God, Religion and my thoughts. Part IV

[This is the further continuation of my earlier posts, Part I, Part II and Part III. You may want to have a look at them before you go on to read this, to get the context of what I say. Also, I know, I have been blabbering on this topic for long now, but this comes after a lot of ‘pro-religious’ posts present all over my blog. :)]

God loves us, he created us so that we may live and thrive and enjoy the bounties of nature. That was his thoughts when he created man and this world. Now he seems to have a change of heart and really wants man to give up everything that there is in this world and come back to him, to merge into him.

From the beginning of time (‘Biblical-time’), man has worked towards attaining comforts and treasures. Tales of which are ample in the Bible, it is also very prevalent in the Bible, that the Lord has promised more ‘material’ gifts to man for his devotion to God. It is common in the Bible, for eg. That God says to man, ‘I shall make you the king of this land and the lands around, you shall rule the people, the livestock, the cattle, the plants, all shall be yours for eons to come’, when he was pleased with what that man did.

I mean, I have 2 thoughts; One: was this not an act of strengthening, if not inculcating, the value man held to material things and comforts for life? Two: God promised that man, one specific man, to make him the ruler and king of the land and lands around for eons to come, what about the other men, women and  children that lived in the same land (town, city, village or settlement)? What was the wrong they did for not being offered such a reward? Were they born to be ruled upon? Is this equality?

Okay, so coming back to the topic of ‘realizing’ the ‘true’ ‘temporary’ nature of this world around us, God, or rather the spiritual leaders and religions say, ‘everything here is not ours and not to stay forever, the only truth is that we are to merge into the Lord, so we need to give up all the attachment to this world, its physical pleasures, and sensory cravings’.

This is like, taking a kid to an ice-cream shop and telling him to eat his heart full of whatever he wants, and the kid thinks, let’s sample the simple flavors like vanilla and strawberry first before we move onto the delicious ones like mint-chocolate, nutty-mango-peach, frosted-choco-chips-in blueberry, etc. and as soon as he has a few licks of just the vanilla, the Lord says, ‘Enough! You evil boy, you have let your senses run astray and take over your body. You have become a slave to your desires and worldly senses. You have become attached to this temporary world which gives only temporary happiness. You are a fool to run behind ice-cream when I can offer so much more. Come back, now you have to stop all this nonsense and start meditating sitting in the ice-cream shop, so that you may overcome the desires of your uncontrolled mind. Your mind is the source of all evil, you have to control it and tune it towards me so that I may take you back. Or else, you are bound to suffer through life after life in this world, while I stand here at the door waiting for your return.’

How cool is that? If you did not want the boy to eat the ice-cream, why’d you take him to the store? Next, since you are the Lord, why’d you create the ice-cream store when you knew, that the boy would fall prey to its wondrous and tantalizing taste? Third, why’d you give the boy taste-buds which relish sweet, if you did not want him to relish anything from this world? Fourth, why’d you make him a boy, so that he would run after ice-cream. Fifth, how can you being the father of the boy, not find happiness in his happiness (which he derives from ice-cream)?

This example is just a simple one to point out certain aspects of religion. It sure looks like, God created man not to share his love with man, but rather to make him go through a tough-as-hell obstacle course before he would take him back.

Sensual pleasures are the devil’s playground, the most heinous and evil things man can engage in. Man is to remain chaste and is not to engage in ‘sexual acts’.

A lot of religions say this, look at the monks of Buddhism, the priests of Christianity or the gurus and preachers of Hinduism, a very important requisite, if not the first, is that the follower, the disciple on the spiritual path be chaste and abstinent. I have no idea where this comes from; where does it say in the Bible, ‘Thou shalt not copulate’? I find this whole idea stupid, I mean, the first few sentences of the Bible say, that man created Eve so that together Adam and Eve could populate the world and now he says that we shouldn’t have sex, or did he mean Adam and Eve were to populate the world by kissing all day and night? In Hinduism, almost all of the million-or-so Gods, have consorts; female companions which are ‘married’ to the God, and are Goddesses themselves. The Lord can do it, but he doesn’t want us to do it, quite hypocritical of him, wouldn’t you say? If not indulging in sensual pleasures was what God desired for man, why’d he make the sexes separate and did not create humans as hermaphrodites? Why did we have to undergo ‘sexual-reproduction’? I am crossing all lines while I say, if he really didn’t want us to do ‘it’, why’d he make ‘it’ so much fun? Heard about the millions of nerve endings we have in our penises and vaginas? How about the erogenous zones, talking about the Lord creating man, why’d he create the erogenous zones in the first place?

The point of the Gods being married also point out the simple and obvious, ‘created-by-man’ aspect of these spiritual tales.

If you look around, and you look at religious history of the world, you shall see ample evidence of the fact that what is good is tough, hard, painful, un-enjoyable, difficult, and pleasing to the Lord. Look at the sages and saints of earlier times, they practiced penance in the shivering colds of the Himalayas (Hinduism) for ‘Hundreds of years’, subjecting their bodies to the harsh and freezing winds of the mountains, standing on one leg, without any rest, food or water; to please the Lord. Wow, imagine, if you stand on one leg for 20 minutes, you would realize how painful it is to stand on one leg for some time. Now imagine 100 years, okay that’s impractical, but that’s what the stories say. And to add to the misery, no food, no water, and no rest. Just stand there, almost naked; for a long, long time, and why? So that the Lord, our father would take us back.

Anything which is tasty is bad for health, anything, I mean everything! Barely would you find a couple of things that your taste buds would enjoy as would your health. And this rule is not limited to the man made things, look at fruits, the optimal diet of fruits, what about the people with diabetes? And you say it is a man-made disease, well, didn’t the ‘all-knowing’ Lord see it coming? Why is it that the sweetness of sugar lasts in your mouth for a few moments while the burn of spice or bitterness last for minutes? Why is it that a kiss is so short-lived and a pinch or a slap hurts for minutes if not hours? Why is it that everything pleasurable is temporary and everything we would not want to experience long-lasting?

I can go on and on, but you get the gist.

Zbogom

God, Religions and my thoughts. Part III

This is the continuation to my earlier posts on the same subject, which can be found here: Part I and Part II.

According to the ‘law’ of Karma, the cycle of birth and death continues till man reaches realization after which he is given moksha from this cycle and merges back with the Lord.

I find a lot of problems with this ‘Law’.

First, it is said in the law of Karma, ‘The punishment for the sins of man in one life shall come back to him. He cannot escape the punishment. His sins and good karmas, are weighed at his death and he suffers for his sins in the next life’.

Sounds somewhat like Newton’s third law of motion doesn’t it? 🙂 [Wonder if Newton made his law after listening to this, or was it the other way around?]

Okay on a serious note, so a man did something bad. He lived the rest of his life. He died and then he was reborn as somebody else and has to suffer. Consider the scenario: a person ‘ABC’ killed another man, or let’s say for the sake of dramatization, picked up a machine gun and slaughtered 200 men and got away with it. He was never convicted. He lived his life as he wanted to, and died of old age. He meets the Lord at the gates of Heaven, the Lord says, ‘Oh! You killed 200 men, very bad’. Now, he is born as ‘XYZ’, a pious and simple man, who works at a bank. He lives a simple life and has worked at the bank for 20 years, and one fine day is hit by a car while crossing a road. He survives, is paralyzed waist down for the rest of his life. Now people would say that the man XYZ, is suffering for the sins of his past lives; and XYZ being unable to do anything about it, has to live in the consolation, that his past sins are at least redeemed by this immense suffering he is undergoing. What sense does this make? ABC killed people. And XYZ suffers on his account; XYZ does not even know his mistake (of the past life), or why is he being made to suffer.

Looking at this rationally, suffering is brought upon man to make one repent for his crimes (at least that’s how we humans figured it out and designed our justice systems), to make one realize that what he did was wrong and that he not repeat the same acts/crimes. Now XYZ does not even know what his fault was, or why he is being made to suffer. Is this Justice?

Now, some more thought into this; isn’t it easier to explain what happened to XYZ was due to him being a nutcase and not looking both sides while crossing the road?

Or even more thinking, if he was hit by a car and paralyzed for life, if it not a heinous act by the retarded driver of the car who hit him? That driver put XYZ through so much misery, probably 20 years more of paralysis and unthinkable agony and pain? So what would be his fate? Now the driver did a heinous act (instrument of God’s Law of Karma) by hitting and crippling XYZ, that he has to suffer in his next life. And from the just system that Karma is, the driver would be hit by some vehicle or some other cause and made to suffer just like he made XYZ suffer. See a self-sustaining cycle?

Law of Karma also states, ‘Your present is the effect of your past. You did a good thing and you live a happy life; you did something bad and you shall suffer’

Now, since our present is the result of our past acts, and our present acts define our future; does it not imply that our future is directly based on our past? What role do we play? It’s as if what we do does not matter because the first time we were born (the very first time), what we did then defines how all our subsequent births would be. Without any input from us!

I mean, if we have to suffer due to our past sins, we suffer doing good things all our life; and if we are evil, we are so because we get away with it. Think about this, a child when he steals something, if caught and severely punished, would think at least twice before stealing again. He would be reminded of the consequence of stealing that he had to face the last time when he stole. However, if he is let go, with no consequence, he would think, ‘Oh this is fun! I got what I wanted and without any effort. I wanted candy, I did not have to do my homework and wait for mom to give it to me, I just took it.’ So a man, who commits evil, and gets away with it once, would do it again, and again, and again. Thus piling up his sins, and would then have to suffer endlessly in his next life. Which would make him humble and simple, which would get him goody points for his life after that; and if he commits a sin in his next life, he gets away with it on account of his ‘goody-points’ from his past life. Is this not a flawed way to deal with the ‘sins’ issue?

Now one may think, why is the law so defined? I offer a simple explanation.

All religion is so defined so as to suppress any questions that may arise.

This is necessary to avoid and contain the loopholes which exist in such ‘laws’.

[Why do the loop-holes exist? Because man designed the laws, you don’t expect the All-knowing father to leave loopholes in his sermons and ‘laws’ to mankind; do you?]

It is necessary for one to suffer in the next life, because; if a good main breaks his leg, and questions God (or His preachers) so as to why is he made to suffer when he never did anything wrong, they have a simple answer, your past life. There is no second question!

If the suffering of a nice man is severe, he is given the added bonus of words like ‘Do not worry, this is your exam which the lord is taking, you shall pass through this unscathed and your soul shall return to the lord’, ‘this is your last test, after which you shall return to the lord’, ‘the lord is testing you, for once you pass this final test, you shall be deemed fit to return to the King’, etc. and the man is so blinded in all this, that even when he is dying, he has the name of the lord on his lips. Such is the success of the plot of religions.

Not only has religion made man to believe that there is an ever watchful lord, who is present everywhere and who watches not only everything you do, but also everything you THINK; It has also established itself so stupendously and firmly into the world, that even when the purest of men die, they think of only the sins they committed in their lives and seek forgiveness from the Lord. No joy of living a full life, no peace of dying, nothing, just more guilt.

[I have worked on and elaborated the advantages of this ‘system’ (rather than religion), as I like to call it,  too, I am not all Evil 🙂 ; you can find some thoughts on why this works and why it was important for this ‘system’ to exist in the first place here.]

Adeu

Next part of this ‘long’ thought chain to come up in two days. 🙂

God, Religions and my thoughts. Part – II

Continuing from my last post on the same topic, which can be found here, I now move on to…

Hinduism: Ramayana: Was it not Kekai, a wife of Dasharath who convinced him to make his son the king instead of the deserving heir to the throne, eldest of the brothers? Was it not her who also made Dasharath promise to send Ram to the forest for 14 years?

I mean look at history of all religions, why was it that only females were the ‘evil’ minded people who made all the wrong things take place? Why not a man? The king has hundreds on men as his advisors in his court, why did a female have to play the evil role?

That said, if you know the whole story of Ramayana, you would know that after Rama defeated Ravana and handed over the kingdom to Vibhishana, he returned home to Ayodhya (which is still considered a pious day and is celebrated in the town of Ayodhya and elsewhere, in India), after a while, he just deserted Sita into the forest. ‘God’-knows-why? He had already tested (by making her walk through fire) that she was ‘untouched’ during her stay it Ravana’s gardens, he tested that before accepting her back after killing Ravana. He just left her alone, she stayed at a saint’s Ashram and had two sons (of course by copulation with Rama, or immaculate birth maybe, whatever) who grew up at the saint’s ashram; and that’s the end of the story. Rama was crowned the king of Ayodhya, Sita lived her remaining life in an ashram and so did Rama’s sons. I mean what the hell is this? And people who are staunch believers in Lord Rama, pundits, gurus, saints, who know the epic of Ramayana by heart don’t seem to mind this at all.

Okay, more evil roles for the female: Sita was abducted by Ravana due to his lust, this led to the downfall of the great Ravana empire. Just one female made Ravana lose everything, not to mentioned got thousands of his soldiers (innocent people) killed, including his brothers and sons. So looking at the story from Ravana’s point of view, who was the source of all his troubles? A Female!

Ravana was considered to be an evil man beforehand, but was a very enlightened soul. He was a staunch devotee of Lord Shiva, who hated him for his evil doings but anyway gave him all the boons in response to his penance. Does that not sound strange to you? Ravana did penance and yet he was evil to the core. And that penance constituted of ‘hundreds’ of years of standing on one leg in the cold of the Himalayas. Now, I find it a little hard to believe, that a man who was so shallow, that he abducted a woman to satiate his lust, would have the mindset and determination to stand on one leg for a hundred years so that he may get a weapon from Lord Shiva. Also, the all-powerful and all-knowing Lord ‘had to’ grant him the boons, when he knew that he would use them for evil. I find it hard to digest.

Okay, another aspect of the story, if you look at the plot of the epic, in detail esp. the demographics, you would see that the Lanka which was the home and stronghold of Ravana is nothing but the country of Sri Lanka in today’s world. So, either the present Lankans thought naming their country after the land of birth of evil and place where evil ruled for eons (before Ramayana) was kinda cool; or the story (of Ramayana) was written after the land was called Lanka. You tell me what is more plausible.

Namaskar.

PS. This is the second post from a set of 5 on this topic, more to come. Next one on the 28th. 🙂