Religion, Conflicts and Greed

Why there are so many conflicts everywhere between and within groups, religions, etc.

Why is it that there are so many differences between Man and his neighbour?

Despite what the American declaration of Independence alludes to in stating that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal", Man is manifestedly NOT born equal. Some are more intelligent than others, some born rich and privileged while many are dirt poor, many more beautiful, and a few have innate qualities of virtue, compassion, etc which are simply not found in others.

Man is basically Greedy, firstly for himself and then for his family, and this is in fact what drives him to material success, greed being the grease which drives the wheels of commerce. Hence we do not have a homogenous breed of humans, but humans who will think of himself first, his family second before society as a whole, humans who not only differ intellectually but also in attitudes, culture, religion and priorities. And this leads to many conflicts in our social, political and economic lives.

With regards to religious conflicts, if man has attained to the truths of life, seen it, understood it and internalised it in his thoughts, speech and action, then he will be a perfected being. He will no longer be searching for the truth, for his task is complete. Done is what needs to be done.

But being still seekers of the truth, we are imperfect, hence the religion that man creates or invents for himself to use in his search is necessarily also imperfect. The religions of man are always evolving as our thoughts and needs change with time. An objective look at the histories of the mainstream religions of the world over the centuries will see an ongoing process of transformation.

The great teachers taught us HOW TO LIVE, they did not create any religion but their students in the subsequent generations certainly did create rites, rituals and creeds formalised as religions. But even such prototype religions continued to evolve as MAN DEMANDED. Imperfect man put the words of their teacher as they understood it down into words that they can understand, this in turn is interpreted by equally imperfect man, sometimes completely distorting the original words of the teacher.

When it comes to dogma that cannot be challenged but is accepted on faith, what this effectively means is that we cannot challenge the beliefs of an earlier generation of man! This is essentially Faith in men who have faith in the men before them. Organised religions are institutions of imperfect men hence are fundamentally flawed, yet must be treated as unfailing.

Imperfect man makes use of Religion as the scapegoat for a great deal of violence. His greed, hatred, ill will and delusions is now riding on the vehicle of religion to attain his aims. These I believe, are some of the reasons why there are so many religious conflicts within and without.

To make it worse, many religious leaders have the attitude that "Religion is not a salad bar", meaning you take a religion, the whole religion and nothing but the religion so help you God. This 'exclusive' manner will of course lead to even more divisions and conflicts even within family members.

What we call ourselves, which religion our IC states we belong to is unimportant. Religion is not in the creed that we profess but in the life that we lead. And our actions speak so loud that hardly anyone can hear what we preach!

So many gods, so many creeds,

So many beliefs that wind and twist,

While just the art of being kind,

Is basically what this sad world needs.

My religion is very simple,

It's simply kindness!