Dharmabheeru

 I wanted to call this post 'fear'. Then something told me I might have at least one more post with that title. And of course there it was. 

So the title had to be changed to Dharmabheeru (dharma - religion, bheeru - fearful, timid) - god fearing - pious. You are afraid. But that is not a bad thing because you are afraid of God - that he may punish you if you commit a sin.  

But I have a feeling that fear makes us religious, makes us believe in God, because we want to be protected by someone - and mom can't protect the adult us.  

Drowning myself in Sanskrit works - particularly Ashtavakragita,  I had to find some meaning of these words like atma, mukti, jnana. And I asked AI to find me some texts to understand history of religions. It gave me many options - most of which are not available. But the one I stuck to was "The natural history of religions". 

Reading that text was not very easy - but 3 part series of podcasts by 'Philosophize this' about the author was better. So I plan to read and read the text from the site davidhume.org  

I read few more articles and watched videos. The gist of the whole history of religions was our ancestors long, long, long ago were afraid. They were afraid of rain, thunderstorm, may be even fire. And they did not understand most of these things. So they diefied these.  

Also these beliefs and related customs helped build communities. And communities could face other people better and fight with them better. 

Corollary: By late 20th century many people in western world stopped being religious. As they understood most of the natural phenomenon - or knew science can explain those phenomenon, they did not have the need to believe in a creator God. Also as the western world grew richer, they faced lesser difficulties such as poverty, ill health, untimely death of dear ones etc. Because they could prevent most of the problems with the help of money which was in good supply. 

Where as in third world countries, people were still poor, not all of them educated and religion and god 'fear' still persisted.    

Now in twenty first century, the world has become quite difficult. Even in the western world, people are not so economically good. There so much uncertainty in the world - wars keep raging, many countries are ruled by 'strict' almost autocrats. And because of global warming, natural disasters are ravaging countries.  And people are once again becoming religious. 

My question is are countries becoming untenable (going in that direction) because of rise of religion or religion is rising because of difficulties faced by people? Don't yet get offended for asking such a question. Because as religious practices are increasing world over people have started questing science and progressive views. 

It is funny if you think about it - science and scientific temper made people question religious beliefs and now those beliefs are having the last laugh. 

People don't want to vaccine their kids. People world over are saying covid vaccine is causing untimely death. I watched a video about 'fetal personhood' - where John Oliver was saying that fetus is treated as a full individual and women are being charged of homicide if they have miscarriage. 

In our own country, nation has spent 98 crore rupees on research of cow urine and cow dung. In a nation where many poor still struggle to get two square meals. We keep debunking 'modern' science and glorifying ancient wisdom - which may take us to ancient days of no electricity, no running water and no medicine and abundant poverty. 

But don't worry, God will save us. If we have been true believers.