Religion

Qustions- Reflection

Religion is the way to channel one’s belief. To focus his or her personal faith in a direction one finds most suited. This according to me is the meaning of religion yet to a third party religion can mean something drastically different depending on their biases. Religion to a religious cult fanatic could mean that only his is the “true” religion and to someone more atheists, religion can mean nothing at all. Thus the term religion itself is very subjective but the agreeable norm for me is that religion is the path to address the divine entity that many feel exists.
What makes people believe in religion varies. It mostly depends on the cultures people follow, their parental beliefs and other experiences. Many just follow a religion blindly without questioning it because it has been followed for centuries and deeply rooted in the culture of the community. An example of this would be the religious wars within the boundaries of a religious sector- Christianity. When protestant Christianity flooded Europe, the Catholic Christians started to question their own path to God. They may have paid for elaborate churches but the point was that most priests were only stealing from the peasants. As rationality set in them, they began converting yet this took centuries. The reason for this long time period was simple, it was due to the culture that the entire community had followed for years and did not want to question it. Also due to parental belief, the child is mostly limited just to one view point and thus never gets to explore the ambiguity of some things. Another factor to make one believe in religion are experiences. Experiences can in many ways be life changing. There are many stories where after near death experiences, people resort to God, and to communicate with him chose religion as the path. A much more direct example would be the story of Ned Doughtry whose near-death experience combined with him being shown the future of the world including the 9-11 attacks.1 Other than these even there are smaller reasons like ethics, to explain ambiguous matters and societal pressure however the most important reason out of all mentioned is the need of faith. To believe in religion one needs to believe in what the religion says. It may be explaining hazy matter but only if it manages to appease one’s faith will one be able to believe in religion.
Conversion from some religion to another, in a world that is being gripped by rationalism, is pretty common yet not easy for the person converting. While the people of the new faith will be supported, the people of the old faith may not and that perhaps could include family and friends. Depending on the liberalism present in the particular society the person originates from, conversions can become easy or difficult. Sometimes conversion can even take place by force.2 Such conversions are traumatic in many forms thus are not easy. However a conversion from non-religious stance to a religious one is also pretty abstruse to just pinpoint its difficulty level in converting. Many find it easy after an experience of sorts which prove the existence of the God. Thus conversions again is subjective as it depends on the society and the person’s own faith.
Religion as a medium fulfils many needs. In many humans a common feeling is that of emptiness and the doubts of our origins and current existence. Religion quenches this feeling and the various doubts that crop up. Religion also represents a community of sorts. Many people find themselves brought together by festivals and same religious beliefs. It thus also provides a feeling of unity.
Although these needs are satisfied, religion has various limitations. There are many biases that enter within sects of religions these include zealot type love for the religion one follows and an inane hatred for others. People tend to term their religion as better than the others and do not even try to respect nor understand other religious viewpoints regardless of whether they are preaching about the same thing. Within religion itself there is a lot of discrimination sets in which leads to casts that are divided based on ‘purity’ of blood or religious beliefs. These biases squander away the true meaning of the religion. The most evident bias in TOK terms that exists within religion is the emphasis on emotions rather than reason. Reason is sidestepped with statements like ‘Only people who worship God every day go to heaven as that is God’s will’ that focuses on playing with the knower’s emotions and thus change his perception. Equivocation is followed by references to religious books and then playing with the ambiguity of the language within it. Many leaders also follow the fallacy of confirmation bias where they only look for proof that proves their point without looking at the counter evidence. These fallacies were dealt with in the film Khudha Kai Liye that depicts fanaticism in Muslim society that is leading to Jihad. Here a Muslim priest manipulates what the Quran says to only prove his point without second views. Such fallacies deepen the prejudices based in religion.

1 http://www.spiritdaily.org/Prophecy-seers/ned_dougherty1.htm
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_conversion