Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Religion Starts with Love and Ends in Peace

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Religion Starts with Love and Ends in Peace

The contemporary human society is a complex outcome of thousand years of evolution. Complex cultures, economic systems, religions, philosophies and science have been inter-woven through the web of politics, which has shaped the so-called civilized human states, which are managed by the political governments. These governments practice economic systems and religious ideologies through the tool of politics and only and only politics can be credited and blamed for all the virtues and evils that are present in today’s human society.

One of the most dominating evils of the contemporary human civilization is war. War has been just like shadow with different forms of social and political setups of human history, and it still threatens human peace and security to a large extent, and again only and only politics can be blamed for it, because it is politics that has invigorated it and nourished it into a monster that is ready to swallow the whole human civilization in no time. The present nature of this monster is very horrible because it is highly equipped with modern scientific and technical capabilities and today international peace is ambiguous because of the threat of the same monster.

Currently, there have been many blames on religions and they are thought to be promulgating conflicts and wars but I don’t think they are to be blamed as it is their political interpretations that make them spread hatred and give birth to conflicts. It is difficult to understand how the ones who oppose religion can fill the heinous figure of politics with the colors of innocence and incorruptibility? How can they find violence in the guiltless and demonstrative teachings of religion? How can they talk of peace through a system, which has its footings on the principles of hatred, egocentricity and greed? They fail to understand that in the contemporary world of ours politics is nothing except greed and intense quest for power and popularity. Every politician or political group strives to dominate others in order to gain strength and superiority. Politics in its nature is corrupt. It can never guarantee peace because it has to welcome war. Every political group rises with the downfall of others. Every political group flourishes with the extinction of others. Today, peace is impossible through politics. Politics has to be cunning, self-centered, egoistic, and violent in case of ideological differences. Otherwise, it would seize to exist. For its existence it has to generate issues and on certain occasions even disorder and instability. In words of Groucho Marx, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” 

On the other hand, religion, in its true form, starts with love and ends in peace. It demands virtue from man and makes him capable of doing so. The very essence of religion is affection. It has to hate war, because its rudimentary teachings are based on welfare of entire humanity. Calvin Coolidge had claimed, “Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberality, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government. There are only two main theories of government in our world. One rests on righteousness and the other on force. One appeals to reason, and the other appeals to the sword. One is exemplified in the republic, the other is represented by despotism.
The government of a country never gets ahead of the religion of a country. There is no way by which we can substitute the authority of law for the virtue of man. Of course we endeavor to restrain the vicious, and furnish a fair degree of security and protection by legislation and police control, but the real reform which society in these days is seeking will come as a result of our religious convictions, or they will not come at all. Peace, justice, humanity, charity—these cannot be legislated into being. They are the result of divine grace.” 

A person enters the kingdom of religion when he washes away his ego, selfishness, and hatred through the ablution of his spirit. Religion performs virtue; otherwise, it does nothing. Religion is determined to strengthen tranquility. As Mahatma Gandhi had said, “I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian.” 

As hinted previously, the present form of religion that we find around us is the political demonstration of religion. It is religion in the frame of politics. It is one of the manifestations of political hypocrisy. It is religion caught in the webs of politics, suffocating and striving to make its last breaths possible and history has witnessed that whenever and wherever politicians have raised the slogans of religion in their ideologies they have always wanted to dodge the people through sanctity and honor of the religious beliefs. This is not religion. This is politics, changing forms and means to discriminate innocent masses.

Frank Herbert, commenting on the same issue, had mentioned, “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.” 

If we want to experience religion we have to apply it without any political intentions. Religion itself is a self-perpetuating system. Pure religion is destined to guarantee peace and it will because it starts with love and ends in peace. Anna Sewell puts it beautifully, “There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a shame.” 

Dilawar Sherzai is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at Outlookafghanistan@gmail.com 

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