What is religion?

I try to keep religion out of most matters for the sake of peace and with my level of ignorance it could be just treading onto dangerous territory. I’m no qualified individual to give statements of Fatwa. All that I can is to voice simple human opinion and if you ask me I think that one should not be too concerned of the opinion of others. Therefore this is for hearing from one ear and letting out from the other…

Religion by definition should have a God (something of power) and a set of guidelines or whatever that defines the “hows” of the ways one may go about life. This would mean that a person could believe in God but not have a religion or even vice-versa. Many atheists and intellectuals believe that Religion is simply for the less capable or the ones who have no self-control and therefore need to abide by a set of regulations. For one thing religion is definitely more than guidelines with a God. Is it then a science? Correct me if I’m wrong - to me Islam is not a religion if this be its definition. Islam to me in just a simple term is “life”.

A little diversion… (Since it crossed my mind just now)

Most religions (this word should be used with care) of the world were somewhat incomplete. Christianity is something like an upgraded version of Judaism (which is also an upgrade) and Islam the upgraded version of Christianity just like most of the other things around
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Buddhism which could have been an upgrade to Hinduism is a philosophy – one in my opinion that is far ahead of most other commonly practised religions or state law. The outcome of research on what life is and how it could be best lived. If we look through a magnifying glass do we see a close connection between culture and religion? Now, which influenced which? There has also been some past concern about the closeness in the teachings of the lord Buddha and the prophet Muhammed. In fact there has also been some suspicion as to whether the Lord Buddha could have even been a prophet. This though which has no evidence, is a notion mainly due to the fact that although there were over a hundred thousand prophets only twenty five of their names have been mentioned in the Quran. This however is a diversion from my initial topic.

Does a man need a religion? No certainly not. It is only a choice – an answer at difficult situations. If man was perfect enough to live his life with absolutely no user manual then why has man himself felt the need to come up with judicial state laws and the like? Why not have these only for the lesser mortals? This is a question that has tickled the minds of many. It is but a trickle of thought that has scratched the minds of man time and time again through history and will continue to trouble stemming buds like us only to leave with no answer. With this I hope that I would keep to my initial principle of keeping things of religious concern out of common conversation but going back to my definition, how can I not when everything is in someway related to it?

The best to do is to concentrate on what makes our life more productive rather than on such vain and conclusion-less thoughts and arguments of this nature. For me it’s back to books now!