God and Religion
God is a figment of someones wild imagination. God and Religion were born out of the human fear of the unknown and an amalgamation of thoughts of a few wise people over the past milleniums to exercise control over the laity. Religion is a tool used by the Powerful [ by intellect and Monies ] to dominate the less fortunate people . You will be surprised to know that there were no temples of God 2000 or so years ago . There is no mention in the Ramayan or Mahabharat of Ram or Krishna or for that matter any other person going to a temple to offer prayers . People used to go away on their own to meditate and in search of God . There were Ashrams of different Rishis at different times but no temples dedicated to any God .Look for the history of any temple anywhere and you wont find any more than 2000 years old. The Cave paintings and Carvings at different places do not preach any religion but are mostly devoted to incidents . If you read the Ramayan and Mahabharat - there is not even the mention of Hindu as a religion [ that does not mean it did not exist- however there was no formal name given to it] . So coming to the crux of the matter- The emphasis on establishing one's religious beliefs started somewhere around the late first centurty A D - when Christianity started expanding its roots and routes .People hitherto unaware of any religious beliefs other then dished out to them from eons started feeling threatened and the powerful among them started congregating to keep the flock together. Thus came a place called Temple -wherein people of the faith flocked to express their solidarity . This gained momentum when the Muslims too entered the Religious Race . You now see a rat race to corner each and every nook and corner everywhere to emphasize how great your religion is [ which is fair enough] but more importantly how bad the other religion is [ which is worst] . T he tragedy in all this is that people who do not even know their own scriptures start dissecting other religious beliefs . I will capsule a book I read on evolution of the earth a couple of days back. I quote
'The system showed a long starting period.First 4 billion years single cell creatures.No change for next 2 billion years when a nuclei appeared in the cells. Growth picks up.Few hundred million years later multi cellular organisms. Few hundred million years later explosive diversity of life.By a couple more million years large plants and animals and complex creatures like dinosaurs . 2 million years ago early human ancestors.35000 years ago Cave paintings.If history is compressed into 24 hours, multi-cellular organisms in the last 12 hrs.Dinosaurs in the last 1 hour. Earliest man last 40 seconds and modern man last 1 second' unquote.
Now if God existed since forming the Universe why take so much time to create a man. Of course this discussion cannot be capsuled and done via an e-mail. However I have no doubt that Ram and Krishna walked this earth in fact- India and they were 'Yug-Purush but not God .
Dilip Apte .
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