Questioning the Existence of Religion
By Nitya Niranjan Rathi (H/428) (AII-C) & Avani Pandey (H/369)(AII-A) Wednesday, Apr 24, 2024
They say that God is the creator of humanity. However, what if it was the other way around – that man created God and to prove the existence of God, they created religions?
There is an innate tendency to create a god or rather an image of a god that suits our convenience, personal choices and tastes. Thus, God became someone we reach out to for help when we are unable to trust our own self and scared to deal with our problems. Dependence on an external force becomes the only way out in most circumstances. It became the norm to offer sacrifices, money, jewels and follow rituals to appease God from a fear of repercussions.
God and religion came into existence when humankind was unable to deal with the uncertainties in their life and hence, needed a straw to hang on, to manage their lives due to which they had to imagine and invent an external force or external order to hear their cries and manage their fears.
God became the reason for the existence of all things we could not comprehend, it became a way to satiate human curiosity and stop people from questioning the actions of the ‘upper class society’. The concept of God undermines the importance of rationalism and logical reasoning because it chalks up everything in this world to ‘God’s Will’. It undermines the ability of people to understand and comprehend the reasoning behind actions. It refuses to allow them the understanding of the ‘why’, essentially being detrimental to society’s growth.
Humans created God to understand their place in the world and to answer the fundamental questions of humanity, ‘Where did we come from?’ and ‘Where are we going?’. The concept of religion answered this perfectly, allowing the human mind to move away from these questions. Religion said that we were created by God and came from god’s arms and that we are going back to God through either hell or heaven, depending on our actions. The concept of heaven and hell, swarga and Naraka, forced people to follow what society considers ‘the right path’.
So, the question remains: If we created God and Religions, where do we come from?
Nitya Niranjan Rathi(H/428)(AII-C) & Avani pandey(H/369)(AII-A)
