From
time immemorial, human beings have been obsessed with
ranking, or as anthropology would have it, Homo sapiens
is an incurably hierarchal species. The gene sequence
that prefigures the disposition best serves outcomes
that ensure our very best are recognized and rewarded
for being the best, and have first access to life’s
essentials. Even in pursuits or activities of no consequence
(cribbage, hop-scotch), the participants invariably
arrange themselves from best to worst, and that same
proclivity holds for almost everything in life. We want
to know which are the world’s best beaches, best iPhone,
music’s top ten, the year’s best and worst dresser,
the richest person, the poorest nation, the tallest
building, the hottest day. There is no end to our predilection
to rate and rank.
However,
as far as I know, no specialist, dedicated researcher
or organization has bothered to rank the religions,
attempted to objectively determine what might make one
religion more attractive or performative than another,
which becomes the task of this provisional essay.
All
the religions, in their own fashion, position themselves
to satisfy three basic human wants: (1) communion with
God through prayer, ritual and scripture (2) the equivalent
of the Ten Commandments as a moral code (3) a sense
of belonging to a privileged community.
Is
it possible establish if one religion answers to these
desideratum more than the others? Is it possible
to measure or ascertain, for example, if a Muslim feels
or identifies with his religion more deeply than, for
example, a Hindu or Buddhist?
If
all religions, however implicitly, would like to remake
their world in their image, can we demonstrate that
one religion does this more convincingly than the others?
Or why are people more likely to convert to Islam than
Judaism?
Each
religion, in arguing for its authority, claims a unique
and privileged relationship with God, or the gods. We
note that a religion's devotees are more favourably
disposed to their own and less so toward all others.
The degree of tolerance toward the outsider varies significantly
from one religion to another: Buddhism is non-denominational
while Islam regards all non-Muslims as infidels. Of
the world's approximately 4000
religions, each, if only implicitly,
views itself as the best, that is the best connected
to the will and word of God.
When
it comes to ranking the religions, and with all due
respect to qualitative analysis, there is a preponderance
of evidence suggesting that the most telling category
is quantitative. According to the Pew Research Center,
there are 2.3 billion Christians in the world, 1.9 Muslims,
1.1 secularists/agnostics/atheists, 1.1 Hindus, 500
million Buddhists and only 15 million Jews. However,
there was a Roman time when there were more Jews than
Christians in the world and Islam didn’t exist. Two
thousand years hence, half the world’s eight billion
people are either Christian or Muslim, while the Jews
check in at a paltry 15 million. In number-speak, Judaism
has been a colossal failure since it must be self-evident
that if prior to WWII had there been two billions Jews
in the world instead of 15 million, there would not
have been a holocaust. Numbers translate into man power,
boots on the ground, the sina qua non in defending
a territory and way of life.
If
a religion’s first duty to itself is to self-propagate
and survive, to stake out a territory and defend it,
Judaism is tragic lesson on what not to do. In the meantime
Christianity and Islam have divvied up half the world’s
land masses, and Hinduism and Buddhism have staked out
considerable territory.
The more attractive, caring and accessible are a religion’s
founding first principles, doctrines and, of vital importance,
promises, the greater will be its numbers. In respect
to the most dreaded event in the life of every human
being, death, Judaism is the only major religion that
doesn’t attach importance to the afterlife.
Of
all the religions, Judaism is the only one that doesn’t
permit active recruitment. On the other hand, Islam's
doors are as wide open as a saloon's. In order to become
a Muslim, you only have to utter three times in front
of two witnesses, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad
is his prophet.” It takes between six months to a year
to convert to Judaism. One could accuse Judaism as shooting
itself in the foot in respect to spreading its gospel,
or in current parlance, marketing its product.
If
Judaism's numbers have rendered it a dwarf religion
next to Christianity and Islam, this outcome is partly
consequent to having failed to recognize the importance
of encountering beauty in one’s daily life. The bleak
house of the synagogue pales next to the majesty and
beauty of the great Cathedrals, Mosques, Buddhist and
Hindu temples. So visually arresting are these magnificent
religious edifices that they have become popular tourist
destinations, and no less so with respect to their interiors
which house some of the world's finest sculpture and
art masterpieces. Only Judaism and Islam regard the
depiction of the human form as idolatry. Suffice to
say, a religion that ignores the importance of aesthetics
does so at its own peril.
From
the medieval Gregorian chants, oratorios, hymns, cantatas
and the timeless masses of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750),
Christianity’s music remains unsurpassed. By comparison,
the other religions haven’t been able to offer better
than the equivalent of endless monophonic droning that
is more likely to produce torpor than wonder. Inspired
by spirituals and gospel in Black churches, and recognizing
the importance of music in the lives of young people
looking to find their way in an increasing complex world,
many of the Christian churches (Presbyterian), now feature
live bands playing soft rock with religious lyrics.
No other religion does this; and the parishes, at least
in Brazil, are packed.
Since
all faiths inculcate the equivalent of the Ten Commandments,
the religions can be ranked according to those that
produce the most law-biding followers, or even better,
the most God-fearing, those who literally believe there
will be theological consequences if the commandments
are trespassed. From considerable personal experience,
having spent a year of my life in Muslim countries as
well as several years in Catholic Latin America, I would
unquestionably rather have my car break down in the
former. But getting a measure on what religion produces
the safest environment is problematic because of too
many variables. Law enforcement varies significantly
from country to country, as do poverty indices and the
culture of corruption. If the numbers force the conclusion
that Catholic Latin America is more crime ridden than
countries under Islam, the data must be treated with
scepticism since chopping off the hand of a thief or
executing a drug dealer, as in Indonesia and the Philippines,
will be a more effective deterrent than a fine or prison
term, which is why of the ten
safest cities in the world, six are Islamic.
While
marriage and fidelity are the cornerstones of all religions,
only Catholicism -- in Buddhism celibacy is a choice
-- presumed that the life of the spirit could be decoupled
from man’s recurring sexual drive. Beginning in the
11th century, priests were required to take the oath
of celibacy, which, in hindsight, was a colossal miscalculation
that eventually spawned a global epidemic of child abuse
by the priesthood, resulting in hundreds of thousands
of damaged adults, and a religion, in the minds of many,
that has lost its credibility. No surprise that among
the world’s major religions, Catholicism
leads the way in disaffections.
In
reckoning with human sexuality, Catholicism attempted
to suppress it, refused to acknowledge the force of
nature behind it, while Islam decided to snip it in
the bud. In Somalia, 98% of women between the ages of
15-49 have been subjected to the barbaric practice of
female genital mutilation (FGM), otherwise known as
clitoral circumcision. In Egypt, the numbers modestly
improve to 87%. In allowing for the healthy expression
of human sexuality, Judaism and Protestantism are light
years more enlightened than the other major religions.
Despite
gender apartheid and Sharia law, more
people are converting to Islam than
all other religions. Converts to Islam cite community
and family values as being the principle reasons. If
current trends continue, by 2050 there will be more
Muslims than Christians in the world and this is not
simply due to birthrate.
Both Islam and Hinduism recognize that there is no greater
burden on man than asking him to take responsibility
for his life. To be relieved of this existential weight
constitutes one of their main attractions. In both religions,
dress protocol, dietary laws, hygiene and interpersonal
relationships -- who can talk to whom where and when
-- are all meticulously regulated by time-tested rules
and regulations. Pre-empting the anxiety associated
with dating and courtship is arranged marriage, a custom
that has weathered all manner of criticism and denunciation.
Doubting Thomases are invited to scan the matrimonial
classified ads (brides wanted: grooms wanted) in the
local newspaper. In Islam the male or his family, and
Hinduism the woman or her family, provide the dowry.
In
the West, especially among the under 30, secularism
is the fastest growing anti-religion. Phil Zuckerman
reports, in "Why
Nations Are Becoming Secular ,"
that “ . . . for the first time in recorded history,
we now have numerous societies—such as Scotland, Estonia,
the Netherlands, Japan, Scandinavia, the Czech Republic,
South Korea, France, Hungary, and Australia—wherein
non-religious people outnumber religious people.”
It
seems that despite the elegant belief systems and sense
of belongingness offered by all the major religions,
there isn’t a human being who wouldn’t rather be free
than not, and secularism best answers to that primordial
longing and is the fastest growing non-religion in the
world despite major growing pains that stem from the
failure of its advocates to inculcate the importance
of linking freedom with responsibility. That said, according
to a study conducted by psychologist Will Gervais at
Brunel University in London, religious
people do not behave more morally than atheists.
In
keeping pace with the latest developments in science
and technology, Secularism, Christianity and Judaism
by far and away outstrip the competition. Woman’s rights
do not exist in Islam and in Hinduism it is a long day's
work in progress. When women are systematically excluded
from participating in the productive life of a nation,
millions of IQ points, every nation's greatest asset,
are squandered, guaranteeing civilizational impoverishment.
It's not a coincidence that many of the poorest
countries in the world are Islamic.
Buddhism
is no less backwards, since a woman, in order to achieve
enlightenment, must assume the male form. In Hinduism
there are indeed female divinities, but despite the
reforms of Nehru in 1947 India remains stubbornly patriarchal.
However, unlike Islam, both Hinduism and Buddhism are
beginning to concede to women more space in traditional
male professions. For women for whom secularism has
no purchase, Christianity and Judaism are their best
bets.
That secularism has grown exponentially in the past
century suggests that all religions are antiquated,
lacking the structural and doctrinal elasticity that
would allow them to take into account the latest developments
in science and technology, especially in cosmology and
astronomy. Creationism has been blown to bits by Darwinism,
and then into bytes by the Big Bang.
If being at peace with oneself and one's neighbours
constitutes a reasonable ask of a devotee to his religion,
Islam, as verifiably the least tolerant of all the major
religions, is almost everywhere in the world at war
or in a territorial dispute with its neighbours; and
where Islamic communities form in Europe, as in France,
Germany, England, social upheaval is rendering dysfunctional
those once orderly societies.
CONCLUSION
Given
the many variables and imponderables in evaluating the
world's principal religions, a definitive ranking of
the religions is probably a bridge too far to cross.
Individual needs very significantly from one region
of the world to another and what is good for Peter may
not be good for Abdul. But there can be no doubting
that Islam is doing something right. From its humble
beginnings in 610 A.D, Islam is poised to become the
most popular religion in the world and it occupies 25%
of the world’s territory. In the best sense of the accusation,
if religion is indeed the opiate of the masses, Islam
is slowly but inexorably cornering the market.
However
all the religions are losing ground to secularism. One
in four Americans identify as secular and less than
50% are members of a church.
And
as it pertains to the growing many for whom all religions
are nothing more than fairy tales but who cannot subscribe
to the notion that life is an accident, they have embraced
the idea that there is a creative force or prime mover
that inheres in the universe, and being blessed with
the means to posit, contemplate and connect to it is
man's supreme privilege.