The "us" in the title refers solely to The Writing Lab team. We do not know about others, but religious books are definitely a source of confusion for us and for reasons that are glaringly visible to any logical mind. But then again, when it comes to religion, logic takes a backseat, which prompts the religious wars.
The Muslims rever the Quran, The Hindus the Geeta and The Christians the Bible. Each of these religious books have a story to tell and something to preach. There is one common point that each of these books agree on and that is of God being one. And that is where our confusion stems from.
The Quran has the beautiful story of a prophet ready to sacrifice his son following the wishes of God. According to the story, at the precise moment the prophet is about to sacrifice his son, God intervenes, saying it was a test of his loyality and he had passed the test, but since a sacrifice must be made, he should sacrifice a goat instead. That day is celebrated as Eid now, which involves the sacrifice of a goat as a part of celebrations.
On the other hand, The Geeta condemns the killing of any living being, be it man or animal. Now, when God is one, why is He preaching different things to different people? He surely isn't biased, is He? Confusion!
Another instance of our confusion which stems from the written word in The Geeta.
The Geeta says that killing a living being is wrong but the same book says that going to war against your own relatives to defend your rights is justified. Why has God made different rules for different scenarios?
Actually, He hasn't. To understand what religious books are all about, we must first accept the fact that at the end of the day, religious books are like any other books. The Quran, The Geeta, The Bible were not written by God as most of us understand Him. These books were written by ordinary people like us, who chose to pen down their beliefs. They chose to write down whatever their heart told them and in that sense, yes, these books were written by God, because God resides in our heart.
Their written word achieved the religious status because majority of people believed in their beliefs; but at the end of the day, they just wrote books and nothing more than that. You would not be condemned to hell if you eat meat as a Hindu and you would not be punished if you don't sacrifice a goat on the occassion of Eid or don't fast during Ramzan. These are just the beliefs of some ordinary men who came to be respected by a large number of people.
At the end of the day, it is all about your beliefs, about what your heart says is right. If you are happy eating non vegetarian food, God does not give a damn whether you are a Hindu or a Muslim. He just wants to see you happy and that will only happen when you believe in your beliefs. The written word is just there to guide you; it is up to you whether you believe it or not.
It is what you believe in, is what makes your religion. You may believe in "The Secret" written by Rhonda Byrnes or you may believe in some other spiritual writing. It is up to you to form your own beliefs because God has given you the power to choose and decide with the help of a magnificent instrument called the heart.
It may be no surprise if thousand years down the line, "The Secret" achieves the same status as The Bible or The Quran as more and more people start believing in it.
We are not here to demean any religious books; we are here just to pen down our thoughts. It is up to you to believe it or not!
