What Experts Say About a Faith From COVID-19
Organized religions came into being around 3500 years ago. Earlier there was Zoroaster, in Iran in the Bronze Age. A thousand years down the line, Zoroastrianism was born. It preached the idea of a single god, and it’s fire temples were visited by millions of Zoroasters. When Islam conquered the Persian Empire, the end of Zoroastrianism began, and it slowly died away in the past.
Another 1500 years later, Zoroastrianism is still a dying faith, and its followers are again slowly waning. We take it for granted that religion is born out of faith, and it dies out when a person propagates a different religion, more potent in form and followers, with a stronger faith in what he believes. This time it is not a person who is the cause behind apparently victimizing a faith, its COVID-19. Unlike other epidemics which naturally instill a deeper faith whenever they have struck in the past, this virus seems to be decreasing this faith. It does this over and over with each soul that it consumes.
A behavioral tendency in humans exists to seek solace at their place of worship whenever a tragedy like this occurs. Also, the religious propagators have converted these times into opportunities to ascertain the faith people have in their religion. With most of the countries entering into a delay phase of the epidemic, the various religious gatherings have been exported to virtual sermons to ensure social distancing. They mostly make use of the congregation of people to build community bonds through religion, but none of it is happening now. Some religious heads believe that doing prayers in this way does not have the same zest among the people.
Most of the religions ask people to use social media to watch sermons and live prayers. Before COVID-19 invaded the earth when people used to visit the worship place, they had to put their mobile phones aside, which was a genuinely strenuous activity. While now, the same can be done online using mobile phones, and this requires little effort. A study on behavioral tendency tells that the amount of commitment humans have for a task is proportional to the amount of effort put into accomplishing the same. With the religious prayers being done online, the amount of effort required has significantly reduced. This clearly does not sound good for the religious faiths.
So does that mean people are losing faith in the already existing organized religions?
The printing press was invented in the fifteenth century. This technological advancement helped to overthrow a powerful, rigid, and corrupt religious hierarchy. COVID-19 seems to threaten the faith of people in their organized religions. The way the printing press affected the Catholic Church, the same way COVID-19 and the mobile phones might change the already institutionalized religious faiths in the 21st century.
Let us analyze further. A report suggests that after the 9/11 attack in the US, the percentage of church-goers increased by 71%. Although people might not completely stop visiting their places of worship, the number of people doing that will, will definitely decrease. There is already a lot of suffering in the world right now. There are week-long lockdowns everywhere. This does not affect the well-off strata of the society, but the weak and the oppressed are majorly affected. They are losing jobs, getting infected, have nothing to eat, and cannot feed their families. All of this happened in no time, like something so surreal but real indeed. No religion has been able to help them keep good health or provide them with money. These people are the only ones who are mostly regular church-goers and, in the end, are left to fend for themselves. This will drastically affect the faith of people in their religion.
Now, think about a new world order that COVID-19 gives birth to that is nurtured with the faith of the oppressed and the worst affected people. Faith has an immense potential to establish a new world order. It will not be just another organized religion but will be based on equality, where the Pope is not the only supreme religious power on earth. People who are blessed with a mobile phone have already begun to lose commitment to their religious faiths forced to do so by the current epidemic. The oppressed will rise to divine power next. The definition of equality in the society will be redefined because when the society has not ensured to them refuge and means of living in a difficult time like this, they won’t be available to serve it too when everything normalizes. They are the wheels on which the society runs, and they are struggling outside when we are comfortable in our safe havens.
China might well be affected more than any other country in the world. The government there has made good use of its communism. The authorities there tried to suppress the epidemic and keep it concealed from the world. They made their people suffer like mere lab rats. In the world we are living today, how long do you think can they hold their secrets together? They have ruined a million lives with their ego not only inside China but even far beyond the Chinese mainland. It was a strategy, a very well thought over craft. That was the faith that the Chinese government had to curb its people from revolting. When a government of a single country has this power, we can only imagine what will the oppressed around the world can collectively do with their lack of faith in the religion and their governments.
But wait, there’s more to it. This is the first time that religions have begun to bring technology to use. They have already stood the test of time. In the end, we need to sit back and see — either religions will leverage technology to see a new sunrise or COVID-19 will give birth to an unforeseen uprising!
