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 (Bible, Qur'an, Guru Granth Sahib, Gita, Upanishads, and many more). They cover almost each and every aspect of life, 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 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 like 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 good messages and teachings mentioned in these books then they need to show some flexibility and broadmindedness. 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 happen?  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 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 it are free to agree or disagree with it. 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 together peacefully.

Thanks for reading and your comments are always welcome.

Reference:

1. Interesting read for some information about 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 at vvt1974@gmail.com)

Are you kidding Dr. Zakir Naik?

A few weeks back while surfing on the net, I came across a few YouTube videos of Dr. Zakir Naik's seminars and Q&A sessions. I heard him long ago when I was in India on cable TV and was impressed by his sharp memory, but not with the content of his talks. Surprisingly, even after almost a decade his style and content are still the same. During his seminars, he continuously throws verse numbers, page numbers, book names, and many other details for whatever he quotes from ancient scriptures of the major religions of the world. He became a very popular and influential figure among Indian Muslims and even started his own channel to propagate his views. He claims to do a comparative religious study, which according to him is to compare every other religion with Islam and try to prove how Islam is the best. His style sounds very impressive in the beginning, you get impressed by his memory, but then he overdoes this thing so much that after some time his speech becomes irritating, monotonous, and utterly boring with so many page numbers and verse numbers. All you remember from his speech is 'this guy has a sharp memory' and nothing else. His speeches are rich in quotes, and literature citations (bibliography) but mostly poor in content. If one wants to know who wrote what, and which particular lines are from which book, then his speeches may be a good source of this information, but now one can find all these things easily online so why tolerate this torture? He does a good job in translating verses but many times his justifications, comparisons, and interpretations are biased and totally without any logic. One thing that I don't like is when he tries to intimidate questioners, especially from other faiths by ridiculing their beliefs and questioning their knowledge about their own faith by throwing a lot of bibliographic information and verses. He tries to prove his superiority over them by throwing memorized material at them. It seems he draws a lot of pleasure in scoring brownie points against such individuals and feels satisfaction in humiliating them. He doesn't even try to listen to their point of view, his only intention seems to force his opinion down to their throat. 

This post is not about Islam or the Qur'an, their mention is only in context with Zakir Naik's particular talk which I want to discuss. Recently I heard part of his speech where he tried to justify why polygamy is allowed in Islam (ref. 1).  One should watch that video to see how pathetic was his attempt to justify something that is totally outdated in today's world. According to him, it seems that whatever is written in the Qur'an is law and then he takes the task of justifying it. No doubt, the Qur'an is a very well-respected book among many. It's the basis of one of the popular religions of the modern world. According to me, polygamy was allowed in Islam because the social and political situation at that time resulted in a huge difference in male to female ratio (heavily in favor of females) and to maintain social balance polygamy was permitted. All religious scriptures were written in a certain era, they all have many things that are still relevant today and people can them for their own benefit. However, at the same time, we should also understand that most of them have many things that are outdated now and are not relevant in today's world. It's surprising to see that many people expect us to take these scriptures verbatim, and follow each and everything mentioned in them. 

He justifies the practice of polygamy first by citing the verse from the Qur'an which says 'marry women of your choice in 2s, 3s or 4s but if you can't do justice then marry only once' (ref. 1). He also claims that only Qur'an tells person (male) to marry once (if possible) rest all scriptures from other religions doesn't say anything like this about marriage (that is, marry once, if possible!!) and it seems other religions allow as many marriages as man wants. Note that no religion is giving females the same option. He further claims that even though at birth male to male-to-female ratio is equal, it seems female infant is stronger than male, and because of this, there are more deaths of male child compared to female child. I don't know on what basis he draws this conclusion. So, according to him, among children also male to female ratio is in favor of females (which is not true, check the table below and in ref. 2). The Female survival rate is higher for so many reasons, males die in larger numbers compared to females (alcohol, accidents, war, stress, etc.). However, if we look at the table still ratio is still in favor of males in most countries for the age group 15-65, it shifts heavily in favor of females only after age 65. Then he further claims that due to all this, there are more females in the world compared to males except in a few third-world countries like India. He does a good job in criticizing female feticide and infanticide in India which affected this ratio, good to see that he speaks against it. Then he continues his argument and puts one hypothetical scenario where because of more females than men, for example in the USA, if all males select their female partners then there will be still some females left without any male partners. Here, he conveniently ignores gay and lesbian people. Now, these poor females are without any bachelor males, as all males are already engaged. It seems now they have only two options, one is to marry with already married male, become a second wife, or become a 'Public Property'. I don't know what he means by 'public property'. Also, notice how he puts the woman questioner in an awkward position and tries to force her to accept his logic, even if he wants to justify polygamy I think he can do a better job than this.

Now let's see whether his argument contains any truth or it's all crap. If you look at the list of countries by sex ratio (ref. 2), it's very clear that in most of the countries, the male-to-female ratio is greater than 1 for most age groups (that is more males compared to females) except for the group above age 65, in this age group (65 and above) in most countries females are in much larger number compared to males. We all know that the mortality rate is higher in males compared to females in later stages of life (after 65) due to various reasons. A lot of research has been already done in this area and there is a lot of literature available about this for anyone who is interested in the reasons behind it. So, this argument of Dr. Naik about being more females per male in the world and especially in developed countries doesn't stand, rather, it's a totally opposite scenario (at least in the 15-64 age group).  Even if we take the example of some Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE we can see in all age groups (except the age group above 65) M/F ratio is greater than 1 (in UAE it's 2.74 for the age group of 15-64). Let's have a look at data for some selected countries from ref. 2. 

 

Country/region	at birth (CIA estimate)	under 15	15–64	over 65	total	at birth WDB estimate)
Afghanistan	1.05	1.05	1.05	0.92	1.05	1.06
Brazil	1.05	1.04	0.98	0.73	0.98	1.05
Canada	1.056	1.05	1.02	0.78	0.98	1.05
India	1.12	1.13	1.07	0.9	1.08	1.08
Iran	1.05	1.05	1.02	0.92	1.02	1.05
Pakistan	1.10	1.06	1.05	0.88	1.09	1.05
Saudi Arabia	1.05	1.04	1.29	1.06	1.18	1.03
United States	1.05	1.04	1.00	0.75	0.97	1.05
UAE	1.05	1.05	2.74	1.82	2.19	1.05
UK	1.05	1.05	1.03	0.76	0.98	1.05

Now after looking at this table who has the possibility of becoming 'public property' by his logic, male or female? And based on this logic will he support polyandry (one female marrying more than one male) to maintain social harmony? I don't understand what is his aim behind misguiding people like this? Why he is doing this? If he wants to preach Islam or spread the teachings of the Qur'an, there is nothing wrong with it, but why tp insult other religions or scriptures? What does he want to achieve by doing that? He claims to study comparative religion, but all he does is insult religions other than Islam. Many others also do similar things, they compare their own beliefs with others to show how theirs is the best, and Dr. Naik is also one of them. I don't know why people like him believe that they have to prove all others wrong to show that they are right. He is using all his talent or knowledge for the wrong purpose, the sooner he understands this is better for him. Millions of Muslims follow him, and he can use his influence to do something better rather than trying to insult people from other faiths who attend his gatherings.

A lot of research has been done in the area of anthropology and social science. Many marriage systems, like polygamy, polyandry, group marriage, monogamy, etc., have been studied and researched. Based on all this research it is clear that with experience our society evolved from polygamy to monogamy (one spouse at any one time). Scriptures or books have nothing to do with that. In the modern world, most countries have laws related to marriage, they don't try to follow any religious book for family law. Everything in our lives can not be controlled by any single religious book. Scriptures can be a valuable source of information for their followers but they should not dictate what we should do in our bedrooms, or what we should eat or wear, common sense is enough for this. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views.

References:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQaPBU5ppsk

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio 

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio

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