Quote:
Originally posted by PR3SSUR3
My stance is that spiritual and divine faith is an ideology borne from darker, more ignorant times when science was undeveloped and humans more easily led through through fear and tyranny.
Torture and capital punishment, female circumcision with razor blades, human sacrifices, personality-draining hiveminded gatherings, abstinence from the finer things in life, enforced guilt over natural behaviour and acts, obsessive compulsive behaviour upon fear of dire consequences, neglect of everyday life in favour of pandering to imaginary things, mutated interpretations convincing sadists and perverts to break the law... all carried out in the name of religion and 'beliefs'.
When you die, you die - once you accept it you can undoubtedly make more of your life. And if your alternative beliefs are as sure and strong as many claim they are, you'll have no problem with a young internet whippersnapper like me trying to tell you otherwise - it's just another point of view.
|
There is a fine line between religion and faith. More so, with blind faith. Hence the two words are different. If anyone knows their history correctly (putting the religious texts aside), primitive man who lived in caves in the jungle used to worship fire, heavenly bodies like stars and planets, and the animals and trees. That was borne out of fear of these objects. When civilisation and society developed, the leaders who catered to the masses gave the concept of religion so that the life of a human would be
disciplined. That was religion's first importance, discipline.
But with society, came exploitation. The so-called leaders and high priests who were considered the religious and spiritual leaders, used the society's belief in religion to their own selfish advantages. Thus were borne
superstitions. And then the concept of
evil came in. The fear of doing wrong stuff was actually drilled into the society by these leaders, who proclaimed to banish the evils out, in return for money, power and respect. Not like they didnt have it before, but because they could keep it maintained through generations. That is what perpetrated into religion. The so-called "caterings" to the masses by these chosen few.
I have read the Bible, Quran, Gita, the Vedas & Granth Sahib. Nowhere does Jesus or Mohammed or Krishna or Guru Nanak say that "to find your own true self (which is equivalent to finding God), make a different religion." But still, the society in which we live today has a plethora of religions, and not 1 universal religion which everyone in this world follow. Krishna never asked the people to start Hinduism, Mohammed didnt ask em to start Islam etc.
But throughout generations, people with vested interests started making their own deductions from these teachings, and thrust them as new religious rules into the society. Nowhere in the Gita or the Vedas is written, "a Hindu married woman should be burnt alive on her husband's pyre if he dies." But still, the system of Sati was a prevalent part of Hinduism till the 19th century.
A lot of similar beliefs have succeeded in sharply dividing the people living in the society. But the same people themselves have slowly but surely climbed the barriers of the past and broken through these walls, and have brought civilised man to the doorstep of a revolutionised religion, ergo, the religion which was started at the beginning, with self-development and self-discipline as its foundation-stones.
Religion is a way of disciplining oneself. The belief in a Supreme Power gives an individual a sort of self-control over oneself, and propagates self-development and self-discipline. Without it, we wouldnt have a society, people wont be called civilised, man would have probably returned to the jungle by now. The power of an individual's conscience is the biggest power of the world. In the eastern countries it is referred to as "the voice of God".
The existence of the Lord may be a debatable question, but the existence of the self is not. Self-pride, self-achievement, and self-development are paths towards contentment and totality. If one achieves those, then thats good enuff.
My two cents in.
(Hopefully I didnt offend anyone, if I did, I apologise)