Imagine if there is no religion....

" Imagine there's no heaven,It's easy if you try,No hell below us,Above us only sky,Imagine all the people living for today...
Imagine there's no countries,It isn't hard to do,Nothing to kill or die for,No religion too,Imagine all the people living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer,but I'm not the only one,I hope some day you'll join us,And the world will be as one.
Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can "

...these are of course the lines from the song "Imagine" by the Beatles.Extremely disheartened by the current state of national and international affairs, i was wondering the value that this song holds today. It does hold a lot of value and makes a lot of sense at this moment. You might say that it is completely baseless and doesn't make sense at all, still lets try to imagine it for once.

When you want to know where you stand today the best possible way would be by taking a look at the past. Talking about the past and the way religious differences have altered the course of history is very significant. If we take a look at the terror activities, riots and other menaces in India, say, the '93 Mumbai blasts, the Varanasi blasts at Sankat Mochan, bombing in Malegaon mosque in 2006 to cite a few, we come to one conclusion. 'Religion' is the big word here. The root cause for all these unfortunate incidences. Moving out of India, let's consider the 9/11 tragedy which created anti-Islam feelings amongst millions of people around the world. It was the 9/11 attacks that actually shook the world and made terrorism a global issue.

The innumerable bombings and suicide bombings in Pakistan and India and a couple of them in Britain too add up to the numbers. What the sad part is that these terrorists believe they are doing good deeds! Deeds which even maulvis and Muslim leaders severely condemn. Coming to the more recent times, the Amarnath land row was a big issue. The cultural clashes which led to bandhs, riots, violence, and curfews. The latest to make it to the breaking news is the Church violence starting off in Kandhamal in Orissa and catching up with the rest of the country too. The attacks on churches is just sad. It has given India( which is well known...(or should i say 'was') for religious tolerance since centuries) a bad name. And the government is freaked out and doesn't know what to do! I almost forgot to mention Hitler's hatred towards Jews which made his name synonymous with cruelty. What a pity! So much has happened on the name of religion.

Now, what if religions are abolished? I mean why don't we just remove the virus from the system? I am not saying people should turn atheist. There could be one common religion for the whole world. A 'new' religion which would be based on modern ideologies and thoughts and would be free from all forms of superstitions and unnecessary practices. From the many reasons which lead to tension and communal imbalance at least one could be eliminated from the list. Religion being one of the reasons for more than half of communal violence in many countries, we could expect less of these violence. It would lead to peace and feeling of oneness. People of a country could come together with their culture. Agreed religion is one of the most important aspects of a culture but then there is more to a culture. Like they say, to gain something you lose something, which is so apt here. If you can sacrifice something for good then, why not?

I wonder if this can ever be possible. The end of religion and religion based violence both seem impossible to ever happen. But anyways, it was just a passing thought. What say?