Does God exist?’ This is probably the most debated question in human history. I won’t be going over the question here; there is no point in doing so. The question, in itself, is irrelevant and misleading. Our effort should be focused on something else.

To believe, to trust and to depend on someone, who we are not even sure exists, is insanity. Many times people claim that religion is bad but that faith is a gem to possess, but the two aren’t really two different entities. Religion, aided with fallacies and ignorance of the previous centuries, gave birth to faith, and faith in extremity, is making religion survive. Considering faith and religion as two distinct entities is defending religion in its troublesome times.

When we look at the history of religion, especially Hinduism, we can see that most religious texts are written by the ‘rishis’ or monks, the intellectuals of the ancient era. They, who created the faith, were people with knowledge which belonged exclusively to their era. When we look at the holy texts we see the evidences of their intellect. But instead of using concrete reasoning and evidences to prove their point, they involved in mystifying their words. Perhaps that was a necessity at the time. But using the very prophetic words of those monks as a concrete set of morales in modern time is again turning a blind eye to the current society, which no longer resembles the old era.

Today, religion is more the philosophical texts mystified with the myths of Great God. It is a set of practices which might or might not be mentioned in any of the holy texts, but are always justified with the help of texts, directly, indirectly, by misrepresentation or by falsification. A clear evidence is slavery in America. The white slave owners used to quote from the Bible to justify their ill deeds because they did not have any other justification for their deeds. So is true for Hinduism and any other religion. In Nepal, even in current times, we have many ill practices such as the isolation of women during menstruation. “God does not want to be touched by women in their menstrual cycle.” And that is just it; there is no other justification for such practices except bringing God out of nowhere. The status quo in every form uses God as a defense for their evil deeds. The Catholic Church initiated mass murder in the name of God. Even in the Hindu mythology, there is no other defense to the historical Mahabharata war. There is no evidence that it was fought for some justice as it is often claimed. It was fought because one section of the then status quo was using atrocious measures to marginalise another section of the very status quo. It was fought to give justice to Pandavas not to the real oppressed poor people.

Marx calls religion the opium of humanity; and rightly so—what is religion in modern times if not an addiction? The petty moralism of the old era holds no importance as of now. Today is no longer the time when a wife considers her husband as her master, when the sons of Brahmins are to be teachers and the sons of Kshatriyas warriors. The world is changing more rapidly than the monks of the ancient era could even fathom. But religion attempts with all its might to keep this paradigm shift in check, and those who stand and fight for change are sinners. It is only in troublesome times the religion emerges as some instigator of peace and opponent of violence. Why is violence only justified when it is done by the ruling class, the kings, or the Gods and not when used by progressives to ignite change? Then it is surely a sin. When a Hindu priest pockets thousands of rupees by contributing nothing productive to the society other than reading holy texts, he is a man of God, but when a poor man trying to survive steals food, he a third, a bloody sinner. The irony in religion rests in itself.

In short, religion, faith, belief, whatever you call it, is a lie, a falsification destined to serve the rulers of the society and not the almighty God, whose existence is an uncertainty. Even if God does exist, he wouldn’t be disappointed when we do away with religious fallacies.

Mishra is a student at Trinity International College