Are You Religious by Compulsion or By Conviction? - By Awdhesh Singh
http://myspiritualselfhelp.com/articles/23/1/Are-You-Religious-by-Compulsion-or-By-Conviction---By-Awdhesh-Singh/Page1.html
Wan Ibrahim
Wan Ibrahim is the owner of MySpiritualSelfHelp.com, a website that was created to share the wisdom for spiritual living. He also shares his insights, tips and stories about happiness, relationship and success from a different point of view at his Blog - Detached, and in the context of spirituality at Personal Blog Section.By Wan Ibrahim
Published on 05/6/2008
More than 90 percent of the people in the world claim to be religious and have faith in God. Yet the world is full of miseries and pain devoid of happiness and peace. The reason seems to be that people want to believe in God and become religious, yet they are not convinced about the truth of their scriptures. This article explains why one should avoid following his religion by compulsion and discover the truth in it by reason and logic so that one can develop faith in God and religion by conviction.
Most studies established that more than 90 percent people of the world believe in God. Even in the remaining population, the percentage of nonbelievers or atheists are very low as compared to the people who call themselves spiritual, humanists or agnostics or non-religious (yet theistic). Atheists are abhorred even in the societies which practices tolerance and secularism.
However, if such a high percentage of people are really religious, then the world would have surely become heaven full of happiness and peace. Yet the reality is that it still has all the pains and miseries which were faced by people generations ago.
The reason seems to be that most people are religious due to compulsion and not due to conviction. Most people lack courage to accept it to the world that they don't believe in God or they can't believe in God as described in scriptures. Yet without admitting themselves to be atheist, they refuse to follow the scriptures as they have no faith in it.
Why Faith Can't be Created by Compulsion
A boy read the Bible, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." (Matthew 17:20). So he said to himself that now I have faith in God and said looking the mountain opposite his house, "Move from here to there." He slept in the night hoping that in the morning when he will see from his window, the mountain would not be there. However, when he got up in the morning and saw from the window, he found the mountain very much there. Then he said to himself, "I knew it wouldn't go."
Thus the Bible is not wrong, since the boy did not have even the smallest faith or believe that the mountain will really move. The fact is that despite of the best effort, the boy can not create faith in himself, unless he is convinced about the truthfulness of the statement.
If you are intelligence and articulate, you can perhaps convince most people anything that you wish, even if you are yourself not convinced. This is what most professional do nowadays. The models and stars are able to convince the people to buy and use the products which are really bad and these people would never use those products for themselves. An intelligent person can tell a lie so cleverly that the other person get convinced about its truthfulness.
Yet no one can cheat oneself. You can fool the world but can never fool yourself. You have control over your body and even on your mind to some extent but not your faith and believes which is in the domain of Soul. Faith is something that emerges from within and no person can have any control over it. It can emerge in the heart of the person only if he is either convinced of the truth by himself (direct evidence) or convinced about the truthfulness of the person making the statement (indirect evidence from a witness). There is not third way.
Faith is Always under Test
It is said "Truth only wins" (Satmeve Jayate). No faith or belief can survive for long unless it has truth in it. Even after the faith is created, it is always under test for the truth. Suppose you have full faith in your spouse. However if you see by your own eyes the unfaithfulness of your spouse, the faith is broken within a second. Once the faith on a person is broken, the faith on all statement of the person also break automatically as they all stand on the edifice of the truthfulness or credibility of the person.
This is what has happened to most of the religion and scriptures. There is always something in every scripture that has been proven false particularly after the advent of science in last five centuries. The popes and priests of most religions were also found involved in many nonreligious and even scandalous activities. Hence people have lost faith on the scriptures and their religious leaders. Thus they can not believe the truth of the scripture just because it is written there.
The only method for the humanity to gain faith in religion is by the use of the first principle that is to see the truth by themselves and get convinced about the veracity of these statements. Yet the religious leaders fail to see the changes that has happened in the people in last few centuries. Almost all religions originated many thousand years ago when all but few people were illiterate and knew nothing about the scriptures. Many religions even barred people to read scripture except to the priestly class. However the world has changed a lot since the time of Buddha and Christ. Now almost every one is educated. An ordinary person has spent almost two decade in studying various subjects like science, math, arts, history, geography, logic and psychology. He has the access to the infinite information through the internet and the libraries. He can not get convinced about the truth of the scripture like the previous generations due to his mental evolution.
People are not wiling to accept the truth of the scripture just because it is written there. Truth has to be convincing for the modern man. They need proof and reason to accept the words of scriptures. It is not that they apply these criterions only for the religions. They can't help their mind which can accept only such ideas that are logical, reasonable or coming from a source whose credibility is beyond doubt. Once a person has learned to verify the truth be his mind, he can't help it. He has to use the same yardsticks for every knowledge.
The Language of Reason
The modern man put everything into the test of reason and evidence. This is true even for science. What better proof is required than to see that almost all survey show that more than 90 percent of the people even in USA believe in religion and God. This is despite of the fact that the scientists and atheists have already provided thousands of arguments to prove that God does not exist. People are somehow convinced that there is God, though they may not believe that He is same as what is described in the scriptures. Their reasoning mind tells them that body can not exist without soul. They don't need proof of God and Soul because they realize it themselves even though they still admit that they do not "know" Him good enough.
The conviction of an ordinary man is no different than the greatest scientist of the world. Every scientist knows that the universe is too complex to be understood completely and that science has been able to discover only part of it. Sir Isaac Newton admitted,
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Einstein admitted that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have. He cautioned against treating the scientific theories as the absolute truth,
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
How naïve it is then to accept that people will accept the worlds of the scriptures as the gospel truth without reasoning and questioning.
The Language of Reason
Man evolved from body to mind to soul and then to Spirit. In the last few centuries, most human beings have evolved a lot on the mental level. There is no way that these mentally evolved people can be convinced of anything except by the language of reason and evidence. There is lot of truth in all scriptures. Yet this has to be communicated to the modern generation in the language of reason as they can not be convinced otherwise.
Upanishads says that man is the reflection of the universe "Aham Brahmasmi" (I am the universe). So the image of the universe outside is available in every man. Therefore, knowledge too can be acquired either from outside world by observation, and experimentation or by the intuition emerging from inside. The fact is that all knowledges emerged from inside yet the verification is done by external means. All the theories developed by scientists emerged from inside by intuition. The only difference between science and religion is that while scientists insisted on external evidences, people followed their prophets based on their inner conviction and faith. Yet the truth contained in the scripture can not be denied as no faith can not sustain the test of time unless it has truth in it.
Scientific Proofs of Scriptures
Therefore, what is required is that the truth contained in the scriptures be proven or demonstrated to the mind of the modern man which can understand the language of reason and logic.
There are large number of studies that proved the benefits in being religious. A latest study establishes that the religious people are among the happiest of people. While 45% of those who say they are "very religious" called themselves very happy against only 28% people who call themselves as "not religious" were measured at that level of happiness. Similarly 37% of the people who followed ethics in their life called themselves very happy, while only 26% of the unethical people considered themselves very happy. [1]
There is no dearth of evidences that establish the benefits of religion to people. For example, the women who claim to have no religious identification have abortions at about "four times" the rate of women who name a religion [2]. Reliion also seems to reduce addiction. Cigarette smoking and religious activities were examined in a 6-year prospective study of 3,968 persons age 65 or older in North Carolina. Both likelihood of current smoking and total number of past years smoked were inversely related to attendance at religious services and private religious activities. Higher participation in religious activities at one wave predicted lower rates of smoking at future waves. If persons both attended religious services at least weekly and read the Bible or prayed at least daily, they were 990 percent less likely to smoke than persons involved in these religious activities less frequently [3]. In another research [4] it was established that the frequent church attendees are more likely to quit smoking, reduce the alcohol intake, increase the frequency with which they exercised and stay married to the same person and increase the number of contacts.
Realize the Truth Yourself
Truth is never available in market as it does not benefit any businessman. Once has to search the truth both within and without. A famous proverb says that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The truth also can only be realized by experimentation and observation on self and others. Once you found faith in religion even of the size of the mustard, sow it inside your heart and see the difference. If the faith is not truthful, the seed will not produce any fruit. Yet if the faith has truth, it would grow into such a force that you can literally move a mountain. The benefits of faith is , however, available only to a person who accept it based on conviction as then only his mind and heart would love God and all His creation as said by Jesus. You need not know the theory behind, God and Soul and the Scriptures unless you wish to be expert in this matter and discover higher levels of truth. Is it not true in case of our day to day life? You don't have to be a scientist or to know the technical know to use your car, refrigerator or computer. Leave the task of know how to the expert and use religion and faith in your life and see that it really works.
References
(1) The Harris Poll "Americans Who Are Religious and Older People Are Happier"URL: http://harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=900, April 2008
(2) Henshaw S K, Kost K., "Abortion Paints in 1995-1995:Characteristics and Contraceptive Use", Family Planning Perspective, Volu 28, November 2, July/August 1996
(3) Koenig, H.G., et al. 1998. The relationship between religious activities and cigarette smoking in older adults. Journal of Gerontology A Biol Sci Med Sci, 53: 6.
(4) Strawbridge, W J., Cohen, R. D., Shema, S. J., and Kaplan, G A (1997). Frequent attendance at religious services and mortality over 28 years. American Journal of Public Health, 87, 957-961.
Mr. Awdhesh K Singh is an Engineer by education and philosopher by passion. He has published several papers in International Journals and Conferences on the subject of E-governance, Artificial Intelligence , Fuzzy Logic and Expert Systems .
He is the founding member of The Aatmic Science Foundation, (The Science of Soul Foundation). His interest is in creating synthesis between all religions and sciences for the benefit of the mankind.
He can be contacted at his email address aksinghirs [a] yahoo.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
However, if such a high percentage of people are really religious, then the world would have surely become heaven full of happiness and peace. Yet the reality is that it still has all the pains and miseries which were faced by people generations ago.
The reason seems to be that most people are religious due to compulsion and not due to conviction. Most people lack courage to accept it to the world that they don't believe in God or they can't believe in God as described in scriptures. Yet without admitting themselves to be atheist, they refuse to follow the scriptures as they have no faith in it.
Why Faith Can't be Created by Compulsion
A boy read the Bible, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." (Matthew 17:20). So he said to himself that now I have faith in God and said looking the mountain opposite his house, "Move from here to there." He slept in the night hoping that in the morning when he will see from his window, the mountain would not be there. However, when he got up in the morning and saw from the window, he found the mountain very much there. Then he said to himself, "I knew it wouldn't go."
Thus the Bible is not wrong, since the boy did not have even the smallest faith or believe that the mountain will really move. The fact is that despite of the best effort, the boy can not create faith in himself, unless he is convinced about the truthfulness of the statement.
If you are intelligence and articulate, you can perhaps convince most people anything that you wish, even if you are yourself not convinced. This is what most professional do nowadays. The models and stars are able to convince the people to buy and use the products which are really bad and these people would never use those products for themselves. An intelligent person can tell a lie so cleverly that the other person get convinced about its truthfulness.
Yet no one can cheat oneself. You can fool the world but can never fool yourself. You have control over your body and even on your mind to some extent but not your faith and believes which is in the domain of Soul. Faith is something that emerges from within and no person can have any control over it. It can emerge in the heart of the person only if he is either convinced of the truth by himself (direct evidence) or convinced about the truthfulness of the person making the statement (indirect evidence from a witness). There is not third way.
Faith is Always under Test
It is said "Truth only wins" (Satmeve Jayate). No faith or belief can survive for long unless it has truth in it. Even after the faith is created, it is always under test for the truth. Suppose you have full faith in your spouse. However if you see by your own eyes the unfaithfulness of your spouse, the faith is broken within a second. Once the faith on a person is broken, the faith on all statement of the person also break automatically as they all stand on the edifice of the truthfulness or credibility of the person.
This is what has happened to most of the religion and scriptures. There is always something in every scripture that has been proven false particularly after the advent of science in last five centuries. The popes and priests of most religions were also found involved in many nonreligious and even scandalous activities. Hence people have lost faith on the scriptures and their religious leaders. Thus they can not believe the truth of the scripture just because it is written there.
The only method for the humanity to gain faith in religion is by the use of the first principle that is to see the truth by themselves and get convinced about the veracity of these statements. Yet the religious leaders fail to see the changes that has happened in the people in last few centuries. Almost all religions originated many thousand years ago when all but few people were illiterate and knew nothing about the scriptures. Many religions even barred people to read scripture except to the priestly class. However the world has changed a lot since the time of Buddha and Christ. Now almost every one is educated. An ordinary person has spent almost two decade in studying various subjects like science, math, arts, history, geography, logic and psychology. He has the access to the infinite information through the internet and the libraries. He can not get convinced about the truth of the scripture like the previous generations due to his mental evolution.
People are not wiling to accept the truth of the scripture just because it is written there. Truth has to be convincing for the modern man. They need proof and reason to accept the words of scriptures. It is not that they apply these criterions only for the religions. They can't help their mind which can accept only such ideas that are logical, reasonable or coming from a source whose credibility is beyond doubt. Once a person has learned to verify the truth be his mind, he can't help it. He has to use the same yardsticks for every knowledge.
The Language of Reason
The modern man put everything into the test of reason and evidence. This is true even for science. What better proof is required than to see that almost all survey show that more than 90 percent of the people even in USA believe in religion and God. This is despite of the fact that the scientists and atheists have already provided thousands of arguments to prove that God does not exist. People are somehow convinced that there is God, though they may not believe that He is same as what is described in the scriptures. Their reasoning mind tells them that body can not exist without soul. They don't need proof of God and Soul because they realize it themselves even though they still admit that they do not "know" Him good enough.
The conviction of an ordinary man is no different than the greatest scientist of the world. Every scientist knows that the universe is too complex to be understood completely and that science has been able to discover only part of it. Sir Isaac Newton admitted,
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Einstein admitted that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have. He cautioned against treating the scientific theories as the absolute truth,
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
How naïve it is then to accept that people will accept the worlds of the scriptures as the gospel truth without reasoning and questioning.
The Language of Reason
Man evolved from body to mind to soul and then to Spirit. In the last few centuries, most human beings have evolved a lot on the mental level. There is no way that these mentally evolved people can be convinced of anything except by the language of reason and evidence. There is lot of truth in all scriptures. Yet this has to be communicated to the modern generation in the language of reason as they can not be convinced otherwise.
Upanishads says that man is the reflection of the universe "Aham Brahmasmi" (I am the universe). So the image of the universe outside is available in every man. Therefore, knowledge too can be acquired either from outside world by observation, and experimentation or by the intuition emerging from inside. The fact is that all knowledges emerged from inside yet the verification is done by external means. All the theories developed by scientists emerged from inside by intuition. The only difference between science and religion is that while scientists insisted on external evidences, people followed their prophets based on their inner conviction and faith. Yet the truth contained in the scripture can not be denied as no faith can not sustain the test of time unless it has truth in it.
Scientific Proofs of Scriptures
Therefore, what is required is that the truth contained in the scriptures be proven or demonstrated to the mind of the modern man which can understand the language of reason and logic.
There are large number of studies that proved the benefits in being religious. A latest study establishes that the religious people are among the happiest of people. While 45% of those who say they are "very religious" called themselves very happy against only 28% people who call themselves as "not religious" were measured at that level of happiness. Similarly 37% of the people who followed ethics in their life called themselves very happy, while only 26% of the unethical people considered themselves very happy. [1]
There is no dearth of evidences that establish the benefits of religion to people. For example, the women who claim to have no religious identification have abortions at about "four times" the rate of women who name a religion [2]. Reliion also seems to reduce addiction. Cigarette smoking and religious activities were examined in a 6-year prospective study of 3,968 persons age 65 or older in North Carolina. Both likelihood of current smoking and total number of past years smoked were inversely related to attendance at religious services and private religious activities. Higher participation in religious activities at one wave predicted lower rates of smoking at future waves. If persons both attended religious services at least weekly and read the Bible or prayed at least daily, they were 990 percent less likely to smoke than persons involved in these religious activities less frequently [3]. In another research [4] it was established that the frequent church attendees are more likely to quit smoking, reduce the alcohol intake, increase the frequency with which they exercised and stay married to the same person and increase the number of contacts.
Realize the Truth Yourself
Truth is never available in market as it does not benefit any businessman. Once has to search the truth both within and without. A famous proverb says that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The truth also can only be realized by experimentation and observation on self and others. Once you found faith in religion even of the size of the mustard, sow it inside your heart and see the difference. If the faith is not truthful, the seed will not produce any fruit. Yet if the faith has truth, it would grow into such a force that you can literally move a mountain. The benefits of faith is , however, available only to a person who accept it based on conviction as then only his mind and heart would love God and all His creation as said by Jesus. You need not know the theory behind, God and Soul and the Scriptures unless you wish to be expert in this matter and discover higher levels of truth. Is it not true in case of our day to day life? You don't have to be a scientist or to know the technical know to use your car, refrigerator or computer. Leave the task of know how to the expert and use religion and faith in your life and see that it really works.
References
(1) The Harris Poll "Americans Who Are Religious and Older People Are Happier"URL: http://harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=900, April 2008
(2) Henshaw S K, Kost K., "Abortion Paints in 1995-1995:Characteristics and Contraceptive Use", Family Planning Perspective, Volu 28, November 2, July/August 1996
(3) Koenig, H.G., et al. 1998. The relationship between religious activities and cigarette smoking in older adults. Journal of Gerontology A Biol Sci Med Sci, 53: 6.
(4) Strawbridge, W J., Cohen, R. D., Shema, S. J., and Kaplan, G A (1997). Frequent attendance at religious services and mortality over 28 years. American Journal of Public Health, 87, 957-961.
Mr. Awdhesh K Singh is an Engineer by education and philosopher by passion. He has published several papers in International Journals and Conferences on the subject of E-governance, Artificial Intelligence , Fuzzy Logic and Expert Systems .
He is the founding member of The Aatmic Science Foundation, (The Science of Soul Foundation). His interest is in creating synthesis between all religions and sciences for the benefit of the mankind.
He can be contacted at his email address aksinghirs [a] yahoo.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com