Pragmatism versus Fanaticism
Have you ever thought why we have only one Pythagoras Theorem but we have as many as 4200 religions?
The reason is simple.
Science deals with the “Real Things” but the religions deal with the “Surreal Things” such as the soul, the god, the spirits, the sins, the heaven and the hell.
In case of real things, we can always find out what is true and what is false but in case of the surreal things, it is next to impossible to figure out what may be true and what may be false.
The fact is — even though, we have as many as 4200 religions, all of them are different from each other even though all of them deal with the same surreal things.
It would have made sense if the same way, as we have only one form of the Theorem of Pythagoras; we should have had — also only one form of religion in the whole world, not so many of them.
Anyway, let us see whether we can find singularity in the plurality of all of them to carve out just one type of religion acceptable to one and all by finding out — what is common in all of them and make that the ultimate religion of the mankind.
The manner, in which we may look for singularity in the plurality
Actually, in this respect, there is not much difference in us, the human beings and the mouse that has entered into the mousetrap-cage shown below — after falling for the bait.
Worried about the figure 83.6%?
This figure comes out of the figure of the people who are not affiliated with any religion, in particular — which is reported to be around 16.4% by the Pew Research Center.
So, 83.6% of the world population is the population, which has let itself got trapped in a cage of some religion or another.
Though Islam is the second most-followed religion next to only Christianity — let us look at its vision about heaven and the hell from a scientific angle.
The view — taken by the Qur’an
If we look at the verses 44:51~55 of the Qur’an, these verses surmise that if anybody gets martyred while fighting with an enemy of Allah (or anybody who may criticise the Qur’an); he gets a heroic welcome at the portals of the heaven where a bevy of damsels (Houries — Virgins) of equal age, wearing (garments of) fine silk and brocade, having beautiful, big and lustrous eyes and even buxom bosoms (vide verse 78:33) give them a befitting treat within the surrounds of gardens and springs”.
The description of the Jannat (paradise) given in the verse 47:15, where such people are supposed to be accommodated after their death, is even much more tantalising than the description given under the above verses .
This verse tells that they shall reside at a place “where the rivers of water, the rivers of milk the taste of which never changes, the rivers of wine delicious to those, who drink and the rivers of purified honey in which they will have honey from all (kinds of) fruits while the un-righteous people shall be given to drink scalding water that will sever their intestines” — as if there is any scope of any such rivers flowing in the sky based on what we know about the universe as on date.
As we are given to understand — when we die; our soul leaves us and, probably, goes to the heaven or the hell while our body is left behind.
We don’t carry even our consciousness along with us to the heaven (or hell).
So, just think — is it not a travesty to give an allurement that voluptuous damsels shall welcome the people who may have laid their lives while fighting with the infidels since we can enjoy sex only as long as we are alive?
The fact that the women shall be draped in brocaded dresses gives an impression as if we go to the heaven along with our all limbs intact and even the women who greet the martyrs in the heaven also have their all limbs as they have here down on the Earth.
Though it can’t be denied that there can’t be anything more sacrilegious than casting doubt on or speaking any word of discord against the Qur’an since it had been orally revealed by none else but the Allah Himself to the final Prophet, Muhammad through the archangel Gabriel beginning on 22 December 609 CE and concluding in 632 CE — but, it may be sacrilegious only if we have some evidential proof in support of such a view.
Don’t you think that though nobody could have smelt the rat in the seventh century until the last century in what has been said about the heavens in the above verses of the Qur’an, since nobody could have even guessed that to go into space it was necessary to wear the type of spacesuit the astronauts wear and it was also necessary to carry enough bottles of oxygen since we don’t have any air up there in the sky but today we know that the story of the Prophet’s having gone on the back of a winged steed “Buraq” such as is the one shown in the following picture, to the seven heavens, and to have come back alive as narrated at the URL https://www.usna.edu/Users/humess/bwheeler/hh205f05readings/isra.html, only suggests that it should have been only a delusion — not anything real.
As mentioned at this URL, even the heart of the prophet had been taken out and had been washed with the water of the well of Zamzam and had been placed back before he was carried by the heavenly steed into the sky.
Actually, nobody who may not have seen — how the rockets are launched into space at various cosmodromes such as Kennedy Space Center could have ever thought that there is something amiss in the story.
I am only trying to tell that time has come when we are in a position to take stock of what we had been misled to believe in the past.
To believe that such heavens, as have been described in the above verses of the Qur’an, may be considered only as passé, after seeing the rockets being launched to send astronauts into space these days, day-in-day-out.
But there is nothing so much to feel hurt about it.
It is much the same even in the Hindu Religion.
The way the heavens have been described in the Hindu Religion
In most of the Hindu scriptures, you can find a reference to have been made to what is known as “Indra Lok” which is supposed to be a continent of the Heaven (Paradise — known as “Swarga”, in Hindi) under the control of the Lord Indra (the deity of rains).
In all scriptures, Lord Indra is depicted to be watching various “Apsaras” (Much the same as what are “Houries” in Islam) dancing in his court with him seated on a throne made of gold and bedecked with jewels.
As we know — various religions were developed to meet the demand of the day when they were developed.
A question arises, “Do the religions that had been developed more than a thousand of years back meet the demand of the day, even today or not?”
We are following them, huddled in the same vestibule in which our parents, our grandparents and our great grandparents used to sit and, which religion we follow is a matter of succession.
Our parents followed it simply because their parents followed it and our grandparents followed it because their parents had followed it and the chain continues with.
Much the same way as we argue “for” and “against” in a debate, we should not mind arguing “for” and “against” even such matters as the beheading or maiming a heretic or anyone who may criticize in a healthy way instead of looking at it — like a fanatic.
Is it not a fact that we need such religion that may inculcate a spirit of kindness and generosity or humaneness in us of the type as is exhibited by the Sikh community?
Just take stock of various religions in this respect.
How many of them succeeded to have spread out a message of “Vasudheiv Kutumbakam” — the slogan of the Hindus?
So, in a way, all religions have miffed.
The type of kindness and generosity or humaneness exhibited by the Sikh community
Though the Sikh religion happens to be the youngest religion to have come into existence next to the Baha’i — just look at the attitude of the Sikh community.
If they extend some facility to the followers of their own religion, they extend it to the people of even other religions.
The Sikhs provide free food to one and all without making any distinction based on the nationality, the religion or the caste through what they call “Langar Facility” — the facility of providing free food to the people to save them from starvation; as they did this time not only all over within India but even in Australia when fires flared up in their jungles and, in the New York during the Corona-pandemic or, in the UK — besides many other countries of the world, the same way as the Christians have taken up the task of wiping out illiteracy from the world while even though the verse 2:280 exhorts the Muslims to give charity to the people who may be in hardship; they do not believe in giving charity to the people belonging to the other faiths.
But it makes a whole lot of difference.
The Sikhs not only provide free food to the needy attendants of the patients in many hospitals all around the world; they were in the news for having provided food to the children of even a Madarsa (Muslim Convent) in Punjab, during the lockout.
Of late, they have started even free dialysis facility at some select cities such as at Chandigarh — for not only the Sikhs but for the people of all religions.
Though hardly, 0.4% of the world population follows this religion — yet their community has earned accolades of the entire world for its open-mindedness.
I shall suggest that it would be better if we get enlightened by the following message given by Fredrich Nietzsche to the world at large, instead of losing our temper.
“Sometimes, people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusion destroyed.”
Instead of delineating ourselves as Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Baha’is or Sikhs; all of us should come under a common banner of “Henotheism”.