|
..Religion, which used to be the centre of man's life and gave him a yardstick to act by, has lost its importance, as Baha'u'llah predicted. It plays scarcely any part in the running of society. The considerable power of the churches in public life cannot disguise this fact. The desolate situation of the religions is described by the religious philosopher and former state president of India, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan: "Millions of people wish to believe, but they cannot, even though these orphaned children make use of the outer framework of religions. We are christened, or baptized, married, buried or cremated according to our religious rites, but all the time we are victims of an involuntary hypocrisy." For most of those who still follow a religion, it is little more than a mechanical participation in traditional forms and customs and a passive submission to dogma. For modern man is increasingly skeptical and attached to things of this world; he is so deeply involved in this life that the life to come has scarcely any meaning for him. The Church is, therefore, to a great extent reduced to the degrading level of an institution for baptism, marriage and burial. Religious ties are often maintained only for the sake of convention, out of consideration for the family or even on economic grounds. But the great multitude of adherents do not in any way direct their lives according to the laws to which they are morally bound. Radhakrishnan writes: "We keep up the forms of religion, which seem to be of the nature of play-acting" and rightly concludes: "If religion is not dynamic and pervasive, if it does not penetrate every form of human life and influence every type of human activity, it is only a veneer and not a reality." While the great masses of spiritually-indifferent people consider religion with apathy-- most of them not by virtue of a conviction acquired after deep consideration but on the strength of a materialistic view-point, of a licentious and materialistic striving after gain which today has do much hold over everybody-- most of the intellectuals of the younger generation adopt towards religion an attitude which is aloof or even hostile. They imagine themselves to be in possession of a scientific approach to human nature and are convinced that mankind's religious life will some day be overcome just like the demonism of primitive tribes or the belief in witchcraft of the Middle Ages.
(13:1)
|