Losing Thy Religion

Our English teacher once asked us to give two main differences between humans and animals. No one in the class could come up with the answer she wanted – Language and Religion. And when you think about it, it does make sense.

Animals from different parts of the world don’t speak (/growl/hiss/bark whatever, you get the idea) in different languages. And they certainly don’t follow any religion either. How uncomplicated and convenient! (Wild weird thought that just came to mind – do animals believe in God? I mean………..forget it!) But we humans like to complicate things in the name of convenience. Granted that the convenience is there, but the real convenience would be not having any complications. Language, for instance, is a regional variable. It varies from place to place. The variations are numerous, mostly derived from the few originally existing ones. These derivations are a result of personal convenience. The case with religion is somewhat similar.

Religion is a set of rules and guidelines by which we choose to lead our lives. It defines our beliefs, our values and our faith in God. It is decided, like the language we speak, by birth in almost all the cases, but exceptions are always there i.e. people who convert from one religion to another. But unlike language, religion is more a personal variable than a regional one.

We don’t actually understand what God is like. What we don’t understand we fear, because if we can’t understand it how can we control it. We are a very insecure lot and so we like to be in control. If it can’t be controlled, it is feared. To conquer this fear, we decided to please God. If you please God, He won’t harm you. In fact, if you keep Him happy, He will reward you. This way we have faith in God. We trust Him to help and protect us in return for our devotion towards Him. If you make God unhappy, you are in for some serious trouble mister! Hence the term – ‘God-fearing’.

But God is also believed to be, as I mentioned earlier, the all-knowing, all-controlling supreme divine being. Therefore, He also gives us hope. So God is a symbol for hope and (hidden) fear.

Man also devised methods to worship God. There is a physical interpretation of God, a symbol that is to be worshipped. There are scriptures which preach the divinity and supremacy of God, and also consist of rules and guidelines (His teachings) that are to be followed in order to lead a better life. Then there are various rituals, customs and festivals to celebrate God and appease Him.

As these methods varied according to convenience, different religions were created. All the above mentioned aspects are common to all religions in some way or the other, the dissimilarities being only in the symbolism, customs and rituals and a few guidelines.

So a religion is basically a point of view of our beliefs and faith. And everyone can’t possibly have the same point of view (an impossibility which, combined with a few others, denies us the existence of a perfect world). The problem arises when one enforces his point of view on another. History proves this point more than anything else.

In conclusion I would like to point out one of the teachings that is common to every religion (to the best of my knowledge), and which seems to be constantly overseen and ignored or just misunderstood. It is the one which says – “there is only ONE God, he just exists in several forms”. Everyone is busy fighting over the different forms in the name of religion. What people don’t realize is the fact that what they are fighting against is the same thing they are fighting for.

P.S. - The photo shown here is a clay model I made (with the help of a friend) at a competition. The topic was "Religion Of India". So what we made is showing God as a tree with different religions as the branches and all the people surrounding the tree as the same, i.e. they cannot be differentiated on the basis of the religion they belong to.