Religion

The disappointment I got from the religion I have adhered since I was a little kid -- due to the unfair treatment towards women and got the 'answer' from the feminism ideology -- easily made me feel 'awakened' when I came to read articles quoting anthropologists' statement that religion was a mere creation of human beings.

(Have you heard what African American said in the nineteenth century? "We were of opinion that Adam was the first white man in the world. He brought injustice to the Black people." You can relate this statement tot the fact when the White enslaved the Black for centuries in America. Worse still (for Muslim people especially) one lecturer of mine said that the Arab people (in which we can find those people who feel that they are the chosen ones since the three celestial religions were passed down in their areas) were the ones who brought the slavery to American continent. I believe Muslim people still remember the story of Bilal -- the first slave who converted to Islam. It shows that Arab countries had practiced slavery many centuries earlier before America -- the so-called country that always supports equality among human beings -- did this really inhumane act.)

Anthropologists also stated that Adam was NOT the first human being in this world.
I believe that human beings have two contradictory characters in them -- good and evil. What will make a person good or evil depends on whether he or she is able to control those two sides; whether they will listen to their intuition to be good people or their greed to be evil.

Some super genius people realized this and they wanted to 'help' maintain the peace in the world by creating the so-called religion complete with the teachings, including the belief in heaven and hell. The teachings brainwashed people's mind that they will go to heaven if they do good to others meanwhile they don't forget to worship the Almighty. Contradictorily, if they do bad things -- let us say creating bad impacts toward society -- plus keep forgetting to worship God, these people will go to hell. Heaven is portrayed as a place where all comforts exist while hell is on the way around. This makes people -- who are easily brainwashed -- so scared if they will go to hell.

One teaching in Islam (I don't know other religions' teachings, so as one example I took one teaching in Islam, the religion I have adhered since I was a little kid, and I still choose to adhere after I baptized myself as a secular, since if you live in Indonesia, it is a must to adhere one religion to be printed in your identity card LOL) is about praying five times a day. Surah Al-ankabuut verse 45 stated "praying five times a day will prevent human beings from doing evil things." This verse made Muslim people brainwashed that the avoid doing evil things, they NEED to pray five times a day. In another word we can say that they are not really confident that they will not do harmful things to others if they do not pray five times a day regularly. They do not believe in themselves that they will not do evil thing if they do not rely on one teaching in the religion -- PRAY. And they are also brainwashed that those who do not pray five times a day regularly have lower rank because they are believed to be prone to do evil. In other words it can be stated that human beings are not trusted that they can use their common sense and have high self control to do good or bad without applying what is stated in that verse. In Arabic, this is called 'hablum minannas' -- relation among human beings.

In 'hablum minallah' -- relation between human beings and the Almighty -- who needs to pray or to be worshiped? Many Muslim people think that the Almighty created human beings to worship the Almighty. It means that the Almighty is believed to be angry when people in the world do not worship the Almighty. Those people forget that in this case they have humanized the Almighty!!! The Almighty will get offended if human beings do not pray to the Almighty and will ask those people who do not pray to move out of the earth and other planets in the Milky Way.

Surah Al-ankabuut verse 45 is closely related to Surah Al-maa'uun verses 1-7. This can be translated as "those who pray five times a day will be doomed if they do it only for show off, and they are reluctant to help others." It is clearly seen that the Almighty has given more emphasis to 'hablum minannas' than to 'hablum minallah'.

However, we can find more people thinking that this teaching --praying five times a day -- is more to 'hablum minallah', more people do this only because they are scared to be put into hell. And also more people believe that they are the chosen ones because they pray five times a day while they still do evil thing to others. It is because they are brainwashed that their praying five times a day will 'erase' their so-called misdemeanour.

Going back to the main topic of this post. Those super genius people who created religions to help maintain the peace in the world were just creatures who could not always predict what would happen in the future. Many people who learn their Holy Books without trying to find relations among the verses to come to a thorough understanding -- that must control people's negative side and maintain the peace among human beings -- even come to an interpretation that ruin the peace. They believe that their religion is the rightest -- so that they feel that they are the chosen ones -- and they have rights to diminish other people.

Can we control our negative side in ourselves by relying on our common sense without those so-called holy verses who were just created by human beings?

-- Nana Podungge, the secular --
PBIS 11.30 02.02.2010