AN OPEN LETTER TO MY CHILDREN AND MY VERY YOUNG FRIENDS
Dear ones,
I am often acused of advocating free thinking to young individuals and freedom from organised religion and freedom from both manmade Gods and human living Gods.The fact is that I do and I have very strong reasons for this.Let me explain:
When you were 10 years old, you never thought that the twinkling stars far in the sky were large, very large objects that are millions of miles away.Later, in the school, you learned that Earth is a large ball that revolves around a bigger star called SUN.The reason for believing things is "EVIDENCE".Sometimes you can see, touch, feel things for evidence and sometimes you need Scientific tools like a telescope to know that stars are actually big balls.
All murders are committed carefully.No one sees it.But most murderers are caught and punished on the strength of corroborative evidence.Scientists often work like investigators who investigate murders.They make a hypothesis and look for proof.It is the same way a doctor diagnoses a sickness.EVIDENCE is the key.EVIDENCE is a much smarter reason to believe in something rather than TRADITION,AUTHORITY, REVELATION etc.
If you ask your young Hindu, Muslim or Christian friends as to what they believe in they will list a few things which are all entirely different.Obviously, all of them cannot be true at the same time.So, chances are that all of those beliefs are wrong.The only reason why they followed it is that their parents followed it.They followed it because their parents followed it.Nothing ever was based on evidence.When a story gets passed on from generation to generation, it acquires some respectability and invincibility.Age brings in credibility.If the original was just a story, then no matter how many generations it travels, it remains a story!But they call it TRADITION or even more grandly....HERITAGE.
Different beliefs are only due to different traditions and they dont mind killing each other on this basis.Shias and sunnis do not believe in the same thing.Catholics and protestants do not believe in the same thing.Brahmins and dalits do not believe in the same thing.They will not hesitate to kill each other to protect their respective beliefs.
Authority without evidence, wheather it comes from a holy book, pope, Ayatolla or Swamiji need not be accepted.You may say that why believe a science authority when he says that light travels at a speed of 186000 miles per second? Good question.The difference is that the people who wrote this figure have seen the evidence and you just believe in the method.We can look at this evidence when we want.But is there any evidence for Mary's body flying off to heaven or for Hanuman tearing open his chest to show Rama inside?
A lion in Africa is is built to survive in jungles.People are built to survive with other people, with many skills to survive.A childs brain is conditioned to absorb all sorts of information.But it cannot differentiate between true or false information.So, whatever the parents tell them, they absorb and here starts the so called tradition.When they grow up they pass on the entire baggage to their children.So even completely false stories grow from generation to generations.We were too young to question.Every child grew up with the firm belief that his parents are right and other parents were wrong.
So what can we do? whenever someone tells this has to be done on account of tradition, look for Evidence( either direct or indirect).
When you know that 94% of the people of this world are believers, you may have a tendency to go with the majority.But are these 94% believing in the same thing? Certainly not.Even in America, the land of opportunities, 14% are catholic,26% are proestant,2% are jews, and 6% are atheists!
If you take the world,33% are christians,21% Muslims,14% Hindus,6% Budhists,12% other religions and 16% non religious.
Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein did not subscribe to any religion.
So,Use scientific method:It sorts out what is true,what is story,and what we are not sure about.It involves watching things happen,trying to think of reasons for whatever happens,testing and validating each idea with experiments,evaluating results,changing the idea and retesting, if the idea does not fit in with whatever we surely know.
I recently met a nice person in a diabetic coma.She was a devotee of Saibaba and used to take the ashes from his ashram for any illness.Sadly the faith took away her health.
You all can conclude that since the ashes did not work for her, it will not work for anyone else.You can certainly find thousands of diabetics who were cured by insulin therapy.Faith will work only if the sickness is essentially a mind issue, not otherwise.
Question every superstition.There is no force stronger than your mind!
To be moral, you do not need GOD or Religion.It comes out of a natural urge to be good and can be cultivated independently.
All the best
Jayanthram