Perpetuating Parental Religion
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
24 May 2023
“If you
are religious at all, it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that
of your parents.”
-----
Recently, I
stumbled upon Richard Dawkins' brilliant quote mentioned above. Very true.
Isn't it a remarkable coincidence that almost everyone has the same religion
which their parents practise? And it always just happens to be the right
religion. Religion runs in the families. If we'd been brought up in ancient
Greece, we'd all be worshipping Zeus and Apollo. If we had been born Vikings,
we would be worshipping Wotan and Thor. How does this come about? Through
childhood indoctrination.
Religions
run in the families. Most of the humans inherit their religions from their
parents. Even the 'educated' ones among us show surprisingly servile conformity
on this count and follow their parents' faiths without a murmur. Humans are so
damn ill-evolved. Anthony Grayling says in his book, " The Frontiers of
Knowledge," that humans will take at least fifty thousand years to evolve.
At the moment, we're crawling, fighting and shedding blood over innumerable
religions, sects (or insects?) and their silly deities. What a big charade has
been going on for thousands of years and there seems to be no let up in the foreseeable
future. Fie on mankind!
This
unquestionable inheritance of religion is so overwhelming in India that if a
person has Hindu parents, he or she is a natural Hindu regardless of the fact
that the person has relinquished the parental faith and not embraced any other
faith. In other words, he or she is an atheist. Such an atheist can marry an
atheist (whose parents were also Hindus) under Special Marriage Act but if they
want to separate legally, Hindu Marriage Act will be applied to them! Why?
Once a
person has dropped all faiths, his/her life and its concomitant legal issues
cannot be settled under any specific religious rubric.
Parveen
Babi was a Muslim who embraced
Christianity before her lonely death on January 20, 2005. She became a
practising Muslim. It was her choice. But when she died, no relatives came to
claim her body. Nor did they ever come to enquire after her well-being when she
was alive and living alone.
Yet, they
demanded that her obsequies must be performed according to Islam! So, despite
being a Christian, her last rites were performed as per the rules of Islam.
This shows the unavoidable influence of parental faith. Even if you leave that,
your nosey 'near' and 'dear' ones will not allow you to do so.
Though all
religions are useless, in a way it's better if one leaves his/her parents'
faith and chooses a completely new faith (sans coercion or temptation). That'll
be marginally better than perpetuating the faith of the parents, because then
it'll be YOUR faith and not an inherited one. Even better is to remain a human
and retain your humaneness. But that's impossible for most of the
underdeveloped humans.
-----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in
comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed
articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including
Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/perpetuating-parental-religion-/d/129840
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