Religion has died the death of any possible benevolence and good will, mainly due to oversimplification. Oversimplification from reductionism. By benevolence, I am not hinting at hackneyed ideas of ‘faith’, ‘hope’ and ‘strength’ amidst the trials and tribulations of life. I do not intend to wax eloquent on the need for a ‘higher power’ to pin our existential hopes and pains on.
No.
Religion in its current avatar evokes only one response from me and many others, that of dismissive revulsion. However, to be fair, we must not simply jump on the bandwagon of prejudice and pre-conceptions, both of the theistic or atheistic kinds, which are oversimplifications themselves. A complex matter as this deserves consideration from many angles and advice from various faculties; a simple answer might be useless.
Deeper insights may be needed.
So reductionism is the practice of defining a complex phenomenon in terms of its most fundamental constituents, as a simple online definition tells us. It is the core methodology of science, but it can be a dangerous red herring. A simple example to expose the logical fallacy of reductionism can be this question: “How many numbers are there between zero and one?”. If you know only about discrete numbers, you would say zero. But we also know there are innumerable fractions between zero and one. We just increased the scope of our examination, did we not?
“The human body is just a few dollars worth of chemicals”. That statement is true, yet it is a gross oversimplification. You cannot make useful conclusions based on this basic understanding. “The fetus is just a blob of tissue”. Well it is, but it is much more than that ; the precursor of a complete human being.
Thus, reducing an idea to its fundamentals for the sake of simple understanding tends to minimise, obscure and distort deeper meanings. Reductionism might feel intellectually comfortable, but it could be wrong and outright dangerous.
Vedas, the oldest texts available to human kind, are the basis of Hinduism, but in all honesty, bear no real connection to its modern face. The average person, in fact the average Hindu priest does not, and cannot capture even a shadow, a fleeting glimpse of the real import of the Vedas. Modern day Hindus are blissfully unaware of its philosophical underpinnings, notwithstanding the pride and nationalistic fervour it inspires in them. Far from perceiving any philosophical depths, most Hindus think their religion comprises nothing more than rituals, observances and the occasional propitiation ceremonies. No, not even many of the priestly class, its guardians, its flag bearers.
I take Hinduism as my example for this rarely discussed phenomena of religions’ oversimplification because of three main reasons. First, because its source texts are many times bigger than other scriptures. Second because its origins are far older. The Rig Veda, oldest among the four Veda Samhitas, dates back to around 1400 B.C. , but is known to have been disseminated through an oral tradition for at least 1000 years before this time. One of the four original canonical texts, and one of the sixteen parts of Sruti ( heard or revealed knowledge), it is one and a half times the size of the Old Testament. The Vedas are said to have been revealed ( divinely inspired). In fact they have been categorically defined as ‘apurusheya’, ie not identified with any human source, quite like the ‘Word’ of God in the Bible, or the revelation by Archangel Gabriel to Muhammad in Islam.
Third because it is possibly the least comprehensible and most amorphous of all world religions. Christianity and Islam assume an air of superiority to scoff at Hinduism for its apparently confusing, pluralist, ill -defined, boundaries structure, but even they have not escaped the bane of oversimplification.
Oversimplified to Rituals and Codes of Conduct
Now, Rig, Sam, Yajur and Atharva are the four Veda Samhitas and each has three commentaries in addendum -the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. This makes a total of sixteen ‘revealed’ texts, each dealing with different aspects of the universe, God, man and life. The Veda Samhitas are essentially intricate spiritual philosophy in the form of poetic aphorisms called sutras, not commonly comprehensible.
It is important to understand that there is a decreasing order of complexity – from the original Veda Samhitas to the Upanishads. The original Veda Samhitas were deeply esoteric so its commentaries were intended to be more relatable, even then, only to the learned. The Brahmanas and Aranyakas are simpler translations containing explanations of rituals and sacrifices. Thus only these simplified commentaries could be grasped and then adopted. It’s like this- Quantum Physics is so esoteric for the layperson to understand that it is often twisted and misused in a ‘magical’ way to suit some philosophies. Some people oversimplify quantum mechanics to say that the world is an illusion, it will disappear if you don’t look at it. Imagine if these arcane sciences were to be studied from such translations! This is exactly what seems to have happened to the original four Veda Samhitas.
Not to stop there, a fifth Veda was created, because understanding was still too difficult. These are the ‘Puranas’, or ‘memorized’ texts, which exemplified the Vedic high philosophies in the form of grand historical stories. Mytho-historical narratives, like the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Lessons of philosophy in real-life contexts of princes, kingdoms and warfare, along with a whole panoply of human foibles.
The sheer effectiveness of this mytho-historical format for philosophical education can be seen even in modern day India. Most modern Hindus know at least, and only as much of the Vedas as presented in the epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana. In fact the passing down of these ‘stories’ from one generation to the next is a religious rite of passage. Along with occasional rituals and observations, it makes up the entire religious life of a modern day Hindu .
Penned by the dacoit turned sage Ved Vyas, Mahabharata alone comprises 110,000 couplets, and is seven times the size of Homer’s Illyad and Odyessey combined. The Rig Veda alone is one and a half times the size of the old testament, and we have 16 different such sections of Sruti literature alone, with over 100 Upanishads in total. If the enormity of the size of the Vedic literature is intimidating, the arcane quality of its language is more so. The Vedas were written in an archaic version of Sanskrit, which is a dead language for the lay Hindu today.
“Many [of the Vedas] are written in a style which even educated men find very difficult to understand; and, if they have to be studied in the original, only a very small part of them can possibly be mastered by one man” (Mitchell, 1897, p. 247, apologeticspress.com)
In essence, the Hindu scripture is of no practical use to a modern day Hindu priest, let alone the regular person. In this debilitating situation of a limited scope of knowledge, understanding will naturally be marred by oversimplification. When the custodians of religions themselves do not know, and cannot know, what can religion really mean to the common man? A reduced , pale reflection. A shadow of a shadow, its gravity far removed from its original import. Rituals, observances and epics are only a miniscule part of the extensive Vedic philosophy, but unfortunately, that is all most Hindus know or understand.
As a matter of fact, all religions today have a prominently ritualistic format, notwithstanding the God its believers worship. From dress codes, life style and ritual observances to codes of conduct, it is largely about following a designated set of rules. If you asked a Hindu, a Jew or a Muslim why they adhere to these rituals, their answer would simply be that it is a requirement. People have been schooled into believing ritualistic adherences will accumulate merit and gain them favour with ‘God’. The motivation for most rituals is this psychological ‘righteousness’ or ‘goodness’. With it, they are morally satisfied and feel pious, safely on the right side of ‘God’.
Oversimplified to Literalism
Freeing you from the intellectual strain of understanding the Vedas, I urge you to notice that not a lot of Hindu religious teachers concern themselves overly with establishing the factual verity of the characters in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, or to prove the existence of its central God, Krishna. Nobody seems to mind the wars that Krishna approved, as God, and the countless consorts he frolicked with. Nobody seems to take serious umbrage at Lord Rama of Ramayana, a warrior prince and incarnation of God, who banished his wife for presumed sexual impurity and fought a bloody war with his own sons. Nobody really employs literalism to the narratives of the Puranas. Apart from the lesser-known fact that they are narratives for philosophical exemplification, they are a tiny part of the vast body of knowledge that makes up the Vedas. On the other hand, theists in other religions with a single person of God are fighting tooth and nail to prove his validity. By employing literalism, a weapon even atheists wield to disprove that God.
This is not to declare Hinduism’s superiority over Christianity, but to explain that increasing the scope of knowledge reduces the chances of oversimplification fallacies. It is to show that even if we want clear, well -defined answers with clean boundaries, oversimplifying an issue can be dangerous for its true meaning and intent. Simplification to a level where the crux, the central philosophical underpinning is lost in translation. It may be easily said that humans are just a walking bag of chemical interactions, but how helpful is that definition?
So, while some religions suffer from inscrutability due to vastness and incomprehension, others suffer from fanatic literalism. Together, they suffer the same fate; of misunderstanding through oversimplification.
Religions’ Long Due Death
To mince no words, such oversimplification has proved to be the cause of the terminally ill state of modern religion, and will most likely be the cause of its death. A death where momentous life philosophy is lost to the banalities of rituals and literalism. A death where crucial information has been defaced by modern translations. A death where one bows to different Gods for wealth and protection or a death where they kill those who give a face to their faceless God. A death where they fight for their true prophets. Where we are sinners and thus deserving of God’s wrath, where he will deliver us to heaven if we participate in holy wars, where he will bless us with prosperity through opulent rituals.
A death which it may be need.
Where the word of that God is ‘divine command’ in such a totalitarian, dictatorial way that it more often resembles the words of deranged, power-hungry men. Men who translated those words to exert ideological dominance, to misappropriate power. Or else men who simply did not understand.
A death it deserves, to be reborn anew.
For any life philosophy to stand its ground firmly to fend such scathing scrutiny, it ought to be robust. Robust enough to defend itself vigorously, to give back a strong fight. Religion in its current avatar is none of that. It is simply the butt of all jokes.
Is religion redundant then? Yes and No.
Is there a God then?
You will see for yourself. You will know.