Last week I had a long chat with one of my friends on the subject of religion and God. This was not the first time we had this discussion and I also know that this subject is a never-ending subject and almost everyone has strong beliefs or opinions about this subject. During this discussion many times my friend said that I was not able to understand what he was trying to tell me. I was surprised by that because we were talking in English (the language which I understand reasonably well) and I understood very well what he was trying to tell me, but I didn't agree with him on some of his points and that's when he repeatedly used this sentence. I think this happens during most of our discussions, whenever someone doesn't agree with what we say we tell them that they are not able to understand our point and that's why they don't agree with us. As if if they really understand our point of view, then they will or must agree with it. It might be true in some of the cases (that they really don't understand and that's why they don't agree) but this may not be the case all the time. Many times (like in this case) the other person may understand totally what we want to say and may still disagree with us. I think this is very normal in most arguments and we don't take it personally when that happens. But if we are arguing or discussing something that we totally believe or are passionate about (like religion or God), then we don't want to accept the fact that our core beliefs can be wrong (as another person is opposing it or arguing about them) or people might have some alternatives to these beliefs (their own beliefs which are totally different than ours).
This made me think about the topic of today's post, why do we always think that if people don't agree with us they don't understand us and they don't know about that subject as much as we know? Why can't we live with the fact that we all have different personalities with different thinking patterns and are bound to have totally different views about the same issues? It's always good to share our views with others and discuss them or debate about them, it helps us to update our knowledge and improve our thinking process, improves our communication skills. Discussions and arguments are very essential part of our life and very necessary for our intellectual growth, but why can't we agree that we can have some disagreement and that's totally fine? I guess the root cause of this problem lies in our traditions or the way in which organized religion is preached. If you read most of the popular scriptures they have their own style of preaching and most of them want their followers to believe that all people who don't follow that particular religion are living the life of ignorant or fool. Nonfollowers are often considered as people walking on the wrong path, who fail to understand what is 'real' or 'ultimate truth' which that book claims to reveal to us. The same mentality makes us believe that people who don't agree with us don't understand what we want to say.
I discuss with many people various subjects ranging from science, politics, and religion. My aim is to share my views and get to know others' views, I started this blog with the same intention. This helps me to improve my own knowledge. I don't want everyone to follow what I say or believe, that's not the purpose of my discussions or blog posts. I just want to share my thoughts. Many times during our discussions I and the other person involved in the discussion agree that we both are right and there can be more than one way to solve the same problem. But this rarely happens when the subject of discussion is related to religion or God simply because we are never taught in those books that there can be any alternate way to whatever that book wants to teach us. I think still human race has not evolved to such a level where we all understand that it's foolish to kill others over religious differences. I agree that it never happens as frequently as it used to happen in the past but still, religious intolerance is one of the major problems and reason for riots and hatred in many societies and cultures.
So how to solve this problem or is there any solution for this? Of course, those books are not going to offer any solution even though they all try to teach us kindness, truthfulness, and love because they never teach us that there can be more than one way to reach the same destination. So, even after learning about love, kindness, tolerance, patience, and many good things from those books people are ready to kill others just because they don't agree with some of the things mentioned in that book or they follow some other book. It is true that in general people are tolerant towards each other and that's the reason our species still exists on this planet otherwise we have enough power and weapons to destroy this whole planet because of any disagreement. In business no company can say or accept that another company's product is better than theirs, are we doing the same thing in the case of religion? For me best possible way to solve this problem is to accept the fact that there is bound to be some disagreement on whatever opinions or beliefs we have and that's totally fine. If another person understands my point of view then it doesn't matter to me whether he/she agrees to it or not. I can explain to him/her my point of view until he/she understands it and after that, it's totally up to that person to decide whether he/she wants to agree with me or not. Discussions and debates are not battles or wars where one party has to win and the other should lose. Why can't it be like a duet song, where both say their part and express their feelings and end it with some or no conclusion. Let's stop fighting wars and start singing duets.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)
I discuss with many people various subjects ranging from science, politics, and religion. My aim is to share my views and get to know others' views, I started this blog with the same intention. This helps me to improve my own knowledge. I don't want everyone to follow what I say or believe, that's not the purpose of my discussions or blog posts. I just want to share my thoughts. Many times during our discussions I and the other person involved in the discussion agree that we both are right and there can be more than one way to solve the same problem. But this rarely happens when the subject of discussion is related to religion or God simply because we are never taught in those books that there can be any alternate way to whatever that book wants to teach us. I think still human race has not evolved to such a level where we all understand that it's foolish to kill others over religious differences. I agree that it never happens as frequently as it used to happen in the past but still, religious intolerance is one of the major problems and reason for riots and hatred in many societies and cultures.
So how to solve this problem or is there any solution for this? Of course, those books are not going to offer any solution even though they all try to teach us kindness, truthfulness, and love because they never teach us that there can be more than one way to reach the same destination. So, even after learning about love, kindness, tolerance, patience, and many good things from those books people are ready to kill others just because they don't agree with some of the things mentioned in that book or they follow some other book. It is true that in general people are tolerant towards each other and that's the reason our species still exists on this planet otherwise we have enough power and weapons to destroy this whole planet because of any disagreement. In business no company can say or accept that another company's product is better than theirs, are we doing the same thing in the case of religion? For me best possible way to solve this problem is to accept the fact that there is bound to be some disagreement on whatever opinions or beliefs we have and that's totally fine. If another person understands my point of view then it doesn't matter to me whether he/she agrees to it or not. I can explain to him/her my point of view until he/she understands it and after that, it's totally up to that person to decide whether he/she wants to agree with me or not. Discussions and debates are not battles or wars where one party has to win and the other should lose. Why can't it be like a duet song, where both say their part and express their feelings and end it with some or no conclusion. Let's stop fighting wars and start singing duets.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)
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