Religion is a very personal issue. Whenever I am asked the question “Are you religious”? I say “Only God knows” or the best of all HollyWood monk answers "If you are asking that question... you are not ready to hear the answer..
God in most of the religions is describes as the indescribable. So if God is indescribable how can anyone define the right way of reaching God vis-à-vis the right religion. I believe we mortals make can attempt at reaching god. There is more than one way to reach God. There is no Mera(My) God Tera(your) God. God is nobody’s baap-ki-jaagir (fathers property).
On the question of religion being taken seriously… I think religion should be taken as seriously as ones attempt to find god. Nobody can force religion upon you and religion should never be forced. Its not how you pray.. it not what you say when you pray. Its a search. It comes from within you…
On the question of religion evolving with time… Its very subjective… Since I am a Muslim let me take the example of Islam.
In terms of religious laws.. Shariat should evolve. FYI; Shariat is not religion. Shariat is the jurisprudence arm of Islam. Somebody wrote about Afghanistan and the cruel practices there. It pains me to see people killing in the name of Islam. Certainly the Shariat should be modified to include new laws for the current times and antiquate some of the old ones.
In terms of religion evolving.. Religion should not change. I say that because in the hands of wrong people religion is given a new meaning and the true word can never be preserved. For example, a Father of a church in present day England is talking about distributing drugs at mass. Do you think Christ would have liked that? If he would have wanted it to be this way, he would have had the bong at the last supper himself. Imagine Jesus at the last supper going “Yo yo.. puff-puff pass sucker... puff-puff pass
My 2 cents about the Barber story. (Nice story by the way)
If there are barbers and the job of barbers is to clean people. Why don’t they clean all people irrespective of whether the people go to them or not. Barbers can’t do that... because barbers work for money and God doesn’t. God’s job and Barbers job cannot be equated. Everybody knows that barbers exist… but does God exist?
My thought: The story was nice but its still doesn’t prove anything. The whole story hinges on the predicate that God's job is like that of a Barber; which in my opinion is wrong.



