One December evening,I decided to spend some time with my night watch-man, a middle-aged person, illiterate, who had never attended school in his life. As he managed the bon-fire and prepared potato barbecue, I sat in the hearth and began asking him a few questions. The sky was bright and glistening with stars. I asked him "What do you know about these stars?". His reply was" They are all God,when a person dies,he becomes a star,my father is also one of them". Then I asked him " What about the moon?". He replied "That's our king,after he died he became the moon".Suddenly, I felt a gap of centuries with my friend for the evening, but saw a truth in what he said.
"God exist where the human mind cannot explain". The man of the old used to worship the sun, the moon and the stars. With the growth of astronomy and the resultant scientific explanation of the universe,the God in these celestial bodies diminshed.
Man also worshiped the fire,the rain,the earthquake,the volcano etc. When the striking of two stones sparked fire and when match was invented,the God in fire perished. Likewise,with the scientific explanation of these natural calamities,the God in them faded away.
Then,came religion and its authority,so much so that religion became more prominent than God,Himself. Believers began to offer wealth as a form of worship,the churches began to collect tithe from the followers. Religion grew,God became smaller.
Then,the custodians of religion,the priest,the brahmins etc. who were all self-styled symbols of divinity,who acted as people one step closer to God, charlatans...who devised methods of worship and who pretended to know the language of God. The extension of these people are the ones we see as 'Godman' today, mushrooming up in India....that's another evolution of God.
The faith in God is a very abstract one,it is about one's perception and it differs from one person to another,hence the debate on God and religion has been an endless one.
While one does not believe in idol-worship,another can worship a fellow human-being as God. Both are right from their own perspective,so long as they are true to their feeling.
However,the belief that one has,should not be imposed on another and that's what we call by 'True secularism'.
