Me and Religions IV

What is religion in the first place?

It is an institution (usually established by somebody) to express belief in God, in simple words. We can define a religion in many different ways.

What is the base of all the religion?
It is belief in God.

How many Gods are there?
Only One

How many religions are there in this world?

About 6-7 major ones and hundreds of different faith groups (even within a single religion)

Do we need this many religions?

We can have any number or religion as long as there is no physical clash between them. Or, no religion at all (two of my friends don’t believe in any religion).

So, do we need more religions?

Well, no, we already have enough.

So, what exactly is the purpose of a religion?

Simple, to make every human a better human. Religion is there to make a man righteous and loving.

(plants and animals are born ‘learnt’….every weaver bird is an architect, every spider know how to make a web, ant nests are architectural wonders………; they know what is their job and how to do it, no need to acquire anything. But a human always can acquire/has to acquire, can learn a lot from his environment, if he want to – he has a choice)

No particular religion issues a special pass to meet the God (meeting the God something interesting, I might write about it later). If some believes so, they are absolutely wrong.

Is religion a personal matter?

Of course it is. One can even stay out of all religions and still believe in God, if one wants so.

So, what is the big issue here?

Well, the issue is some people believing that only their path is the right path to God, which is foolish.

Look at the earth, filled with humans. Let’s start thousands of years ago, may be ten thousand or twenty thousand years ago till now.

How was/is it? There were people living in different parts. They had their own culture, they had their own language, they had their own eating habit (nature provided them with the best according to the geography), they had their own ….they had so many ‘their owns’ and likewise, they had their own style of faith in God.

Can we say some country’s culture is ‘wrong’? Can we say some language is ‘wrong’? Nope. In the same way, we can not say somebody else’s faith in God is ‘wrong’ coz, its their faith and it has a history (let us forget abt the new and new faith groups coming day by day like mushrooms with some vested interests)

So, if one religion is right, others are also right. If one religion is wrong, all are wrong(I am talking about the essence of religion, ie, God exists). Coz, ultimately, all religion believes in a supernatural force. So, either it is there (the existence of God or all religions are right) or there is no supernatural force like that (God does not exist, all religions are wrong). There cant be a third level of understanding looking from this angle.

Different faith groups within a religion got created due to different interpretation of (mostly) single Holy book. But all of them believes in ‘God’, though faith groups might say ours is the right one.

And majority of the 'religious' people don’t understand the very purpose of religion and they just follow some rituals. And in the present day, religion is a big business. Yes, it is a multi million business!

Many of the conversion acts and well organized miracle crusades are to give it a boost and are just business. The Times of India once cracked one Benny Hinn show that happened in my city. I never thought that I will be writing something like this; else I would have preserved those papers. He just escaped without commenting on many of the questions and he did not even donate the sum he promised that he will be donating for the Tsunami relief, after that crack. His approach is creating a mass hysteria. And he said he can not perform any miracle on a one to one basis, as he first need to create the ‘atmosphere’.

(Mass prayer has a different effect, I agree but that’s a different issue)

Miracles should happen as a miracle and one can not perform a miracle as and when one wish to do so. Then how can it be called a miracle?. But these days miracles are readily available. It can be organized like any consumer fair. And those people who go there don’t even ask, ‘then why do we need hospitals and docs, if this person can always (their service is fully booked for many years, usually) do miracles?’

One of my cousins who is a deaf attended many of such miracle crusades and still remains as a deaf! He went there with full faith coz, he hadn’t anything to lose.

What do religious people do in common, irrespective of their religions?

They all Pray.

Where do all these prayers go?

All the prayers in this world have got only one address. (Static IP address…lol)

In which language we should pray?

God understand all languages, though His mother tongue is Love.

So, Getting converted wont help?

To be frank, it won’t help. Coz, again your prayer goes to the same direction. Just changing a name from Jayaram to Joseph wont make any change. Name is one of the physical attribute of a man and it has nothing to do with a prayer.

But there are lots of people who experienced a change in their life after changing their religion.

That can be true. There are many reasons for it. One is just psychological. Its like treating a psychosomatic disease with a ‘method’ rather than a medicine (sometimes the doc even injects distilled water to convince a patient, but it works). In such cases, yes, it works. Coz, its all a mind game, this prayer, its effects and all.

And the second most important thing is the ‘intensity of the prayer’. Intensity of the prayer is directly proportional to effect. When a person changes his faith, usually, in the beginning stage, his intensity of the prayer will be more/high. And this gives him a better result - here I presume that a prayer works

Assume that one person got ‘better results’ with his brand new religion. Had he did his prayers with the same intensity, even his old religion was able to deliver the new result he got. It is a fact.

I will share one of my personal experience related to religious conversion. The one I saw was an interesting inter-Christian conversion. That person was my close friend then. Was very ‘religious’, in the sense, regular with church and its activities, reading Bible regularly, attending the mass, service, choir etc.

Family was a happy family. Then the family faced some serious financial problems when one of the business partners cheated them (he too was a Christian and later on moved to the U.S). They believed in C.S.I (Church of South India). I don’t know who it is, but somebody convinced them to change their faith into Pentecost. The family head remained in C.S.I and his wife and two children (one was my friend) changed their faith to Pentecost.

Then my friend started attending a new place of worship where no idol of Jesus or Mary was present. But the Bible remained the same. Jesus remained the same. All the prayers before and after the conversion went into the very same ears!! But finally, the new faith helped that person to get a decent marriage proposal and settle abroad.

Had that person stuck to the old faith, would that person have gone abroad and settled? Sorry, here my answer is ‘ I don’t think so or may be I don’t know’. I am not discussing the physical or material change a religion can offer. In that way, changing a religion has its benefits.

Where do all these conversions happen?

Most of the missionaries travel to third world. That too if a country doesn’t have a good Christian population, they target such countries. India satisfies both and this is a heaven for missionaries.

Is all the missionaries fake and business minded ones?

I don’t think so. But I know a couple of them who gathered wealth using ‘divine’ job. There is another guy (a Christian priest/brother) who ‘used’ his Christian status to get a religious visa (there is something like that) to another country. He married a local woman and now prepares to settle there, who is a neighbor of one of my cousins.

Some people say ‘God spoke to me and asked me to do this’. Is that true?

Yes and NO.

Yes is because, many “religious” people get this sort of feeling.

And NO, coz, its their own consciousness which split into two and one acts as a God and another acts as a he/she or the mind. A good psychiatrist/psychologist can sort out this issue. But from that person’s perspective, he/she 'really' hears the talk from within. The nature of God is something different (which is off topic and I might write later)

What happens after a conversion?

I don’t have any personal experience. But naturally, he/she lives in the same house, he/she might change the photos/pics he/she had kept before and prays in a new style to a ‘new God’.

But my point is not that. Lets assume that all Indians got converted into Christianity/or at least 80% . What happens? India becomes a Christian Nation or at least a nation with majority of Christians. Then what happens? What is the major change that will happen to India after that ‘mass conversion’?

To understand this, one need to look into those nations who already attained that status.

Let us take two prominent nations, one form the west and one from the east. The U.S. and Republic of the Philippines, the only Asian country with a majority of Christians.

The United States has got 76 % of Christians (Protestants 52% and Roman Catholic 24%) as per 2002 census and Philippines has got 92.5 % (Roman Catholic 80.9%, Evangelical 2.8%, Iglesia ni Kristo - 2.3%, Aglipayan 2%, Other Christians 4.5%) – as per 2000 census. Now it is said that Aglipayan is the second largest Christian community in Philippines)

(Iglesia ni Kristo/Christo or INC - which means ‘Church of Christ’ originated in Philippines; founded by Felix Y Manalo on July 27 1914 and he claimed that this is the reestablishment of the original church founded by Jesus himself. This community has great political influence in Philippines.

Aglipayan – founded by Gregorio Aglipay. Official name is ‘Iglesia Filipina Independiente’ or Philippine Independent Church.)

And what is special about these two nations compared to the rest of the world. I am not talking about the culture or people. What is their achievement ‘just coz countrymen are Christians? ‘

Nothing at all. In both countries you can see crimes of all sorts, why should I tell one by one? Whatever ‘bad’ things you see in the rest of the world can be seen in these two nations. These two Christian dominated countries are just two another countries with their own problems like rest of the countries and Christian status did not help them, though a nation is formed by people and religion has got something to do with people. Same with Islamic, Buddhist (or anyother religion) countries.

The U.S is the largest consumer of cocaine, in the world. World’s one of the top illicit producer of cannabis, marijuana, depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, and methamphetamine.

And what is Philippines known for in the world? Its very well known for Sex Tourism. There is another Asian country where a religion has domination, Thailand, filled with Buddhists. It also is known for Sex Tourism.

Production of illicit methamphetamine in Philippines is a big problem even now for the government. A big consumer of amphetamines, producer of marijuana (mainly in rural areas).

No offence meant to anybody from these countries. I have great respect for these countries and the people (more than that, most of my friends are from Philippines, as on today, and hence I love that country and will visit one day)

My point is just changing the religion is totally meaningless….My point is, these countries are just like any other country… After one or two months, you are in the same stage. (and in India, there was a case where a group of converted people approached Arya Samaj and changed their religion back to Hindu)

So, what should a religious person do?

Stick to your religion, be a better Christian, be a better Muslim, be a better Jew, be a better Hindu, be a better Buddhist……… and be a good human, and if possible, leave the atheists and non-believers alone, coz, they too have a place in this world.