(Claimer : The writings in this article are entirely mine. The views & counterviews presented in the article are my own. I have a clear intention to offend anyone who considers himself, or herself, religious just because they’ve been following the instructions laid down by their parents and society and have not taken any initiative towards knowing & understanding the positive & negative aspects of religion.)

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Of God, the Devil & the Humans, we have really good scientific evidence  for the existence of only humans. There are good humans & the bad humans. Religious extremists, however, see bad humans as the work of Devil, and a larger number of good humans, not so extreme in their views, claim to see in nature the evidence of intelligent design by God.

With God comes religion and every religion around the world tells humans to follow itself so that a human being can attain a seat up in heaven after dying. I ponder if every religion guarantees heaven, then it must be the choice of an individual to follow any religion. Religion cannot be forced on anyone. It has to be accepted by an individual himself. If my father is  a Sikh, it doesn’t mean that I am bound to be a Sikh all my life! Religion is not something to be inherited, it is something to be discovered.

I have been discussing religion with many people over the last few years and my personal conclusion is that a human being is just a breathing, living, biological being on planet Earth. Much similar to other life forms on the planet. We exist because of evolution and not because someone named God took such a complex task of ‘creation’ in ‘its’ own hands.

I feel amazed at the knowledge that the percentage of people who accept the above mentioned fact is not even 0.01 % of the total number of people I have spoken with. People take religion so seriously that they are ready to fight for it. Ready to fight for an ideology that was presented centuries ago. The ideas which hold no stand in the modern world, but countless people still follow the old rotten paths because somewhere in their thought process, they are aware of this baseless fact that the heaven & hell actually exist!

The fact is that the heaven & the hell exist, but not somewhere up in the sky or in the heated core of the Earth, but inside our very own thoughts. You do a good deed, you help someone in need, you bring a smile on the face of a small child, you feel heaven. You fight with your loved ones, have a bad day at work or are going through a bad phase in your relationship, you experience hell. There is no bigger religion than what you feel about your fellow human beings. Not only human beings, but how do you feel about a dog who searches the dustbin for food, or a cow who cannot feed her calf because she couldn’t find anything to eat at the footpaths, or the pigeon who is lying on the roadside, electrocuted, dead.

Out of the countless religions & faiths around the world, lets take a look at just four biggest & most influential religions in India.

• Hinduism :
  • Widespread Views
  • 82% of the Indians follow Hinduism.
  • It is a religion with 330 Million Gods & Goddesses.
  • One of my very good friend presented a fact that every human being is a ‘Hindu’ at the time of the birth.
  • If a child is circumcised, he becomes a Muslim. If he is baptized, he becomes a Christian & so on.
  • Hinduism believes in cycle of life. One has to take birth over & over again to fulfill his destiny, know the true identity of God and merge in Him to attain Moksha or Nirvana.

• Counter Views
• Being the oldest religion on the planet, Hinduism is rusted with traditions which no longer matter.
• In ancient times, whatever was out of their understanding was regarded as God. In times of tornadoes, they declared wind as a God and prayed. In times of forest fires, they declared fire as a God and prayed, in times of floods, they declared water as a God and again, prayed.
• With the dawn of so many sects in the religion, Hinduism has lost its true identity. The religion is going through a phase of crisis. Every Hindu is following a separate God and their Gods are based on mythical epics like Ramayana & Mahabharata.

• Islam :
  • Widespread Views
  • 12% of Indians follow Islam
  • The Koran stands second in the list of most read books around the world.
  • The book is composed of the revelations given to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad by Allah himself.
  • Based on five pillars of Faith, Prayer, Charity, Fasting & Pilgrimage, Islam is one of the most influential & aggressive religions till date.
  • Being a converting religion, Islamic Leaders leave no stone unturned to convince populations around the world to get converted into Islam and be blessed by Allah.
  • Islam believes in only one life and that the deeds done in a single life will be accounted for at the Judgment Day, on the basis of which, a person’s soul shall be sent to the heaven or the hell.

• Counter Views
• Islamic Extremists have performed the most heinous acts of death and destruction all over the history.
• The Koran is a book which concentrates a lot on how one should dress or maintain cleanliness of the body or present himself in the society rather than how to lead a quality life.
• Forbidding women to worship in Mosques is one of the cheapest acts for a religion that talks about the equality of sexes.
• Prophet Muhammad was a sexually aggressive man who married thirteen times & instructed his 11 ‘living’ wives not to remarry after his death as it was the revelation of Allah!
• And yes, the most common fact, all the Muslims are not terrorists, but mostly all the terrorists are Muslims.

• Christianity :
  • Widespread Views
  • 2.5% of Indians follow Christianity
  • Jesus of Nazareth, by his death on the cross, provided redemption for humans who were separated from God because of sin.
  • Jesus, either literally or figuratively, was resurrected from the dead.
  • The Bible stands on top in the list of most read books around the world.
  • Baptism is the initiation into the religion.
  • There is one life on Earth, similar as Islam, followed by an everlasting life, usually in heaven or hell.

• Counter Views
• The story of Bible has been described in countless Gospels by the so called followers of Jesus over 2000 years ago in an extinct language called ‘Ancient Hebrew’.
• The text of the book has had numerous corrections/alterations over the period and has been translated over and over again to the language which can be understood by the masses easily.
• The simple argument that Jesus of Nazareth was the only Son of God presents the fact that God himself is a living biological being, which creates the biggest of controversies of all times.
• Like Islam, Christianity has left no stone unturned to convert people and prove itself as the religion with the maximum followers.
• In India, Christian Missionaries pay money to the poor families who decide to get converted & baptized.

• Sikhism :
  • Widespread Views
  • 2% of Indians follow Sikhism.
  • The teachings of 10 ‘Teachers’ or ‘Gurus’ are recorded in a book known as Guru Granth.
  • According to the instructions by the last biological teacher, Guru Gobind Singh, the ‘Guru Granth’ is the ultimate teacher for all the Sikhs.
  • Sikhism is considered as one of the latest & the newest religions to have originated in India.
  • A ritual of initiation is carried out in Sikhism, after which a Sikh is termed as ‘Khalsa’ meaning pure of all the ill deeds & thought processes of the life he has lived so far.
  • A Pure Sikh is ordered to live by the rules laid for a Sikh and try to maintain balance between both the spiritual & worldly aspects of life.

• Counter Views
• Sikhism is a failed religion.
• Again, a book which was written over 300 years ago in a language which was much different than what people understand today, is no good for teaching on how to follow one’s heart in the modern world.
• With the initiation of countless sects in Sikhism such as Radhasoamis, Nirankaris, Naamdhaaris etc, the religion is facing unanswerable questions about its existence as the ‘Khaalis’, the Pure one.
• The passionate initiation of ‘Khalsas’ by Guru Gobind Singh by asking for ‘Five Heads’ or the ‘Five Beloveds’ was only a hoax. No power on Earth can behead a man & then bring him back to life. And to add a little more to the controversy, the Guru beheaded the ‘Five Beloveds’ inside a tent!
• Out of the ‘Ten Gurus’, eight lived their lives as Saints and never held a weapon, still, Sikhism is known as the religion of the warriors and not peace & harmony. The message has been forgotten, the idea of being a ‘Khaalis’, the pure one, has been lost.

All the historic cultural traditions & civilizations have had a religious faith in some form or the other. I have never come across any non-religious cultural tradition. Religions, however, are not the only avenue for experiencing awe and wonder; it can also be experienced through the arts and through the appreciation of the nature. Nobody condemns the art or nature because there is no way to do so. Have you ever thought that both Art & God are the product of human imagination? Both are inspired by the same feelings of wonder.

Religion too achieves miracles, but its miracles are nothing but harmful. Arguing, fighting & killing over the supremacy of one religion over another is the only emotion religions have grown in humans. I had an eye-opener discussion with a friend few days ago about religion. She said, “Dying because of cancer is much better than dying because of religion.”

I thought about it for the next few days. Pollution causes cancer. Similarly, religious pollution causes spiritual cancer. Religion is everywhere. Certainly, its binding people of a certain religion together, but if the whole population is to live in peace & harmony, there is a real need for humans to denounce religion. Even animals are aware not to kill their own species, but humans are hell bent to kill each other just because someone said a bad word about their religion!

There is an old saying, “Good people do good things & bad people do bad things, but it takes religion for good people to do bad things.”

Letting go of religion will bring love and respect for all humans – and that is what humanism is all about.