Opium for Masses

The concept of religion fascinates me a lot. Its interesting how this one concept has affected every sphere of our life, be it art, culture, history or politics, nothing is left untouched by it.

When I observe the concept of religion I see two completely different and unrelated facets. The first part of religion, which dies with the founder of religion, is its spiritual or philosophical part. Religions are based on interpretations of the teachings of some noble and wise persons, interpretations and not the actual teachings. These interpretations, which are done by not so noble people and not so wise people, are often corrupted and distorted, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. Either ways it results in gradual death of the spirituality from the religion. And what survives is the crust of religion which is nothing but a set of traditions and beliefs. It’s like a hollow sphere, without any solid core. This hollow, hypocritical 'organization' is the religion for masses.

This, the more popular part of religion is more related to our culture than to anything else, it is more a identity symbol than spiritual. People like it mainly because it gives them a feeling of being a part of some group or society. Nothing wrong in such functioning also, but I am afraid that the people don't realise that it’s just a part of culture and society rather than some unquestionable divine words. Religion has made many more deleterious contributions than positive ones.

This religion has been misused by kings, politicians and 'religious' leaders for controlling people, to gain power and for other purely selfish interests. You don’t need to strain your brain for examples, look around, everywhere, in India, in Pakistan, in Europe, every corner of world. What can be a better example than partition of India. Sixty years ago some rotten minded people divided my country into two parts and yesterdays brothers and today’s neighbours are still killing each other for some petty reasons. History is full of such megalomaniacs like crusader kings, like Hitler, like Taliban, like Mr. Modi and numerous other psychopaths.

This concept of 'religion' is also misused for the satisfying human fixation for claiming self-superiority. The attitude 'I am right and you are wrong' is an inherent human characteristic. It's hard to get over this mentality. Religion just provided man with another opportunity to realize his ugly ambitions. It should be noted that religion is just one of the ways for man and not the only one. Where there is a will there is a way, if you want to kill somebody and still feel glad about it then we also have castes, creeds and nations. Caste clashes in Hindus, Shia-Sunni fights in Muslims, Catholic-Protestant tensions, ethnic cleansing by Nazis and many other instances justify the point. People just want to believe that they are better than others and worse they try to propose some logic for this absurd thought. This logic often turns out to be religion, race or nation. Man needed a reason to fight, to kill and religion is just one of them.

Then there are people, 'common people', who use religion to escape the realities. They only search for a escape route and what they have.....RELIGION. This majority madly and blindly performs ‘religious’ practices and assumes this guarantees them a place in some utopian heaven.
They don’t focus on their deeds, make no efforts for betterment of society, they just obtusely follow words from some book written hundreds of years ago. Also, often, the context of these words is overlooked and people try to generalize them. Karl Marks beautifully described this point in his famous words:

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. "

These people are just lost in search of mirage of a mythical heaven, when they can create their own paradise right here on Earth; and the Earth..........it just continues to burn like hell.