What is Religion?

A Philosophical Approach Religion is the name given to the belief in the supernatural forces that is thought to have an influence in our lives; and one in particular among all the forces, we regard it as the closest entity to us, not physically but spiritually. This entity can be an unseen force such as god and goddesses, even Satan for some people but also on the other hand it could be the stone, fire, nature, stars, sculptures and many more which we or some of us approach to as our God or soul satisfies. There are several reasons for considering someone as your god. Firstly, your inner is to be satisfied from a certain entity, you get satisfaction and when all your helpers have turned their backs to you, you ask for the help from your god, whom you feel is the closest to you when you are ill or either you are passing the hardships of your life. This brings me to reveal upon the inconvenient truth that why do we need god? Or even why we regard religion as our need? What I believe to this is that when a person steps in this world, he has to puddle over the sea of happiness and sometimes the blazing fire of sadness surrounds him. When this man is happy, he least cares about the remembrance of religion and when he is sad, his soul and spirit always direct itself to god to have the hope and this hope is that corner of the heart which I think directs our whole imagination to seek help from god. We perform rituals just to maintain the remembrance of God in hard times. That is why it has been mentioned by many philosophers that philosophically, god has not created man, but man has created the God. We all need somebodys fear and even greed of good being or reward after the death. So passing the lives according to the moral codes of religion, we all will get reward for it and if we do against it, then we should be prepared for worst treatment of our own selves by the god. It is due to this fear that before performing any wrong deed we hesitate and this hesitation comes from our conscience that continuously intervenes our nerves that do not commit this act. At this instant we are fighting an internal battle with good and bad. We can observe the same ideology in the Shakespeares religious play like Mc Beth in which anticipation of gods power that restrains Mc Beth from committing a murder of a virtuous King Duncan, is in his conflict with his own desire and ambitions. This inner conflict is the best example of committing a bad or so-called in the play unnatural deed. This drives me to a very debatable topic of morals and religions. If we imagine that there was no religion, had there been any morals? Or to what extent the religion brings or has brought the moral reformation or the moral re-naissance? It is due, because no religion in the world says or teaches to tell a lie, to steal, to gamble, or etc. So where lies the problem? Whom should we blame that still today all the sins and vices are committed by many people. Furthermore, it is brought up by many thinkers that the religion uplifted the moral values of the society. It created a fear of unknown in everyone hearts before committing a crime. But uniting the moral values and uniting the group of one common, belief has given rise to the segregations and disparities among the people. Now everybody almost has made the religion to be his or her identity. People fight against each other just to spread the territory for not any justified political reason but I object, for just the sake of religion.

Being a critical observer first of all the living example of the Arab invaders is in-front of us. The present religious war in Jerusalem in between Palestine and Israel is scanned infront of my eye as war between Jews and Muslims. The Kashmir issue is not between India and Pakistan, but Hindus and Muslims. The war of independence of 1857 involved Christians, Hindus and Muslims. That is in history but just two days before on 28th August, 2008 in India, the religious minorities were humiliated and especially Christians were tortured by the attack of Hindus on their sacred churches. (Reported in Dawn). If we turn back the pages of history, we ultimately will discover that where the religion has united, there it has caused breakage between the long living cultural relations. The best example of this is ahead of us, for the independence of our country in 1947. Not only Muslims and Hindus were pulled on the opposite side of each other, but also a label of India and Pakistan was stamped on the two of the slides. Two groups sharing same culture, some traditions but difference only in religious belief, caused them to divide into two communities who regard afterwards each other, their rivalries or even opponents. Religion furthermore is in conflict with politics due to the un-updated phenomenon of religion dealing with the well modernised public political affairs. Religion itself is arrayed against powerful forces of progress and development. The modern people or politicians (like Sikandar Mirza) believed that religion should be kept at a distance with the politics. The divisions between catholic and protestant Christians is the example of enmity created by religion along with the tensions the religions built in the world. Everyone now was in search of the best network of making a call to their Gods, either Christians use Christianity network for making a call to the God or the Muslims use Islam as the best network of connecting them with the God of course God with people. Who so ever it is but one question everyone had that which religion should they go in to? This was fully affected by the influential cults of our society. Abortion became also a political and as well as a religious issue in European countries where religion is against it but the people were in favour of it. Dominancy occurred on the side politics where right of abortion was finally passed by the bill of a government. I believe, religion always interferes and intersects the operations of low, marriage, power, politics, luxury etc. To some extent this interference seems very beneficial but very obvious too. Bringing pen over to politics, Gandhi, who had been an anti-nationalist but was leading the traditional or nationalist ideology of India, enraged a Hindu who being an extremist assassinated Gandhi. By this, relgion assumed importance in underwriting political conflict, this showed the unsuccessfulness of Gandhi against the political forces he challenged to. Gandhi tried to work for whole sub-continent not only India but he religious traditions of his own area, Indias Hinduism wanted to give no vacancy for this political step to prevail. Politics and religion, the negotiations seems quite difficult but hey can be proclaimed as the two parallel entities, when one changes its direction, the other must change its direction as well. But the second one does not want to tilt away and so the first5 one continuous its old direction. This is religion versus politics. To understand religion, we need to consider the anthropological perspective of the religion. It is the study of human race, especially of its origins, development, customs and beliefs.

According to the theory of Animism, which is given by Taylor who himself is the founder of the anthropological outlook of religion, conveys the belief in the supernatural forces. The old people explained the un-natural experiences with regard to the religion. They were the people who were particularly intrigued with death, dreaming and trance. This theory of Animism put forward the concept of two major concepts; Body and soul. Finally, Taylor argued that religion originated to explain things that people did not understand; it would decline as science would offer better explanations for it. My views for this theory is that people in the old times had the lot more time to experience the situation of trance than the todays modernised society. Nobody seldom today finds any time to think or ponder about the images they see in their vision while sleeping. I think, todays age is the age of ignorance of the souls phenomenon, unlike ancient savage primitive society. It was in the early days when Melanesians (People of Papa New Guinea, and adjacent islands) believed in mana. This meant efficiency or luck and even the worldly objects were regarded as influential of a persons fate. Chiefs and nobles had more manna than ordinary people did. Magic also came into existence as a supernatural technique intended to accomplish specific aims. These techniques include spells, formulas, and incarnations used with deities or with impersonal forces Moreover, the belief of Taboo also originated with Manna and rejected society or rejected acts by the religion were ought to bring a bad luck of the societies. Still, the concept is in practice in Hinduism. Aryans brought this belief centuries later. The elite class or Brahmans were influenced by poor class or achoots if they met them. This, sadly, has also remained part of our religious historical stages. Religion helps people to endure life crises and face death. When people face uncertainty and danger, according to Malinowski, they turn to magic. Religion originated to give people a certainty over all natural things around us. For instance, prayers for rain by a field farmer are however, a religious phenomenon but it turns on the lights for him of the hopes for good harvest. In addition, people try to rally know the god and they turn towards the religion only when they are completely ruined or destroyed in the worldly affairs by the other beings. They use rituals as a shield of hope for their soul and they use prayer as a shield to give a new life to their hopes with the idea of encouragement all over it. After taking many theories, philosophies and doctrines regarding religion, the anthropological, social, functional, conceptual, intellectual, emotional, and psychological view of religion in our and primitive society reveals up on us this common idea. And this idea is summing up my essay, that physical treatment can be easily cured by the advancement of science, like in 1850s many scientific discoveries were made as a step forward in the development of human evaluation. Doctors or science is only meant for the physical body itself. But the diseases of soul can only be treated by the ultimate doctor of soul who is god and whose clinic is religion. So god can be regarded as the utmost doctor of the spiritual disorder in the broader sense of religion.