Monday, June 19, 2006

Paradox Of Religion -part 1

Caution:This post has been solely written to analyze religion in a scientific/analytic way. Here a religion is considered as an idea. Religious fanatics PLEASE stay away.

It is very important for any person in search of the truth to eradicate all the myths which surround the ever accepting mind. If doubt shatters ur belief..Do not read further.

History is always written by the winners. What I feel is really true every time..Is religion is also written by the victorious kings.

I was watching the other day, one of the good movies which our Hindi industry has managed to produce. The movie was Guide. There was this particular dialogue..Which is a conversation between the saint and the interviewer..

Q:Does the religion stand any chance in the ever so technological world??
A:All sciences end in religion.
(Paraphrased from the movie)

It made wonder how philosophy,story,rituals,wisdom,poetry,art ,medicine,dance ...have all been amalgamated to a huge mass called religion. As a constant critic of the so called sureties of religion, I decided to read all religious books not with devotion but with the eye of analysis and scientific logic.
But few things do not make sense ..If people just pay a little attention to minor details, you understand that most of the major religions have the same theme.

Hinduism was introduced basically by the Aryans who themselves were not from India .The exact location is not known. But they were from the Mediterranean side.Thats one of the reasons why Hitler put a Swastika symbol as one of his official trademarks. They consider themselves superior to other races. One of the primary reasons why fair and lovely people earn so much money is because of this one conquest.
Aryans were the fair kind. If you read the Vedas. And mostly all of them address the priests or the learned "Brahman" as the "fair one”. The natives of India, who were the darker race, were treated as the lowest caste. A good slang in ancient India would be to address any one as dark. The funniest thing is it still works today.
The natives also have left their mark on India. The bindi is a product of the tribal cultures of the ancient north India.
Religion in the olden days was like how politics is in these days. Corrupted..YES!!!
India has been a cradle for Native religions(which have been successfully crushed by Hinduism),Hinduism,Jainism,Buddhism and Sikh religion. All religions promote the idea of peace and the idea of enlightment.The trouble comes when instead of these goals, the easier path of ritual is followed. The under lying philosophy is ignored.
Most of us consider that religion is perfect and we all know that any work of human is full of imperfections .Why the so called higher ideal from an idea??LAziness,no wrong answer..Comfort.We dont want to shake the stagnation in our mind.

How come in most of the major religions a woman is considered as an inferior being who has no position of respect??
Hinduism has lot of goddesses but in reality we do not have a female preist.When the goddesses herself is pure how come the female form of her creation be impure.
Male chauvinistic propaganda. It exists ..even in ancient times.
The philosophy of union i.e of Shiva and Parvati..the symbol of creation and destruction is never been told by any of the priests. The symbolism is never revealed to young minds.
Matter can be created nor destroyed..everything is a dance.. a leela..

8 comments:

Neodawn said...

“…How come in most of the major religions a woman is considered as an inferior being who has no position of respect??...”

Pure Male Chauvinism. Also in Hinduism, if you notice, there are not many gods, you can remember immediately, who have a girl child. And the high rate of female infanticide in India is no coincidence.

One clearer example of male chauvinism in Hinduism: For all obvious & natural reasons, Brahma, the Creator, should have been a woman.

“…The trouble comes when instead of these goals, the easier path of ritual is followed. The under lying philosophy is ignored. Most of us consider that religion is perfect and we all know that any work of human is full of imperfections …”

Very true.
You echoed almost the exact words, I had once commented in Menon’s blog.
http://www.theviewfromtheground.com/archives/000188.html#comments

astrocrazy2005 said...

neodawn,
so nice to hear ur thoughts on this matter..may be for hundred people with this philosophy there are thousands of people following the old beaten path..

Author said...

Hi,
came here through your comment on my blog.
I very really appreciate they way you are onto analyse the religion to see if it makes any scientific sense. I have tried it myself and found that, in plain words, it does not.
While science has its feet firm in grouns with logic and questioning being its base, religion demands faith (blind one at that).
I have gone through several religious books myself and I have found that beyond a point, they just ask you to belive what is said.
I have an opinion (personal one) that religion was invented just as a tool so that some people in the society become more powerful and rule over the others. In human history religion has always been associated with Politics (crusades and spread of Islam are examples) and Power.
It is unfortunate that howmuch ever we dont want to belive it, there is always a set of people who accept with blind faith what is fed to them. As they say, "anybody who underestimated the average intelligence of an human being has never lost money". People are just waiting for you to take them for a ride. The godmen, babas, virgin mary bleeding from the eyes, a rock where pandavas cooked, a child with a monkey face they are either making the most out of this 'ready to trip' mass mentality (or may be victims of it themselves).
As you rightly said, for every one like you and me, there are hundrends more who just refuse to think or question.
May be its just that by nature human minds are weak and religion gives people some sort of assurance they need.
May be..


BTW, I have heard of this book by an Mani Bhowmik, "Code Name God" which supposedly talks about science and religion. Yet to read it though.

astrocrazy2005 said...

shastri,
well said..
i completely agree with you..
i wil check tht book out..

mutRupuLLi said...

I am an atheist Preethi....but I fundamentally disagree with many of your observations.....
1. The Aryan invasion is more or less now considered by respectable scholars to be a Myth. Try reading the book, "The Invasion That Never Was". The colour of skin is generally determined by the geographical latitiude, the amount of sunlight and stuff. But man also migrates so we see a heterogenous mixtures in colour.
2. Hinduism fundamentally is not a religion. It is a set of practices which were designed and practised in the subcontinent by various diverse set of people. So actually Hinduism also includes Jainism, Buddhism, Saivism., Vaishnavism, Durga following etc. It is only after the European invasion have all this mixed to form what is today called Hinduism.
3. And it is wrong to say all the religions fundamentally speak the same. Yes all religions talk about a
God but then they suggest different practices and different set of right and wrong.
4.And regards women being priests....
See women of the past had a very distinct duty in life. To give birth and look after the kids..(the looking after husband is plain male chauvinism...). So many activties that men involved in were not prescribed for men. Mortality was very high even upto 50 years back....So it was essential that women keep having kids for the race and group to survive. So women were more or less occupied in this. Imagine if women don't involve themselves in this activity then there would be a huge problem(the exact problem that European nations are facing today...of decreasing population rate). So there were all sort of restrictions on women's activity. Even here exceptional women were treated differently and allowed to do what they wanted(again this practise was soon nullifed by typical male chauvinism). The real crap behaviour is to apply all this philosphy to today's India where what we need is a declining population rate. Today we hold concepts like individual freedom, liberty as more fundamental and we choose to criticise the past. But maybe 200 years hence the people of future will criticise our concepts of freedom and liberty and equality.
4.The idea of white being superior is relic of imperialism and not necessarily Aryan supremacy. Remember the two most influential Aryan figures Krishna and Veda Vyasa were dark or black.

astrocrazy2005 said...

Sridhar,
I dont agree ..I dont think aryan invasion was a myth..All vedas rig,soma ,..have references to invasion.
Hinduism as a religion -The priests tried and succeeded and wiped out all othe religions..And all the sects you were talking were cunningly connected to various avtaars ..Even buddha was termed as a avataar of vishnu.So people dont start practising buddhism ..
In philosophy if you observe all religions come from one or the other religion.Islam,christanity were born out of the jewish-ism
Buddhism,jainism,sikhism were born out of hinduism..
Woman were always treated very badly.There was sati.there were child marriages,Woman had no right in property,Woman were basically treated very badly..
Buddhism atleast gave rights to woman in property and other matters..

mutRupuLLi said...

The mistake you are making is to treat Buddhism and Hindusim seperately. That is fundamentally wrong. While Buddhism has/had many good points to its credit, (it acted as the LEFT front of its day) it has many flaws too. And though Shaivism, Jainism, Buddhism and others differed in their philosophy of the ultimate truth, the practise in the day to day affairs was the same across all of them. That is why you find literary proofs for beautiful situations in family where the husband is a Saivite, the wife is a Vaishanvite, the father is a Jain and the mother is a Budhhist. I am not joking. There are a lot of evidences(literary) for such heterogenity within a family. The most prominent being the case of Pallava king Mahendra Verma who for a large period of his life was a Jain. But his wives and son Narasimha Pallava were Saivite. Narasimha Pallavan's grandson SimhaVishnu was a Vaishnavite king. It is only later on in his life does Mahendra Varma become a Saivite.
Again as I said, you can never compare or judge the morals and practices of different ages.
I agree to a certain extent what you are saying. Things like Sati seem wrong today. And yes are wrong. But do you know many Puranas prescribe the punishment of hell, for the killing of fourlegged animals and birds, except for food's sake. The cutting of trees was alos abhorred. So by that standard we are all(every one of us as we all benefit from these actions) is doomed to hell.Would you agree with that standard?

mutRupuLLi said...

To make a further point...
There is a book called "Tamizhaga Anthanar Varalaru"(The history of Tamil Brahmins). The author of this book quotes many Sanskrit and Tamil works of the past to make his point that the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu were not from the north.Rather he claims that they were from TN only. Now if I were to accept his proofs the claim that Brahmins hence Aryans hence Hinduism had a part of its origin atleast from South India. So how would that match up with the Aryan invasion. I don't disagree that religious coercion has had its role in Hinduism reamaining the dominant religion in India. Obviously tribes have ben converted either through political or economic coercion in the name of progress. But that is just a part of the story. The fact remains that Hinduism as almost all religions(though i hate to call Hinduism a religion I use that term to get across the point) of the world differs markedly in theory and practise and as with all religions has failed to evolve with time. So many of the rules and practices are stupid and probably immoral in today's world. But they were not always so. That is my point.