America, Briton & India

The rise of America and it’s conclusive dominance in world affair provoked some very interesting thoughts. Historians may attribute it to the fall of Hitler/Germany and American’s subsequent victory in WWII. Economists point fingers to the industrial revolution and its pro- capitalist policies. Scientific/business communities may pick ‘innovation’ as the primary reason and finally, political think tanks chant about its vivacious democracy and an all powerful military for these developments. Actually these are the products of one of the most important distinction Americans have; that they always want to have their own individuality! Due to this distinctive quality, they in due course, achieved the prominence they enjoy now. When they got independence from British, Americans wanted to ‘undo British’ from their walks of life. We can see that type of stance from embracing ‘Left hand Drive system’ to different pin size/shape used in the electric plugs. They even tailored English and invented American English! They created their own preferred past time sports. Now look at what we Indians did post independence?! We did exactly opposite what Americans did or we just followed what British did when they were in India. We still pursue the same education system British intended to create, more precisely McCauley Method, clerks & administrators. Though changing slowly, we still use British names for our streets & towns. We still take pleasure in their favorite sports, Cricket, a game admired only in Briton and its previous colonies! Our parliament system is stimulated from Briton, even though British people are now debating whether to spend millions of pound on an entity called ‘Queen’ in their democratic system. Admitted, we got independence tad late, but unless we see a paradigm shift in our position & policies, we will still be fighting over trivial issues.

Religions

During one of our healthy debate about the significance of religion in our life, I stated that some of us may need the support of an external force called God, but definitely don’t require a religion for that matter. We almost always mixed up these two entities, god & religion, and for most of us, both are like two sides of a coin. They are not, actually !! God is solely a matter of personal importance and religion is something fabricated for a group of people or the social order. There can be religions without god. For example, the already lifeless ‘Charvaka faith’ was based on four elements Earth, Water, Fire & Air, which rejected the very existence of god. However the notion of god almost always attached to a particular faith or religion even though that is not really necessary. It’s very fascinating to see the dawn and ascend of two largest faiths in this world, Christianity & Islam, shape up the future of our civilization. The cleverly fabricated story of Jesus of Nazareth and few violent attacks on primeval civilizations eventually helped to get much needed faction for these Semitic religions, Christianity & Islam, respectively.

So what is the intention of these organized religions? To understand that, we must go back to the history of religions or more precisely, the human evolution itself ! The fundamental drive of man is to survive & procreate. Both are expensive affairs which need resources. The survival & getting the best mates need supremacy accustomed to be the real muscle power. The formation of groups changed the equation of power. Now man wants a reason to form these pockets of power and he used religion ( and god, of course ) to create it to get the access to much needed resources. Now religion became a way to get power and a way to rule the world. The clash of civilization started. The number game started. The mass conversion started. The mother of all conflicts started. All in the name of god, in the name of love and in the name of peace ! We consciously disregarded the fact that, actually we formed barriers in the form of religions and then we preach to break that barrier to love each other ! Then we admire religions and religious leaders for spreading love & peace! We forgot the fact that wherever we have two different entities opposing each other, there bound to be ‘mine is bigger than yours’ syndrome happens and that is the fundamental problem we face right now. Do you still need a religion to worship your almighty?

Jesus Christ

The other day, when the entire world was celebrating X’mas, I was thinking about one of the most captivating person ever known to mankind, that is Jesus Christ. No, I wasn’t actually thinking about him. I was thinking about the way his followers created a well thought-out group, a religion which is not really based on Christ’s preaching or philosophy but overly dependent on his resurrection. But why would we need some miracle stories to understand the meaning of the great wisdom he had shown to us? Does it really matter, whether Christ was an average Joe or son of god. Yes it may matter for some. But for me, the greatness of Christ is the fact that he was indeed, a humble carpenter, who showed astonishing ability to solve some of the problems they (we) had. He was a fearless man. But we are not. We need a strong conviction to understand the great knowledge he shared with us. For most of us, the best parts of Jesus Christ’s life are his holy birth and renaissance. Church used these miracles to a great degree to broaden the religion beyond boundaries. It’s regrettable to depict Jesus Christ as a mere magician who did some unthinkable. His cries echoed at 'Golgotha' shouldn’t go unnoticed. But the stupendous popularity of Christianity and influence of Church made him a cult figure, which overshadowed his simple, yet powerful philosophy, the philosophy of love.