GOD, WORSHIP AND HUMANITY

 

GOD, WORSHIP AND HUMANITY

Dr. S. Pattanaik.

Quest of God is paramount importance for man.  In the process of evolution of living creatures human beings (earlier were in shape of humanoid monkeys) appears as the final or terminal species. It appears that the superiority it, the human being, achieved is due to development of additional mental faculty like cognition (an intellectual activity of thinking reasoning and remembering) in their brain. But in animals, the growth of intelligence stopped at a certain level. 

  Intelligence in humanity continued growing and is modifying according to experiences,   observations and teaching in various fields of arts, science and technology. They were interested to know more and more on everything they come across since they trod on the surface of the earth. Haven, world, nether world, heavenly bodies (sun, moon, stars etc who causes day, night and a starry sky) and the worldly events like trees growing from ground, flowering and fruiting to beautify environment & produce juicy fruits for them &other living beings to nourish. It made them feel the presence of a supernatural being   – the God, the creator for all good things & events. His abode was contemplated to be in heaven. And they also thought of devils, the wrong doer, causing forest fire, thunder, earth quake &other deluges. The devil’s abode   was considered to be in nether world that is under their (man’s) world.

Centuries passed observing, reasoning, learning about everything in the universe that came to human per view (range of vision, understanding or cognizance) and he analyzed it philosophically as science is practically at its infancy.

Mankind gradually got enlightened further and further. They developed language for communication, left forest and started living in plains making houses and cultivating land for corns and fruits. Searching the facts and figures located in sky, in land and in void became a craze for them.  Imagination, an outcome of cognition, made humanity further confirm that his earlier conception of God, devil, earth, sky etc needs further exploration. 

Human knowledge, growing predominately by philosophy, (the activity, people undertake, when they seek to understand fundamental truth about themselves and the world in which they live and their relationship to the world and to each other) gradually over taken by the science which was the earliest learning that human acquired when he tested his food, animal or vegetable, roasted in forest fire. He learned the technique of producing fire; utilize it to cook food to taste. He discovered metals masses in fields where there was long continuing forest fire which melts ores of metal in surface of earth or found in sites of volcanic eruptions. Thus began the ‘new Stone Age’ in human history.

Then limited science knowledge on fire gradually extended to explore or imagine the land we live, the sky above it,  the nether world below, celestial objects, and all others things with incidents around us.

 Centuries after centuries passed. The human understanding of the things around gradually changed from philosophy to absolute mathematics that is science. The idea of the earth being globular ,not plain; the sun, the moon & other celestial bodies are not heavenly bodies but are solid and globular like earth & they are floating in empty space of universe in regular fashion, became clearer. More strange, to believe, that the sun is not moving to cause day and night but the earth is moving to effect day and night on its different parts.. Naturally quest for the Creator, ‘The God’ became bewilderment in philosophy and science. The age-old philosophy that ‘He’ resides in heaven, an unimaginably   beautiful place with rippling brooks, dancing damsels and all other things best in shape and character. ‘He’ manages everything, every incidence, everywhere in the universe, became a mystery. 

 Now, centuries since the science is progressing far ahead of, philosophy and transdental ideas, there occurs a great change on the belief of existence of God, in the shape as we are accepting now. But there are 90% of people who are still in belief of wrong ideas like heaven, earth, hale and Godly beings or devils. Naturally a creator, the God in the shape of their belief, is a valid acceptance for them. Their procedures of worshiping, prayer and offers   in different methods to satisfy Him are continuing.  Religions were created by people considered pious and having deepest knowledge of God and his creative activities. Some of them claim to be direct descendant of God while others claim to be His personal representatives. The other belief is that the wrong and terror creating activities are the activities of devils and they live in hell. 

Gradually the science far surpassed the philosophy, belief and transdental ideas. It explained cosmos (an orderly harmonious universe….Pythagoras in 6^th century B.C.) all around us. Scientific knowledge, of vast cosmos also progress down into small to smallest things - the elements those formed by single or in combination of atoms creating matter. Matter has a shape and a mass (weight). They in permutation and combination shaped everything we see, feel or understand. In this way the physical world started shaping the non-living and living world.

 On further dissection the matters are found shaped by atoms which are made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons and other many such bodies. They remained bound together by a force (a strength, an energy), magnetic in nature (attraction and repulsion). This force may be so mild that it can’t be felt by all our sensory systems. This energy to keep an atom in shape may be so mild to so tremendous that we produce and utilized it,(the atomic energy) for our home utilization or destruction - even to annihilation. 

What is energy? A man with knowledge in science understands that it as ‘capacity to do work’. It has different forms like – gravity, electricity, light, heat, magnet and rays- like x-ray, B-ray and millions of cosmic rays. They play the role of creator of ultra micro structures that creates subatomic particles like proton, electron, neutron and other such ones to create atoms that are the building block of matters.         

 

Energy is what materialized the universe in is static (matter) or kinetic (‘rays or movement) form. It is omniscient, omnipotent and all pervasive – ‘The God’ we fail to recognize. Our ignorance is manifested when we fail to understand how we should maintain creation in its prevailing shape. Our failure to perpetuate it is obvious now. Spoiling environment, miss use of store of natural energy and enmity, among ourselves spoiling brother hood, love & affection among us, the humanity, are the glaring examples. Everything, living, nonliving, power, ’rays, is the   God - no destructible but only exchangeable.