God and Religion!

Man (and Woman) being the first animals capable of thought, looked around, observing things.... Life (humans, animals, plants), elements (wind, water, sky, fire), weather (rain, thunder, lightning), Mountains, Volcanoes and other such natural phenomenon, Sun and stars... tried to understand what it all meant...

With the limited resources and intellect, he thought something very big, very powerful should be behind it. Considering how thunder, lightning and other such things would have appeared to him, they could easily be attributed to the presence of such an omnipresent entity.

On top of all this was the ultimate.. disease, sickness and ultimately death. That has a definite absoluteness behind it. It is the fear of unknown, yearningness to have something more lasting .... Why not look to appeasing this powerful entity to give a longer and hopefully ever lasting life or at least after life.

Give the above thousands of years and the prodigiously increasing capacity for the grey matter - resulting in language, poetry and so on.

Enough of this. I assume you get the picture. The question is this. Is God and religion just this?

It is a fact that earlier humans had a shorter lifespan, riddled with disease - refer to beginning of sacrifices to the diety to let some one else go. It is also interesting to note that almost all the earlier religions have stories of extra ordinarily longer life span for key persons, divine interventions and special deals. All references to a superior civilization (not just plumbing) had no serious evidence. Even the extraordinary references to superior metal work etc were used to just create monuments than anything useful.

This is what the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and so on say (and brilliantly so If i may add.. though some of the arguments are strawman taking specific violent, difficult episodes in human life).

Till now it is the so called rational aspect of things. Coming down to the philosophical side of things.

How do you explain the sheer consistency and philosophical depth of the Azhwar pasurams? After all even historically everyone accepts that they were separated by centuries. Yes there are deep questions that can never be answered by anyone. For example the proof behind certain things will never be shown. The analogy to astrophysics and big bang does not help because the proof there ...  while complex , is demonstrated to some extent by applications on a smaller scale via devices which normal people can use (Micro waves:-)). Whats the equivalent of that in philosophy? I cant see anything short of say.. a flashing of lightning in the middle of a clear day during a perumal procession! Or Kaliyan himself correcting a Goshti if they chant something wrong :-) (Imagine that ... that would rattle a lot of folks!).

It all boils down to Faith ... isnt it? Good Philosophers never try to prove god as Good Atheists never try to disprove god. Is "I really dont know" for Atheists and "I really dont care" for Theists a good position? The conflict then is just this. For Atheists, since they cant prove the existence of god, they dont do anything. Rationale - I cant also prove existence of aliens so I dont go around doing stuff around them (except may be make movies - I can as well make movies about an imaginary entity called god). For Theists, it is difficult. You do everything in life around god knowing that you really cant prove anything till it is revealed.

I know it seems childish. How can I ignore such beauty, poetry, meaning and the philosophical reach just because it cannot be proved. The Atheists say that we dont need to ignore them. Just read them like you read Shakesphere or other works!!! How about this? All of this is considered dangerous because "My god is better than yours" attitude. Can this just be at a level where it is just "I like this. I cant prove it. I also understand why some one else can think of the same issue differently with a different book and organization. Like Chinna Jeeyar says.. worship your own, respect others or simply just ignore others". Its not your job to validate and rank religions. is it?

I think now I seem to understand how "Shunya Vadha" would have come about :-). They just decided to name the entity "Null". How about that?

Can readers really post your comments or if you are shy, send me an email. I would love to hear opinions on this.

PS: I am looking forward to the coming Vaikasi Utsavam @ Tiruvali and to have darshan of Kaliyan after a two year gap :-) Who knows ...  I may get some answers!!