Interaction with School chairman Role of Religion in our lives- class 11

Nowadays, religion is front page news. It concerns all humanity. We ought to be able to hold a discourse on it whether we care about it or not. In consequence, we, the students of class XI, were delighted to engage in a cerebral interaction with our School Chairman, Mr. Prafull Goradia, on "Role of Religion in our Lives on 24 July, 2018.

Mr. Goradia is a prolific thinker and speaker who continually endeavours to have us speak, candidly and without fear, on topics of social relevance. He shares his lifes experience in an open and congenial manner. His inspirational talks always provide us with ample food for thought.

The session began with Dr. Anu Singh, vice principal, introducing the subject of religion, its importance in our lives and how it connects people. She affirmed that all of us follow different faiths and beliefs; it is purely a matter of personal choice. She invited Mr. Goradia to enrich the youthful audience by sharing valuable nuggets from his rich repertoire of life experiences.

[gallery link="file" order="DESC"] In his talk, Mr. Goradia recounted childhood incidents and spoke about why he never felt a connection to God or to different ways of worshipping Him. In fact, he still does not. He explained the different forms of worship. "Religion begins where knowledge ends," he said. People follow a religion when they find no other way. He cited the example of people who visit temples, mosques, and other places of worship in times of joy and despair. He shed light on the different religions practised in the east and the west, which are further sub divided. The Abrahamic or western religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity trace their origins to the patriarch Abraham who rejected the polytheism of ancient Sumer to embrace a belief in one, invisible deity. Here, sir gave an interesting input of Marxist philosophy that does not believe in God and feels that religion s the opium of the masses. Mr Goradia also spoke about the religion of the Parsis-Zoroastrianism, one of the ancient religions still practised today. Its practitioners believe in one supreme God.

Sir shared the wisdom of the eastern religions Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. Hinduism originated from Sanatan Dharma. We also got to learn about the two types of logic: deductive and inductive and how various religions use logic to reason out their faith and beliefs. On a humorous aside, Mr. Goradia told us how religion is followed in China-Buddhism for Breakfast, Christianity for Lunch and Taoism for Dinner, as China is officially an atheist country. It is left to the people to organise their religious lives. Truly thought-provoking, the interaction benefitted the students who gained new insights into religion from a richer and broader perspective. Jahnnobi Roy (11 D) and Divita Anand (11D).