Would banning religion lead to world peace?
All are born humans but somehow due to the ongoing pressure from the society one gets converted to some or the other religion not by faith or choice but by inheritance.
In order to understand the impact of banning a religion we need to understand various aspects of it first.
Are you a believer or a follower?
Let me be more specific on this one. Do you really believe in your religion or are you just following it because your family is practicing it?
In this fine world we somehow find a space to coexist between our choices of being religious and realistic at the same time. So, what does that make us?
A Following Religious Believer who is Realistic!
Science and Religion
Science believes that we are all evolved from a single celled organism to chimps and then to humans. We all firmly believe that and consider it as the base for evolution theories. On the other hand the religious books say otherwise. Different religions have different concepts as to how the first humans came into existence. Every religious person believes in their respective explanations too. It is ironical that we, very comfortably, accept these contradictions and move on in life.
If a religious person is to be believed, science is wrong or if science is to be believed then the religious books ain't teaching the right thing. Yet there is no fight over it. It's because people have accepted the differences by understanding both perceptions.
Well, if we understand the perception so well then why are we fighting over religious differences? It undoubtedly makes us hypocrites.
Was religion created to divide us?
Everybody seeks to put their faith into something which they believe would give them hope. Somehow religion has the power just about to do the same. From all the religious books the base message comes down to just one thing - being compassionate and a responsible human being.
All of those books is full of guidance as to how to lead your life towards it. It gives you hope through words and adds the right amount of fear in order to keep you away from the wrong. It does have answers to all your problems, only if you read it in the right sense. Somehow the world got lost in the words terribly.
Everybody reads different!
Partly, misinterpretation is a cause of different ways of practicing a religion and also the cause of further categorization of the same. I would rather say, mostly it is the multiple interpretations that has done the damage. It's rather absurd to find that the people who believe in the same religion, indulge in a debate just because of difference in the interpretation of the same book!
Just by debating we are destroying the very purpose of the book.
Banning Religion
I always wondered as to what would have happened if there were no religions in the world. We all have asked this question at least once at some point in life. Most people believe that all of our problems with religious differences would end and our world would become a better place to live in. One must say, it's really a nice thought.
In order to understand this we need to understand that knowingly or unknowingly, we are hierarchically categorized based on various differences. Apart from religion, the categories include region, color of the skin, wealth, profession, qualification, and what not. Let us give these categories a hierarchy based on a hypothetical assumption.
Humans => Religion => Region => Wealth => Profession => Race => ... => ...
(The arrangement of these categories is hypothetical as the categorization depends on one's perception)
If we simply take out religion from the above hierarchy, do you believe that there would be peace? Sadly, we would be absolutely wrong. Because now some other category would take prominence and the differences would still exist. In the above example, categories like region, wealth or any other, would take religion's place but the differences won't end.
On the other hand, by eliminating religion we wouldn't be wrong to think that it would help curb some of the unwanted evils in the society. But at the same time it would give birth to other, even worse, social evils which could prove to be more disastrous for our civilization.
Currently, a great deal of damage is being done around the world due to religious differences. The fact is that, the fight is not caused by any religion; But by the people, who for higher gains, are using religion as a tool to motivate vulnerable minds. If religion gets outdated they would smartly find something else that could get these minds to work for them. At present the closest thing to religion is patriotism that is being widely used by all the countries for its defense.
It remains a fact that most of the moral and cultural values in the world are preserved, inspired and developed by religious faith which forms the base for one's character. Without it, there could be anarchy and chaos that would help other social evils to emerge and cause even more damage. Religion remains an essential part of our society as its advantages greatly supersedes its cons. If you look from a broader perspective, religion has more to offer than to take from us.
Banning religion will only make things worse than we could ever imagine. We should be sane enough to understand that religion is just one category, among hundreds, that we are classified into. Eliminating the differences is not the solution to peace - The trick is to accept them...