Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Why????

I was born into a Hindu family.
Both my parents are Hindus.
But I am not a Hindu.
Nor am I a Christian- or a Muslim. I am merely myself.

Why do so many of us feel the necessity to belong to a particular religion?
How can prostrating before a stone deity or wearing a white cap on one’s head make one any more virtuous than a person who does neither of these? Why is the guy who worships a smiling God with blue skin, different from the one who worships a bearded man with a halo over his head?
Is blind acceptance the only way to escape the reality that there is only as much meaning in our lives as we choose to bring into it?
Is the belief in an afterlife the only way to escape the bland truth of non-existence after death?
Is the image of a benevolent and sometimes vengeful God necessary to fool ourselves into believing that our lives and our actions are preordained?
Do we need the constant fear of a gruesome hell to force us to be good?
Can we ever be really free when we chain ourselves to religion?
Can we ever really think beyond what has already been thought as long as we shut out our minds to reason?
Why do we need the label of a religion to render ourselves respectable?
All our religions are the dead religions of the past. Where are the religions of the living present? Where are the religions of the slumbering future?
On the other hand, why do we need them at all?
I don’t need the image of a paradise with orchards, beautiful women and smiling winged creatures to tempt me to be good. Nor do I need the image of an everlasting fire or a horned devil to scare me away from evil. I want to be good when it pleases me. And I want to be evil when it suits me.

If religion is the path to a merciful God, why do I think of wars and blood and beheadings and ruined buildings and burnt sheds and murdered people and raped women and strangled children when I think of it?
Why does religion make me think of a woman with a hunted look in her eyes, that no heaven could ever remove?
Why does it make me think of people blinded by a mad hate and spurred to action by an unbridled fury?
Why does it make me think of walls and of a dismembered world?
Why?

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why do so many of us feel the necessity to belong to a particular religion?

excellent question.

You don't have to belong to any religion at all. You can openly say that you do not believe in God.

Hinduism is very clear about this. No Hindu is FORCED to worship or go to a temple. No Hindu is ever asked to go to a temple. No Hindu is ever banished from Hinduism.

Even atheists can proudly proclaim they are Hindus.

Concepts of UTMOST FREEDOM OF THOUGHTS And ACTIONS are the cardinal principles of Hinduism.

Voltaire in Essay on Tolerance wrote:

I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.

Hinduism is the symbolic representation of what Voltaire wrote.

12:27 pm  
Blogger Nazeer said...

Thought provoking post.

3:29 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yoour question answered in part by this video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySiW_5MTSZg&feature=related

12:09 am  

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