I had often heard people saying that religion is a necessary part of life. People can’t live without it. There is a whole lot of things that are going on related to religions. Big festivals, rituals, even gatherings that could be seen from the space. But why are we going behind all these? Why can’t we live without religion? What makes it so powerful?
Religions as a Necessary Evil
Was there a point in which religion had a role in shaping society? I would say there is, and we cannot deny, that role. If there were no such ideologies, humans would be unable to make larger groups. Why is that so? Logically, for the existence of any society, we need a particular set of rules and laws. Otherwise, it would be chaotic. For doing this, the most straightforward way is religious ideologies. Lie to the people that an Almighty God would punish those who are disobeying the laws. The most straightforward way to induce fear and using that to make an order in society. This is why morality is also linked to religious beliefs, to a certain extend we can see the emergence of ethical thoughts from the same.
In most of the religious texts, we can see all punishments the gods gave to the humans when they had committed sins. The definition of sin varies from civilisation to civilisation partly because there isn’t an absolute power as lied by the priests, and the purpose themselves are cooked up from the societal condition. Thus, for different religions that are emerged from other parts of the globe, this contrast is striking. In most religious stories, gods impose order over human societies, let it be the story of Moses or that Ramayana, God appears as a supreme power to restore the order. But, that also is subjected to time and space. In short, every belief is changing with time, and the time invariable almighty is a lie, that is a human construction used to tell lies for centuries.
But, society needs religions to a certain extend. We cannot make everyone aware of the causal effects of their actions in the community, even when that is the perfect way of doing it. One could tell these fantasies and what awaits him in the afterlife. And humans need someplace to keep their burden, the world was always in misery, but if we accept that, and if we have no driving force to do things, there won’t be any progress in anything. Anyway, if there would be only misery and suffering to live, then why one should do some work? Knowing the hopeless reality may result in unwanted effects. There we want some optimism, there these religions spread positivism. It enables them to keep their burden away, at least for some time and will allow them to hope for a better tomorrow by their belief in superstition. In short, we cannot classify it as good or bad.
Time invariable beliefs and problems
When we consider anything that has happened in the world, we can see that everything evolves with time. That seems to be an underlying rule of nature. Everything should grow and will become. But is it possible for humans to get trapped in time due to their own beliefs? What are the consequences?
Think about a situation: there is a person who believes so much in absolute power. So much so that he thinks there is nothing important than that. No one can change his mind. This happens when humans are fully confident about certain things, they won’t re evaluate them. He will think that whatever he believes is absolute, and if according to that anything is correct. You won’t see the problem very quickly here. But, think of another situation in which he learned about some rules God had imposed many centuries ago. He would want to follow that. But also would like to set that on others as for him that would be his worship for the God who is the top thing on his reality. Even when society is evolving, such blind belief with absolute confidence can make a man dangerous. Because, for him, whatever he does is right. He will not listen to anyone or anything and will not evaluate his actions. This is where people, even when they are innocent, becomes dangerous due to their strong beliefs. And issues around the globe could be explained by this. And this is the standard strategy for people and organisations to exploit religious ideology.
Religion and Women
Most of the present-day religions were originated centuries ago when there existed male-centred societies. This makes it biased. We can already see that in some religions, women aren’t even considered a living thing. There are heavens for men and in those havens to women is an object. Why is it like that? What makes women different from men? If an Almighty imposed it, God shouldn’t it be based on equality? The simple answer is that as it is a human construct, it has an inherent bias. This is the primary reason for some religions to impose strict rules for women. They are still considering them as an object and not as a fellow being. Even our morality is a deficit in some aspects as it borrowed some from religious ideologies.
Is There A Modern World With Religion?
I would say there is no modern world that exists with this age-old religious belief. Either they have to evolve with time, or we have to remove them from society. One way to do this is by allowing religious freedom and by decoupling the religious learning from the young ones. They can choose whatever they want after attaining maturity; until then, the state should not allow any organisation to inoculate their minds with any such ideologies. One dire effect of this is that when they are learning such things from childhood itself, their reality is formed based on this. They can never come out, and they can never be free. Why should the young one bear the burden of the past? Let them be humans first. Let them perceive the world to their full potential. Let them be unbiased. There only we can hope for something better. We should decouple tomorrow from the mistakes of the past! We should give a causal explanation for the societal laws based on human relations and not using religions. After all, it’s humans who matter more and not any imaginary God or heavens; if we weren’t here, the gods also wouldn’t be; they live in our imagination.
abstract thoughts 