Their messages form the basis of scriptures. The scriptures, early practices, and traditions get codified, and form the foundation of religions, and provide rules, regulations, and guidelines for living. Doctrines, dogmas, and discipline are formulated in order to chart a definite course for the followers. Major deviations, disagreements, and differences of opinions may lead to heresies, schisms, and sects. What we need to keep very clearly in mind is that we are often talking about what we do not know as religion is a matter of faith whose content is not amenable to human reasoning. St. Paul, one of the greatest Christian theologians and shapers of early Christian communities, for instance, very clearly stated that we in our present life see matters of faith vaguely as if in a fog, and that every believer needs to work out one’s salvation with fear and trembling. St. Thomas Aquinas, a universally acclaimed great theologian, philosopher, and doctor of the Christian Church, is reported to have said, three months before his death and after a deep experience with Christ, that all he had written seemed like straw to him. In the same vein, Sankaracharya, the unequalled proponent of Hindu philosophy and theology in his last days confessed that the great sin he committed is his attempt to define the indefinable.
What does all this mean? We are in completely uncharted waters in our little boats buffeted by storms. We are groping in darkness. We only have the light and direction from the faith that we have freely chosen. Therefore there is no room for arrogance, fanaticism, and pride; there is all the reason for humility, tolerance, and gratitude. Let not human take away the glorious freedom that God gave. If God does not take away the freedom from humans to make mistakes even to the point of rejecting God, who can persecute or kill another human for exercising one’s freedom to change his/her religion or not to have any religion at all? Unfortunately the history of religions shows that religions have not often championed the cause of freedom. They in fact opportunistically supported dictators who advanced their agenda.
In the ultimate analysis they cannot escape the stark reality that freedom denied to one human being is freedom denied to all human beings. Religious fanatics and fundamentalists, unfortunately there are too many of them in every religion; give the distinct feeling that God made a mistake in giving humans freedom. In their gross blindness and utter stupidity they do not understand that human beings will no longer be human beings without this very freedom. Sadly there are also religious leaders who think freedom has to be exercised in ways that they proclaim or pontificate because they know how humans need to exercise their freedom, because only they know what goes into the formation of a right and adequate conscience, and because they alone have been entrusted with the authority and power of guiding human destiny. I will never understand why they think that they are so cocksure about everything, and that they alone are given the great job of taking care of everyone that God chose not to handle, and left that job to each and every human. It appears that these leaders are also not happy that God gave humans freedom. They are self-serving spiritual dictators. They do not realize that their thinking is ridden with internal contradictions.
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