There are people who believe that a river is a god.
Or a goddess. It’s called the Ganga. The believers are the Hindus. They think
it originates out of the head of a god called Shiva. BTW, that god also has a
snake wrapped around his neck.
There are other gods in Hinduism one
of whom has four hands and holds specific stuff in them. A god with four heads
is there. And a goddess with 10 hands.
You won’t think with these sort of
imaginative creations (or creators) being part of its collection, Hinduism
might put up a fight with the major monotheistic religions of the world to
claim the title of being the most rational religion or the one that makes the
most sense. But I think these folks notwithstanding, the overall religion makes
more sense than other religions.
If you look at the other religions (I
have Islam and Christianity in mind specifically), they propose that specific
humans were representatives of an unseen god. In the case of Christianity,
Jesus, and in the case of Islam, Prophet Mohammed, are supposed to be the
vehicles that god used to send messages to us humans.
What about the gods themselves?
They’re left undefined in shape, amorphous. How can a creator be without
physical shape? It’s much better to imagine the gods as human-like creatures —
let the gods have more hands or heads than ordinary humans. These Hindu gods
may be thought of as approximations of the real gods (to help humans by making
things easy) who can have any shape or form and take on any shape or form. So
Hindus have well-defined gods some of whom are male and others female.
Hollywood has to do the job for Christians and imagines god to look like Morgan
Freeman or Jack Nicholson.
We have with us ancient texts that are
supposed to be the defining texts of these religions. These texts contain the
golden rules, which we must adhere to. These texts contain the laws that we
must abide by to be faithful to those religions. There are rewards and
punishment schemes too for the faithful and the naughty ones.
These texts were evidently written 2,000
and 1,500 years ago at which time mankind was clearly far less advanced than
it’s today. The pace of change has not always been as fast as it’s today.
Look at the feverish pace of change in
computer microprocessors or the frenetic pace of change in cellphone technology
or new kinds of computing devices or TVs being invented. We have made airplanes
and flying mundane. We venture into space with rockets. We live in a time of
magical technology.
Just imagine how quickly technology
becomes obsolete. We won’t use a cellphone that was five years old, let alone
ten.
Surely books that are a thousand and
two thousand year old are of no relevance to us. But it’s argued and people are
persuaded that those books are infallible precisely because they are so old.
Hinduism, while some of its texts are
even older than the other two religions, has evolved over the centuries. Its
influence has waxed and waned.
The rituals and worship of various
idols is a recent phenomenon. The elephant headed god Ganesh has become a hit only
in the last 100 years or so. Different gods are popular in different states of
India. There’s no monolithic, inviolable structure. There’s no hierarchy of
human interpreters of gods though the Brahmins who conduct the various
religious rituals are apparently supposed to have hotlines or special affinity
to god.
Hinduism though lets people have a direct
relationship with god by imagining how gods look like and then having temples
where those gods live. The believers can have direct conversations with the
gods.
Christianity meanwhile has a rigid
hierarchy of priests with the pope at the top who function as the
intermediaries and who are supposed to be somewhat more than mere humans and
somewhat less than full-blown gods.
This business of endowing fallible
humans with godly qualities and therefore infallibility is hugely risky.
Through long periods of history, lots of crimes have been perpetrated either in
the name of these religions or by people with evangelical purposes. Islam makes
it quite clear that spreading religion was the primary purpose of life and that
one day Islam must conquer all other religions and be the sole and
all-pervading religion on Earth. Too many wars have been fought and too many
people have died in the attempt to spread this religion.
Hinduism doesn’t have blood on its
hands.
The other religions that are also
deeply peaceful at their cores are Buddhism and Jainism.
The problem with religions is that we
are creatures of habit. No one is born a Hindu or a Sikh or a Jew. Kids are
atheists at birth. They learn from their surroundings. If a kid grows up
surrounded by Islamic rituals and observing them, he imbibes them. If the same
kid were to grow up in Christian surroundings, it would have been equally
receptive to them.
One can perform interesting
experiments if it were possible to have multiple lives. One could live 3 or 4
lives taking up different religions in each life by having parents belonging to
those religions.
But alas, that’s not possible. It’s
strange that in civilized society, more emphasis is not paid on giving equal
space to all religions — if at all religion is to be given any space. Educated
people should have the wisdom to realize that one’s religion is merely an
accident of birth. And because our religious affiliation is mostly an accident,
we got to realize that our own particular religion is no better than any other
religion. Then why focus exclusively on our particular religion and ignore all
the others? Parents should teach the tenets of all the religions to their kids
and let the kids decide which religion it wants to adopt.
But no. Religion in the modern world
has become mostly a cultural phenomenon. Each religion comes with its set of
annual religious events and now a days they are merely excuses to have a
holiday and get a respite from our frenetic, stressed out work lives and enjoy
a holiday and perhaps enjoy good food and do similar non-stressful, enjoyable
activities.
People are happy to let religion play
the role it does on the occasion of various important milestones in our lives.
Most religions (or probably all) have a role to play in marriages, births, and
deaths. We spend our lives watching whatever rituals are performed and become
familiar with them.
Thus a Hindu becomes used to the idea
of a dead body being cremated while Muslims and Christians are used to the idea
of burying the dead body. This becomes such a deep-seated habit that contrary
suggestions will make people hugely uncomfortable. Have you recently tried
suggesting to a Hindu to bury a recently dead relative? They’ll be aghast as if
the dead old man or woman would feel uncomfortable inside the grave … being
cramped for space and unable to breathe inside the casket.
Similarly, if you suggest cremation to
a Christian or a Muslim, they will protest as if the dead person might get
burnt were the dead body to be cremated.
So, we live our lives with many silly
notions and are loath to let go of any of them.