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The fight of Religious Supremacy is going on for a few millennium and will continue to do so unless human beings evolve.
Me, being born in a Bengali Hindu household, where my father and wife are devout religious people, my mother and brother agnostic, I turned out to be a Spiritual Atheist.
What or why a Spiritual Atheist? Hope I can explain it:
Do I believe in god as they are worshiped? No.
Do I respect the concept/philosophy behind religion? Yes.
Do I follow the rituals of any religion? No.
Do I have faith? Yes
Do I have faith in Gods as they are perceived today? No
Do I have faith in the people who worship the gods? Yes
Do I believe that Gods created Human Beings? No
Do I believe that Human Beings created God? Yes
My father taught me God is good. Everything good that happens in our lives are due to our faith in god. My mother taught me that there cannot possibly be a god as today there is more evil in this world as good.
So I decided to introspect and understand what religion is and what role does it play in mankind. I read (concised versions of course, I am not that old) Gita, Ved, Quran, Torah, Bible and with my pea brain told me that If you skip the literal connotation of religious texts, you will find that more or less all religions say the same thing...
The following is what I understood of Sanatan Dharma with respect to other religions:
Sanatan Dharma (which people call Hinduism) is a philosophy which talks about 1 supreme god, Parmatma, who is pure energy, the source of life and existence. Some observations state that Parmatma is the singularity, just a moment before Big Bang, from which the universe took shape.
Religion is made by man, so is influenced by the social, cultural and economic situation of the time when the religious texts were written. As with every religion, the true philosophy gets lost and what remains are the rituals and distorted derivations.
If you understand the philosophy of any religion, all of them are the same. All of them acts as a guide for a man to live life in the best possible way.
Now, a thing which was good 14,000 or 1,400 years ago, may or may not be acceptable today. Still, those who follow religion will ask you to follow the same rituals today.
Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwar... the 3 main gods of Sanatan Dharma are the personification of the 3 stages of life... Birth, life & death... creator, sustainer & destroyer. Forget the godly perceptions like many hands and many heads (which are just visual metaphors for common man to understand deep philosophy), the legends will tell you of 3 ideal men who by there deeds (Karma) elevated themselves to a godly stature.
If you see past the metaphors, you will see that every age of mankind has a Brahma (some leader who creates a good soceity), a Vishnu (a leader who sustains society and takes it forward), and a Maheshwar/Shiva (a leader who brings about a revolution in society once the society becomes the epitome of decadence)
All the millions of gods that Hinduism is known by are just such men and women who have risen above their society and led the society to better days. As with any legend, with time there comes lots of exaggeration.
For example: You hear of a man many hundreds of years ago, who was very observant, had a very analytically mind, and had awesome foresight. You cannot believe that such capability is humanly possible. So you think of him as a god with 3 heads, one of which stares at the past, one which stares at the present and one which stares at the future, and he is the god of time who can see the past, present and future like the pages of a book.
So you might understand that gods never fight with each other, it is humans who do not understand the concept of god, fights with each other. Gods did not create caste system, humans did. Gods did not create difference in society, humans did.
Please feel free to discuss...
@pmaitra @Bhadra @Razor @Kunal Biswas and others...
Me, being born in a Bengali Hindu household, where my father and wife are devout religious people, my mother and brother agnostic, I turned out to be a Spiritual Atheist.
What or why a Spiritual Atheist? Hope I can explain it:
Do I believe in god as they are worshiped? No.
Do I respect the concept/philosophy behind religion? Yes.
Do I follow the rituals of any religion? No.
Do I have faith? Yes
Do I have faith in Gods as they are perceived today? No
Do I have faith in the people who worship the gods? Yes
Do I believe that Gods created Human Beings? No
Do I believe that Human Beings created God? Yes
My father taught me God is good. Everything good that happens in our lives are due to our faith in god. My mother taught me that there cannot possibly be a god as today there is more evil in this world as good.
So I decided to introspect and understand what religion is and what role does it play in mankind. I read (concised versions of course, I am not that old) Gita, Ved, Quran, Torah, Bible and with my pea brain told me that If you skip the literal connotation of religious texts, you will find that more or less all religions say the same thing...
The following is what I understood of Sanatan Dharma with respect to other religions:
Sanatan Dharma (which people call Hinduism) is a philosophy which talks about 1 supreme god, Parmatma, who is pure energy, the source of life and existence. Some observations state that Parmatma is the singularity, just a moment before Big Bang, from which the universe took shape.
Religion is made by man, so is influenced by the social, cultural and economic situation of the time when the religious texts were written. As with every religion, the true philosophy gets lost and what remains are the rituals and distorted derivations.
If you understand the philosophy of any religion, all of them are the same. All of them acts as a guide for a man to live life in the best possible way.
Now, a thing which was good 14,000 or 1,400 years ago, may or may not be acceptable today. Still, those who follow religion will ask you to follow the same rituals today.
Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwar... the 3 main gods of Sanatan Dharma are the personification of the 3 stages of life... Birth, life & death... creator, sustainer & destroyer. Forget the godly perceptions like many hands and many heads (which are just visual metaphors for common man to understand deep philosophy), the legends will tell you of 3 ideal men who by there deeds (Karma) elevated themselves to a godly stature.
If you see past the metaphors, you will see that every age of mankind has a Brahma (some leader who creates a good soceity), a Vishnu (a leader who sustains society and takes it forward), and a Maheshwar/Shiva (a leader who brings about a revolution in society once the society becomes the epitome of decadence)
All the millions of gods that Hinduism is known by are just such men and women who have risen above their society and led the society to better days. As with any legend, with time there comes lots of exaggeration.
For example: You hear of a man many hundreds of years ago, who was very observant, had a very analytically mind, and had awesome foresight. You cannot believe that such capability is humanly possible. So you think of him as a god with 3 heads, one of which stares at the past, one which stares at the present and one which stares at the future, and he is the god of time who can see the past, present and future like the pages of a book.
So you might understand that gods never fight with each other, it is humans who do not understand the concept of god, fights with each other. Gods did not create caste system, humans did. Gods did not create difference in society, humans did.
Please feel free to discuss...
@pmaitra @Bhadra @Razor @Kunal Biswas and others...
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