Sunday, February 23, 2020

63. MY RELIGIOUS TURNING POINT ... 4




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LINKS TO  POSTS ON - MY RELIGIOUS TURNING POINT





We inherit our religion from our parents. May be there are some exceptions. But normally this is true - religion is birth or family-related or inherited. Therefore, we imbibe the religious faith and rituals from very early age. Normally what is imposed by the family and the background gets deep into our mind as very strong and unquestionable faith. As I said earlier, even questioning this faith is normally considered very uncouth and unnecessary. Normally people do  not dare to do it. They always walk on the well-trodden good old path never wave from it. It was so for me too, but only in the beginning.

When I started questioning my own faith, it was after a long struggle with my internal force. I thought in those days how come a very normal guy like me can question the Christian faith while I see day in and day out so many scholastic theologians. When those knowledgeable persons accept faith so completely, how can I refute the faith? It was very hard to come over this stumbling block. But when I started questioning and finding my own truth, things started becoming brighter and easier. The very first question was about the free will of man and the will of god. I could find the incongruity of both of these  going together. I, though very hard in the beginning, accepted my conclusions on free will as stated earlier (in previous post). Then came the second important question. Christians always have a very strong conviction that prayer can make them achieve their wishes / desire.. Prayer was considered as a powerful tool. I questioned that. I found prayer and predeterminism  of god were again incongruous with each other. I found prayer only as a psychotherapy and not more than that. It may give solace and some peace to human mind. There it stops. Contrary to what  Christians believed prayer may not be a successful tool.

After I crossed over those first two hurdles, I overcame the usual reluctance to probe further. Rather I became more emboldened to question anything in religion. It became an academic interest. All inhibitions disappeared which I had in the initial stages. During this time, I set my own "Ten Commandments" as my disciplinary code. Of these ten, the second commandment was: "YOU OPEN YOUR OWN EYES". This commandment gave me the strength and guidance. I made up my mind: anything can be questioned; better I open my own eyes and start seeing things in that new light. These ideas filled my questioning, hungry mind.

One thing became very certain. Whatever may be the religion, a person born and brought up in that religion always strongly feels that his religion is the TRUE religion and starts to look down upon the other religions. This animosity for other religions is widely prevalent in the three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These three religions strongly emphasize this superiority and the people in these religions grow with this idea strongly rooted in their minds. They always keep their chins up thinking their religion is the true religion and their god is the only true god. They never think twice before insulting other religions. They call all the other religions as pagan religions. Quotes to prove this:

Isaiah 46:9    
remember the former things of old;
                              for I am God, and there is no other;
                              I am God, and there is none like me,

1 Timothy 6:3-4.
If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus    Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions . . . 
Matthew 7:26 
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

This continuous search made me form a hypothesis: It is perfectly correct if a person says that his mother is a good cook; but if he says that his mother is the ONLY good cook … well, then he has to be vehemently protested and corrected. This same feeling persists among the highly religious people: they claim only their religion is true; and their god is only true god.  They never hesitate to insult or degrade other religious faiths. We love our parents. We love them despite their shortcomings because they are our parents. This should be the mentality regarding our religions too. Your religion is good since you were brought up in it. In the same way for others their religion is good. This should be the real spirit of religious acceptance. This is much better than the often much used term, "religious tolerance". But in fact most of us are unable to see beyond our religions and faith. We are simply taught that religions other than yours are false or wrong.  In reality it is very hard to come out of this entrenched concept and almost impossible to have a proper religious tolerance and acceptance.

With this equanimity on different religions, I started to go further in my search. The very first thing was the loss of faith in my religion, Christianity. Christians attach so much importance to faith. The religion itself never encourages "questioning" faith; it prefers utmost faith, never questioning anything in the religious concepts, whether it is the holy trinity, the birth of Jesus from a virgin, his crucifixion and resurrection. Even the parables in Bible which were all praised so often became highly questionable for me. I questioned even the very wisdom of those parables. The countless 'miracles' postulated by Christianity became questions to me. The list is long. Let us consider them one by one.










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