Religion: Panacea or curse

I have tried searching for the definition of religion at various places. I wish to find out why a word which is explained in similar fashion everywhere is interpreted in such extreme gamut of connotations.

Is religion simply believing in god?

We don’t seem to believe this. Since I live in the Indian secular state, I put “we” for all the religions put together. We can completely trust someone only if he can protect us at all times, good and bad. We feel our god is powerful when there is peace all around. What about the times when there is violence? The weak pleads for mercy but he dies. Some of us who feel that we are powerful enough take the onus of helping god to protect him. Can you ever imagine communal riots happening in Godhara and Ahmedabad, cities in Gujrat, which is perceived to be the home of understanding, soft mannered, kind and peace-loving people? The irony is that Gandhi’s Gujarat faced all this barbarism, even after five decades of his dream of secular India. But it doesn’t seem to be an irony, yes not an irony because we have forgotten the past and only know, only want to know the Gujarat of Mohammad Ali Jinnha, Advani, K. K. Shastri, Narendra Modi and Pravin Togadia; erasing the faint traces of the Gujarat nurtured by Gandhi with humanitarian values. Coming to the point, all this happens because the activists and religious fanatics (popularly known as religious militants) believe that they are the “knights in shining armor” who are ordained to save god itself from the evils of non-believers. They become so powerful, that they get all the rights to butcher, rape, molest, oppress and humiliate the weak and the feeble. Do they believe in god, who is the savior of humankind?

Is religion a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny?

May or may not be. The most intrinsic part is “a” supernatural power. I don’t know about supernatural but talking about many of us who want to become superpower, we have seen their supremacy in our life. They can wipe out countries and generations as it happened in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All we need to witness the end of this planet is, one eccentric individual who will defend his deed of obliteration as “an ordain from some supernatural power”. A question often strikes my mind and I am left pondering… So, finally who controls our destinies?

Is religion a cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion?

Can we ever undermine the zeal of the young and juvenile members of the terrorist groups, who are ready to ‘sacrifice’ their lives for “their” god? We may call it myopic zeal or momentary obsession, but who defines it for them, who makes such religious decrees so important for them, their god? If not god, these elders are considered to be the messengers of god and no one can deny them. Same thing is happening with the young blood working for the political parties serving “the larger cause” of liberating their states from their countries. Who will run these countries? God is there, isn’t it?

These are only the questions, where are the answers? After deliberating for sometime, we realize that the answers lie in the questions themselves. Religion possesses all these and many more questions to persuade a believer to penetrate deep and search for the answer in religion itself.