Excuse me! Let’s Drop Religion for a moment.

Religion has caused more deaths than anything on earth. Religion has been used as a tool to separate earth’s citizens into differing groups. History shows us how it has been used as a means to fatten certain pockets and how it permanently places particular persons in perpetual poverty. The advent of religion weakened some individual’s ability to reason.

May I indulge the reader to, for some seconds, imagine a world without religion? Allow your mind to wander the world freely. How is that world?

            A world without religion would be filled with individuals who employ their senses when handling daily challenges they might encounter. Experiences of daily existence would be enough to inject a collective common sense. History would serve, in this world, as books the next generation can study for future progress.

            Excuse me, let’s put Immanuel Kant’s proposition of enlightenment with microscopic eyes. He argues, “Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another.”

            “Without the guidance of another” comes to the forefront here. How would humans behave if they did not cling onto the thinking of another man to define their own existence? The man would, obviously, be very logical. He would have, by intuition, found the difference “wrongness” and “rightness”. Dogmas and formulas; maxims and laws would be garnered from everyday living. Maturity and hard working spirit would be formed as a result of man trying to reason for himself.

            Inner spirituality would be enflamed if the world were not plagued by institutionalised religion. Spirituality is what gives meaning to everything else in one’s life. It is concerned with form or concerned with the intellect and deals with that aspect of life that gives purpose, meaning and direction. People confuse spirituality with religion, but spirituality is more than a religious belief. Spirituality is a larger concept that deals with meaning, purpose and direction in life. Religion is an offshoot of spirituality.

Without institutionalised religion, peace would have meaning. There would be apparently no need to entice a group of persons with that useless carrot—seven virgins waiting in heaven; therefore, no bombings, maiming, lynching and other avalanches of degrading acts. In addition, there would absolutely be no need for certain individuals to throw their hard earned money on individuals who claim they have the power to give internal and eternal peace.

            Religion: don’t argue. Believe! This restricts freedom, which creates a systematic capturing of the mind, and promotes fear to express inner thoughts. Blindly and majestically, followers swim in religious ignorance. Drowning. The public use of man’s reason must always be free, Kant argues. How free can one allow his mind to wander?

            Back to our world without religion; let’s reimagine what would happen to the lives of individuals when they don’t have to connect to God in “holy” edifices. Spaces to build more schools, hospitals and industries would become available.

Freedom exists in this kind of world and ideas are abound which allows individuals work on dreams without the fear of being judged. From birth, these individuals would have been filled with freedom and the ability to reason accurately. The air, the birds, the flowers add to the colours of their mind. There is no bad or good. Smiling, loving, and bold people dot this existence.    

   

            There is a God. God gave us the right type of faculties to figure him out. Every human has the same capability to reason out his own higher being. Religion thwarted that.

 Excuse me, lets drop religion just for a moment and use the brain. If religion was so great, why has it created so many wars? Religion is a man-made poison that only appreciates the external. The man who dresses well is blessed while the man who wears rags is cursed. There is a certain inequality promoted here. The woman who sells her body for sex is evil but the man who sleeps with girls secretly and preaches the “holy” word is respected.

It is lazy, faithless, inconstant, self-seeking followers who are in regular need of prophets to keep them on the straight and narrow road, to remind them of their role on earth and to recall them to the call they no longer heed. That “constant reminder” is what makes humans cling unto individuals, hold them as gods and forget the real God. Another enlightenment is needed.

            Just for a moment, drop that shield of man-made constructs and reason things out for yourself.

All religious leaders fall under this summary: “They pile heavy burdens on people’s shoulders and won’t lift a finger to help. Everything they do is just to show off in front of others. They even make a big show of wearing scripture verses on their foreheads and arms, and they wear big tassels for everyone to see. They love the best seats at banquets and the front seats in the meeting places. And when they are in the market, they like to have people greet them as their teachers.” Woe to you who restrain your brain from thinking, you who allow humans to tell you how to think; for this man or woman might lead you to hell.