Guidelines for Developing the Ultimate Religion

If we talk about how many religions and faiths are followed all over the world, the count of religions and faiths goes far beyond 4000 but most of the people are either atheists or follow one of the following religions.

According to a survey conducted in the year 2021,

(i) The religion based on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was followed by over 2 billion persons. If we treat the total population of the Earth in the year 2021 as 7.9 billion, we may say this religion was followed by approximately 25.3 per cent of the global population.

(ii) The religion based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as revealed in the Quran was followed by about 1.8 billion persons, that is, by approximately 22.8 per cent of the global population.

(iii) The religion based on the concepts of dharma (duty), karma (action and consequences) and moksha (liberation) was followed by about 1.2 billion persons, that is, approximately 15.2 per cent of the global population

(iv) The religion based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama was followed by about 500 million persons, that is, approximately 6.3 per cent of the global population

(v) The religion based on the teachings of their ten Gurus, with the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh holy book) serving as their central religious text was followed by approximately 30 million persons, that is, by approximately 0.38 per cent of the global population.

Since the first three religions put together, were followed by about 63.3 percent of people of the world, we shall limit our discussion to only these three religions.

Though, nowadays, the term “religion” also covers the customs followed by the followers of various religions, we shall confine its interpretation only to how they relate themselves to the so-called “god” or “almighty” and the domains known as “heaven” and “hell”.

Though as mentioned by Sam Harris in the following meme nobody knows how the universe should have come into existence or who should have created it; still people like to pay their obeisance in some manner or another to the entity known as “God” or “almighty”.

But as we know — when these religions were developed, their founders had no means to know what sort of things which looked like stars, shined in the sky.

For instance, as mentioned in the Matsya Purān (a Hindu scripture which is believed to have been written sometime between 250 CE and 500 CE), the Moon had married 27 daughters of Prajapati Daksha as if it could have married women in the same way as humans marry women.

But since this scripture does not form a part of the Hindu religion, we may treat this book only as fiction.

However, though the founders of Christianity viewed “heaven” and “hell” as metaphorical descriptions rather than actual places; the founders of the other two religions did not think so.

According to these religions, both the heaven and the hell are supposed to be situated in the sky.

For instance, according to the verse 4:13 of the holy book of the second religion, “who-so-ever obeys Allah (God) and his messenger, shall be admitted by Him to gardens [in the paradise] under which the rivers flow” and according to its verse 47:15 the paradise has “four types of rivers: rivers of water unaltered, rivers of milk the taste of which never changes, the rivers of wine delicious to those who drink, and rivers of purified honey” and according to the verses 78:31–33, “for the righteous people, there are gardens, grapevines and full-breasted [companions] of equal age” in the paradise.

Obviously, if the author of Matsya Purān would have seen the photographs of the Moon taken by “Sputnik 1” in October 1957 or the photographs taken by several astronauts later on, he would have not written any such thing as he wrote in this book nor such descriptions of the paradise would have been given in the holy book of the second religion.

Though such things are written in the holy book of the second religion; according to the photographs of different parts of the universe taken with the help of the cameras mounted on Hubble Space Telescope and Voyager-I as well as Voyager-II — no rivers of milk, honey and wine have been found to flow anywhere in the sky nor any grapevines have been found to grow anywhere beyond the exosphere.

Nor any women are living anywhere in the sky.

The fact is the followers of the second religion do not agree that anything written in their holy book may be wrong since they believe that it should have been possible for their prophet to have flown six or seven skies above the Earth to meet Allah and to have come back alive after having met Allah.

But even though it is true that nobody may travel up to any place close to the stars and come back alive from there unless he carries with him a few cylinders of oxygen, the followers of this religion get offended if anybody points out to them that since there is no oxygen beyond the exosphere if anybody goes there, he can’t come back alive from there unless he should have carried with him a few cylinders of oxygen gas.

Not only over this issue, they also get offended if anybody points out that the heart of their prophet could have not been taken out and have been kept back after getting it washed with the holy water in the same way as we may remove some bottle out of a fridge or off a rack and keep it back in it or on it.

Since they believe that their prophet should have met Allah, they mind if anybody tells them that the descriptions of the gardens, the rivers and the women given in their holy book are absurd.

It is quite possible that such obliquities only should have prompted Abu Ala Al-Ma’arri to pass such comment as has been spelt out in the following meme.

But if we talk about a religion which may not be riddled with such obliquities, the following meme paves a way to conceive what the ultimate religion should look like.

We should agree that only such religions as has been conceived in this meme, may be right.

The followers of all religions should check whether their religion is of such quality and should not mind if anybody points out any obliquities in any religion which do not match such standard.

ONLY SUCH RELIGION MAY BE CALLED “ULTIMATE RELIGION” WHICH MAY BE REDEVELOPED IN THE SAME FORM EVEN IF IT MAY GET WIPED OUT FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH.