It is foolish to fight over one's concept of God which is not even chosen based on one's analysis, but is inherited by birth. Religion, per sé, is one's 'belief' of the realities of the Universe, creation, the Creator and the various ways one can please Him/Her to win favours. I don't know whether the concept of gender applies to the Creator Community. If it does, then Gods should be able mate and multiply. And if it doesn't, there is the possibility of asexual reproduction. Our fun-loving Hindu Gods seem to have gone extinct after a few generations of polygamous procreation. The Gods in most other religions are not so human. Many define them as formless, nameless, all pervading, transcendental somethings that govern all existence. I believe that even Hinduism has the Human-like manifestations just for simplicity of understanding and ease of visualization for common people. I say this because there are deep and complicated concepts of transcendental and indefinable realities like Brahman, atman and the true self in the ancient Indian Philosophical texts that form the roots and structure of Hinduism and other religions that evolved in the Indian Subcontinent.
Humans have a perpetual hunger to know the the reality. We are gifted with an ability to think. If there is a Somebody, whom we call God, who has gifted us with this ability, then we can never know Him/Her unless He/She chooses to. And if there is no such Somebody, then the path of Science is a more meaningful one to follow. And even if there exists such a power, any attempt to verify its existence is in fact what we define as Science, at least a major part of its quest.
We are an intelligent species. We can turn off and on the various knobs of our brain as per situations. We follow logic when we go to a doctor to cure our sickness. We want to believe in the power of God when we pray. We think practially and don't complain when God doesn't grant our wishes. Sometimes we express our anger in front of idols. Sometimes we give up, but not fully. We want to believe that the dead come back. Yet we execute the bad people. We've travelled in the skies. We also want to believe in heaven and hell. And we pray at the graves of our loved ones who are no more. We kill animals to extinction. We keep some as pets and treat them as family members.
If scientific enquiry is natural to humans, so is ego. One would always want everyone else to believe the same as what he/she does. (Just a passing thought - is that reason why I blog?) We pass on our religious beliefs over generations. (Is that how every religion started - one person started believing something and was smart enough to make everyone believe in it and that passed over generations?) Our lives are too short and not all of us are so equipped as to build thories from scratch that compare with what already exist. Some of us try. Most of us accept what we are told. But almost all of us question it, either openly to the world, or to ourselves. We understand logic. So ignorance makes us uncomfortable. We feel weak, and ask God to make us strong. We fear to go against His wishes which are laid down as sets of rules. Those sets of rules are what we understand by religion. It's not belief any more. But why does every concept of God come with a set of teachings and rules that one should follow? Why does every religion teach a way of leading one's life?
Perhaps religion, the sets of rules as we see it today, is just law of the old times. We've replaced it with new laws for all practical purposes. And as we progressed to create new laws to govern ourselves in the changed times, we also made great progress in terms of knowledge about the universe and ourselves. However, this knowledge hardly contributed in a positive way to the concept of God - the Creator. And because the law of the old times is so closely associated with its concept of God, we are never able to fully pull ourselves out of it. God, perhaps, is the least understood and yet the most influential thought of Man Kind. And may be, the true "God" is something we have never even imagined. It is hard to know what colors are, if you are totally blind. All you can see is darkness.
Humans have a perpetual hunger to know the the reality. We are gifted with an ability to think. If there is a Somebody, whom we call God, who has gifted us with this ability, then we can never know Him/Her unless He/She chooses to. And if there is no such Somebody, then the path of Science is a more meaningful one to follow. And even if there exists such a power, any attempt to verify its existence is in fact what we define as Science, at least a major part of its quest.
We are an intelligent species. We can turn off and on the various knobs of our brain as per situations. We follow logic when we go to a doctor to cure our sickness. We want to believe in the power of God when we pray. We think practially and don't complain when God doesn't grant our wishes. Sometimes we express our anger in front of idols. Sometimes we give up, but not fully. We want to believe that the dead come back. Yet we execute the bad people. We've travelled in the skies. We also want to believe in heaven and hell. And we pray at the graves of our loved ones who are no more. We kill animals to extinction. We keep some as pets and treat them as family members.
If scientific enquiry is natural to humans, so is ego. One would always want everyone else to believe the same as what he/she does. (Just a passing thought - is that reason why I blog?) We pass on our religious beliefs over generations. (Is that how every religion started - one person started believing something and was smart enough to make everyone believe in it and that passed over generations?) Our lives are too short and not all of us are so equipped as to build thories from scratch that compare with what already exist. Some of us try. Most of us accept what we are told. But almost all of us question it, either openly to the world, or to ourselves. We understand logic. So ignorance makes us uncomfortable. We feel weak, and ask God to make us strong. We fear to go against His wishes which are laid down as sets of rules. Those sets of rules are what we understand by religion. It's not belief any more. But why does every concept of God come with a set of teachings and rules that one should follow? Why does every religion teach a way of leading one's life?
Perhaps religion, the sets of rules as we see it today, is just law of the old times. We've replaced it with new laws for all practical purposes. And as we progressed to create new laws to govern ourselves in the changed times, we also made great progress in terms of knowledge about the universe and ourselves. However, this knowledge hardly contributed in a positive way to the concept of God - the Creator. And because the law of the old times is so closely associated with its concept of God, we are never able to fully pull ourselves out of it. God, perhaps, is the least understood and yet the most influential thought of Man Kind. And may be, the true "God" is something we have never even imagined. It is hard to know what colors are, if you are totally blind. All you can see is darkness.
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