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.
2 comments:
when God wrote his commandments, he forgot to grant his followers the boon that they and the generation after them remain intellectual, educated. In worst of his dream, he must not had thought that his teachings will be twisted and used to defile human souls. The fire in the stomach of human would be used to burn down his own soul, or selling their moral under the constant fear that their small world would be hold under seige by ulema or religious orthodox.
Its great to see that sahoo has brought in such a nice topic to put up point that rather than putting effort to bring an important change in humanitarian outlook by playing a pivotal role, its holding humanity "COLATERAL".
This is a personal post and although I disagree or have thoughts on certain things you have stated, this is not the forum to discuss it with you.
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