What drives me to agnosticism

Posted by Ritesh - 04/10/08 at 06:10:06 pm

A lot of people ask me about my new stands on God and Religion, and also what it is that is making me change the my views on it. Well, its just the amount of trouble religion gives you in the name of ceremonies, functions and festivals. Though I like religion because of its social significance ( it brings together most of my estranged cousins), I still feel there is just too much of it. The hindu polytheistic indoctrination ensures that we keep at half of our 200 crore Gods happy and most people are victims of such abuse. To think they do it for the sake of religion is shuddering. What I can’t stand – insolvents take loans to adhere to these religious norms so that society doesn’t shun them in the name of religion. I shall try and mention a list of some of the ceremonies and rituals that traditional hindu families are SUBJECTED to.

  • Rituals start from even before a person is born. The first ritual is the “basari pooje” aka “preggy ritual”. A ritual where family members gather to celebrate impregnation.  Is this => population problem ? A party for the man spreading his seed. Isn’t that almost like inspiring him to screw again ?
  • When the child is born, the first time seeing ceremony by the grandparents et al. Most grandparents bear gifts for the infant.
  • 14 days after being born is the naming ceremony. Scores of unknown faces scare the poor 14 day old with gifts the size of tiny dinosaurs. The ceremony is unmistakably marked by endless shrills of the toddler. ( there is also a tradition of hanging mango leaves next to the baby; in case of a baby boy, some tiny mangoes are also subtly left behind. Go figure !!). Did I forget to mention that most babies are given five official names, 4 of which are based on Gods. And to top it all, the kids never get called any of the  5 names until they reach school. How contrived is that ?
  • There is a sub ceremony of piercing the ears of the baby, usually combined with the naming ceremony.
  • The first Oil Bath ceremony – self explanatory
  • A ceremony when the baby rolls over the first time – this one didn’t make sense. Are the parents rejoicing that their child is not physically challenged or what ?
  • The really grand ( and I mean REALLY grand) first year birthday party.
  • The three year Mundan. The first time the child gets his haircut. ( pretty grand, usually followed by lunch)
    TEN YEARS LATER
  • The threading ceremony for guys and the puberty (yes PUBERTY) ceremony for girls. A ceremony to inform the world about the coming of age of the boy or the girl. In the olden days this was sort of an invitation to the townsfolk to send in marriage proposals.
    TEN to FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
  • Boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, live happily ever after …………..sccccrrrrreeeeecccccchhhhhh , not very Hindu. Lets spice it up
  • Boy sees girl for the first time ceremony, usually accompanied by exchange of fruits (?)
  • Boy gets engaged to girl ( the engagement ceremony) the marriage date is also decided on the same day.
  • 14 days before the marriage, a ceremony to ward of all evils ( like television, ex boyfriends, neighborhood flames etc) and make the process more peaceful
  • The day before the marriage – boys side meets the girls side (Kannada : yeduru kansane ). Exchange of fruits ( its like the families are in dire need of fruits or something )
  • Day of the marriage (ceremonies, that I can think of, are comma seperated ) – the washing of the feet ceremony, the grinding of pulses for no apparent reason, the enactment of resentment ( kashi yatra), the symbolic lifting of the brides by their uncles ( why symbolic ? go figure again and join a gym) , the marriage ritual with the homam, the symbolic sex ed class using bananas, breaking the ice session by embarassing the couple in front of the whole population, the big deal lunch, the visit to the temple by the couple and finally ….. Phew!! the marriage reception.
  • As if all this public intrusion isn’t enough, family members also accompany the couple to the cermoniously prepared bed. I doubt that bed has ever seen any action. Its kinda obvious, dont ya think, after a day of complete chaos, all the couple will want is to sleep for the tiring ceremonies that lie ahead.
  • The satyanarayan pooja the next day is almost a compulsion.
  • This is where we start the bulleting again from point 1.

Question : Hey, this isn’t that bad. Its over say 30 years. then why is there a problem ?
Answer: Its coz I haven’t mentioned the yearly ceremony calendar.

Lets start:

  • January has three festivals : Sankranti, pongal and Lohri. I dont know about lohri, but sankranti and pongal are pretty grand in south india. There is also the naga panchami.
  • February: I cant think of anything other than valentines day, which is a day you better shut up and stay at home, if you dont want to get beaten up on the road.
  • March: Maha Shivratri, ceremonies followed by night without sleep. Also there is Holi, the festival of colors.
  • April: the hindu new year Ugadi, Gudi Padwa, Ram navami and Hanuman jayanthi.
  • may ,june and july: there is some respite or may be because its marriage season.
  • August: Guru Poornima and Krishna janmashtmi
  • September: The famous ganesh chaturti, mahalaya amvasa and Navratri begins
  • October: The month I was born :) has the most number of festivals. Dusshera , vijay dashami, karwa chaut, dhan teras and Diwali ( the festival of light)
  • November and december: I cant remember. But I forgot the ayutha pooja (tools pooja), durga pooja etc

This also is alright but add to it the fact that most of these cermonies are performed by other family members as well ( esp families like mine with about 27 cousins). Its almost certain that a week doesn’t pass by without a ceremony. Add to it the ceremonies for buying anything new, like a car or a house.

There is also the occasional Gana homa(Ganesh Homam) for goodwill, Satyanarayana vratha (for Lord Satyanarayana), Laxmi pooje (Goddess Laxmi – Goddess of Wealth) etc which people just do occasionally to get more blessings. Plus there are so called dark side of pooja’s which are death ceremonies, yearly remembrance ceremonies, Amavasya pooja ( eclipsed day ceremony) etc.

Also, if a hermit or an astrologer says that your stars( or planetary positions – hindu mythology strongly links a person’s fate to Astronomy) aren’t aligned for optimality then you have to correct those interplanetary misunderstandings by performing shanti’s ( literally asking the planets to calm down ) like Kuja Rahu shanti (Uranus and Neptune Im guessing ), Shani shanti (Saturn – the most vile of the 9(8) planets ) etc.

Well , I can go on and on about these things but I am guessing you get the point. In contrast I feel the God delusion ( Richard Dawkin’s book that I am reading ) is beautifully captured by Bertrand Russel in his teapot theory.  And I quote:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

This is definitely one of the biggest posts I have written, but its definitely a favorite of mine. Please leave your comments on this as you always do and let me know what you think.

36 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

  1. Excellent compilation of Hindu rituals!! I shall use them for further research on the topic. :D

    I find amusing (to say the least), as you promptly said here, the amount of effort people put in a belief/faith. This is true to all religions I came across until now.

    And this goes beyond rituals and celebrations. Think of effort, time and money taken to build temples; buy statues, relics, shrines, etc.; write books; and so on…

    As Dawkin says in the same book, imagine if Da Vinci or Michelangelo were free to explore all their creativity without the control or subsidies of the Catholic Church. And the same can be applied to architects, classic musicians, writers, scientists, etc. subjugated to the pressures of the church – to this day! A Vatican official called the Democratic Party the “party of death” (http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/10/01/vatican-official-attacks-us-democrats-as-party-of-death/).

    So, yes, perhaps the social purpose is valid but that is, as again you argued, becoming agnostic to religion. Carnival in Brazil is all but a religious celebration these days. Christmas still has some significance but it is more about exchanging gifts than celebrating the birth of Jesus. Not to mention the other hundreds of dates (Many Saints days, Eastern, Three Kings, etc.) that are hardly ever remembered except when they are national or regional holidays so people can go to beach get a nice tan. Still, most of these same people refuse to say they are not Catholic.

    Pure hypocrisy if you ask me!

    Comment by Ricardo — October 4, 2008 #

  2. Wow, Ric. for a minute there, I thought you were writing a bigger comment than the post. But anyway I guess the problems with ceremonies and rituals is universal. Please do forward this post to other friends of yours who want to know about hindu culture. Btw, I have a bad habit of not reading things that I write, therefore the mistakes. Corrected some of the mistakes in the post.

    Comment by Ritesh — October 5, 2008 #

  3. Everything has it downsides. I am not a religious person myself though I am not sure whether I am an atheist or an agnostic or just plain believer … blah!

    Point is, imagine a bunch of (6 billion?) faithless and disbelieving people with zero conscience … we would cease to exist at that very moment.

    If not religion, then at least the notion of God serves the one most powerful function in society; giving people faith, maybe even keeping them afraid to an extent … am not the one to judge whether that fear is good or bad, the point is it works …

    Comment by Sagar — October 6, 2008 #

  4. Im not religious. But I believe in the necessity of a concept of God. Always have. And I think Sagar here has nailed the reason. If you were to let loose such a large population with absolutely nothing to be scared of and no concept of right/wrong , good/bad , we would long since have finished each other off.

    And this I feel is the only reason the concept of God was borne. However it has been carried forward and interpreted in a number of other ridiculous ways. Some of which would put even God to shame.
    The division of God into multiple religions and further into castes,subcastes and sects was probably when humankind crossed the line and started on their eventful journey to chaos.

    But like they say, humans are social and dramatic in nature and too much of peace is almost as harmful to them as is war. So on we go finding new ways to disagree and tear each other apart in the name of God completely forgetting that we conceptualized God to prevent this exact same thing.

    Comment by Prateeksha — October 6, 2008 #

  5. Yeah, I totally agree with the point you are making. We even had a debate to the tune of “would societies and humanity crumble if there was no god”. definitely, when we were young, we were told that if we comitted a crime, even if no one saw us, God would. And those morals have carried on, people are scared of divine justice which is why they stay on the white side of things. But, its a trend nowadays, people from the most religious backdrops (like me) tend to become non believers when they become older. So, is God been reduced to a new form of Santa Claus (or tooth fairy, boogie man ) ?

    Comment by Ritesh — October 6, 2008 #

  6. Hmm, you are giving me more food for thought on this. The claims that God was conceptualized to keep society from crumbling has been a long standing debate. Even when Moses himself was climbing the mountain where God showed himself, he saw anarchy, bigotry, polygamy, abuse, gambling and all other social evils. Its even a notion that Moses, being the sane being he was, wrote the ten commandments himself to stop these anti social behaviors.

    If society is what we are trying to protect, then why not build new rules for this. Kinda reminds me of the movie equilibrium, but still , something on those lines. Or something along the lines of the movie Demolition man. What say ?

    Comment by Ritesh — October 6, 2008 #

  7. I don’t buy this argument that without god, humankind would collapse. It is an easy way out. What is the point of family and education then? I don’t commit crime not because god will punish me but because I was raised with certain moral and ethic values that I adopted based on the education given in school and, most importantly, by lessons, actions, and attitudes of my parents, family, and friends. God has nothing to do with it.

    People that use god to teach students/children are probably either ignorant (and I don’t use the word here in any demeaning way) and don’t know any other way or lazy (and this includes parents that use work as an excuse). It’s much easier to blame an outlier as a “ruler” that may punish you if you don’t behave “properly” than rule yourself.

    Comment by Ricardo — October 6, 2008 #

  8. Like I said, everything has its downsides, and that is something I kind of remind myself time-n-again. Everything said and done, the notion of God is a ‘belief’; we “want” to believe that there is a God, a higher power, a creator and destroyer of all and none … why? because it is the simplest way to answer things like ‘why are we here?’ ‘who are we really?’ ‘what am I doing here?’

    Isn’t it just like in everything else that we do? We believe in something and then just take it forward from there …

    Coming back to a comment from Prateeksha, even I agree that over the years millions of different interpretations of this belief is what has led to multiple religions and in turn chaos. The fact here is that it has become a game of pride; “why should I sacrifice my belief for yours? what makes yours any better?”

    The irony is, no one is really following their own beliefs, we are just prejudiced to establish our superiority …

    :)

    Comment by Sagar — October 6, 2008 #

  9. I completely agree with you Ricardo. That is the reason why I dont commit a crime too.Not because I am afraid God will appear and strike me down. And it has a lot to do with the conscience you developed while growing up.
    But like you said, not everybody is capable of communicating the intricacies of conscience,logic and morality to a two year old. And that is why I believe people use this concept of God. But I agree it has been misused.
    All said and done. What is God? It is simply the conscience within you (Thats what I feel). And it is left to you and your upbringing to make that translation….

    maybe it would have been simpler to leave God out of everything in the first place and just let you develop your conscience. im not sure if it would have worked out better or worse.. but it would have probably been difficult to get everyone in the world to agree to what is wrong and what is right.
    Why should you not kill? Why should you not hurt others? who makes the rules?
    Which takes me back to Ritesh’s comments. Who makes the rules? A set of people? How do you get all others to trust this set of people that they view as their equals? How can you rest assured that these people will not be corrupted like any other human being? Why will these set of people not be tempted by the power they ahve been given?

    Comment by Prateeksha — October 6, 2008 #

  10. Interesting debate … I agree with Ric , religion is absolutely not related to your morality , simply because what is morally correct for one group of is blasphemous for the other . Ask a Muslim to drink cow urine, or ask a Hindu to eat beef. Would your notion of right and wrong change if you were born say as a Muslim in Saudi Arabia?

    How do you explain the fact that some of the most heinous crimes are committed by RELIGIOUS people with no or very little education?

    Comment by Ashwin — October 6, 2008 #

  11. I didnt realize we had so many festivals/poojas.For me they were just an excuse for eating good food at home and buying new clothes, or just lazing around at home.
    But what strikes me is that each of these poojas are conducted by pujaries/ priests, they don’t charge a small amount. So, they get to make a lot of money through out the year, without actually doing anything useful.
    I always thought that being must pujari suck big time and wondered why anyone would opt for such a career.
    But not now. I guess those guys must be laughing at us, as they recite their slokas/prayers, and flinch us of our hard earned money.

    Comment by arvind — October 6, 2008 #

  12. This has certainly turned out to be an interesting debate on God. This topic especially has raised some serious debate at almost every forum that I could think of. For now, I have subscribed to comments on this post. Should be an interesting read.

    @arvind: Yes being a Pujari is good money. You should see the modern day priest. some of his (no her as yet) assets include aparments, a chauffeur driven car, a couple of minions called assistant priests, a flashy cell phone and tons of jewelery. talk about con men being too obvious with their riches. But yes, it has its own rungs to climb to gain supremacy, the dynamics of which I dare not start talking about. Thanks for the comment.

    Comment by Ritesh — October 6, 2008 #

  13. Well said, arvind.

    You know, in Brazil there is a new pentecostal church that is now spreading over to many countries in South America, Europe and the US. It is called Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and they target more specifically poor people and/or poor neighborhoods. They do it because it is easier to get money from them and it’s done in quite controversial manners, not to mention their allegedly involvement in money laundering, fraud, corruption, and so on…

    Meanwhile, their top priests and founders sit on top of piles of money, probably laughing on their flock.

    Comment by Ricardo — October 6, 2008 #

  14. Good point. Is this a generalization that most of the heinous crimes are actually motivated by religion. What about the serial killers, perverts, masochists and other freaks of nature ? Coming back to same point, how many of the so called criminals are actually atheists. Does anybody have a statistic on that . Ricardo… Knock Knock.

    Comment by Ritesh — October 6, 2008 #

  15. Great Ritesh,
    I think u have gone through all the Hindi KAALDARSHAK to get all those names, but certainly many are missing, to name a few, RashaBandhan, BhaiDuuj, Teez,Durga Puja, Gangoor (Rajasthan), Holi…. and the list goes on and on and on.These rituals are the way to keep people integrated with each other. To make the people come closer. I think this is all to make people love and respect. What is God ? God is love, and that what these all ritual are doing. They are trying to bring all the near and dear one to know understand respect love unite each other. These rituals are the way which make the people atleast talk to each other, as in this fast moving world no ones cares about other. Worhshipping god, perforning rituals is jst to make feel good that some one is there to take care. The person feel some type of security among his people. Apart from this it is like a MELA when a the whole family gathers and talk with each other. I think these are the time which makes the human bonds very stronger, and that is why i think We indians values our system, our parents, our friends, our friends and all others. Becase this quality time give us the way to know each other better.
    These 200 Crores Gods, are jst the way to be happy. It may be Holi, Diwali, Dusshera, Durga Puja, Marriage, Mundan. All these rituals have one things common family and friends, and interaction between them. The people came to know that there they have got cousins, no wonder where they came.
    Thus according to me it is jst different name for people to get together unite understand discuss and feel happpy secure with there family members.
    And my dear friend, “God is there” to make people happy and that what we are in these rituals
    I think for me it is the longest post… :)

    Comment by Deependu Saxena — October 6, 2008 #

  16. wah! wah! both, d length and d contents r impressive.
    I am not very religious, but as a child I had liked the festivals and the celebrations. In recent years though I have made observations similar to urs.

    Complaining about inflation is a favorite time-pass for many people I know, but the amount of money spent on festivals and the food wasted in functions only increases every year.

    Is there some once who has done a research on how rich Indians would get if they cut on most of the needless rituals and festivities?

    Comment by sagar — October 6, 2008 #

  17. It’s been a looooong time since i’ve laughed reading an article……this one was an awesome piece….makes you laugh out loud and at the same time wonder why in God’s name we still run after religion.
    Well….to me…..I think religion is something very personal….. It’s all about karma……it’s the law of nature……when you do something good….it comes back to you…..and the same goes for evil as well.
    Religion is wonderful as long as you draw a line somewhere……I feel that all the ceremonies that go along with it are just a blatant show of wealth…..it means nothing really…..but everyone’s way too scared to back off from tradition.
    Anyway…..it was fun reading this article….if nothing else…..it made me laugh real hard….the narration was brilliant and natural…..
    Write more of these…….your a natural…..

    Comment by Sneha — October 6, 2008 #

  18. Hey sagar,
    ya in some cases it happens, that people are spending a tons of money in show off, but it does not happens always. Come on, u can find people wasting things anyways that too without rituals, what would say a friends party,( please note here also people are meeting for fun and interaction). Every coin has two side my dear.
    Rituals are part and parcel for a human being to get social, he cant get social by sitting in his house and chatting with friends. What if, these social gathering are given the name of rituals and festivals.
    I think all dont have computers, laptops interconnection to do chatting and being social or connect to any Social site and say himself a Social Animal
    I wonder ?

    Comment by Deependu Saxena — October 6, 2008 #

  19. I don’t think instilling fear via something that is invisible is keeping the majority of the society from committing heinous crimes.
    You can only fear something that is invisible for so long. It will last only so long because its only an emotion like sadness that you feel when a near and a dear one dies. You learn to move on to your routines without feeling as sad as you did when they died. You get used to it.
    Using god to instil morals in anybody is not accomplishing much at all because its only going to last temporarily.

    Again many things other than god can influence your moral decisions or judgements. I just attended a lecture where they spoke about how the participants of the experiment were influenced by whether they cleaned their hands with anti-bacterial lotion or not. The ones who cleaned their hands with the anti-bacterial lotion were less severe when judging right or wrong and those who didnt wash their hands very obviously more severe in their judgements. This is just one example but there are other multiple instances such as the above.
    My point being that God fearing people are not always good moral judges because we get influenced by lot or irrelevant things that we don’t consciously consider.

    Comment by StrangeLoops(G) — October 6, 2008 #

  20. @ some of the comments………
    I would disagree, that the concept of a God is necessary. A world without such a concept would be a better place, where every person is responsible for his own actions, and is held accountable for it. And is governed by his own conscience, rather than by fear of a mythic creature nobody knows exists.
    @ Ricardo, what would have happened to Da Vinci and Michaelangelo or Jakanachary(master architect of Belur and Halebid temples) didnt have the patronage of religion to work. Where would they have gotten their money? I doubt we would have those magnificent works of art.
    Like Ricardo said, a lot of those rituals are themselves agnostic to God. All these “rituals” have perhaps lost meaning, but they did have some function some time ago. They dont anymore because religion has not kept pace with changing rationale, this is not called sartre’s age of reason for nothing. Maybe the time has come to do away with bigotry, and maybe it will happen when an older generation leaves. That does not mean that we ignore the valuable funtion religion has played(your words, not mine) over the years. If that is true, we still need to find something to fill its role.

    Comment by Jayanth — October 6, 2008 #

  21. clarification … by crime I don’t mean the ones committed by Bundee or some other serial killer .. I am talking about mass murders done in the name of some idiot who lived and died 2000 years ago.

    Comment by Ashwin — October 6, 2008 #

  22. Deependu – Agreed , These rituals and functions are just a way to be happy and it does BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER. But if We do away with religion, does that mean people will stop mingling with each other.

    When you make friends in college .. Do you care if George is a Christian and Suhel is a Muslim, would you refuse to celebrate a moment of joy with them. Would it affect you if a beautiful girl you like turns out to be a Christian.

    The argument of Religious man => social man should be thrown out of the window, Its rather educated Man => Social Man

    Secondly Referring to “The person feel some type of security among his people” – who are these people? .. same religion same caste ,color ???? . I am a non believer. I guess you don’t feel secure around me.

    And this is one of my favorites. I love to reply to these

    “We indians values our system, our parents, our friends, our friends and all others. Becase this quality time give us the way to know each other better”

    Okay .. This is a bag of crap …. people everywhere have their own value systems , saying we are unique or good is just ridiculous.. as i said before .. what you think is great is bullshit for some people and vice versa.

    We have a few foreigners in the thread and I don’t believe they love their parents or friends any less than I do.

    Comment by Ashwin — October 6, 2008 #

  23. It is hard to believe that people need an “unknown unseen supreme” entity in order to unite if the sole purpose of such a belief as it were, is for some semblance of order in chaos. This is so because as everybody likes to say it is morals or ethics that they live by that govern their actions and not because they face retribution The undeniable truth here is that society defines morals and ethics for us, we do not get to define them per se. Society does not exclude the role of religion in defining morals or ethics. Religion as you see does play a role even if you do not want it to!

    Give a set of beings a set of rules, there are bound to be a few who will try to bend as many rules as possible in order to stay ahead of the others in the system. It wouldn’t be fair to blame religion because a certain few use the system to their advantage. If religion was a method/system to ensure a certain order in chaos as people like to describe it as, it would be sensible to ensure that this system evolves. The fact is it hasn’t evolved and it is not the system that must be blamed but the designers of this system and who are the designers? Voila!

    Does punishment act as a deterrent to crime? I really don’t know. Agreed detecting crime is hard and judging one for a crime is harder. The very definition of punishment and crime are themselves hazy and keep changing across time and across societies. Religion is only a factor in these definitions it is not THE defining factor.

    Comment by Bharath — October 6, 2008 #

  24. Jayanth, Bharath,

    I was missing your comments and views around here. :)

    @Ritesh I don’t think we can get trustworthy statistics on this topic. How many people do you know that publicly declare themselves atheists, despite the context? It’s still way less socially acceptable than many other polemical issues in many social circles. It reminds me of a more focused qualitative research done in Brazil to find out how people responded the government census on their color (that’s right, in the national census, when going door to door, the interviewers ask the color of the citizen). In that research, they found out that a relevant number of black people (I don’t remember the actual numbers) said in the census they were not black but white, claiming that it is more socially acceptable.

    @Jayanth we have already one consensus: a concept of god is not necessary. One clarification here is necessary because by god I mean the one often associated with the three more influential and powerful (in economic and political terms) monotheist religions – Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism. A notion of god as “simply the conscience within you” as Prateeksha noted could span a whole different rationale and I don’t think we are going that road here. However, I don’t agree with you on two other issues: First, I think Da Vinci and Michaelangelo or (maybe) Jakanachary (i don’t really know him) could have done a lot more without the church because there wouldn’t be constraints on their work. Which leads me to my second point.

    I think Sarte’s books, are a depressing view of his time. French dude living through the two World Wars?? What else could he think? Despite that, even though he draws some powerful ideas, I would argue that, no, this is not the first time we are living the age of reason. We (as humankind) have been questioning the existence/importance/relevance of a god for thousands of years. I can go back at least to the Greeks and I think some hindu texts also claimed the non-existence of a god, right? Of course, the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, mostly in France, is a more stronger example (perhaps the strongest) of ideas on the disbelief in a god being broadcast. In the meantime, church existed as a kind of ruler, enforcing its power with violence, imposing a lot of constraints. Mankind stopped in time for centuries during the dark ages because of such constraints.

    So, as some pointed out here, we of course need social events. We are social animals and need these gatherings and would certainly (as we do) spend a lot of money on them with or without religion. The existence of religion there, in my opinion, just adds the burden of a protocol, and of a certain amount of energy spent in following it. There will be no hole to be filled, just less burden to be dealt with.

    @Bharath Sure, religion and society are intertwined but we tend to join social circles that resemble our beliefs. Look at this very discussion, for example. I think there are only one or two religious persons here. And I don’t have that many religious friends either. My point is that society is not one big beast and must be contextualized. Different groups develop different ethics and moral codes which get reinforced within the same group. That’s probably one reason churches haven’t fade way, on the contrary, in Brazil at least, they are getting more powerful.

    About punishment, Julian the other day mentioned an interesting piece of research on that Freakonomics book. He said that the reason for crime rates to decrease in New York was not due to stronger and more enforceable laws. It was due to pro-abortion laws that encourage women not to have babies they didn’t want to. So there! Nothing to do with punishment or religion!

    (Damn, this is a really big comment)

    Comment by Ricardo — October 7, 2008 #

  25. Deependu: Good to see comments from the other side of the table as well. Even I feel, that religion really does bring people together (think I mentioned it in my post also ), but then again, like everyone else says, I have no reason to believe that these meetings wont happen if there were no religion/ceremonies.

    Also yes, our culture is different. Thats about it. But try telling an Italian that we love our families more than them. Think the value system around relatives and loved ones differ geographically and most have evolved into some system that works well given the circumstances. In India it was religion, in the US it could be thanksgiving or a football game. Lot more comments flowing in.

    Comment by Ritesh — October 7, 2008 #

  26. Whoever said blogging is dead, must see this post. Its moments like these that make me a proud

    Comment by Ritesh — October 7, 2008 #

  27. Jayanth: Totally agree with you. Bringing back my point about how religion could have been reponsible for institutionalizing institutions ( :-) ) , religion has done a lot of good over the past centuries. If it wasn’t for religion I doubt these people would be given an opportunity to work at the scale that they did. Religious funds have also been poured into a lot of social good. Like the missionaries running schools, hospitals, orphanages etc, though there is a religious caveat, I doubt regular people could replicate those selfless acts (like say Mother Teresa. )

    Comment by Ritesh — October 7, 2008 #

  28. Im back again. :-)
    I think that most ppl here are confusing Religion and Spirituality for each other. When I say God, I mean spirituality. Im not talking about Hinduism,Chritianity,Buddhism or Islam. Those are religions. And that is what I mean when I say that converting Spirituality into multiple religions is what has caused all this chaos and confusion. In my subssequent comments I am goign to use the word ’spirituality’ instead of God which everyone seems to keep confusing with religion.
    Today’s paper boasted of arresting a muslim individual from my company for some religious crimes he has been alleged with. That is the bullshit people are capable of when they mix spirituality with religion.
    And yes.. this is is an interesting chain of comments :-)

    Comment by Prateeksha — October 7, 2008 #

  29. A little off the topic but it would be interesting nonetheless to see if there is any correlation between the decrease in the population of “religious people” in the traditional sense and increase in random celebratory days like “Rose Day”, “Friendship Day” etc. I wonder during previous phases of “non-existent of God”, what did atheists replace their cultural celebrations with?

    Comment by StrangeLoops(G) — October 7, 2008 #

  30. @Ricardo Sartre is not the only one. There are others in the same vein as well. If you say that religion played a valuable role in shaping the institutions of the world and that religion has a social context, then you do need to find a substitute for it. Until you do, religion will have to do.

    @Ritesh when you say that without religion institutions would not have existed, it seems like a tall claim. Just because it has does not mean that there would’nt have arisen an equivalent, or better alternative to religion. As indeed many of you seem to be pointing out, scientific rationale is a better alternative. Without religion, maybe that would have progressed.

    There is also an evolutionary context to society. Perhaps someone could explore that.

    Comment by Jayanth — October 7, 2008 #

  31. [...] in Nov of 2005. But, the day I saw wordpress, was the day my blogging actually took shape. After a controversial blogpost saw a lot of activity on my personal blog, I decided to share some of the plugins that I think [...]

    Pingback by TechNayak » Blog Archive » Sharing some Wordpress love — October 10, 2008 #

  32. I feel that most of the rituals and religious ceremonies which are celeberated in any community were started many years ago and am sure there were some reasons behind the same. Prabobaly I can give reasons for some in brief–
    1. Ceremony before the child is born: This may be to give some moral support to the mother who may be scared for vaious reasons. Those days, they were too young, did not have the education about delivary, child care etc. Also the parents used to be too young to understand the feeling and responsibility. So these were done to instill motherly feeling and to give some moral support. This is the reason why it is done only for 1st delivary.
    2. Naming ceremony: Those days there were no birth certificate. And also people wanted to share the joy of having a new born in the family as they felt the joy will be doubled if it is shared and it is true.
    3. Marriage: Here again , there was no registration office during olden days. So few days of ceremony was performed in front of many relatives and friends so that later boy and his relatives should not ditch the girl. Few things like kashi yatra, some games, and customs were to make the girl and boy more familiar with each other and to bring some lighter mood.
    4. Festivals: Unlike the present days, in olden days delicacies were considered as rare and special. Also earning capacity with no industry was low to such an extent that they could not afford to prepare on daily basis. When it is prepared they felt like sharing with their loved ones. Hence they prepared some special dishes, depending upon the season when it is available and in the name of god, they gathered , prepared (it was not available in shops) and celeberated and they thanked god for it. And this would give them utmost enjoyment as they had no other enjoyment like TV, Cinema, mall etc.
    All these customs were done by human beings as per their convenience. They were followed in the name of religion. At present we follow certain things to give joy to our parents rather than for we believe in it. Just because we feel that these carry no meaning, which is quite natural in the present life, I think we should not say that there is no god.
    Many have already given reasons why god fear has to be there etc. Also, I believe that god is a “power”. In fact there is no form for it. Here again form was given by only humans. Now I do not want to elaborate to explain whether god is there or not. With my experience I have felt that – “Special power-GOD” is there. So I believe in him and thank him. If one wants to argue, there is plenty to do so, but no one may read it if it is too long. So I end here praying god to only make people understand the values in life.

    Comment by Nishchita uday — October 10, 2008 #

  33. Dear Jayanth,
    You are saying that there is no god. Answering god is nothing but answering your own concience.

    Comment by Nishchita uday — October 10, 2008 #

  34. Dear Prateeksha,
    You are right, when you say god (Spiritual) and religion are different. Religion was created by man and man was creation of god!

    Comment by Nishchita uday — October 10, 2008 #

  35. Well I mush have been a part of this discussion a long time ago..! Anyways I think it ll take time for me to go through all that has been said to get my self to speed.

    Await my opinion soon..!

    Comment by Ajay — February 27, 2009 #

  36. Ok heres what I think,

    “The hindu polytheistic indoctrination ensures that we keep at half of our 200 crore Gods happy and most people are victims of such abuse.” – First and foremost before I start, I wanna make one point clear, hinduism is not a religion!! PERIOD!!! The word ‘Hindu’ was coined by Muslim rulers to describe the people who follow a certain set of social norms and practices, in the region of ‘Hindustan’. These set of social norms/practices followed, was never written down in any holy book nor was it mandated for all its believers to follow, it was just passed on from one generation to another.

    If you go through the timeline of this faith, initially there existed only 4 major gods/forces which people worshiped and thanked. Indra (yes the one we believe is the king of the devas) was the most powerful god (Indra was the god for Rain).

    This faith, or rather the set of norms mentioned, aimed to help people to go about their daily lives happy and in a peaceful manner. The beauty and the one prime differentiator of this faith lies in its “Freedom of Choice”. It leaves each individual to choose what he wants to believe or follow, this I believe is the reason for the proliferation of the Type of Gods. It lets each individual to visualize the power beyond them in ways that they wanted. Elephant face, playing the flute, playing the veena, tall dark and handsome, etc etc etc….

    Ok saying that coming to the rituals that gets performed, do something for me, every single puja that you have mentioned, get a proper expert and ask him/her to explain the significance and the reason of performing each one of them, you ll be surprised to learn the scientific reasons and awed by our ancestors to have even though of them. People in general have lost the context of these puja’s somewhere, but shunning them altogether as a total waste of time without understanding the reason or purpose behind it, sounds kind of harsh to me.

    Well then again there is argument that each ritual was created to get families together, to celebrate and understand relationships, well maybe, maybe not, but in the current context of nuclear families it does make sense doesn’t it(well am kind of skeptical about this cause most of the families were joint, so why need any occasion to celebrate relationships).

    Then there is question about the existence of God, well never confuse, belief, faith, superstition and GOD. God as an entity even if proven to be fake, doesn’t make a huge impact, but taking away someone’s belief or faith will have a greater impact. All that the entity called god does to a human being is that it keeps him sane during the worst of times, and firmly grounded and humble in the best of times.
    Even the likes of Einstien, Finman etc., who never took the world as it was presented to them but did all they could to understand it by themselves, believed that there are things that are beyond science and hence the notion of GOD.

    Well so its all for the individual to decide, what he believes in, what faith he follows, what rituals he performs, and if he even believes in god….

    Comment by Ajay — March 1, 2009 #

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress with GimpStyle Theme design by Horacio Bella.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS.