Religion? Cast(e) Away...

My thoughts on Religion

Religion is a personal decision, an individual's path to connect with god.

Here's what I believe to be my religion...
I believe in the concept of one power to whom I pray. Name of the power is not important to me. Rather, its impossible for me to differentiate one 'God' from another. This could be mainly because I believe in faith rather than a concept of God. Many would say its one and the same and I'm indifferent to the idea of it being same or different. I also strongly believe that every individual has a right to practice a religion of his or her own choice. Also, that no other person should in any way influence that individual's decision.

I accept all faiths with all fairness and equality and do not believe any religion is better or worse than any other. In fact, my thoughts are that if you believe in god, then there is god & if you do not believe that there is god, then that is true as well. We have been given sufficient intelligence to decide for ourselves what is good for us, without imposing it on others. Preaching about a religion is acceptable if it gives facts, views and values of the religion but if its meant to degrade other faiths, then I do not favour such preaching.
As for conversions, I have nothing against them, conversion is an individual's choice. Sometimes its unfortunate that a individual is born into a faith, he does not find satisfaction in, so its upto the individual to choose a way in life, his or her religion. Its the collective mentality that I fail to understand in religions, if you are born into a certain religion then you must follow it all your life. Isn't this stand quite unfortunate? What about an individual's right to choose? It does help me that my feelings are not biased based on religion
or I would be worrying about my religion disappearing! Then I would fall into the trap of extremist thoughts and would end up doing acts that can lead me to be termed a fanatic..
Some say, we must practice tolerance of all religions, Its not tolerance that I practice, I practice open- hearted
acceptance.

My thoughts on Caste...

Much as I say this, I do have a grouse, the caste/creed distinction that are a part of many religions. Under the umbrella of a common God (since atheists are not part of this distinction!), the intolerance breeding is what makes it intolerable for me. What is caste? Like religion, something that you are born into, Unlike religion, one cannot embrace the caste that suits you best. You are burdened with the unwanted customs and practices that you have no interest in following. You may or may not follow the customs of the caste, but you are still forced to fill in the caste in any important document. Much as you may have abandoned caste, it haunts you all life. Why cant a human being
be accepted for what he or she has become as against what his or her ancestor practiced centuries earlier? Sometimes I find the most compassionate of people fall into the trappings of caste based distinctions. All individuals have the right to choose the way to live, so why not let them be? This society would be a much better place if rid of outrageously backward ideas such as caste