These are just random thoughts and are not supposed to be coherent. So, please excuse me for that....
Here it goes.....
Why do we need religion? Simple straight forward answer: We need it to live in a society. Most of animals live in groups and so did we, the humans. Because of the extraordinary qualities of the human being, they made themselves some set of rules, to live peacefully defending for each other. And these rules were added, deleted, amended in multiple forms by multiple people according to their whims (either for good or bad) and that's how the present day complicated religion evolved. This is the basis point which I will quote in the further discussion.
Why do we need God? I found one straight forward reason. We need God to cover our inabilities or insufficiencies. I tell you one bad example.. Let us say that I am in a very bad situation, whatever I did is just failing. Irrespective of the amount of energy that I pour into it, only thing that remains is "failure". So, I am in a helpless state. This is the state which takes people to take refuge under the cover called "God".
Lemme give you more examples. Let us say that I am very poor and one of family (or friends) got a dreadful disease. I just can't afford the huge amount of money needed for treatment. So, what can I do? I can do nothing. I just can't raise so much of money in that short period of time and besides this disease. These diseases not only eat the person they attacked but also their family and friends. A state of helplessness. And you find refuge in "God". Same is the state, even if I am rich and don't know a way to treat the disease. Same state of helplessness. So, We just sit quite and pray… for the unknown.. for the faith... for God... the mysterious.. the omniscient.. and just wait for a miracle to happen and swipe out our problems.
I guess, this might be the reason where this concept might have grown. Because there are always different kinds of people, with different mindsets involved in the development of this concept. There is a main flaw in this concept, the concept of God being mysterious. This flaw in the system gave rise to different kinds of difficulties. From the starting of mankind, inherently in all human beings (I guess), there is an attitude to control others (not only humans). I suppose that this kind of attitude is present in everyone in large or smaller quantities. There are different ways to attain this. Some people use their physical power, some their mental power. A very clever way to do is, use both. Use the physical power and reason out to people that these are the acts of God. And since God is the same power which creates and destroys things, no more questions. Everything we do is for the sake of Greater Good. And this is how the concept of God has been explored by the "Power".
Next concept. Like the review on the social behavior of the human beings has revealed that people find it easy to express their problems, reveal their uniqueness and things like that, in a smaller group rather than a larger one, different kinds of division happened in the society. In fact, it is a good idea to recognize ourselves with a smaller group (like a family), where we have a more significant role to play than the bigger society where we are like drops of ocean. But the only problem is that, these groups started fighting among themselves, which is perfectly against the basis for the formation of religion. The reason for these fights is multiple and the most significant thing that I found is "Power".
During the evolution of the religion and God, main concepts or rules have been made as a set of moral values. Most of these moral values teach us that, we should contribute to the Greater Good and we should not be selfish. And all those people who proclaimed themselves to be non-selfish (and pretend to be so) became the leaders and thus the "Power". And this "Power" has raised its voice and reinforced the same ideas. So, from childhood people we were taught the same concepts.. live for others.. (Believe me, go back and read your copy writing books, these are the things you read). But here is the problem, inherently human beings are selfish. So, this has become a contradiction in life. Not only this, there have been N number of contradictions in life. And again, the "Power" has used this fact, declared that you are sinners. (Everybody is a sinner in different magnitudes) and asked you to submit to "God". NO! Not really to God! Submit to the whims of the "Power". And people acted quietly like that, without asking questions (asking questions is sin). Thus, a group psychology has been developed; no questions just follow whatever is told and nothing else.
And then it continued, men (watch the gender) have created laws. Suppressing the suppressed. And many people suppressed, most of them are females. I wonder that in most of the religions, females are hated. I tell you my crude concept for this. Possibly to avoid any conflicts and encourage the concept of single-partner, "sex" has been framed as a sin. And the object of this sin is female. May be because of the "Power" got a ditch from females or for whatever reason, females were hated and suppressed. And because of the general tendency by everyone to show their power, everyone did the same and it so badly affected people that present-day women also think that they are less efficient that their counterparts. This is the awful part of the story.
And so and so the story continued and people became frantic followers of their religion. And the struggle between "Power"s started. Power's started fighting for different reasons like food, women, land and majorly "Power". And thus, it gave raise to all kind of wars including the world war-I and world war-II. But then something happened. There doesn’t happen a third world. Why? The reason is simple. Everybody knows what would happen in the event of third world. And suddenly there were talks about peace. Some people are trying to adjust to this new kind of globalization. They are realizing that we are all the children of same community. But still the Power has its own influence. People make nuclear bombs, flaunt with them and then say "Peace, Peace and Peace". (I really don’t know how we can achieve peace manufacturing nuclear bombs).
Like every concept, this concept of religion has created insurmountable issues. There are flaws in every concept and this one had. We need a different kind of religion. A religion which is global, which doesn't put any restrictions on what we eat, what we wear and what we do. A global religion with no restrictions. A religion which has the emphasis on individual development but not affecting others (I think most of the western philosophy is based on this). This religion supports you to develop yourselves but never asks you to believe anything and anyone blindly. You can have your own sentiments, I will have mine and I am not going to offend you. You can believe in your God and I will believe in my God but it doesn’t matter for me whoever you pray or whatever you pray for it. I don’t mind whether it is idolatry or if you just pray in the air. Only thing that matters is "Peace and Development". Here I am, to develop myself.
There have been arguments saying that "You can’t have moral values if there is no (single) God". I think we can have. I tell you people why. People are told that you have to be like this and like this. If you do the bad things, you will be punished (in hell? that is the funniest concept I have ever heard). But nothing happens here. If I do good, good doesn’t return to me. That is the nature. So, one day you will give-in. You betray your God. (and sometimes you scream where is the God when all these bad things have been happening in my life?). And then enjoy your life. Tell me what’s happening to all those people who are cheating, raping, murdering, bombing, massacring and all those things. Believe me, most of them are committed in the name of God. For all those people, who feel that "Helping others make me happy", this is the same kind of happiness these people attain by killing, bombing. Just tell me one thing, all those people who have hijacked the planes and bombarded the twin towers, what’s driving them?. The same kind of happiness. So, my whole point here is that the same concept of "God” is giving raise both the things. There are Mother Theresa’s and Bush's (and Osama-bin-Ladien’s).
Instead of this error prone, conflicting, contradicting ideology, there should be an ideology which simply says that You are responsible for all your deeds and no one else. The only concept is "Peace". Attain Peace without disturbing others. Develop yourselves. There is no refugee for the inabilities and insufficiencies in our religion.
This may seem little bit out of this conversation. Just to add to the "God-centric community based" religion. The funniest thing that I have ever read in the scriptures is the concept of Hell and Heaven. People say that you wont have any body after you die and then how are going to be get tortured. One of the arguments is that "The picturisation of the torture to your body would be like hell rather the physical pain". I tell you dude, soul is connected to body by another thing called mind. And when you die, your mind also dies. There is no identity with any of physical being. And this heaven, what is that you find there, ramba urvasi meenaka... all kind of prostitutes. So what do females do there? NO heaven for females or what. In all this life, you are told that sex is sin and then finally you go there and do the same thing. Heights of Stupid reasoning.
A small quotation from the movie "Lord of War": "Never go to war. Especially, with yourself". (In other words, live without any contradictions in your life).
P.S:- Needless to say that I am greatly influenced by Ayn Rand.
