The Problem with Religion (Time,
Oct.28-2002)
I fully support Jorma Kajaste, Espo,
Finland who says: ban the religions as a solution to end the wars between them.
Each of them believes in a different way that only their religion is right..
Religions are
meant to bring peace but often make war to suppress opponents. And wars continue forever.
None of
them really knows how life started, why we are here and where we are going. So
far life (still) remains a miraculous mystery.
It is
obvious that most of us: cannibals, Eskimos, Chinese, Europeans,
Africans, Americans, the whole world, have a strong urge for an answer to this
question.
We only know
for sure that we do not know. (Socrates, about 2450 years ago) We should learn
to live with this fact and behave nice to each other which must also be
possible without a religion.
Why do
religions originate?
In some way we are victims of our
intellect. It is clear that we, human beings,
are equipped with a miraculous intellectual
capacity.
Instead of simply realizing that "we do not know" many of us,
in the absence of a realistic explanation, have a strong urge to assume that
there must be something imaginary.
Like a god.
How do religions originate?
This
makes it easy for the different religious leaders to misuse their authority
(power) to make belief their view as the only absolute.
They
lead their followers to war convinced they are the privileged ones for which
the world is made…
Superior human intellectual capacity.
It is
clear we humans have a superior intellectual capacity to dominate the world
above other living beings.
But…imagine:
all people are destroyed, no human survivors, like the Dinosaur, 65 million
years ago. What would happen to the world? The world would continue to turn
around the sun without us like 4.5 million years ago when the first humans
originated in Africa. This means that the world was not made just for us,
humans.
Ban
the religions
All this
sounds Utopian. Gorbachov had the courage to say that communism did not work. A
couple of Gorbachovs are needed to tell the subjects of all religions that they should behave nicely, stop fighting each
other because in fact we still know nothing and that we should learn to live in
peace which is not a monopoly of a religion.
His Allah was my Allah!
Once
during a business visit to the Middle Easta a client/friend in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, asked about my religion.
I said: palmtrees,
camels, musquitos, he and I were living. For me this is a miracle. But if he
wanted, I would use the word Allah instead of miracle.
After a short while he declared
in agreement: My Allah is your Allah!
Kees
Koetsier, Alfaz del Pi, Spain, Updated:
December, 2014
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten