All religions have their own set of rituals. The followers of those religions follow it diligently and go to any extent to preserve it. But you will be surprised, many new rituals are added every other day. This has increased the number of rituals in each religion enormously. The logic of these rituals are no doubt fascinating but equally amusing.
Why the religions ever started these rituals? And why do people obey them so religiously? If you ask this question to any religious person, the answer would be just one especially in South Asia and in India. They would say:
" It is a matter of faith!"
Or
"It is a matter of belief!"
To be frank, this answer does irritate me.
I would like to ask these people:
"If tomorrow, I believe that killing someone would bring me prosperity, should I do it?"
Well, of course, these people would have no answers. They would either remain mum or give some silly reason for it or might get restless and start defending the ritual with some strong body movements and gestures.
The basic and true point is that the person wastes his or her time, money and efforts for the rituals. Some of the rituals are so useless that they remain ineffective even after doing it. And some rituals are harmful too such as sacrifices of children or innocent animals.
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| Goat for sacrifice |
If you research on self or others, you will see that despite doing the rituals, the outcome might not be as expected. So when you know that these rituals are not useful, why don't you just stop doing it? An intelligent and strong-minded person would stop doing it.
But it is the weak-minded fearful people who would continue with the practice! This is because they fear that if they don't do it, they would be in trouble. Though the fact is that this might not happen commonly.
The fear is instilled into their minds by their parents or fear-mongers such as priests or religious heads. That is what these religious heads and priests want: to generate fear in minds of people and control them. Besides power and domination, these priests and religious heads also get money and food which they would use for themselves. The various places built in the name of the different gods are extremely wealthy places. But it is only a fraction of this money that reaches the needy. And remember, these religious places are also out of the audit. So one can only imagine where all the monetary and in-kind donations are going. Just outside these religious places, you will see poor people and beggars who live on alms and do not get even one square meal per day. What a shame on society!
Many of these rituals waste a lot of things such as water, milk, etc. Why can't you donate these things to needy people and animals instead of throwing them down the drain? Self-realization is best to stop this waste.
Moreover, use of fire in rituals and burning of incense sticks contribute towards environmental heating and air pollution. Therefore, it is a must that these air polluting and heating rituals be banned.
It is important to realize that rituals benefit no one. It is the weak-minded people who cling to them and try to preserve them. It serves no purpose and helps no one. It is pseudo-satisfaction that will only reap unhappiness and fear.
Come out of it. None of them are useful. There is no evidence to continue them. Both the useless and harmful rituals should be stopped. Move to a humane and truly happy world by foregoing them.
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