Disclaimer: Written in the last 10 minutes \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
I dont know about my belief in God but what I do believe in is that (at the cost of sounding very “right winged”) is that we come from a rich, cultural heritage. Here’s my hypothesis: I believe that our ancestors held a lot of wisdom and this wisdom was shared with the common people. Somewhere, there was a need to wrap this wisdom in a more palatable form or make some “good practices” common practices.. and BINGO.. there came religion and a set of associated beliefs and superstitions. We all must have heard the story of the Buddhist monastery which meditated while tying a cat to a lamppost. The story of religion and superstitions would follow a similar trajectory of evolution.<\/p>\n
Let me give you a few examples to further help you understand where I am coming from:
\n1. The Indian cow: “gau rakshaks” have earned a notorious name in recent times but do we understand what value the Indian cow holds? If you google it, you will understand what I am saying. Can we use our newly acquired critical thinking skills to separate the noise and the message?<\/p>\n
2. I shared an article about it recently . Deep breathing is good for you. Stanford medical school now confirms it. but hello! I mean Baba Ramdev made an entire nation do the “kapalbhaati” and from time immemorial, yogic breathing is a part of our tradition<\/p>\n
There are many other examples that I have!<\/p>\n
My request to my fellow critical thinkers is that “THINK, Look for confirming and disconfirming evidence” but dont dismiss the native wisdom that we possess.<\/p>\n
Now, where does god and religion come here? These same “learned, wise men and women” devised religion \/ God\/ scriptures to guide us on the right way of life (for example: i am doing a gita class and one learning that has really stuck is that “i need to be free from becoming a smaller person. I understand this as always being or attempting to be large hearted, generous, forgiving, gratitude. Works for me! If this is what religion will teach me, I am willing to buy it. I am equipped with a rational and thinking mind and what i call as a “bullshit filter” which will help me cut the noise from the message.) I acknowledge that education (and specifically a “western” education has equipped me to do so)<\/p>\n
But if I am at a well placed position that allows me to enjoy the benefits of a Western Education and our native wisdom, I intend to make full use of it and selectively adopt certain “religious” practices or tenets which will do me only good<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Disclaimer: Written in the last 10 minutes \ud83d\ude42 I dont know about my belief in God but what I do believe in is that (at the cost of sounding very “right winged”) is that we come from a rich, cultural heritage. Here’s my hypothesis: I believe that our ancestors held a lot of wisdom and this wisdom was shared with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critical-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1357,"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeclasses.fountainheadschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}