Religion vs Reality?

“I will do the pooja”, I said to my mother in-law, “Not for myself, but for your faith”

This enraged her, “How can you say something like that?” she said furiously. I could sense she was not happy at all! “It’s because of God that we have a good life” she added.

I knew that I was stepping on dangerous ground.

“What I mean is” I said looking at my father in-law for support.“It’s not that I don’t believe in god, I just have a problem with the way we perceive Religion.”

There was some confusion in their faces.

“The thing I don’t understand is,” I added “How can a man who has sinned all his life go to heaven, just because he can afford to pay the pandit and a poor man who worked hard to support his family die hungry?”

This is when my father in-law understood where I was going with it. Religion has been implicated in all sorts of conflict and violence throughout human history. There is blood on the hands of the faithful, and no avoiding the fact that in the service of the wrong people, religion can be a force of great harm.

“The longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption…”

~ George Carlin - Religion: A bullshit story

Raised in a Hindu family, I was made to go to temples and pray to various Gods and Goddesses. I would sit by my Grandmother watching adaptations of Hindu epics on TV. Since I was a very curious kid, I would ask her question after question, to which most of her reply would eventually be that I should not question the ways of the gods nor our traditions. This really stuck with me, and over the years it would evolve into something completely different.

Once, while seated in the passenger seat of my dad’s car I saw a person placing a flower garland over a statue. “Dad what is that?” I said, pointing at the statue of Narayan Gopal, at Chakra path Chowk.

“That son, is one day going to become a god” replied my dad, noticing that I was talking about the flower garland. “He is a Nepali singer, who is dead.”

He added, after noticing the confused look on my face.“...Because over time people will forget why they place the garland and will begin to consider him to be a god.”

It occured to me, that just like a game of Chinese Whispers, through the generations the scriptures could also have been misinterpreted. This left a huge impact on my life. At a young age I started having doubts and looked at other places for answers.

Going to a boarding school in India further confused me. Having been sent to a Catholic boy’s school, my belief system took another turn. My mother used to tell me not to eat Beef in India, as it’s a holy animal in Hinduism. But it is okay to consume beef if you are a Catholic?

“Philosophical Problem of Religious Diversity,” stated simply, is that the religions of the world contradict each other in important particulars, including, the existence of God, the nature of God, the number of gods, the role they play in human affairs, and our destiny after death (Heaven? Hell? Reincarnation? Oblivion?). Amidst all those contradictions, how can we know which religion, if any, is true?

“You probably know, some of you, that cells are continually renewed. Skin flakes off, hairs grow, nails, that kind of stuff -- but at the end of seven years, not one cell in your body remains from what was there seven years ago.

The question is:

Who then are we?

What are we?

What is this thing that we hang on? Is this actually us?”

~ What's invisible? More than you think - John Lloyd

My thirst for answers led me to many different places, one of them being comic books. One particular Superman comic gave me a different approach at understanding the physical space we exist in. There, Superman flew to the end of the universe to find out that the various planets, stars & galaxies make up an entity that we could relate to as the creator.

Just like this cosmic entity, when we look into what we are made of; electrons and protons revolving around a nucleus, we too, are the host for various life forms and worlds that live in us, some which help us exist while others that could be fatal.

So what is true? Is there a all powerful creator or are WE the the creator, or both?

“I preach the religion of “I don’t know!” I mean that’s what I’m here promoting… doubt. – That’s my product. The other guys are selling certainty. Not me.”

- BILL MAHER: RELIGULOUS (2008)

I consider myself an Ignostic. It’s a relatively new word that simply put means to have an open mind. I generally refuse to be drawn on the question on whether God exists, or whether it can be defined in this dimension. All religions have good moral in them, although maybe a few of them need an update or two.

With the new generation of kids growing up with technology, there is very little room for the older ones to outsmart them.

Do you know why they say, you should not cut your nails at night?

Because there was no electricity.

And, they didn’t have cheap Chinese nail cutters.