HAND OF RELIGION

THE GREAT HAND OF RELIGION

Murad Ali Baig

The soothing hand of religion can calm the worst fears of many anxious millions just as the flaming passions of religion can so easily destroy millions of innocent lives. Human beings may have been a creation of God but religions were all the creation of countless human prophets, sages and philosophers. We need to however understand that like the hand of mortal men the great hand of religion has five different fingers.

The smallest finger is the spiritual core of every faith. Human beings in every culture had wanted to know where they had come from and where they were destined to go to after their deaths. This quest to seek the tenuous links between their fragile lives and their conceptions of some greater cosmic source of all energy had been at the core of all faiths. This spiritual quest included concepts like salvation, karma, sin, ethical behavior and the power of love that many believed could lift their spirits or souls to a better world both in this life and after death. These are quite similar in all religions.

The second finger of religion is the finger of customs and traditions. Every religion carries a huge baggage of the customs that are part of constantly evolving societies. These were shaped by the geographic, climatic and economic conditions that were very varied in different cultures. Every society had festivals rejoicing the advent of spring and autumn that later became part of their religious mythology. Winter fests common to cold countries were elevated into the festivals of Lori, in north India or Christmas in Europe. The fasting during Ramzan had been an Arab custom necessary to survive the acute thirst and hunger of the hottest weeks of summer long before it became an Islamic tradition. Human concerns about health or killing may have influenced the habits of food and drink but there was nothing spiritual about these. Pork, beef or alcohol may be abhorrent to many people but they do no injury to the human soul. There was similarly nothing spiritual about a veil, turban or the clothes people wear. They were all social customs that priests later made into religious requirements or acts of piety.

The biggest finger of the hand of religion was political. Every religion evolved out of scattered beliefs and faiths when a ruler promoted it and patronized legions of priests to propagate their faiths. As it was much easier for a ruler to get people to die in the name of God than for a mortal man the priests made people believe that their kings were god’s delegates on earth and it was god’s work to follow his commands. Religious faith kept the masses hardworking, obedient and disciplined so kings rewarded their priests with magnificent places of worship to awe them and many other earthly rewards. People were persuaded to believe that rulers had a divine right to kill or persecute people belonging to other kingdoms or faiths. Priests disciplined the masses mainly through the instrument of fear. They were obsessed about control and their carefully crafted visions of hell’s fire or terrifying incarnations kept worshippers in line. They also understood that hatred of perceived enemies was a powerful cement to unite their followers so they fanned the flames of hate against rival people or beliefs. They also promised miraculous boons as also the power to miraculously curse or defeat their enemies.

The forth vertical of every religion were the chains by which priests bound people to their religion. These are a heady mix of prayers, penances, pilgrimages, fasts, meditation, chanting, songs and sacrifices. These were elevated through religious art and magnificent places of worship that uplifted the minds of believers and made them feel that they were closer to god and could forget their sorrows and be filled with joy. Some ecstatic experiences even stimulated human bodies to heal their own ailments in almost miraculous ways.

The last finger concerned superstition. People believed their priests because they sincerely believed that certain words or actions would result in good or bad fortune for themselves and their communities. Christians touch wood visualizing that it is a part of the sacred wooden cross of Jesus. Many Hindus begin every endeavor or prayer with a entreaty to the elephant god Ganesh begging him to make their ventures or desires successful. Muslims take the name of Allah after every pronouncement about expected events. Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others cover their heads before going into a place of worship following the old Zoroastrian custom of wearing a skull cap to stop polluting human hair from falling into the sacred fire. Many people believe that feeding the poor will earn eternal merit for the giver even if the practice can reduce healthy people into groveling beggars. Examples from the lives of prophets and sages become acts of piety. Many Muslims enter a room with the right foot first because they believe that the supposed example of Muhammad is an act of piety. People believe superstitions because they believe that they can miraculously change things for better or worse.

All the fingers of this great hand of religion are covered by a dazzling glove of mythology. The ideas of all the old prophets, sages and philosophers were spread by story tellers because written texts were too few and too difficult to make until  Gutenberg’s printing press in 1439 AD. Till then books were too rare and expensive. The art of all storytellers was to exaggerate so that the princesses became more beautiful, the kings more magnificent and beliefs more miraculous with each retelling. Space and time became playthings of bards and raconteurs so the characters of religious personages were constantly embroidered. All the early places of learning were seminaries of religion so a thick cloak of mythology hid the ugly or inconvenient while glorifying all that they wanted to show as beautiful.

The spiritual core is the element that most religions are proudest of and these are quite similar in all faiths. The other elements are essentially material issues that differ widely from religion to religion. The thick encrustations of mythology that surrounds religions makes it difficult for people to see the spiritual core. Instead of marveling at the multifaceted miracle of life itself from the smallest organism to the tallest tree, religions make people quarrel endlessly about the material details of their faiths with the result that the gentle hand of spirituality is quickly covered by a hate filled glove of religion that has caused more death and destruction than any other human endeavor.