Do we need religions or a spiritual renaissance?
By Ali
Sina
Dear Jan,
In response to your latest email, I do not think we
need the belief in God to love our fellow humans. Buddhism is a religion
of love and yet Buddha was an agnostic. Frankly there has been more hate
and killing in the name of God than in the name of any other idea. This is
not to say that I disbelieve in God. I do believe in a single principle
underlying the creation. That is not, however, a personal God, as the Jews, the
Christians and the Muslims believe but a spiritual reality like love. I
think I was 13 or 14 when I first read the Bible and I was horrified to
meet the god of Moses and Joshua.
I believe we humans are spiritual beings having a
physical experience, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin used to say. Our
forefathers invented religions to satisfy their spiritual quest. Today we
do not need to cling to their intellectual inventions anymore than we need
to cling to their sundials, chariots or plows in our daily lives. As
modern humans we can chart our own spiritual path without the need to look
into the past and mimic what our primitive ancestors did.
The source of
the evil in religions is that they are manmade yet believed to be
revelations. They are fables compiled and concocted by a bunch of rabbis
like Jeremiah and Ezra in 700 BC (when Judea and Israel became one nation)
as in the case of Judaism; fabrications of some hi pitched
salesman-like preachers like Paul, as in the case of Christianity and hallucinations
of a schizophrenic marauding gangster like Muhammad as in the case of Islam. It is sad
that in this day of the Internet, genetic engineering and nano technology
people still cling to these outdated religions and get their spiritual
insights from the fancies of a bunch of lost souls of antiquity. Humanity
needs a spiritual revival and part of that revival is to get rid of the
obsolete religions with their draconian laws. We need a religious-free
spiritual revolution, a revolution that is energized by love of humanity
and directed by the Golden Rule, a spiritual revolution that is based on knowledge and understanding and not on fear
of a hell or greed of a paradise. It is time that we lay the foundation of
a spiritual civilization for mankind.
We do not need religions to love each other.
Religions make us hate each other. Religions are instruments of disunity.
We have thousands of years of history of war and bloodshed and when you
take a closer look you’ll see most of these wars were religiously
motivated. Even if the war was fought over land the hatred was often
religiously inspired.
Religions have been proven to be wrong on science,
how can we trust them on God? If they were from God, they should have
known that the Earth is not flat or life is the product of evolution. If
they have erred on this, they could be wrong on other things too.
You said that you tried to help a Muslim woman who
had suffered terrible abuse at the hands of her husband and as a result,
you suffered dishonor. Why? Why helping another human being in distress
should bring dishonor to one? If you were not a Jew and she was not a
Muslim would you still suffer dishonor? I doubt it. As you see religion is
the big barrier between us humans. It is a pretext to hate.
You may have gone from disbelief to belief and from
atheism to religiosity. I am neither an atheist nor a theist. But I
respect your choice. In reality what you believe or disbelieve is of
little consequence. What matters is how you live and how much you can give
to the world. Religions could be lamp holders where love is the light. I
look at the light no matter from where it shines. The problem with Islam
is that it is a lamp holder that has no light. Now the day of
understanding has dawned. We don’t need any lamp holders nor need their
lights.
Shalom
Ali Sina
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