What Is Wrong With Different Belief Systems?

Any belief system is made up of specific thoughts and dogma, these thoughts and doctrine make the core of it and work as a cohesive force for binding and attracting its followers for different aims and objectives. Most of the time these aims and objectives are defined by the various human needs, those may be social, cultural, religious, and spiritual. Therefore, the thoughts behind any belief system have two components, one is the component of humanity and human values, it has the ideas of love, brotherhood, and compassion among its followers and the second component which potentially become larger in due course of time is its practices and rituals which create its identity. Interestingly in all belief systems, the first component will remain common, it makes the foundation for their existence. It is the second component which is projected as the face of the different belief systems since it separates one from another. Many myths and conceptions are created, they are required for two reasons one, to keep all the people in the group and second to increase the group. So, the potential threat of human greed for power, money, and politics always will remain there to capture the belief systems. Finally, the creation of a leader and its clout started reining the belief system, and its followers. It is a tremendous social thought of the collective human brain, and it created all the religions and cultures of the world, simultaneously it gives momentum for the development of human civilization. Therefore, the wisdom of the leaders and followers of the belief system always have potential threat of getting corrupted by the negative human thought processes of greed, hatred, violence and other negative thoughts. The inbuilt corrective system which is nothing else but its base and foundation, the humanity and the human values prevent such situations since it controls the collective thought processes of the belief system.

All the belief systems have played an enormous role in the evolution and development of human civilization. They are created for the religious, social, psychological and philosophical needs of the people, but above all, they help in realizing and finding our spiritual needs and spirituality. In a belief system, we perceive our belief or our practices which we can call religiosity, like spirituality, since most of the followers they are looking for spirituality, the faith, and methods of the belief system create an illusion of spiritual awakening. Therefore, the result is transformed into extreme thinking of religiosity, not spirituality and turned into an intense emotional reactionary force, because it is connected to the identity of the belief system conflicting with other belief systems. Gradually this more substantial component of practices and rituals overrule the foundation of the belief systems, it happens because of two reasons, one, to prove one belief system better than others and two, to increase the follower base or to retain followers. So, many times it is done intentionally. All over the world, we can find many examples where the followers of belief systems being cheated and emotionally blackmailed on this pretext to be turned into the extreme ideas.

Spirituality is a highly evolved human thought process. It is complicated so, it has many definitions and understandings. This whole scenario made it tortuous and difficult to understand, many times it happens unknowingly, but at the same time it is also true that it is done intentionally. Scientifically we can see spirituality as a highly evolved thought process of the human brain which happened due to the process of evolution of millions of years. In simple language, we can find it as the thought processes of humanity and human values, which is a collective human thought process present across the human population. The thought processes of humanity and human values make the foundation of all belief systems, which is common, it acts as controlling mechanism and connects one belief system with the other. Similarly, religiosity is our another thought process which connects us with our belief system, which has the understanding of our belief, practices, and rituals in a group of people with the same set of beliefs, in that way we can see that our religiosity has got many boundations which are governed by rules of our belief system.

Spiritual thought process evolved to find the answers to the complex questions of our existence, and it is the most important and intense dimension of our spirituality. So, it has got strong emotional and psychological appeal. People have a strong urge and attraction to realize their spirituality; it occurs because of daily problems of life, many fears of loss, and uncertainty of future, they want to find the solace and comfort. We can see it as the prime and most compelling reason to follow a belief system, but, if our belief system is creating more fears, most of them are imaginary and not based on the facts, and they are designed under the negative thoughts of greed, hatred, and intolerance, than we are prone for emotional blackmailing and emotional cheating. We are exposed to the potential danger of hatred, physical, and mental violence. We can easily become a part of a mindless mob, where someone else starts using us as a tool for their agenda, and we start playing in their hands. So, it is the most significant error of our belief systems; they portray its beliefs, practices, and rituals as spirituality, which is factually wrong and damaging to the whole concept of following a belief system.

Dr. Mahesh Bhatt