other-worldly feelings and experiences into religious beliefs. In science, we deal with universally accepted symbols. In works of art, symbols are specific to the culture and traditions of a society. In matters of religion, however, symbols are treated not just as representations of inarticulate ideas and feelings, but as the reality they are purported to stand for. Symbols in religion have remained static for thousands of years, unlike those in science, art and other human affairs, which have happily evolved over time depending on our changing needs. The religious symbols have no common universal frames of reference such as those in science and therefore our dependence on them seems to be unjustified. While symbols have brought us together in the fields of science, art and commerce, they have also divided us in matters of religion.
A symbol is not the thing; it has no significance in itself; it has a meaning only in relation to the thing it represents. And yet, it has come to mean much more than the thing itself. A flag is not merely a colourful representation of a nation on a piece of cloth: you can be shot or incarcerated for despoiling it. A picture of a god is no more than an artistic representation of an idea or a mythical man or woman endowed with extraordinary capacities; but it can lead to insane acts of violence, instigated by unscrupulous people. The word God is obviously an idea of GOD, since there is no universally accepted God symbol. Therefore, the believer and the unbeliever both react strongly to that word, each according to his or her cultural background, which is made up of imagery and symbolic representations. The symbol zero, we learn, had met with a lot of resistance in the West because it signified nothingness or