Let sanity prevail over curbs of religion

Today, our routine life is detached from what we conceive to be religion. Our engagement with religion is, mostly, formal, ritualistic and ceremonial. This is not surprising for two reasons. Firstly, our earliest and fondest relationships with religion are weaved through formalities like visiting places of worship with grown-ups, recitation of precepts, saying prayers, listening to narratives and sermons, meeting one’s peers, neighbours and relations, and, of course, excited preparations for celebrating special religious events such as Vesak, Christmas, Diwali, Ramadan and many others of varying solemnity.

Secondly, young children in their formative years, with their unripe cognitive faculties, are ill-equipped to critically understand the ethics and the teachings about their religion’s ‘transcendental’ content, so that such complicated concepts are essentially acquired like the first language with no critical engagement.

In a sense, both the first language and the (first) religion serve the child to ‘perceive’ and ‘interpret’ the world, and both leave a permanent mark on him. However, there is a difference. The acquisition of a language is a primary requirement of the child’s socialisation process, but this is not so with regard to the acquisition of religion. A child can do without much of it – namely, the ‘transcendental’ content, which includes non-negotiable claims about the ‘beginning and end’ of the world, and an ‘existence beyond death’, as pronounced in the scriptures of the respective religion. As we know, religions don’t have convergence of opinion on such ‘metaphysical’ issues. Therefore, as the child grows up gaining sharper cognitive skills, he/she reconciles with the idea that religion is a unique variety of ‘knowledge’, which you may interrogate at your own peril, and you have a right to be offended, if questioned by somebody else. This perception is reinforced as years pass, because you realise it to be the order of the day. When you, as an adult, come to know of other religious ‘interpretations’, which are incompatible with yours, you tell yourself that it’s not your business.

This mutually arranged ‘studied disinterest’ about the other’s opinion occasionally makes you feel awkward. What is worse, history has proved it to be a brittle contract. However, all this unnecessary embarrassment can automatically be corrected, if the part of religion that the child is exposed to during one’s early childhood is limited to moral instruction. Everyone who considers ‘morality’ to be the essence or the distilled wisdom of every religion, can easily agree with this proposition. However, unfortunately, the way the acquisition of religion is made to take place in all societies and cultures, the “moral content” is invariably knit with the ‘transcendental content’.

This is unfortunate because the ‘moral content’ of almost all religions is, by and large, similar; whereas the ‘transcendental content’, which no child can comprehend, is different from religion to religion. In other words, almost all religions have an invaluable moral kernel, which applies to all humans irrespective of all their ‘differences’, but our traditions have made it impossible for children to get it without the draping; which gives them an artificial, and, more worryingly, a harmful sense of aloofness.

If religion is a means to an end, and if that end is to help the individual to live a fruitful life contributing to the wellbeing of all, then most certainly, it is best if it be rid of all divisive elements that militate against the very purpose it is intended to serve. This is easier said than done for a few reasons.

Firstly, in a sense, we are all ‘prisoners’ of our culture, tradition, and even language. As we know, engineering, medicine or technology thrives on change because each is in a constant struggle to better itself in terms of ease, grace and efficacy. Incidentally, this is not so with language, religion, customs, traditions, social, political or economic systems, for different reasons. For example, words, spelling, grammar or the gender bias in language cannot be wished away to improve it in terms of ease, grace or efficacy. Likewise, various forms of irregularities or injustices entrenched in social, political and economic systems can perpetuate for centuries with little change. Religion is no exception, because it shares with the others mentioned above an essential element of an acquired inflexibility.

Secondly, and regrettably, many people cannot think of morals without them being couched in their familiar religious formulae, and framed in their ‘esoteric’ formalities. In fact, as we know, all religions concur on promoting goodwill and discouraging all evil. However, as we can expect, they have been codified in specific cultural and historical contexts, and thus appear ‘alien’ to those who are not exposed to them in childhood. Unfortunately, this sense of ‘otherness’ grows as we grow and, as adults, we readily let the unalterable wrappings create divisions, ignoring the similarity of the message. This is plain irony, because religion is supposed to make us broadminded rather than intolerant. As mentioned earlier, premature indoctrination makes the child develop a dogmatic attitude towards all aspects of religion.

The neuroscientist, Sam Harris says, “…dogmatism is still granted remarkable scope on questions of both truth and goodness under the banner of religion” (The Moral Landscape). Like cultures and social systems, we have to be prepared to take religion, warts and all. It is only then we can honestly discuss the ways of avoiding the hazards inherent in a social context, where there are diverse religions with followers of varying levels of devotion, ranging from moderation to zealotry. Isn’t it pathetic to let our dogmatic attitude to religion make room for tension and discord leading to mindless violence?

If we are to reap the full benefits of the advances in science, technology, arts and humanities, we have to be ‘religious’ in a nonsectarian way, and be less insular about dissenting views. Religion will be a great asset if we can be more sober about it. Honest and clear-headed discussion will be the only way out; but it will be a remote possibility till we continue to believe that our religion is superior to all the others, and that it is the only way to a so-called ‘ultimate truth’.

The challenge before us is formidable, because religious indoctrination of children has cultural sanction in every society, and the momentum of tradition does not seem to allow us to agree on adopting a more sensible and neutral way of instilling moral values in children, irrespective of their parents’ faith. For this to happen, it is vital to realize that disinterested discussion of morality should replace the age-old tradition of indoctrination; which tends to produce religious bigotry. There should be a shift of emphasis from mass-producing insular and self-righteous people, to directing individuals to be sensitive, honest and open-minded.

The survival of the human race should take precedence over the survival of this or that religion. Obviously!

SUSANTHA HEWA