Stop the Negativity Around Religion. Religion is just a TOOL!

In a moving bus a woman was raped brutally. An iron rod stuffed into her.

The iron rod was at fault.

The liar wrote lies.

The pen is at fault.

In the name of religion, people fought.

The religion is at fault.

Let’s wake up. Human kind has been evolving for years. For a time he/she was governed majorly by animal-like instincts of eating, sleeping and reproducing. Ate meat raw, ate tubers uncooked and wore coarse hides. Then found fire and cooked food. In this way… humans evolved.

As the fire was used to cook food, it was also used to burn men/women alive. Because Fire is just a Tool. At least for the human, it is just a tool. Fire exists even without humans – and it is so many more things. It is life, warmth, destruction, renewal, energy…….

So along these centuries we wrought many things. Fundamentally for a useful purpose. We also wrought religion. Some men/women seemed wiser than the rest and gave out some guidelines on how to live better. So religion happened in human society.

This Religion – is and always will be just a Tool. Many people find succor, strength and many things positive in it. Of course since corruption exists in people, they will use Religion also for such purposes.

Religion is just a tool.

If a useful tool becomes a method to torture then yes, society can consider banning/restricting it. But it needs evaluation and also practical consideration. For eg: In India, buying acid is not legally allowed for all. Some checks have been put in place, because while it is a tool for simple purposes like cleaning house tiles or other industry use…. it is being used extensively to attack women.

Should we do that for the iron rod, glass bottles, knives and other tools used to attack women too? After a point we need to understand that these can only be stop gap measures. The root of the problem, needs to be addressed. Alleviation of poverty, education for all, basic rights ensured, health care……

I am seeing a lot of buzz now a days about how Religion causes so much destruction and conflict all across the world. But the right sentence is “Religion is USED to cause so much destruction and conflict all across the world”

So should there be checks and restrictions on Religion as well, like with Acid sales in India?

Well, it is a very different matter, because the acid market is much smaller compared to Religion. Every one caters to religion in some way or other. Especially in countries like India our daily culture is so closely woven with religion. A thorough evaluation of positive & negative impacts of religion need to be done – this is not possible. Firstly because of the scope and secondly because +ve & -ve is so subjective. Something good for me can be considered bad by another.

The story of a particular colleague comes to my mind. A young girl who had a lot of guy matters going on all the time. Every week a new guy and some inane issue with him. Smoking, drinking was a very common occurrence. Funny thing, is that once again some bad incident happened in her life and while puffing out some cigarette smoke, she said it was her karma.

Boing! For a moment I was taken aback because this silly girl with completely stupid lifestyle – all of a sudden spoke of karma. It is because these spiritual sentiments are so deeply embedded into us through our religious culture.

So who can truly evaluate the impact of religion?

What can be done is that some very specific activities can be looked at and changed in amicable ways to avoid human rights violations. Like – the devdasi system, sati system and so on.

However, it is very difficult to distinguish – because a lot of the science behind religion has been replaced by silliness. And so in a lot of ways I feel religions have completely lost their true purpose. Even so, any person who looks at religions in some depth will see that at their roots are some very positive and lovely concepts.

I come across a lot of young people with an anti-religious sentiment. A lot of times I find that in name of ‘modernity’ Indians will ruin their existing religious culture only to realize that the very appealing western ideas don’t really gel with them in the long run at all. Due to media dominance and glamour many western ideas are seen as ‘progress’ but no one looks deeper into the system to really understand what is truly valuable in the western societies and how can that be implemented in India without cleaning up our fundamental identities.

So to the anti-religion folks I would like to say: Religion is just a tool. So don’t blame it for the crap – the crap is there in humans – who still have evolution ahead of them. If not through religion, they will spew out that crap through other means.

And to the religious people I would like to say: Religion is just a tool. Do ask yourself – what is it a tool for? What role does it play in your life? Whatever religion you are indulging in is it serving that purpose?