A wise man wrote “LANGUAGE IS A LIVING THING” (post # 006)

Any language has its origin in its vocal form and thus it is comprised of different sounds. A language survives as long as it is used by a group of people for their vocal communication and dies the moment it is no more spoken. The writing only conserves the language in the archives but it does not keep it alive. To revive a language it is necessary to know how the language had been spoken. We have very rich written literature in Ancient Greek and Latin languages, but they are considered dead as no group of people uses them in every day oral communication. A “LANGUAGE IS A LIVING THING”, only, as long as, it is used for oral communication by a group of “LIVING BEING”.

A combination of these sounds makes a word to indicate an object, a feeling, a movement or an imagination. Since each language has its own fixed sounds, the same object may have different words in different languages. It is also possible that the same word may have different meanings in different languages. A simple example is the word “resume” which has two entirely different meanings in French and English. It is also possible that a single word in a given language is used differently by different group of people. This is not an exception but a very common practice.

The words “religion” and “belief” are multi-message words. The religion can stretch from monotheism to polytheism, passing through the atheism. The same way the belief can be any thing from “blind faith” to a “doubtful reality”.

Any word becomes an integral part of a language if common people start using it in everyday conversation. On this basis there are many English (Urdu) origin words which have become part and parcel of Urdu (English) language. On the other hand any word (or its meaning) introduced by a learned scholar (and accepted by some other scholars) will remain only in written literature if it is not accepted for normal conversation by the people. 

The religion in its simplest form is a relation between “man and god”. Here the “man” stands for “any human” and the “god” is “any superior entity” in which an individual has a faith that IT has a supreme power in all domains (monotheism) or in some particular domains. There can be as many gods as human beings and perhaps even more, because a man may have faith in many gods at the same time. 

The faithful of a “unique god” (monotheist) have decreed that the religion is man to unique-god relation. The same unique god has different names like God, Dieu, Yoha, Allaah and etc. 

This unique god does not have the same relation with three different monotheist religions. To one He gives the promised-land for eternity, to the second He gives His Son and to the third He gives the privilege to a male faithful to have four wives. 

In spite of different names and different treatments, the believers of all three religions (Judaism, Christianism and Islam), consider that only their orthodoxy is the religion and any heterodoxy like Hinduism is not.  

This particular definition of religion is not limited to Western Judeo-Christian belief. The same belief (even somewhat stronger) extends to the Far-East with Islam.  The Pakistani Muslims made a new home to get rid of Hinduism. Any Malay or Indonesian Muslim will assert that only his religion is TRUE and all others are FALSE. 

The statement, 

“In most Western thinking the word religion is restricted to the three so-called revealed religions of the Middle East. Most such writers do not even want to categorise Hinduism or Buddhism as a religion. Currently, the common Western usage would include Hinduism but perhaps some may not include Confucius principles or Taoism and even Buddhism. This kind of a definition of religion is a typically Western ethnocentric Judeo-Christian approach (Post # 005)”,  

shows that the writer is partial in his observation and subjective in his judgement. The so called Western thinking is particular to all “monotheist” religions irrespective of East or West. 

Any definition of a word which presents a world view can only be a definition which contains all the different definitions of the word. One such definition of “religion”, we have used above. This kind of definition one can find in any dictionary. According to my little French dictionary the religion is based on “les rapports de l’homme avec la divinité ou le sacré”. This kind of definition unites all the religions into one single group “Religion”. 

There are some people who consider that any dictionary definition (and particularly the above definition of Religion) is as clear as mud. It is simply because these persons have already fragmented the “Religion” according to the “Belief”.  

A group of people considers that (i) the belief itself is the “TRUTH” (Religion) and (ii) another group considers that it is a “DOUBTFUL RALITY” (Science and Philosophy). The first group is classified as “Believers” and the second as that of “Non-believers”. These classifications are well established and accepted.  

Now, if somebody comes forward to declare that: “since everybody believes in something, so everybody is a Believer”, then he is ignoring the accepted definitions of the word Believer and also of the composed word Non-believer. These two are not the same. So, to claim Believer=Non-believer is wrong. 

On the basis of two different uses of the word “belief”, the humanity is often divided in two groups. In group (A), there are rational (doubt and reason) persons and in group (B) the irrational (no doubt, no reason but blind faith). 

This kind of division is practical and convenient. The Scientists can be put in group (A) and the Religious in group (B). But, is it possible to separate the rational and irrational in an individual? 

A Scientist may be a very Religious person as well. A great Humanitarian (rational) can be a great poet (irrational). The irony of the situation is that fun, pleasure and love in an individual are his irrational part. So, the groups (A) and (B) are as entwined as a couple of lovers in love-making. 

Please, let the people be as they are with their qualities and faults. As human beings we all are united in “Humanity”, but remain separated in our “Diversity”. 

Ahsan

Strasbourg, France

ahsan@noos.fr