Religion

The most important relationship in a human being's life is his relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We hear people speak of religion, the road to Hell is paved with religion. In my travels through 157 countries I have witnessed the peculiar religions of many persons on this earth. Perhaps none as Godless and irrational as those found in India among the Hindus. These temples which I visited in 1980 are located in India. These temples, the most pornographic sculptures on earth were constructed around 1050 A.D. Khajuraho religion is based on the emphasis and importance of not injuring any living beings. India abounds in Jain temples. Art flows freely in Jain temples, which are known for their intricacy and décor. Dedicated to Lord Mahavira- the founder of Jain, these temples also have idols of Hindu deities in them. The thing you notice first of the devotees of these temples is that they are all covered with netting because they are so careful not kill any living thing they are so afraid they will swallow a gnat.


82% of over the 1 billion people are Hindu. Islam is 12% but when the divisions was made with Pakistan, Pakistan became an Islamic nation. After centuries of Christian missionaries, including a friend of my mother, Laura Bell Bernard, There are still only 2.5% Christians. The 3 predominant Hindu Gods are Brahma, Shiva and Krishna. There are many thousands of minor Hindu gods. Mark Twain said once, “India is the ultimate travel destination”. There is no doubt in my mind that there is the religious center of the world if one is just looking for religion. But as a much greater writer than this one said long ago, “The road to hell is paved with religion”, and in India every breath of life revolves around religion.

The most obvious religious characteristic that the outsider notices in the beginning is the “sacred cow”. There is the same penalty in India for hitting cow as for hitting a fellow human being. It is a mystery to the western mind that in a nation of over 1 billion people, many of them starving, that “sacred cows” walk around and eat everything that is growing. I have seen a “sacred cow” walk into a decent restaurant and wreck the place. On one of my early morning walks, and I also try to see the activity of the market, I saw one peasant woman trying to make a little money selling her butter beans, clean and spread out on a towel. A “sacred cow” came up and defecated on her beans and of course she could do nothing about it. Such is the depravity of Indian religion.Perhaps the best known of the Hindu religion is that of the Sikhs, founded in 1500.

Its centerpiece is its gold temple located in Armistar in the Punjab province. The Sikhs are readily recognized because they wear the large turbins, wear a certain type underwear, always a certain dagger and bracelet. The gold temple is located in the middle of a lake and my guide arranged for me to tour the temple as well as the surrounding buildings where large quantities of food, mostly legumes, being prepared for the large number of Hindu’s who visit there daily. I have visited Armistar twice, a very remote area of India, with few conveniences. My hotel room had a fireplace where a house boy kept a fire going and water for bathing had to be heated and brought to the room.


I have visited Kashmir which is still a land of dispute between India and Pakistan and where the same type of primitive livings exist. It seems that the entire lifestyle and relationship of the Hindu/India nation revolves around their relationship to their many gods. In Burma, Bhutan and Seiken as well as Tibet, I encountered the most classic Buddhism. Buddhism is based on the teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as "The Buddha" (the Awakened One), who lived in the northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent and likely died around 400 BC. Bhutan was the last of Himalayan kingdoms to admit tourists. I was admitted by invitation of the king. A large percentage of Bhutan males become monks. This beautiful mountainous paradise, like Seiken and Tibet, is punctuated by monasteries and young males up to very old males live together as monks. Buddhism has spread across the 5,000 islands of Indonesia and other Asian countries including South Korea.

In South Korea, where my son (Dr John Morris and his wife Grace) were southern Baptist missionaries for many years and where my only two grandsons were reared. Christianity now encompasses about 23% of the population and Buddhism only 2%. Libraries of books have been written on the religions of the world and I am making no attempt to explain all of them.


In visiting the Yucatan, many of the 40 Muslim countries, particularly Turkey and my fascination of the mosque of St Sophia and the Blue mosque, I become more convinced than ever that as a Christian, a committed, born-again believer in Jesus Christ that one’s faith is a relationship. To the Christian, the relationship is with Jesus Christ, not a building, not a carved figure, but a belief system. “Faith is action”, based on belief, sustained by confidence. The Christian has confidence in the authority of God’s holy word which is totally different from any other “so called” religious writings of the Koran or the various Asian writers. We do what we do because we believe what we believe. The true Christian believes in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, through faith and nothing else. Most of these religions found in India, some even in China or Africa, like Abraham’s father Terah are just worshipers of idols. I’m sorry to report to you (and you know the difference between profession and possession or walkers and talkers) many of today’s so called Christians spend much time with their idol, the television set, which affords them every degrading sinful pleasure that Satan has ever materialized for the sighted person.