Imagine theres no Religion

"Imagine theres no religion,
it's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."
Ok those were just a few lines made famous by John Lennon ( yes the sober Beatles guy) in his song 'Imagine'. Now while we have that on one side, on the other we have people screaming Holy war, jihad, crusades, Holocaust, blah, blah, blah. So that led me thinking, why can’t we just have something in between.

Well talking about Lennon's lyrics I wonder if those were the great words of a realist who could see beyond time and pictured the perfect united world minus the religious controversies or was is just the words of an atheist trying to justify his decision. Growing up in a so called 'secular' country I've seen people of different religions living together in harmony and I've also heard of religious riots break out within the country. Now I've personally witnessed many a 'dialogues' that had every potential to erupt a small scale holy war. For instance take the words of the little boy teasing his Muslim classmate by saying 'hey Paki, are all your leaders terrorists?' or the jokes cracked on the ‘animal like Hindu gods’ , people swearing at the good catholic girl because some priest of ‘her kind’ was found to be a gay paedophile. Not to forget the innumerable ‘turbaned’ Sardar jokes.

Then I would also like to mention the evening talks between college students on whose religion and whose sect was right and whose was the most comical and absurd of the lot. No, this is not something restricted to the religious passionate ones, for even the atheistic Hindu, agnostic Muslim, the unbelieving Christian and the confused Buddhist does not stay away from these adrenaline pumped discussions.

The question is what makes people fight over religion when most religions preach love, brotherhood and compassion? Could it be because the same religions mildly say ‘defend your faith’? Now are we using this ‘defense’ as an excuse to fight or are we just using faith and religion as an excuse to lease the animal inside us. Yes I agree basically we are all animals, but then religion is a product of civilization right, so are we contradicting our ancestors and ourselves?

This ‘fighting to defend’ saga reminds me of the respected martial art, karate. Any idiot knows that karate is supposed to be a technique of defense and not attack, but then there’s no denying that 99% of those seeking to learn karate do it so that they can kick some ass!

Now lets think in Lennon’s frequency and try to picture a ‘religionless world’. I see an end to ‘swearing for god’, along with which I see emptiness, selfishness and an abrupt ending to everything around. We do have good people around, but there’s no denying that most of the ‘goodness’ and ‘selflessness’ comes from a belief of a life after death.

Yes every good deed is seen as an investment to the life to come, every sacrifice a bonus, every charitable contribution an insurance, every forgiving act as a compensation for our own mistakes. All these we do in the hope that the one above, the power, spirit, leader, father, judge, creator is watching and playing the role as the fair referee. Most charitable foundations and peacekeeping institutions do it in the name of god.

So what if suddenly we were to believe there was nothing of the sort and no judgment to come. I fear to think what would to happen to all the good Samaritans, would they think ‘I need to do my job immaterial of whether it’s going to be rewarded so that in the end I can say to my conscience that I lived a good life, or will it be ‘screw all, a bum or a saint is treated the same and rots to dust in the end, so might as well have a good time’. Well even theoretically I can’t imagine what would be the case.

Is that what our ancestors were doing when they created all those religions? Was it so that we would have a reason to believe in something beyond all this, a special friend we count on at all times, something to hold on too when the going seems tough and future looks bleak. If so it disgusts me to see how we have altered their plan to feed our blood thirsty appetites.