Through history,
we study the culture of human beings. The journey of the human beings from the forest and caves to the skyscrapers of today is full of enigma, sadness, blood-shed,
gloom, glory and everything. Minutely looking into the growth of society, its
mean of livelihood, climate and society, different religions came into
emergence. Some evolved on with the understanding of man while others offshoot
into new branches. From ancient nature worship to polytheism - monotheism – atheism
– agnostics, religions have traveled a lot; a long journey full of all shades.
As we see the history
we observe a peculiar thing that every religion was entwined in making people
united and this was how religion served as the rule to unite people and thus
politics and religion evolved together. Then religious heads or there beneficiaries
became head of the states and people accepted the king as a representative of
Lord. Then with democracy, liberalism, rationalism and demand for equality between
man and man, transformations took place. Religion now either formed different
sects or reformed the old traditions. Those were our heroes and mentors who
actually gave the momentum to ability of human mind to think without any
adultery and suppression. They propagated that humans should not accept the
situations as they are but they should question, ask and keep on asking until
they are answered.
There might be as many
religions but the essence of every religion is universal brotherhood. From ages
human has questioned his existence, existence of nature as it is. The questions
troubled the mind of every thinker from every creed and religion developed to
ease the mind of human. Religion emerged from the philosophy of living and
understanding of our surroundings and till date religions are changing and molding
as the human understanding is evolving with observation and experience (mental
or physical).
People are always proud
of their heritage and it is something very necessary because through this we contemplate
on the life of our forefathers. When a child is born, she learns about the
culture in which she is brought up. The
culture or religion is not inherent but developed in course of one’s
upbringing. And we love the traditions in which we are brought up, but it does
not mean that we should not appreciate other cultures. Instead we should learn
more about other cultures and such learning should not cultivate the tolerance
but the respect for other cultures. If we study in more exactness we find that
essence remains same from one religion to another though the garb might be
different. As the world is moving on to globalization there is dire need for an
individual to take the interdisciplinary view of life and lead a life that
fulfills his objective as a free thinker to question and seek answers for.
The things that promote
disharmony by digging the ghosts of past mistakes done by someone due to
ignorance, ego, selfishness etc only widen the gap. History is the best teacher
but if we refuse to learn we learn nothing. Whole history pleads for peace so one
should keep the mind open and use history as a torch that helps us to learn
from past actions to make our present better and future hopeful.
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