The (f)utility of religion

When I turn on the news to stories of people committing unspeakable crimes in the name of religion, I wonder who is to blame - the people who preach and create religion or the people who blindly practise it? If religion narrows our mind to the extent that we believe in imaginary demons, then what is the purpose that religion serves? Isn't it counterproductive?

Religion is meant to provide us with the moral backing of faith. To liberate our minds as we go about our daily lives by giving us a sense of purpose and introducing an element of determinism to the endless randomness of life. At least that is how, I hope, the people who created religion envisioned it. But what it has turned into and achieved in modern times, is antithetical to its very founding principles. It has created hatred instead of love; violence instead of peace; dogmas instead of latitude.

Only recently, a shameful incident occurred which exposed the hollowness of religion, or at least of the manner in which it is interpreted and practised in most of the world. A woman in Saudi Arabia was raped by a group of men. Instead of pronouncing a stringent penalty for those who had committed this crime, the judicial system of that nation banished the woman and ordered that she receive lashes for 'meeting with a man who was not related to her by blood'. What is worse is that despite international pressure and outrage at the incident, the judiciary of Saudi Arabia refused to reverse its verdict. It instead cancelled the licence of the lawyer who was arguing the woman's case in court.

It was only yesterday that King Abdullah 'pardoned' the woman, although he did issue a simultaneous statement saying that this did NOT essentially mean that the judiciary was being unfair. Such fear does a religious order command even from an all-powerful monarch. All in the name of God.

A week earlier a Western woman in an African country(I think it was Ethiopia although I couldn't be sure) was sentenced to 40 lashes for allowing her junior school students to name a teddy bear 'Mohammed'. Most strong people would not survive 40 lashes.

Has religion constricted our minds and made us oblivious to all measure of reason and rationality? Does it serve the whim of any God to subject humans to this kind of torture. How can we as a civilized society allow such acts of extreme depravity to pass?

I believe that religion as an institution was initiated with a noble purpose in mind. But we never imagined that it would lead to misinterpretations of 'faith' that would lead us to much pain and suffering. It is organized religion that is to blame. I always believe that as long as religion is practised in person, it liberates. As soon as we allow religion to spill into the public domain by practising it collectively and ritualistically it assumes nuisance value. Unfortunately for us, religion has come to symbolize almost completely, its public form. Therein lies its futility.

Emotional Intelligence

The smartest guys in the room have been challenged. The book 'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman claims that most of the success in our lives and the way we lead it is determined not by how smart we are as previously thought but by how emotionally intelligent we are. Over the course of the book, Goleman points to specific research as proof that EQ is more important than IQ. He shows how in a number of cases learning to master one's emotions can lead to social and professional success.

The second part of the book shows how most of our range of emotions develop when we are kids. It is these emotions that determine the way we shall interact socially for most of our lives. Goleman therefore warns of the need to emotionally educate young kids in order to ensure they have healthy emotional lives as adults.

The book goes on to show how a number of disorders that people suffer from originate in the mind and specifically how these problems are emotional in nature. Throughout the book Daniel Goleman also takes the pain to explain the biological basis for his arguments. He talks about specific regions in the human brain that are responsible for emotions and emotional surges. He describes the biological process that go on in our brains when we are angry and how depending on the the training that the brain has been subjected to in formative years these 'anger' reactions may either be controlled or spiral into outbursts.

It's an amazing book that can expose you to a completely different realm of thinking. It challenges a number of established beliefs in the field of medicine and also reasons all arguments scientifically. Great read!

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It's a funny line this one... it holds no jot of truth of course, but bosses/HR managers/leaders across the globe will have you believe that it's gospel truth. Nothing could be farther from it. Having been part of the Placement Coordination committee at college, I had the chance to watch these HR/PR stunts acted out in first person. I noted that in every case, the person delivering such mean punchlines had only one objective: To dupe. And the beauty of it all that young techies fall for this baloney every year. I guess the whole motto of 'studying' HR is learning 10000 different ways of lying effectively to an employee/subordinate/potential recruit... Check this out:

HR Manager during a PPT(Pre-placement talk): "Our company hires only the best people."
After evading a hundred direct queries about the compensation: "Rest assured, our compensation is pegged to the industrial average."
Hmm... so while you have the smartest guys in the world working for you, by some whim of your sadistic management, you decide to pay them only an 'average' salary.... nice... I wonder why you guys aren't professional cons...would make a killing no?

Student during PPT: "Is there any bond we must sign before joining your company?"
HR Manager: "What bond? The only bond you have at [Company Name] is an emotional bond"
Fineprint on job offer-letter: "In the event that you wish to quit our organization, you shall be liable to repay us the entire amount spent on you during employee training programs"
Huh.. and you thought there was a bond? You dimwit!

These are just sample cases from a whole body of damning evidence against the ilk of HR managers... So maybe company PPT's on campus should henceforth come with statutory warnings(with the freaky skull, bones and all..) : "This session could be an insult to your intelligence"

Mumbai Salsa...bah

Timepass... had to do something for timepass.. it is in these exasperating moments that I end up watching these totally whacko movies... mumbai salsa was no exception... having watched veer das on the small screen as a budding stand up comedian, I seriously expected to watch a movie that would do justice to my sense of humour. Far from achieving any such feat, the movie left me gasping for fresh air with its boorish attempts at slapstick frivolity. For some reason, throughout the movie this group of guys kept repeating the colloqualism "khoofiyapanti"... a tongue-in-cheek substitution for chootiyapanti.. which going by the sudden spurt of unprudishness in hindi cinema language would have been quite okay to use in the first place...

But to be fair to the movie, there were interspersed ticklish moments like the times where the protagonist's body builder friend gives him some essential dating tips... apart from these occasional moments of relief the movie had a stifling storyline.. one with no artistic substance. If the movie was an attempt to ape the kind of new age cinema that keeps popping out these days.. the genre of mixed doubles, mumbai matinee and the like, then I must say it was a rather poorly conceived attempt.. now I'm not a movie critic or anything, but when someone wastes my time in the name of refreshing bollywood entertainment, i must cry foul. Let's totally not do the Mumbai Salsa..