Religions of the world straying from their goals

Devendra Joshi, 4 min read

The basic objective of all the religions of the world has been to establish mutual harmony, love and cooperation in the society. It is absolutely true that the rules of the society cannot be followed by convincing all the people of the society or by threatening them with punishment for disobeying the rules. Due to natural diversity, some people in the society are intelligent, some kind, some domineering, some lazy, some hardworking, some calm, some angry etc. Due to these diversities, it is natural for situations of crime, conflict and disintegration to arise in the society. Different societies have tried to deal with this problem from the very beginning. The easiest solution to this, which was adopted by almost all the societies, was to make rules and punish those who do not follow the rules. This solution laid the foundation of an administrative structure in the society which kept developing with time. The biggest drawback in this solution was the need to keep an eye on the entire society. With the expansion of society, this solution could not remain effective. As a result, on one hand the officials became arbitrary and on the other hand people started committing wrongdoings by escaping the eyes of law. As a result, anarchy started increasing in the society. To improve this situation, social thinkers took the help of religion. That is why these things are found at the core of almost all religions.

1. There is a superpower (God) who sees everything and controls the world.

2. Man gets the result according to his deeds. This result is definitely received in this birth or the next birth.

3. Following the truth, kindness to living beings, helping others, serving the elderly and sick people, respecting elders and following the rules of society are virtuous acts which give good results.

4. Greed, anger, hatred, lying, torturing the weak, snatching the rights of others are sins, which give bad results.

5. God always helps the weak. By remembering him with a true heart, he definitely helps in some form or the other.

6. If a wrong deed is done by mistake, then proper atonement can free one from its consequences.

7. According to the total deeds of this birth, a man is eligible for heaven or hell after death.

It was natural that this ideology should be widely propagated. For this, organizations were formed to prepare a large team of preachers and to train them. To have a proper impact on the society, special care was taken that the preachers themselves should believe in religion and behave accordingly. To ensure smooth functioning of the organization, voluntary donations from the society were also made a part of following the religion. To make the ideology easy for the common people to understand, places of worship were established at various places. These places also became the centers of propagation. This ideology brought unexpected results. Its almost equal effect was seen on the common people and the administrative class, as a result, a lot of improvement was seen in the social system without any special effort. The ruling classes found this way of keeping the society organized very easy. Therefore, the ruling classes started giving support and help to these organizations. The society also accepted this ideology wholeheartedly and those who did not believe in this ideology were looked down upon. For many centuries, this ideology was successful in maintaining self-control over the society. Problems were seen in the society only as exceptions, which were not difficult for the administration to control.

With the blessings of the ruling classes, religious organizations began to compete to increase their power by getting closer to power. This proved to be the first step to deviate religion from its goal. In an effort to get ahead in the competition, religious representatives tried to justify the wrongdoings of rulers and powerful classes to the public. In return, they started getting rewarded. As a result, religious centres themselves began to become power centres. The heads of such centres started leading a life of luxury, moving away from simplicity. The effect of this was that power-hungry and greedy people began to get attracted to this. Thus, with time, places of worship replaced places of prayer. Offering gifts in these places of worship became necessary. Places of worship developed rapidly. And new methods were established for relieving sins and attaining heaven. The expenditure on these was determined by the status of the person. Society gladly accepted these measures in the hope of attaining heaven after death. These practices flourished for many centuries. The practice of giving donations out of greed or fear, as opposed to voluntary donations, played a major role in reducing people’s faith in religion.

The above two important changes changed the nature of religion. Competition encouraged the disintegration of religion, due to which many branches and sub-branches were established in almost all religions. Religion almost took the form of a business. To increase their business, these establishments are busy increasing their business through advertisements, entry fees, special worship and sale of prasad and other products.

The result of these changes is that today people who have full faith in religion and follow the basic principles of religion are rarely found in society. People visit most religious places either as tourists or to get rid of the burden of their sins by offering gifts.

Religion has gone far away from its basic objective of harmony, goodwill and cooperation in the society, this becomes clear from the fact that despite the increasing crowd in religious places, today incidents of corruption, dishonesty, crime, terrorism and atrocities are seen and heard in large numbers every day.