Gods and their books

While reading many scriptures or holy books like the Bhagavad Gita, Qur'an, Bible, Ramayan, etc., I always wonder why these books are considered or called holy or sacred? Most of these books claim to dictate the message of some particular God, which is also supposed to be the creator of our universe (Allah in the case of the Qur'an, Krishna in the case of Bhagavad Gita, some other God in the case of Bible and so on). Surprisingly, all these books are not written by the God whose message they claim to deliver. I wonder why these gods didn't bother to write these books themselves if that message was so important and necessary for the human species that these books claim they created. After all, if you can create a complex living being like humans and the whole universe around them how much effort it takes to create a book, just like a product manual along with the product. So, several messengers ultimately delivered this divine message. Another wrinkle is that these books were not written by the messengers who delivered the message so that at least they can verify the content and attest it as a true copy, rather most of them came into print after many years of the reported divine incident of message delivery. These books claim to deliver an "absolute knowledge" for mankind. In today's world, most of these books are the property of some organized religion or other and they are used as manuals for framing rules and regulations (dos and don'ts) for that particular religion. Anything mentioned in those books becomes sacred or divine for its followers and anyone challenging them is labeled as evil or atheist.

As such just as literature, all these books about which I am talking are good to read. They are quite entertaining and full of some nice stories. They try to teach many good things via these stories. The only problem is they are written in some ancient languages that are either no longer in use or are spoken in very few regions of the world but the good part is there are many reliable translations easily available and one can read them in their own language. Most of them are reasonably priced (or even sometimes free) and easily available. I read many of them and they make a decent read if one reads them just as a literary book. They teach some very good things as most of the books that we read do and also help us to understand religions that follow these books. But things are totally different when religions or organizations appropriate these books and form societies based on them. They make their own concept of super almighty God which is supposed to be the ruler of this world. They have their own rules about many things like marriage, the role of women in society, how to pray, whom to pray, what to pray, what to eat, what to wear, etc. These rules are preached as a new way of life in the beginning and once they gather enough strength and power and become dominant then these rules are forced on people in the name of religion (God and its commands) and people who don't follow them or challenge them are considered as outliers and face discrimination and many other problems, even a death sentence.

So, people need to ask themselves, why do they give so much importance to these books? After all, these are just books like many other books written by various authors who wanted to share their knowledge and wisdom. Any single book can not contain everything humans are required to know. A single book can not teach everything required to live our lives as every human is different and they can have different needs. I agree that they can be useful in some subject areas like philosophy, religion, or history but there is a huge amount of knowledge outside the scope of these books which is equally important and equally relevant. Actually, the source of knowledge or information doesn't matter much but its relevance and contents do matter a lot. It doesn't matter who said it but it matters what was said and how relevant it is. Verifiable and relevant information is useful no matter from where it comes and unverifiable, outdated, or wrong concepts are useless no matter from which book or which person they come, it's as simple as that. I hope that people will understand this simple fact and at least stop fighting based on what is written in some books and what is not. Humans are much more than just a book. No single book can define us or guide us. We must learn to respect each other first then only any book can teach us anything. As long as we lack some of these basic decent qualities like love and respect for each other no matter which book we read or follow it's not going to make us better people.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)

How Authentic Are the Scriptures?

Many people ask this question, and there are various theories and opinions about this topic. All scriptures are very old books, some going back thousands of years; we don't even know when they were compiled for the first time. I think it's a waste of time to argue about their authenticity; we don't have enough data about it. I think whatever scriptures we have are very useful and are full of knowledge and lessons about life (the Bible, Qur'an, Guru Granth Sahib, the Gita, the Upanishads, and many more). They cover almost every aspect of life, and discussions in them cover topics about most of the problems we face in day-to-day life, and also offer possible solutions. Most of the time, the messages in these scriptures are delivered through many stories with a lot of interesting characters and themes. It's very easy to deliver a complicated message via an interesting story; people understand it in a much better way and also remember the message because of that story. Our ancestors realized it, and that's why most of these books contain a lot of interesting stories. We still use this technique of storytelling to teach our kids; we tell them a lot of bedtime stories that have some lesson embedded in them, the same way these scriptures try to convey their message to us.

People debate whether the incidents mentioned in the scriptures really happened or not. Is this debate going to make their content better or worse? These books are the source of knowledge, and if we don’t want to take any lessons from them, then it's better to just ignore them. These things (scriptures from all religions) are gifts to us from our ancestors, and we must value them. One can definitely raise questions and argue about the theories and philosophies mentioned in them. It's necessary to validate and test any information we receive; we should not believe anything blindly. This process of analysis will surely help us to realize how wonderful these texts are; they teach us so much, but only if we are willing to learn. Mostly, these scriptures are concerned with spiritual knowledge; some of them do talk about many scientific things but mostly they are about spirituality and the meaning or aim of human life. If someone is not interested in things discussed in these books, they are useless for them, and it's a simple fact to understand for both those who believe in them as well as those who don't believe. It’s as if you are not interested in movies or engineering or chemistry, then anything related to that subject will not appeal to you, or rather will sound very boring and complicated, and it’s quite natural to feel like this, nothing wrong in it.

All these books have been there for centuries, and there are also different versions of them. As these books are very old, there are some doubts about the authenticity of their contents, and many of these questions are reasonable. There are also many theories about who wrote these books, whether the original contents were modified or not, and if modified, then to what extent. I think all these questions are interesting from a historical perspective and archeological research; there is a lot of research done in this area. The results of that research are very interesting and are published in various journals and books. Naturally, not all devotees agree with these findings, as it hurts their feelings, and also many think that, as these books are sacred, they should not be criticized or analyzed. I personally think they should not be disturbed by these findings because they do not reduce the importance or significance of these books. We should study them, and if possible, also (many people did that in the past, but for some reason, this process was discontinued). Because of the sacred status of these books, it's almost impossible to challenge anything written in them or edit anything (even if it's outdated or wrong). All these books were written in certain eras, and many things written in them were according to that era and socioeconomic conditions. When people or devotees insist on following everything in these books as it is, it creates problems, as some of the things are not relevant in today's world. If people who claim these books as their property (by associating them with a particular religion or sect) want to preserve the good messages and teachings mentioned in these books, then they need to show some flexibility and broad-mindedness. Knowledge is not stationary; it's always evolving, and every day new information is generated; it's a continuous process.

Many people also argue about whether Ramayan, Mahabharat, or people like Ram, Krishna really happened.  Devotees who believe in God reject these doubts altogether and want to stick to their beliefs. This is expected from devotees. In this process of argument, both sides miss the actual benefit that one can get from these books. One side considers these characters and books as sacred and worships them blindly without trying to understand the true meaning of their messages, and the other side rejects them just because of some technical gaps. Arguments like whether Jesus was God or not, or whether Krishna was real or not, are endless; it’s not these people who are important, but their teachings are. If you don’t agree with their teachings, then they don’t exist for you; it’s as simple as that. For me personally, the question of their authenticity doesn't matter; I don't worry about it. I consider these books and these people as sources of knowledge and useful information. I read all these books like many other books I read. I don't associate any of these books with any particular religion; for me, they are all the same. I take from them whatever I feel is relevant to my situation or whatever appeals to me and leave the rest. If I find anything in them that sounds somewhat wrong, I don't hesitate to raise a question about it or even criticize it. I share my beliefs and whatever I understand from these books, and people who hear or read them are free to agree or disagree with them. I have my opinions and beliefs (and they can change over time), and people can have theirs; there is nothing wrong with it. The problem is not with anyone's beliefs but when they become really aggressive about their beliefs (almost dictatorial) and start projecting them as 'facts' and are not willing to listen other side of the story. I think that our society has evolved enough to understand that there can be more than one truth, more than one way to reach the same destination, and also realize that many religions and beliefs can coexist peacefully.

Thanks for reading, and your comments are always welcome.

Reference:

1. Interesting read for some information about the Bhagavad Gita and historical facts about it, http://www.vvshirvaikar.de/Dnyaneshwari/PROLOGUE.html 

2. http://www.biblica.com/bibles/faq/3/

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quran

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)