Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Time for a New Religion

The problem with the grand old religions is that they are, well, old. They were wise and progressive, even revolutionary, for their era. And now they're not.

I was born a Muslim, so let me start there. Islam is based on the life of the prophet Mohammed and the words dictated to him by an angel of Allah. It was a remarkably rational, scientific framework for its time. Problem is, that time was 1300 years ago. It was a radically revolutionary feminist religion. No no, don't scoff, it really was. Women getting equal inheritance was huge at a time when women were trophies at best, but mostly just considered property. Restricting wives to four was a relief to women who were part of enormous harems of tribal lords. This kind of thinking must have (and did) generate a lot of opposition to Mohammed, and to his credit he stuck to his guns (swords, actually). But that was a very different world. A world where a 50 year old man could marry an 8 year old child (Mohammed did). We live in a better world today. Thank God.

I live in India and have married a Hindu (well, a Jain). Now that is truly an ancient religion. Perhaps too ancient? Yes yes, the point of scriptures is that they are timeless, and some are. Some. A small minority. Well, maybe just the Bhagvad Gita. Can we change the rest please? We already have, here and there. No thinking person would justify the caste system, sutti, dowry. But there's too damn many non-thinkers out there.

And we can dissect all major religions and come up with the same critiques. The world has evolved in thought, but religions simply cannot. So here we are, defending our own religions, bickering within and without, going nowhere. No messiah in sight, all we have is our texts. So we read them, discard the embarrassing parts, cherry picking the rituals and beliefs that we like. We can do better.

Look around. There are values that we all believe in. Gender equality. Equality of opportunity. Environmental protection. Peace and nonviolence. Scientific thought.

Now look around again. Does the world we live in reflect these? If like me, you are chuckling morosely, then you disagree. Alright, so how do we go from here to there? Yes you guessed it... A new religion. New texts, new prophets, a few miracles thrown in, some great stories to raise the kids on, and boom! Now we're all on the same page and we're all moving together to create a fantastic world!

And a hundred years down the line, when values evolve, I sure as hell hope someone gracefully discards this religion and comes up with something better

The problem with the grand old religions is that they are, well, old. They were wise and progressive, even revolutionary, for their era. And now they're not.

I was born a Muslim, so let me start there. Islam is based on the life of the prophet Mohammed and the words dictated to him by an angel of Allah. It was a remarkably rational, scientific framework for its time. Problem is, that time was 1300 years ago. It was a radically revolutionary feminist religion. No no, don't scoff, it really was. Women getting equal inheritance was huge at a time when women were trophies at best, but mostly just considered property. Restricting wives to four was a relief to women who were part of enormous harems of tribal lords. This kind of thinking must have (and did) generate a lot of opposition to Mohammed, and to his credit he stuck to his guns (swords, actually). But that was a very different world. A world where a 50 year old man could marry an 8 year old child (Mohammed did). We live in a better world today. Thank God.

I live in India and have married a Hindu (well, a Jain). Now that is truly an ancient religion. Perhaps too ancient? Yes yes, the point of scriptures is that they are timeless, and some are. Some. A small minority. Well, maybe just the Bhagvad Gita. Can we change the rest please? We already have, here and there. No thinking person would justify the caste system, sutti, dowry. But there's too damn many non-thinkers out there.

And we can dissect all major religions and come up with the same critiques. The world has evolved in thought, but religions simply cannot. So here we are, defending our own religions, bickering within and without, going nowhere. No messiah in sight, all we have is our texts. So we read them, discard the embarrassing parts, cherry picking the rituals and beliefs that we like. We can do better.

Look around. There are values that we all believe in. Gender equality. Equality of opportunity. Environmental protection. Peace and nonviolence. Scientific thought.

Now look around again. Does the world we live in reflect these? If like me, you are chuckling morosely, then you disagree. Alright, so how do we go from here to there? Yes you guessed it... A new religion. New texts, new prophets, a few miracles thrown in, some great stories to raise the kids on, and boom! Now we're all on the same page and we're all moving together to create a fantastic world!

And a hundred years down the line, when values evolve, I sure as hell hope someone gracefully discards this religion and comes up with something better

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