“Starting Arguments”
I’d like to start with a statement and elaborate it further as I progress, the statement being, “Religion is a tool to promote and build Spirituality”. Over the years of education I received, I’ve deduced a certain many observations from the many extracts of stories on religion and mythologies I’ve studied. Using simple logic and statistics, let us take the fact of the number of given religions we have. Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc., using probability, what are the chances of one of these groups being right? Even if we consider all the gods to be one in religions like Hinduism or Greek, we’d have a solid 1/27 or chances of one of them being true. Asides from simple math, we can talk more deeply into the subject of what religion is and how it relates more on growing a sense of spirituality in humans rather than being a true supernatural and real idea.
“Literature”
In the end, we’re all humans. We thrive on the principles of hope and look for purpose and reasoning everywhere we go. To an extent we’re all looking for ways to understand concepts of life and philosophy more easily, this is why a vast majority of us are romantics and literature enthusiasts. Literature, looking at the concept more deeply, is a generally a way to express feelings, emotions, values, beliefs, etc., in the manner of fictional or real stories. This is how we created moral stories, music, cinema, and other works of art. To spread a message through works of art because when told bluntly, the perceptions may differ. Not all humans can interpret in the same way, hence, a universal language was born through literature. If we deduce these simple definitions well, looking at a few fables and epics of religion like the stories of valor in the Trojan War, the Gods fighting amongst mere mortals. Heracles and the Seven Labours. Prometheus, who stole fire from the Gods to give mankind. Ares, the God of War who brought chaos to achieve balance in a peaceful world. The epic of Ramayana, Mahabharat. While keeping fables and epics in mind, let us look at the more debatable concepts of the holy scriptures. The Holy Bible, The Quran, The Bhagwat Geeta, etc. People who have read these scriptures would agree to being enlightened on countless beliefs, morals and learnings. I won’t be delving deep into the examples I shared and the morals and beliefs that they teach but; these scriptures and many countless other activites of religious importance, to me, are no more than a tool to brighten our spirituality, just the way literature works. All religion is literature, taken to a foolishly serious extent. Though I have nothing against the idea of this, since religion can be dated to centuries back and can be said be to the oldest form of literature, humans oppose change. It would be beyond impossible to impose the new idea of religion being merely a tool and to be taken less seriously to achieve “World Peace” (which ideally, it would, in light of the recent war between Palestine and Israel on the exact same foolish misinterpretation: Religion), but is unachievable due to the other factors which we humans do engage ourselves in; Science, Business Ventures, Ambitions, Career Goals, Families, Relationships, Self-Care, etc., we do not need to complicate our lives with a vague and direct version of spirituality without religion, especially after coming this far, i.e., in the advancements of religion and the countless stories written on a particular religion. We’d find it near impossible to extend the beliefs and values we learn about spirituality and truly, many other aspects like resilience, individuality, etc., to be now extracted and put forward in the form of complex words and thoughts. Rather, stick to the concept of religion to act as a literature to be the universal language of the billions of people on this planet. (Rather, who knows if implementing this new mindset would cause more peace or chaos? Would we fail to articulate these beliefs if religion was falsified? Would the world fall in turmoil with no guardian to look after? Cynicism could take over.)
“Religion is a tool to promote and build Spirituality”
Like Literature, Religion is merely a way to articulate the values we wish to extend through figures of higher being. Gods are seen to be the perfect beings, we humans commonly find role models in people by looking up to a certain few of their characteristics that they wish to inherit one day. God is a role model, scriptures are literature. Coming to spirituality: Spirituality exists, religion does not. Just as the sub-conscious mind is a real, scientific and biological fact of the human body, Spirituality is the sense of hope and introspection that resides in our deepest corners of the mind. God is not an higher life form, God is not a separate life form. God exists within all of us through spirituality. God can be referred to as the energy governing our soul and the sub-conscious mind which all comes down the thermal physics at the end of the day. Why do we pray? When we pray, we ask for something to God, usually, a form of blessing to attain something you hope for. In the end, when we do receive what we hoped for; good health, good fortune, etc., we praise God for their miracle. But, understanding the concept of what we really do when we pray is crucial to understanding what we do and what we misinterpret. We affirm. We subconsciously make affirmations which build the sense of hope and which give us the strength to make what we prayed for, come true. But, humans like to blame, its only natural. We refuse to believe that if we did not receive good fortune after a prayer, it was God’s fault. Leaving our expectations on a being that we do not know exists, to ease the pain of knowing that it was entirely our mistake for not receiving good grades, etc. Spirituality keeps us and our subconscious alive, religion is the universal language for it.