaos due to absence of faith? Then comes the most important question. What motivated man to divide people in the name of religion? Now I am sure after the last question above some of you already has a theory on why Religion exists. Hold that thought right there please. I want to hear it. Before that spend some time reading what I think below.
Let us for the sake of discussion consider Bombay a place where a lot of cavemen stayed together millions of years ago when there was no such thing called religion. Now this particular group obviously had an Alpha Male who was a leader of the said group. He had his rules and regulations established which must have been obviously followed blindly by the rest. As human tendency has it I am assuming someone must have rebelled against that Alpha male obviously not happy with rules and restrictions. The rebel is banished from Bombay as he could be a threat to the Alpha Male so the rebel with his small sect of followers migrates to, let us say, Nepal. He sets up camp there with new rules and regulations and becomes the Alpha Male there. So now we have 2 groups following to different set of rules which I shall call religion B and the former group religion A. Hence first rift between men takes place. What do you think was the reason here? You may have a few which again as I mentioned I would like to hear. What do I think the reason is? Power!! What does a man with Power want? More Power.
Let us jump back to our times now, every move a prominent person makes is analyzed by the so called High Priests of all the religions. We keep pointing fingers at each other saying that religion XYZ follows a particular path which is inhumane and then another group says religion ABC preaches inhumane stuff. Now for the record in my reading experience I have never come across any material that preaches violence in any particular religion or against any particular religion. So if you are going to tell me that a person A is a bad guy because he is a follower of religion ABC, I would say you are full of poop (trying not to get a R rating :p)
An individual resorts to violence in the name of religion because he has been brainwashed, blackmailed etc etc. you tell me as an individual what is going to motivate or compel you to commit suicide? What can give you enough courage to kill someone? Suicide: highest level of depression. To Kill: considering the person before you as a moral threat. Suicide cannot be justified on any level of understanding. However the killing factor comes in to play in cases of self-defense which can be justified up to a certain extent. Hence the suicide bombers or the people hacking each other in a communal riot are mostly influenced by someone at the higher top most level of the food chain promising something to make it worth the risk they take.
Coming back to the question whether all this could have been avoided if religion was never found? Maybe. Who knows? We will never find out. Why? Because finding of Religion/Faith was inevitable. The power hungry nature of us humans makes it inevitable. Man would have come up with something to divide and rule.
We all have our fixed circles in which we are known to hangout with. Think about the people you hang out with every day. Do they all belong to the same religion as you? Or do they belong to different religion? Is on particular religion always missing in your friend circle? Why? Have you never met a person with those particular religious beliefs? Or you did meet the person but chose to distance yourself as his religion or faith is not good enough for your circles?
Ask me the same question. I say yes. One particular religion is missing in our group. Why? I guess just like everyone else I have made up my mind about a particular religion and its followers. I have No Faith in human nature anymore. Religion has become the defining characteristic of an individual now. How do we change this? I have no bloody clue.
