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 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism