Need For Religion

Faith, Values, Duties, Beliefs, Morals and many such words, I needed to write on a scratch pad when I thought of penning this article. I am often required to set up this argument against many people of generation Z, with whom I interact on day-to-day basis. Incidentally new innovative thoughts come out, every time I churn this thought around. I have met many people particularly of young age who are against any kind of visits to temples, churches or mosques. Many surveys conducted amongst youth of our country have given erratic results regarding whether the people of this country are becoming atheist, or they are getting bent towards a traditional system of religious belief. The results are erratic probably because a large materialistic chunk of today understands the religion of convenience the most. 

While writing this piece of article, I was reminded of a story I heard in my childhood. A Hindu priest and a professional killer had an opportunity to stay in an inn, while they were returning from a village after performing their respective duties. When the priest came to know about this killer, he was really horrified and wanted to leave right away. The killer explained him that he would be much safer in the inn, rather than moving in the jungle during the night. Later they both had a discussion regarding the religion, duties and morals. The killer had better logical skills to prove to this priest that he is also a duty bound professional similar to the priest. He also raised the point of comparing the fear of astrological position of constellations that the priest uses to get business from his client versus the fear of knife. Actually, I had a perception of religion, which related it to a system of providing security from different kinds of fears. While explaining to my students or my friends, I used to explain this purpose of Religion. The same has been comically told in the most popular movie of our times “PK”. This perception prevailed till I read an article by a person who is very much there in my list of most admired personalities of history. He is none other than Professor Albert Einstein. In 1930 he wrote an article titled “Religion and Science”. As per this article, the first reason why the religion evolved was definitely the “need for security”. Later he explains that religion evolved itself to set morals and values. This evolution he terms as one of biggest evolutions of the civilized world. 

The third type he explains in a bit more detail is regarding a “Cosmic Religious Feeling”. With this third explanation he also quotes examples of some saints, prophets and writers who talked about cosmic religious feelings. He also talks about Buddhism, where religious beliefs are based on cosmic energies. Then he relates science and art as a technique to communicate this cosmic religious feeling from people to people. After reading Einstein’s article I could understand the need for religion as serving three purposes; providing security against fears, providing a system of values and principles for social co-existence and the third one is to attend to the power pumped into us by some cosmic energies. This third one we all sense as our creative skills, which we all have and without which we would be a dumb society. Now there is enough scope for this argument to continue in various ways, like whether it is right to worship imaginary idols or real messengers of God, but I hope I have given enough food for thought for “Generation Z”. Readers, who are interested in reading the original article, may search Google with the text “Religion and Science Albert Einstein 1930” 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg