Designer Religion?

Have been recently reading a book called ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins.

Must say it is one of the most insanely rational and gripping books I have read in a long time… As the title suggests, the basic premise of the book is that the existence of God is highly improbable, and Religion is a just a convenient by-product of our psychological needs. Also, religion has evolved over the centuries (with healthy amounts of designing by some powerful people across different eras) to become what it is today.. Of course, the backbone of this entire theory is that there is no scientific proof of God’s existence, and most scriptures have been distorted over the centuries by the Chinese Whispers phenomenon, into what they are today…

The author mainly looks at Christianity, Judaism (& Islam) as the main monotheistic religions of our times, and how they foster in group kinship and out-group hostility. The ideology that My God is the only God, or my faith is the true faith gives these religions a coating of violent intolerance towards anyone not belonging to their creed. Makes me wonder as a Hindu, whether a polytheistic religion like Hinduism makes one more tolerant? With its selection of thousands of Deities to choose from, you can decide whom to worship. It offers you much more flexibility to choose, and fosters tolerance for coexistence of many other deities in the name of faith…. probably it is a gentler religion…

But even if we do consider the radical idea that Religion is ‘designed’, the fact that the Design has evolved over centuries has given it its robustness and power…something similar to the way the Indian Lota was designed, and its resulting ubiquitous popularity in India. In any case, it has a huge fan-following, because it carries all the hallmarks of a good design:

• It satisfies the needs and desires of the ‘User’
• It arouses powerful emotions within the ‘User’
• It is intuitive, user-friendly and an effective tool to use in day to day living
  

No wonder it has such huge Brand Equity, and irrespective of whether Dawkins is right or not (there is a strong probability he might be), it isn’t going to go out of vogue anytime soon!