Friday 29 August 2014

Why I decided to take up a religion

There are several reasons why I felt the need to seriously take up a religion, some of which I do not feel like sharing on my blog just yet. The ultimate reason that made me take up faith can be summarised in a single quote: "Wisest is she who knows she does not know." Jostein Gaarder mentioned this in his book, 'Sophie's World'(which is my book-version of a soulmate despite the fact that I have not yet finished reading it) and I think Aristotle or Socrates said something like that as well. 

I know this quote is quite a paradox, since it implies that the wisest person knows that she does not know, so technically she does know something: that she does not know. But I guess the real point behind this quote is that you can't possibly, truly know anything since truth is also defined as justified true belief. And I, for one, will not settle and agree that any justification is totally objective, accurate or reliable. Everything that I know as knowledge is only so because that's what I choose to believe. 

And since I can't say anything is totally 'true', I decided to start choosing the best 'truths' for myself. Thus I ended up seriously taking up Nichiren Buddhism because I decided to agree with at least 90% of what this religion claims and I just really like what it stands for. If it's going to take up a huge part of my life, it might as well be the best. And yes, I do believe that taking up this religion is better than having none or being strongly against religions because the thing about Nichiren Buddhism is that it focuses a lot on human revolution(something along the lines of development of inner self to attain buddhahood[indestructable happiness]). I find myself reflecting more and being more considerate of others and yeah, for now I'm happy with what I settled with.  

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