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Do we need religions or a spiritual renaissance? 

 

By Ali Sina

Dear Jan, 

In response to your latest email, I do not think we need the belief in God to love our fellow humans. Buddhism is a religion of love and yet Buddha was an agnostic. Frankly there has been more hate and killing in the name of God than in the name of any other idea. This is not to say that I disbelieve in God. I do believe in a single principle underlying the creation. That is not, however,  a personal God, as the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims believe but a spiritual reality like love. I think I was 13 or 14 when I first read the Bible and I was horrified to meet the god of Moses and Joshua. 

I believe we humans are spiritual beings having a physical experience, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin used to say. Our forefathers invented religions to satisfy their spiritual quest. Today we do not need to cling to their intellectual inventions anymore than we need to cling to their sundials, chariots or plows in our daily lives. As modern humans we can chart our own spiritual path without the need to look into the past and mimic what our primitive ancestors did. 

The source of the evil in religions is that they are manmade yet believed to be revelations. They are fables compiled and concocted by a bunch of rabbis like Jeremiah and Ezra in 700 BC (when Judea and Israel became one nation) as in the case of Judaism; fabrications of some hi pitched salesman-like preachers like Paul, as in the case of Christianity and hallucinations of a schizophrenic marauding gangster like Muhammad as in the case of Islam. It is sad that in this day of the Internet, genetic engineering and nano technology people still cling to these outdated religions and get their spiritual insights from the fancies of a bunch of lost souls of antiquity. Humanity needs a spiritual revival and part of that revival is to get rid of the obsolete religions with their draconian laws. We need a religious-free spiritual revolution, a revolution that is energized by love of humanity and directed by the Golden Rule, a spiritual revolution  that is based on knowledge and understanding and not on fear of a hell or greed of a paradise. It is time that we lay the foundation of a spiritual civilization for mankind. 

We do not need religions to love each other. Religions make us hate each other. Religions are instruments of disunity. We have thousands of years of history of war and bloodshed and when you take a closer look you’ll see most of these wars were religiously motivated. Even if the war was fought over land the hatred was often religiously inspired. 

Religions have been proven to be wrong on science, how can we trust them on God? If they were from God, they should have known that the Earth is not flat or life is the product of evolution. If they have erred on this, they could be wrong on other things too. 

You said that you tried to help a Muslim woman who had suffered terrible abuse at the hands of her husband and as a result, you suffered dishonor. Why? Why helping another human being in distress should bring dishonor to one? If you were not a Jew and she was not a Muslim would you still suffer dishonor? I doubt it. As you see religion is the big barrier between us humans. It is a pretext to hate. 

You may have gone from disbelief to belief and from atheism to religiosity. I am neither an atheist nor a theist. But I respect your choice. In reality what you believe or disbelieve is of little consequence. What matters is how you live and how much you can give to the world. Religions could be lamp holders where love is the light. I look at the light no matter from where it shines. The problem with Islam is that it is a lamp holder that has no light. Now the day of understanding has dawned. We don’t need any lamp holders nor need their lights. 

Shalom 

Ali Sina

 

 

 

 

 

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