A Skeptical View on Religions
Mandalay, Myanmar, February 10th, 2015
Salaroche

Religious faith is a very important factor in the lives of millions of people. It can be the source of inspiration giving a sense of direction and a sense of belonging to many of us just as it can be the magic element that makes others hopeful when facing the inevitability of death. For these and other reasons, religions may turn out being an irreplaceable component in the existence of humanity for many decades or even centuries to come.

Religious faith can also be a fundamental factor in the practice of personal devotion and renunciation. Religiously devoted people usually prostrate themselves, literally or figuratively, before a saint, a prophet or a deity to demonstrate their fervor to their teachings. Similarly, many people who renounce their possessions and the fruit of their actions usually do so in the name of some higher ideal or cause.

Yet, as we all know, there is more than one side to almost any subject we may contemplate, and religious faith is no exception. Beliefs and devotion in general can well fit into the category of double-faced coins. On the one hand they can be the guiding light that leads many of us to do exemplary, selfless and altruistic things and on the other they can also be the blinding force that makes many others commit massive unimaginable atrocities. As examples of the former we could think of Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, etc. As examples of the latter we could think of the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, 9/11, ISIS’s actions in Iraq, or Boko Haram’s in Africa.

People can do plenty of good or bad in this world while following the teachings of the leading heroes in their doctrines and beliefs, but the personified object in any religious faith is by no means the most important element in the act of believing. Such personifications can be represented as a god, a saint, a guru, a spirit, a mountain, or any other imaginable object of worship, but that’s not really the factor that matters most in the act of believing. The most important element in the act of believing isn’t even the act of believing itself, but some of its side effects.

There is a general misconception about the act of believing that makes many people think that just by believing in something or in someone in an unconditional manner they will attain any or all of the otherworldly goals prescribed in their belief system. No such thing. What really matters in the act of believing is none of the above, but the often-unintended results that the act of believing entails.

All religions usually refer to the existence of an afterlife spiritual world where the miseries of this one are absent. Such beliefs usually teach that the pleasures and possessions of our present reality amount to nothing in the other world and that all or most of such pleasures and possessions can actually be a hindrance to the attainment of a more blissful existence in the afterlife.

Thus, such beliefs often demand from the part of their believers an unwavering faith in their prophets and their scriptures as the only formula for attaining the gift of a heavenly afterlife. Unfortunately, some of the most influential religious scriptures of our time have very serious deficiencies regarding the clarity and specificity of their doctrines and thus lend themselves to severe misinterpretations that may end up harming rather than helping the transcendental quest of their readers and believers.

In consequence, pervasive religious prescriptions such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism may not really amount to much when it comes to helping their practitioners to liberate themselves from the supposed miseries of this world once they cross the afterlife gates.

Selflessness is the true and only path to liberation but, contrary to what some of the most influential world religions seem to suggest, the concept of selflessness does not imply any strong identification with anyone or anything other than true nothingness, which is the equivalent of everything, which in turn is a synonym for universal wholeness. Attaining selflessness is the true purpose of any devotional discipline such as are supposed to be those prescribed in all religions, except that such purpose is either  never expounded in the right context or seldom even mentioned at all.

Unfortunately, the patent lack of clarity in religious scriptures such as those found in the Old and the New Testaments, may only end up confusing rather than enlightening their readers, which regrettably leaves no other choice for the great majority of them but to spouse a blind faith in the misguided teachings of some influential self-proclaimed “enlightened” preachers who in their self-serving power-hungry misinterpretation of the texts end up dividing rather than uniting the peoples of the Earth, thereby harming rather than helping a good portion of the human race in their need to eventually reach to a universal understanding of the transcendental reasons that we’re all together inhabiting this very same planet in the first place.

Confusion and scriptural misinterpretations are widespread across a good section of the world’s religious spectrum and the cause for that lack of clarity can mainly be attributable to a couple of obviously flawed factors: 1) The inability of scripture writers to understand the message conveyed to them by their prophets and visionaries and, 2) The inability of their prophets and visionaries to convey their message with clarity to their audiences.

And when the well-known historical human tendency to misinterpret in its favor anything that may run contrary to its egotistical designs conflate both those errors into one the result is the present irrational, antagonistic, and even murderous absence of tolerance existing between the three religions of the book and between those three sets of beliefs and most of the rest of the world’s religious doctrines and practices.

Most religions claim that egotistic actions can end up shutting the gates to a blissful afterlife. They also claim that selflessness is a sure way to rid the mind of egotistical thoughts while proposing that devotion can generate selflessness in the practitioners. But when devotion is practiced only in name and is constantly escorted by sectarian notions of superiority over the rest of the religions and is continually led by arrogant feelings of exclusivity in their access to transcendental truths, selflessness is the least of the benefits any such practitioners will be entitled to enjoy.

In other words, if arrogance can be said to be the antithesis of selflessness, and if selflessness can be said to be the essential key to unlock the wonders of the afterlife, any religious doctrine constantly immersed in arrogance will be proportionally wanting in selflessness, which eventually can only translate into detrimental consequences for the practitioners.

To claim that any prophet has the sole right to speak in the name of the creator, or to claim that the practitioners of any particular set of beliefs are preordained as preferred by the Universal Forces, or to claim that the devotees of any prophet have the right to terminate the life of anyone who disrespects their doctrines, that is nothing but sheer arrogance of the most harmful kind for the spiritual development of anyone who embraces such beliefs.

Yet, to one degree or another, many religious people go along with such doctrinal premises, thereby divesting themselves of the possibility of reaching to an understanding of the universality of the human soul and the collective transcendental destiny that awaits each and everyone of us once we cross the threshold into the afterlife.

But why would anyone want to deprive themselves of such understanding? Why would anyone wish to remain in the dark regarding such matters? Well, first of all, probably not many people are aware that such understanding can be reached and, second, many people probably wouldn’t even want to reach such understanding, as they would prefer to remain privileged and exclusive. In other words, the ego can be a blinding force in more than one way and in more than one plane of existence.

All human beings suffer from an absence of identity during the early stages of development. No one is born with a clear sense of who they are. We all acquire our identity across time depending on factors such as genetics, family influence, social environments, economic factors, education, etc. Thus, all across the span of our lives our egos are constantly hungry for input and feedback as to who or what we would like to be in our own eyes and in those of the others.

Religions can be an effective vehicle for feeding ego-meals to their adepts, thereby contributing to the aggrandizement of their own image in their own eyes and in those of their fellow faith travelers. Thus, statements like “I am saved” or “I am selected” or “I hold the absolute truth”, or any other exclusivist view of that sort cast upon transcendental matters can only end up nurturing division between religions and, unfortunately, that is exactly what has been going on since the inception of biblical monotheism on a world scale.

Religions can help many people by giving them hope to carry on in this life with promises of rewards in the next world for the inequities they may suffer in this one. And that fact by itself can make religions valuable in as far as those promises may provide some comfort to humanity. As to whether religions in general and the religions of the book in particular actually give a hand to the great majority of their followers in attaining everlasting consciousness, wisdom, and enjoyment in the afterlife, it remains a highly debatable question.

Salaroche