Religious Conversions - The Capitalist Way

A religious conversion, for all the hullabaloo around it, is nothing more than changing a service provider, like changing your mobile carrier. And so it is only fair that they compete just as hard for our business as these companies do. And if we are not happy with their service, we should be able to switch from one to another.

Now many religions spend billions on promoting (marketing) their religions and luring people to come to their fold. They deploy all the classical marketing tricks - word of mouth, material inducements, even going as far as promising a better after-life (something that no other service/product industry does today). With all due respect though I'd submit that the religion marketing has fallen behind the curve. What they need is a focused hiring effort of the best and brightest MBAs who can then design marketing promos.Being a proud MBA myself, I couldn't resist the urge to suggest a few ideas but I am sure there are far more and far better ones:

Creamy Caste - Feel good about yourself immediately and get the right to look down upon hundreds of millions of people simply by joining us right at the top of our vicious caste system.

Sainthood Surprise - Get sainthood in five years flat (fast track available for enough dough). May require a trip and short stay in some third world country, and some imbeciles who can attest to the magical powers you obviously possess, like healing cancer with your mere touch.

V for Virgins - 72 of them when you join us and then kill some infidels. Especially targeted towards young college grads having a tough time getting a date. Special promo season could be just after Valentines Day.

Bring Your Own God - Not happy with your current God. Well, join us to choose a God of your own from the existing 330 million we have. You can even create your own. More the merrier - we are good in numbers.

One is not enough - Not happy with just one wife? We understand your medieval tendencies and especially designed our religion for you where you can come and enjoy as many wives as you want. Fine print - you may have to leave your country and relocate. We are working tirelessly to make polygamy a universal rule and are currently fighting our opponents around the world.

Pedophile's paradise - We understand your love for children and have special jobs designed just for you. You can brainwash the parents, have their children and be respected all at the same time. Deal?

An open market for religions would also bring out some much needed competitive intelligence. Religions can hire investigative journalists who can shine light on what promises are actually being fulfilled and what are simply hogwash. Imagine a headline stating "9/11 attackers denied their virgins - God ruled that the killings were haraam" or "A convert promised moksha re-born with village buffoons as parents, God ruled he must study Science in this life to improve his chances". Oh the possibilities are limitless, just like our universe.

Like I have said before, I am all for conversions. In fact, just like I can chose either Pepsi or Coke or both depending on my mood, I should be able to change and chose my religion based on what's best suited for the moment - need to eat beef for lunch, become a Muslim; want that bacon for breakfast, embrace Christianity. As a deeply religious man who never does things proscribed by his religion of the moment, my moksha, with a place in all heavens and with all their accouterments seems certain. The worst that can happen is I might be asked to leave one heaven for the next from time to time - seems like a good deal, it will keep away the boredom. Wanna join my Just in Time Religion?

Are Atheists smarter than people believing in God

Innumerable debates have been organized between champions of atheists and people believing in God. Watching them, one almost feels sorry for the people representing God because invariably the organizers bring some religious leader to represent people believing in God.

Is religion the only way to represent God?

Atheists have a field day making fun of religion and some of the ideas/stories that form their foundations. Rightfully so. The foundations are so shaky and ridiculous - virgin birth, denial of evolution, sexist and violent books - that they are simply indefensible in any debate.

The real debate, which I am yet to come across, should be between Atheists and Agnostics. It may also be a difficult one since they would agree on so many things except on one question - is their a higher power guiding this universe?

The scientific quest for the origin of universe continues. It is simply awe inspiring to hear people like Lawrence Krauss talk about what we know about the origins of universe, could universe have started from NOTHING, what happened during the Big Bang etc. The question that no one has answered yet is what was their before the Big Bang, or what was beyond the boundary of the object that exploded (Big Bang), where is universe expanding to. There is so much that is unknown today. Atheists like Richard Dawkins have admitted repeatedly that they dont have the answers and that they are working on them. It is here where Agnostics can state that while even they don't have the answers, a belief in a higher power devoid of any religious baggage is perfectly rational. God in this case would be a hypothesis which cannot be proved or disproved. Your final position/inference will be exactly the same as your initial hypothesis.

Now a belief in Agnosticism, one can argue, can lead down a slippery slope. If you believe in a higher power, what does it do, how does that power affect your lives, why was this universe "created", what's the purpose etc. There are obviously no answers yet but perhaps more importantly, there is no good reason to believe that the higher power is even bothered with our Milky Way, much less about our solar system, or about Earth or about humans as a species (of the millions that exist). It is simply conceited to think ourselves as the center of anyone's attention, higher power or not.

I am very open to hearing arguments that disprove the existence of a higher power beyond a reasonable doubt. Until them, I must say it is a coin toss.

Religious Conversions - From One Mirage to the Next

2014, IMHO, has been a watershed year as far as debate on religions go. One only needs to search in youtube to get some very fascinating debates - one religion vs. another, religion vs. atheism et al. If you haven't, look for Bill Maher, Douglas Murray, Majid Nawaaj, Richard Dawkins, Anjem Chaudhary, Athaar Khan etc. The discussions are thoughtful and highly entertaining to say the least.

The ongoing debate in India around conversions (and re-conversions) towards the end of 2014 has been an icing on the cake, so to say.

Now conversions are not new. Some of the major religions in the world openly propagate it and thrive on it. It has been going on for centuries. And while I firmly believe and openly profess the right of a person to believe in anything, and follow whatever path he/she thinks is the right one, I cannot but wonder what kind of a person (the preacher or the converter) would ask someone to forego his/her current religion and join a new one. That person, the converter, has to be a BIGOT or an IDIOT.

There is no way to sugarcoat this. You see, at the heart of the conversion inducement lies a fundamental assumption - that my religion is better than yours! Really, in this day and age, if someone says "my religion is better than yours", either he/she is a complete nincompoop or a vile scheming bigot. There are no other categories I can think of.

If a person decides to leave his/her religion of his/her own volition and go to the next one, there may be some understandable reasons. I will give a few but the list could be really long:

- Caste - If you belong to one of the so-called lower castes, there may be good reasons to embrace a different religion. All Hindus who love their religion need to wake up and realize that calling/treating some Hindus as "lower caste" is self-annihilating. Self respecting people will simply walk away as they should.

- Gender - Need I even say anything. All religions give women the short end of the stick. Some societies have moved away from the barbarism, some follow it today and some would like to get back to it! For females, the best alternative seems to be to show their middle fingers to this entire religion thing and let the males squirm. Pity is that it is the females who seem to be conditioned the most to follow their religions (and accept their second class citizenship status) from early childhood. They hold their religions on their shoulders oblivious of the fact that it is religion that has been burying them down for centuries.

- The Books - Living by the diktats of books that were meant for life in ancient/medieval times might insult some people's intelligence. Most people simply ignore those books, as they should. However if your society judges you by your degree of adherence to medieval books and ideas, it might be time to say goodbye to your religion altogether.

- The Followers - If your co-religionists make you uncomfortable, you can either fight them and make them irrelevant, or ignore them (but for how long), or leave your religion. Would you want to continue to be part of a group whose ideas you no longer identify yourself with.

There could be obviously many other reasons. In fact, I would aver that most people simply don't leave/change their religions out of inertia. They are too busy with their lives to care about it. However we all have to decide what kind of society we want to leave for our children. If we believe in something, we should raise our voice for it. If we don't agree with something, we should fight against it. Silence in this day and age is a privilege we don't have.