The Good bussines of God

A group of holy men looking for alms. Nepal 2012

To those who still believe

The real price

He said to them, "The Scriptures declare, 'My Temple will be a house of prayer,' but you have turned it into a den of thieves." Luke 19:46.

. . . and when everything was on the verge of ending, his tired eyes were only searching for hope. He held his hands and said to him: " do not worry we will pray for you ". He left them in his will all his possessions, and this way an eternal life would be guaranteed without complications. What could cost more than the eternal life? People have approached this situation throughout history in different places, cultures and religions too. Regarding religion, consolation is what we are looking for, what we want to pay for.

Religion and power

The relationships between economical and political power and religion began a long time ago. In the year 2000 BC in Egypt the priests were the social privileged class that was managing a great quantity of resources, only the Pharaoh Akhenaton tried to control their power, and as a consequence of his rebelliousness his name has almost disappeared from history. Today the connections are stronger than ever:  the Bramanes of India form the top caste, Dalahi Lama was the maximum political representation of the government of Tibet in exile, the Queen of England or the Pope of the Catholic Church are also well-known cases. Israel is an interesting example if you want to study the connection between religion and international policy. There is no need to even list many of the Muslim countries such as Iran, or about the influence of the Taliban in some places. How does the world need to pay for a bad Mahoma movie?

Religions came from myths or people who created them. It is true that none of the people who founded the principal religions had possession of wealth or political power. Paradoxically, nowadays their current intermediaries across the world need to manage important quantities of resources. Do poor countries need preachers who travel in private jets? It is well known that the most prominent religions attempt to capture all the souls in this world and a lot of resources are needed for it. It is difficult to find a single religion that hasn’t got connections to any kind of power. There are very interesting cases, such as the religion Jainism in India that has as one of its mandates to not receive goods of any type. Also we have in history the strange religion founded by Pythagoras. In these cases their messages only remain in a very limited group and sadly they have a low impact.

The human face of religion

Religious organisations, like other human organisations, are no more than the sum of their parts. In these organisations we can find all kinds of people, from examples of exceptional and unconditional love such as Mother Teresa to terrible criminals, you can read about them every day in the press. These groups are a reflection of what we are as mankind. We can even see in cases such as that of Vicente Ferrer, who began his incredible labour as a Jesuit and later continued it despite having abandoned the order. So if you want to be a good person religious organisations could be an option, but it´s not the only one.

Is religion something that´s needed? When we study prehistory to be sure that we are speaking about human beings instead of animals three elements are needed: the aptitude to make objects with their hands, the size of the cranium, and finally the religious beliefs. The certain thing is that our spiritual dimension is something that clearly differentiates us.

Religions have given us codes of conduct, ethics, and more importantly, hope and consolation. They help us connect to our spiritual dimension and there are great examples of good work carried out by many religious organisations. On the other hand, religions are capable of showing their dark face in different cases. Maybe religions are good or bad depending on the way we let them lead us.

Prostitution is sometimes referred to as "the world's oldest profession", but what seems to be certain is that if man is man as he has a spiritual dimension, it seems to be that the world's oldest profession is done by those that prosper in the land of the Good God's business.

If you are still looking for the meaning of life, don’t worry and watch this video it could be a good step to begin with.