Reconsidering Faith in the Age of Science
M.R. Lalu
Freelance Journalist, Kerala
Ph: 84149-18976
When we decide to follow the strict spiritual edifice of a religion the most intriguing thing we observe at times is the strange elements of its practices. All religions, for that matter, provide many complicated spiritual practices which they often proclaim to be the best, capable of taking you through the corridors of heaven. And those practices they invented through the passage of time for this purpose sometimes turn strange, terrible and difficult to comprehend. All, they declare, are designed to elevate man from his usual, normal being to that of the divine.
Religions, irrespective of their differences in the values they hold, always offer a heaven which they unani-mously declare is the ultimate. Mate. There, they say, the most fascinating moments are waiting, moments which, while being on the green planet, are a sheer impossi-bility. So, for almost all reli-gions across the world, life on planet Earth is a prepara-tory period for the more ele-vating and profoundly enlivening life beyond death, which they emphasize, is the most promising.
There is rarely a comparison possible between the reli-gions that originated in India and those that originated elsewhere on this planet. While Indic religions do not discard the existence of a heaven, they proclaim that it is not the ultimate. Many oth-ers from the other side of the world declare that heaven is the ultimate, and in the process of gaining entry into the abode of their Lord, they are allowed to take even the most radical and ruthlessly inhuman paths. Wars are being fought, and constant instability and chaos are planned. Everything, to be precise, is done to impose the power and impact of a particular faith or tradition, or, for general understanding – a religion.
Religious practices that are often in discord with the exis-tence of life on the planet need to be reformed and redesigned to suit the demands of the time. For instance, animal sacrifice in rituals and the slaughtering of millions of animals during the festivities of certain reli-gions bring serious environ-mental consequences. Religions are humanity’s most ancient institutions and are often credited for their ability to keep humanity together. They, of course, are intended to inspire their fol-lowers through deeper phi-losophy, compassion, and strong moral discipline.
Religions in India, as I said earlier, stand apart from the rest of the world, for they hold spiritual realization as their fundamental goal, and a personal search for ultimate reality through an ideological structure as their pattern of practice. Principally, they profess to begin your journey inward rather than undertak-ing one toward the outside. This approach made them fundamentally inclusive, and there have always been multi-ple paths designed for the fol-lower to choose from.
Religions hold a socio-spiritu-al framework that eulogizes the importance of sacrifice and surrender, while most of them, throughout their peri-od of emergence, invested much of their time and ener-gy in opposing other faiths. The main reason behind such conflicts was to forcefully establish their supremacy over other faiths. But they were not only in conflict with each other; they were also in conflict with life itself.
When faith becomes rigid and exclusionary, windows are automatically shut to the outer world. Scientific and inclusive approaches are banned, while violence and hostility take center stage. Countries were captured by deliberately altering demog-raphy; generations were exterminated, while huge migrations altered societal equations in many parts of the world. Wars that can elim-inate millions are fought even today, causing people to be displaced, relocated, and destabilized. Bloodshed and devastation caused by reli-gious differences have erased the identities of many soci-eties. Ironically, religions advocate peace, but in effect their intention to manifest peace across the globe is doubtful. When a particular religion believes that it alone possesses truth and that the paths from the other side of the world are futile, meaning-less, or at least inferior and distant shadows, conflict is bound to arise. Wars, perse-cutions, forced conversions, and all the chaotic methods such faiths imposed upon humanity made the world a vulnerable place, and the resulting impact is endless friction. Identity conflicts have been known since ancient times. Crusades and sectarian rivalry, extremist movements, and radicalism in the name of God were the results of man placing his religious identity above humanity. There have also been instances where con-flicts arose from within cer-tain religions that imposed radical practices while rigid fundamentalist outpourings of ideology dictated morality. Their interference was coer-cive and explosive. They became punitive in action and suppressive in effect. They dictated what to eat and how their followers should dress. They imposed customs and practices that deliberately destroyed the moral framework of societies. They remained in conflict with all other faiths while ruthlessly suppressing rebel-lion from within. All, they said, was done to establish their superiority and animate the power of their God.
While humanity progressed through intelligent scientific discoveries, making life on this planet more exuberant and attractive, radical reli-gions and faiths entered into an endless clash with science and scientific discovery. They discarded the most fun-damental aspects of life that helped human civilization survive through inquiry, adaptation, and the willing-ness to revise understanding. These fundamental aspects were instrumental in man’s progress through scientific thinking and logical reason-ing.
They believed that what was discovered and decoded in their religious literature was ultimate, and that any attempt to revise it would destroy the philosophy itself, toppling the edifice upon which the faith was built. Except for Indic religions, those that hesitated to revise their understanding have caused tremendous damage to life on Earth. History is abundant with examples where religions and religious institutions blindly refused to accept science and scientific discoveries, while scientists faced persecution of the most ruthless kind.
Even today, religions rooted in superstition and rigid belief systems question med-ical assistance such as vacci-nation and healthcare. Environmentally, man, through his religious institu-tions, can be seen in disso-nance with the planet itself. The future of humanity can also be seen as a confronta-tion between religious doc-trines and science. It could become more progressive and peaceful if religions sen-sibly find reasons to mend and amend their radical ideas.
We need to fundamentally understand that Earth is our only shared home and finding reasons to create chaos and destabilize it could turn out to be very dangerous. Ideological independence through social interdepend-ence, with man and nature coexisting and nurturing each other, should not remain a mere dream, but an achievable reality.
