To God or not to God, there is no question

A couple of months back, I saw a post on Facebook (of course). According to it, a recent worldwide study shows that in terms of the number of people belonging to certain religions, atheists now are in 3rd place. I am sure you all can see the irony in it. Atheists don't and can't belong to any category based on religion. No human being should, but that's a different story. So, if I may, let me rephrase the notion: The number of atheists in the world comes right after the numbers of people who believe in Islam and Christianity. And, today, I saw a new study that shows the number of atheists in the USA stands 2nd in a similar kind of list. No such data was found for Indian people.

The religious people often argue that we need religion for comfort. Yes, that is true. Religion is an effective source of comfort in a world torn apart by it.

Still, from what I observe, the youth of India is slowly turning away from religion and looking for an alternative institution. Is this a "religious" revolution, a spiritual awakening where God isn't a necessity? Well, we are far from any situation to have an answer to that, but the signs ARE there. However- and it may come as a shock to many- according to science, this may be the time when religion is most needed. Confused? Let me explain.

There are many theories behind why and how religion emerged as an idea. One such theory (and believe it or not, its one of the most accepted ones by scholars) is that we needed it to control greed. Let me present an example: Imagine you have decided to exclude junk food from your diet. But, each morning, when you go for a run, you cross a bakery that sells your favourite cake. So, what do you do? You control your greed and try to convince your brain that you don't want it. And that tactic may work well enough. Now imagine that your office canteen has started serving pizza, and it's filled with cheese and everything you love (read Best Pizza Evveerrr). I will assume that you are strong enough to fight the urge off and have a salad for lunch. But, when you are returning home that evening, you see that the bakery has your favourite cake on display. Will you be able to resist still? You have already fought off the pizza. Well, some of you may be... But not all of you. Now consider this: You strongly believe in a religion and that religion forbids you from eating any kind of cake. Isn't that just easier that way?

Science says, that's why religion was created, and, get this: It wasn't a random idea; it was an evolutionary tool. If you don't know what evolutionary tool is, then here is a gist for you: It's when nature tweaks the constant process of evolution to create an action to solve randomly arising issues- such as, greed. Of course, at the beginning, there was no religion, but there was God. Our early ancestors were apparently so scared of the old man upstairs that they would restrain certain urges that were harmful to the fellow humans and animals created by the God himself. This DOES sound like not only a good idea, but a very important one too. Then how come religion ended up causing death and suffering? That is, my friends, where it gets tricky. Apparently, religion is just an excuse, and this would happen anyway. Why? The answer is simple: Human nature. The world is now run by greed, and we need religion more than ever; but not the "modern" form that is practiced around the world. We need the religion that was created by nature itself, the purest form of it. But we can't, because of another very important evolutionary process.

What is the very basic instinct of any living form? Society may have taught you otherwise, but your first instinct is to replicate yourself. In terms of evolutionary operations, the most important aspect of reproduction is to create the best possible living forms. For that, it is important that the biologically suitable couples mate and create babies who have the best of the traits from each parent. Now, how is that related to bad practice of religion? To understand that, you need to understand how, in an ideal condition, people look for the best possible sexual partners. If you observe the animal kingdom, you will notice the best tools used by living forms are singing (calling), dancing, fighting skills, strength, and or smell. For us humans its more complicated. Ideally, we look for physical traits to compare possible best partners. We don't admit it, of course, but that is how it works. But that's not the only way. We also look for intellect, sense of humour, comfort quotient, and so much more. But, at the beginning, things weren't that complicated. Like carnivores, our main tool to attract the opposite sex was mainly strength. The males fought with each other over one woman to prove who was better.

THAT, friends, is the key expression: "who was better." Each of us is programmed to prove that we are the best among all the human beings, in all fronts. Although, it was once only used to attract sexual partners, the invention of society simply multiplied its use. We needed to prove our worth to claim land, food, social responsibilities, position, money, and so on. This wouldn't be a problem if God was the only thing we had invented. No, let me change that: This wouldn't be a problem if we had invented only one God. For territorial reasons, we needed more than one. We invented many of them. With that, came the ideologies passed on by God-selling-businessmen as the commands of the respective Gods they followed. People were divided into groups of believers with different Gods, God-men, and ideologies in heart. And then the "who was better" kicked in, and the religious wars began, and never ended. So, if you think about it, religion isn't the cause of the religious wars; our need to prove that our way is the best way is. And it derives from the strongest of human instincts: find the best sexual partner. We can't get rid of that. So, does that mean we can't stop the miseries caused by religious differences? Thankfully, we can.

I have already mentioned evolutionary tools. God and religion are evolutionary tools. "Who was better," on the other hand, is an evolutionary operation. The difference? The EO is constant, when ET is temporary. Its job is to solve a problem and then slowly take itself out of the equation. However, for obvious reasons, we still need it. It's undeniable that many people benefit from religion. In times of distress, God is a comforting answer to many. But both of these things cause more problems than answers to those problems. But there is a solution. What we need is to understand why we need religion (which I explained) and then look for an alternative. Luckily enough, we already have one and it's called spirituality. In many ways, spiritualism is like religion except for the fact that it requires no God. If we need to liberate ourselves from greed then what really require is a moral awakening. Why that wasn't the original evolutionary tool for the purpose then? Because, in the early days, our self awareness wasn't developed as much as today.

We are now spiritually and scientifically developed enough to create a social and moral system that can function without religion. The increasing number of atheists is a proof of that. But it surely isn't easy to just erase the idea of God, because, most people still believe in it, and the ones, who don't, have no idea how to proceed with it. Well, as I said, it's not easy. Not even close. And it will take hundreds of years. But here is a way to start: Don't teach your children about God and religion. And when they are finally exposed to it, let them know about both sides of the story. Tell them about the arguments of both atheists and theists. If we let our children decide what to believe in then they will choose the right path, I am sure of it. How? Well, just Google Human 2.0. According to scientists, the new breed of humans is here. The newest generation is an upgraded version of ourselves. It's a real thing. And I believe that they won't need God as much as we and our forefathers did. Only moral and scientific strength can save the world from its current state. Our earth is dying. We were supposed to leave it in a better state than we had found it in. We failed miserably at it. Creating a generation of better people is our last chance to do something about it.

The religious revolution is the first step towards that goal. It has already begun. Will you be the change or the resistance?