“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love” – Leo Tolstoy
I feel a deep sense of frustration with what is commonly called “religion.” The problem of evil and the overwhelming scale of human suffering make it difficult for me to believe in the existence of a benevolent creator. Yet I do not entirely reject the notion of God. I simply find no attraction toward any organised religion, nor do I imagine God in anthropomorphic terms. It can be speculated that even if a personal deity does not exist, a possibility I find highly likely, existence itself might perform the role of an all-powerful and all-good force. The idea of pantheism has always been on my mind. The problem, however, is that such ideas remain within the spectrum of speculation and debate. There is no verifiable evidence, no definitive experience to confirm or deny them. No one truly knows what happens after death or whether divine judgement, reincarnation, or any concept of afterlife holds validity. Personally, I restrict religion to the field of theology, a subject worth studying, but not one to be lived by. I neither let religion dictate my personal conduct nor do I feel any obligation to appease those who do. Organised religion, in my view, is an outdated structure that continues to enjoy respect out of habit rather than merit.
Until we completely remove the roots of religious and cultural dogma from our collective consciousness, it will remain impossible to progress at a meaningful pace. Organised religion cultivates rigidity of thought. It confuses morality with obedience and faith with submission. Yet morality, conscience, and ethical conduct require neither institutional religion nor divine surveillance. They arise from our capacity for empathy, reason, and social cooperation. History is a witness that the greatest evils rarely emerged in the name of humanity; they were born from the impulse to preserve or protect religion. Religious crusades, inquisitions, and sectarian violence testify to the moral failure of institutional faith. Those who kill, coerce, or harm others in the name of religion have neither understood their scriptures nor grasped the spiritual essence their founders intended. What troubles me most is when religion seeks to dictate social functioning through the authority of its scriptures. The obvious question then arises: Who authored those scriptures? Each religion claims divine origin for its texts, as though that alone grants them immunity from scrutiny. Such reasoning, however, is circular and unconvincing. It is certain that religion attained legitimacy through political institutions.
Its scriptures are historical documents, composed to justify particular social orders. They have limited, if any, applicability in the modern world. As Yuval Noah Harari explained in Sapiens, humans have long cooperated through belief in shared myths. Religion once served this purpose effectively, but with the rise of the modern state and the market, it has lost its social utility. Science, too, continually undermines the theological explanations of existence, rendering divine authority increasingly obsolete. Today’s world religions have become nearly opposite of what their founders preached. What remains is dogma, and even that dogma has decayed. It is often repackaged with emotional sugar-coating, particularly in theocratic or authoritarian settings, where political power disguises itself as piety. Socrates once warned that democracy succeeds only when citizens are educated and morally conscious. In societies where religious thinking dominates, democracy struggles to function. It cannot counter religion-based politics because faith often resists rational discourse. Having read a variety of religious texts, I find many of them incoherent or self-contradictory. Of course, they have undergone centuries of interpretation, and their original meanings may well have been distorted, whether intentionally or not.
Still, I occasionally revisit them for their metaphorical richness, as they stimulate imagination and philosophical reflection. Yet comfort and wonder should never replace intellectual responsibility. I am not against religion in principle. My intention is to define its limits in a world that values evidence, reason, and human dignity. Everyone should be free to follow any belief system, provided it does not inflict harm on others. As Prophet Muhammad once said, “There is no compulsion in religion.” The moral teachings of Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Muhammad and countless spiritual masters are still worth studying, not as divine commandments but as ethical philosophies. Their lives and sacrifices reflect a universal aspiration to uplift humanity. Ultimately, serving humanity itself is the highest religion. Kindness towards humankind, animals, and the natural world remains the purest expression of spirituality, one that requires no ritual, no intermediary, and no fear of divine punishment. To act with reason and compassion is to serve the only faith that truly matters, the faith in humanity itself.
Notice – This article is a chapter from Glimpses of My Worldview (2025). It is being republished here on my blog as part of a complete serialization of the work.